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Thread: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

  1. #311
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    I too used the Deutsch connectors everywhere I could. Only used the Molex when I had to. The pins just seemed like they were loose and begging for corrosion on them over time. Probably not true given all the places we find them but liked the seals and solid pins on the Deutsch.

    Gary
    Gary (Geek) Phenning
    Leavenworth (Not the Prison), WA
    Kitfox STi N68SG

  2. #312
    Senior Member jiott's Avatar
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Ditto on the Deutsch connectors.
    Jim Ott
    Portland, OR
    Kitfox SS7 flying
    Rotax 912ULS

  3. #313
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Thanks for the feedback on the Deutsch connectors. That sounds like what I have been looking for I will look into them.

    And onward with the progress?

    Interesting enough when I pulled my G3X install kit from the box it did not match the paper printout that I had used for planning. I am very glad that I did not snap the center punch and drill holes. It turns out when you used a carpenter square the paper copy was out of square?



    Found a 1 3/4? hole saw to cut the hole for the cabin vents. They were slightly loose as the base of the eye vent does not have threads. Bought an o ring which had a 1.75? OD and stretched that over the eyeball vent. This centered the vent and removed all play. I would like to find one that is slightly smaller and it will allow the vent to fully seat against the panel.



    Started working on fitting the floorboards of the baggage area. I found that the steel tube which is in the center of the baggage compartment favors the left side of the airplane. The choice was to center the floorboards on that tube or with the airplane. I decided to center on the tube because the boards will receive more support from the mounting tabs. I back drilled the floor boards just enough to put indentations in the floorboards. I took the boards out and used a drill block to ensure that I am drilling the holes perpendicular to the surface. I need to clean up the edges of the floorboards and seal them with varnish. A simple regular varnish from the hardware store will work for this application because it won't be exposed to the chemicals in a covering system. For the tabs in the middle I would like to counter sink the floorboards and use a countersink washer and screw to secure them in place and reduce their profile.

    Drilled out the tabs with a 1/4? drill bit and reamed with the 0.250? reamer to accept RivNuts. I have been under advice to avoid RivNuts if at all possible however I will be able to access the back side of these if I take down the baggage sack and I will likely install an inspection port on the belly of the airplane? De burr the holes with a larger drill bit and primed the holes with epoxy primer.

    While the primer was activating I had it sitting on my build manual? I accidentally kicked the tote that the manual was sitting on and spilled the primer all over my build manual. I pulled apart all the pages and cleaned the paint from the pages to the best of my ability. I then sat then out in a random orientation hoping the pages wouldn't stick together. I also covered my dial caliper case in primer. That stuff will eat plastic. Thankfully the case was closed and my calipers were unharmed.



    I mixed another small batch of primer and placed it in a more secure location. While it was activating I finished scabbing in a piece of material in the tail section where the build manual gives you instructions to cut the piece of rib material in half to work around the tail wheel bolt. This will require touch up sanding and varnish in the future.

    I pulled the RivNuts for the baggage compartment and applied the remaining primer to areas where SuperFil had been placed over metal to seal the material per PolyFiber instructions.

    The next day? weather day at work again? we are supposed to get around 1 foot of snow. I brought my tools to work with the goal of cutting the holes for the G3X, Com Radio, and AutoPilot controller.

    Lessons learned? I should have cut from the backside of the panel? there are a few areas where the cutting disc grabbed and caused some unsightly abrasions in the face of the panel. Not a big deal these areas can be dressed up or filled.

    This took an exorbitant amount of time? after rough cuts were made I used a file to sneak up on the final dimensions. This is a fitting panel and it is my intent to learn CAD and order a professionally cut panel. I would like to finish dropping the avionics in there tomorrow and I will have a place to start figuring out wire runs.

    I will share a hand made drawing of my panel with dimensions. After reverse engineering the layout of the standard Kitfox panel the only thing I copied was the location of the throttle. I made subtle changes to the ignition and master area on the left and I now intend to move all systems switches to the right side of the panel. I have are a provision for an IFR navigator as well as installing a second MFD on the right in the future as well as an area for a constant speed prop controller.






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  4. #314
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Test fit my GMC 507 and GTR 200B into the panel. They did not fit. I will need to make the hole a touch wider. It will be most efficient to do this during downtime at work because it's a small part and portable. I will begin the process of making a CAD panel. This is also a project that could be accomplished during downtime at work.

