Wiring

[bbryan]

What is it with all the white wiring on production aircraft. Is it out of compliance to use color coded wiring? Haven't started mine yet but wondering if it is OK to use several colors.

[Dorsal]

I think they just buy white wire in bulk, you can certainly use multiple colors (pre-wired harnesses from Dynon are necessarily multi colored). I also maintained a few color conventions for the rest of my wiring which I found useful. Do use quality aircraft grade wire and be sure to get the gages right.

[HighWing]

As I recall, the Teflon based Tefzel insulation originally only came in white. Other colors are available now but not in sufficient varieties to eliminate at least some labelling. The bulk buy idea was my reasoning as I needed to do a lot of labelling anyway.
Lowell

[jtpitkin06]

Here's my stash of mil spec aviation wiring in many colors other than white.

Manufacturers and avionics shops use label machines that imprint white wiring by schematic number every few inches. There just aren't that many wires on a home built to justify a wire printing machine so end labels and colors work just fine.

No regulation against colors on certified airplanes that I know of.

JP

[airlina]

Holy cow John, are you wiring up an Airbus in your shop!

[jtpitkin06]

Bought the stash off eBay. What you see is about half. Paid less than scrap value. Price with fixed shipping was only $70. The seller lost his shirt but was good natured about it. I had him ship it parcel post to keep his shipping low which ran almost all of the $70. I now supply the entire gen-av crowd of airport bums when they need wire. The full spools are 500 feet, each.

John

[cap01]

i have one of the lable makers that will imprint on shrink sleeve so i thought i would try that . wasnt really pleased with that , used lots and lots of their special shrink sleeve . what worked best was using printed lables with clear shrink sleeve over them .

[cap01]

if your not as lucky as capt john and have all the wire in stock you will have to order your wire by the foot . also the different gauges that you require . much easier to have all white and cut off as much as your need . for the longer runs i have used string tie in the runs to get an idea of how much wire i will need to order . its a good idea to have a rough wiring diagram before you start running wires them make another more accurate diagram as you install and label the wires .