    Continued work on the baggage compartment. Using a router I took the sharp edges off the floor boards. Using a one part outdoor rated spar varnish I applied the first coat. I also applied varnish to the inside of the holes which were drilled to attach it to the airframe.

    I moved onto the tail section. I removed my side clamp clecos from the ply which I had scabbed in. I dressed the area up with sandpaper and a file. I also started the process of removing all the sharp edges from the ribs of the vertical stabilizer and rudder. After I do this I will need to touch up the edges and varnish the balsa on top. I needs to fill the cavity in the bottom of the balsa where it was bonded to the aircraft structure and seal that with varnish. This will prevent water encroachment. While covering is off I need to try and find all the possible areas water can sneak in and cause problems. Otherwise I need to find ways for that water to get out.

    I also dressed up my SuperFil that I had placed around the quarter windows.

    I put together an order for hardware from Spruce. I am sure this will be the first of many for odds and ends until the project is complete. I am also able to source hardware from a local A&P. I plan on making arrangements with him for an inspection prior to cover. One last chance to get another set of eyes on things before I close things up.




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  5. #315
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    Default Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Purchased an online Solid Works subscription discounted though my EAA membership. Working job gaining proficiency with the program. I will continue to use my current panel as a fitting and trial panel and use the CAD panel as my final revision.

    Again planning expansion for a MFD and possibly an IFR navigator.

    I have attended day 1 of the EAA Sport Air Workshop on Fabric Covering. The really amazing thing is the class is being held under the wing of Aluminum Overcast. Learning some tips and gaining a little practical experience. This class is sponsored by Poly Fiber however there will be several techniques which will positively transition to Stewart Systems.









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    Last edited by Jason Murphy; 01-11-2025 at 10:18 PM.

  6. #316
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Combining a few days worth of work. In the spirit of getting things closer to being ready for covering.

    I ran some of my wiring through the tail section.

    I did some more fitting of the panel.

    Installed the G3X display, GMC 507, and GTR200B. Soon I will be able to use a piece of rope and begin measuring distances so I can come up with a rough idea of how much wire that I need.

    Consulted Ted Myers of Myers Aviation in Fulton MO regarding the wiring process. Received some pointers and guidance on how to proceed. Ted has assisted several Kitfox builders over the past few years.

    I need to get some switches on order and get those fitted. Continue to monitor how the panel continues to evolve and I will make changes to my CAD drawing as necessary.

    I did end up tacking the trays together using a 3/32 flush rivet and installing the trays using a #6 machine screw. I will add a few more of those to my order list.

    Reviewed the instructions for the installation of the Vertical Power System. I will begin planning the switches and pinout.












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  7. #317
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    I have been doing a lot of prep work and trying to get things organized.

    I filled the lightening holes in the top of my tail with SuperFil to ensure no water will be trapped. In there. I am also considering drilling a small hole in the wood at the end of the fuselage to allow water to drain and prevent it from becoming trapped. I will need to re-seal all of the wood in the tail because I used sandpaper to break the sharp corners that I had sanded into the ribs.

    I revisited the Yaw servo. I moved it from the rear of the vertical tube to the front of the tube. For anyone who orders the yaw servo mount it fits much better there.

    I am currently having trouble getting the Kitfox transponder plate to fit behind the left seat. I have photos from installed units and mine simply doesn?t fit with the hardware I have used. I could potentially use some smaller Adel clamps which may change its position slightly. This may be something to my dismay I would have to re fabricate to get right.

    The location of the OAT probe has also been on my mind. I have considered placing it out on the wing next to the pitot tube. The only consideration to this is the wire can be a maximum of 25 feet. I don?t believe I would be able to run the wire from the pitot location to the convenient location supplied on the back of the G3X unless I took a page from Eric and snuck a wire under the fuel tank. Another consideration is the antenna plate on the belly of the airplane on the right. However this location may have contamination from exhaust as well as air used to cool the engine through both the intake and NACA duct. I spoke with another gentleman who said he plans to place his in the cabin vent NACA duct. This seems like a good spot it will be out of the sun and likely have a good supply of fresh air during most seasons. Another gentleman advised to place it in the area of the quarter window or to follow suit with Kitfox and place it below the horizontal stabilizer.

    I pulled my VPx out of the box and one of the two sticker seals was broken. I contacted VPx and advised them if the situation. They advised because the second seal was intact the unit is still under warranty. They also advised to not do anything with it and they will get back with me on how to proceed further.

    I will admit I am a little overwhelmed with the information overload associated with the installation manuals. The Garmin manual is close to 1000 pages although the vast majority of what you absolutely need is in the interconnect section. The details for each item is listed under the individual component sections. For example you must have a minimum of 6.5 ft of cable between your GPS antenna and transponder. Also you can use regular M27500 shielded wiring for your can bus wire vs the magical stuff that?s touted as can bus wire.










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  8. #318
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Quote Originally Posted by Jason Murphy View Post
    I have been doing a lot of prep work and trying to get things organized.

    I filled the lightening holes in the top of my tail with SuperFil to ensure no water will be trapped. In there. I am also considering drilling a small hole in the wood at the end of the fuselage to allow water to drain and prevent it from becoming trapped. I will need to re-seal all of the wood in the tail because I used sandpaper to break the sharp corners that I had sanded into the ribs.

    I revisited the Yaw servo. I moved it from the rear of the vertical tube to the front of the tube. For anyone who orders the yaw servo mount it fits much better there.

    I am currently having trouble getting the Kitfox transponder plate to fit behind the left seat. I have photos from installed units and mine simply doesn?t fit with the hardware I have used. I could potentially use some smaller Adel clamps which may change its position slightly. This may be something to my dismay I would have to re fabricate to get right.

    The location of the OAT probe has also been on my mind. I have considered placing it out on the wing next to the pitot tube. The only consideration to this is the wire can be a maximum of 25 feet. I don?t believe I would be able to run the wire from the pitot location to the convenient location supplied on the back of the G3X unless I took a page from Eric and snuck a wire under the fuel tank. Another consideration is the antenna plate on the belly of the airplane on the right. However this location may have contamination from exhaust as well as air used to cool the engine through both the intake and NACA duct. I spoke with another gentleman who said he plans to place his in the cabin vent NACA duct. This seems like a good spot it will be out of the sun and likely have a good supply of fresh air during most seasons. Another gentleman advised to place it in the area of the quarter window or to follow suit with Kitfox and place it below the horizontal stabilizer.

    I pulled my VPx out of the box and one of the two sticker seals was broken. I contacted VPx and advised them if the situation. They advised because the second seal was intact the unit is still under warranty. They also advised to not do anything with it and they will get back with me on how to proceed further.

    I will admit I am a little overwhelmed with the information overload associated with the installation manuals. The Garmin manual is close to 1000 pages although the vast majority of what you absolutely need is in the interconnect section. The details for each item is listed under the individual component sections. For example you must have a minimum of 6.5 ft of cable between your GPS antenna and transponder. Also you can use regular M27500 shielded wiring for your can bus wire vs the magical stuff that?s touted as can bus wire.
    I am assuming your comment on the Kitfox transponder plate is for the antenna mount. Don't feel bad cause I could not find anywhere that mine fit either. But as a nerd engineer with a career in RF stuff, the plate really wasn't sized to be a great ground plane for the frequencies the transponder works at. I just made a new ground plane and mounted it about where Kitfox suggested. Works great.

    As for the OAT, I mounted mine just outboard of my pitot tube which is mounted just inboard of the wing strut. (The tube and OAT are protected from well meaning people's heads that way). I did not have any issued running my wires from the sensor to the outboard of the wing, back down the spar, routed down to and under the center console, up the center of the firewall and then connected it. There's even a wing wiring disconnect connector that it routes through should I ever need to take the wing off. I get accurate readings there with no real direct sun or exhaust heat to mess it up and I think it went just a bit over the 25'. No problem. The Garmin book is a LOT of stuff that they needed because there are so many different configurations that system is capable of which does make it daunting at face value. Just take it one part at a time and if you aren't sure - ask. Either here or the Garmin assist guys. There are many here who have worked through it and have working systems. That 6.5ft of RF cable out of the transponder to the antenna is important by the by. The freqs that the transponder works at are low with a long wavelength so a shorter cable would not provide a good wavelength match to the output which in turn would shorten its life.

    As for CANBUS wire there's nothing special required - just shielded. I used the shielded 27500 AWG 24 3 wire in all my CANBUS wiring. I know Garmin likes AWG 22 but having spent my career playing with CANBUS on military jets, the 24 works just fine. CANBUS is a VERY robust communication system that is hard to really mess up. If it fails, the most likely culprit is a swapped Hi/Lo or Gnd wire or incorrect end of BUS termination resistor. Automobiles have been using it for much longer than any industry I know of and it just takes a beating and still works. Actually saw a young engineer accidentally hook 28VDC directly up to the CAN Hi wire. When it didn't work, he checked it, found the problem, re-pinned the connector correctly and the whole BUS still worked correctly.

    Hope this helps man. You're doing a really nice job and your plane will reflect it.

    Gary
    Gary (Geek) Phenning
    Leavenworth (Not the Prison), WA
    Kitfox STi N68SG

  9. #319
    Senior Member Eric Page's Avatar
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Quote Originally Posted by Geek View Post
    The freqs that the transponder works at are low with a long wavelength so a shorter cable would not provide a good wavelength match to the output which in turn would shorten its life.
    I hope you'll forgive me for butting in, Gary, but I want to correct a couple of things that seem to be a common misconceptions around transponder installations.

    978, 1030 and 1090MHz (ADS-B and transponder frequencies) are all in the middle of the ultra-high frequency (UHF) band -- from 300MHz to 3GHz -- and have a wavelength of around 30cm. Not low frequency or long wavelength.

    The installation documents from Dynon (on pg. 11-12), Garmin (on pg. 2-4) and Appareo (on pg. 6) call for a maximum coax length that equates to 1.5 or 2.0 dB signal loss. None of them make any mention of a minimum length and Dynon has said explicitly on their forum that there is no minimum antenna coax length.

    Quoting from the Garmin installation manual: "Note that any 50 ohm, double shielded coaxial cable assembly that meets airworthiness requirements and the 1.5 dB maximum loss figure (including connectors) may be used." [emphasis added]

    I think there's some confusion between the guidance for transponder and GPS antennas. It's often the case that passive GPS antennas (those that connect to the receiver via coax and do not contain any powered, active circuitry) require a minimum signal loss of around 2dB, driving a specification for some minimum cable length. This is not the case for transponders.

    Many GPS antennas (Dynon is a good example) contain a receiver and decoder in the antenna puck. They are powered by the EIFS network and transmit serial position data via the same wire bundle, so the only length concerns are those of the data network.

    Finally, wavelength match is important with respect to the antenna, not the coax. It's impedance match that matters with coax. Impedance doesn't change with coax length; just insertion loss.
    Eric Page
    Building: Kitfox 5 Safari | Rotax 912iS | Dynon HDX
    Member: EAA Lifetime, AOPA, ALPA
    ATP: AMEL | Comm: ASEL, Glider | ATCS: CTO
    Map of Landings

  10. #320
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    Default Re: Kitfox Series 7 Super Sport - Show Me Fox

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Page View Post
    I hope you'll forgive me for butting in, Gary, but I want to correct a couple of things that seem to be a common misconceptions around transponder installations.

    978, 1030 and 1090MHz (ADS-B and transponder frequencies) are all in the middle of the ultra-high frequency (UHF) band -- from 300MHz to 3GHz -- and have a wavelength of around 30cm. Not low frequency or long wavelength.

    The installation documents from Dynon (on pg. 11-12), Garmin (on pg. 2-4) and Appareo (on pg. 6) call for a maximum coax length that equates to 1.5 or 2.0 dB signal loss. None of them make any mention of a minimum length and Dynon has said explicitly on their forum that there is no minimum antenna coax length.

    Quoting from the Garmin installation manual: "Note that any 50 ohm, double shielded coaxial cable assembly that meets airworthiness requirements and the 1.5 dB maximum loss figure (including connectors) may be used." [emphasis added]

    I think there's some confusion between the guidance for transponder and GPS antennas. It's often the case that passive GPS antennas (those that connect to the receiver via coax and do not contain any powered, active circuitry) require a minimum signal loss of around 2dB, driving a specification for some minimum cable length. This is not the case for transponders.

    Many GPS antennas (Dynon is a good example) contain a receiver and decoder in the antenna puck. They are powered by the EIFS network and transmit serial position data via the same wire bundle, so the only length concerns are those of the data network.

    Finally, wavelength match is important with respect to the antenna, not the coax. It's impedance match that matters with coax. Impedance doesn't change with coax length; just insertion loss.
    The thought on minimum antenna length comes from Section 15 which specifically applies to the GPS 20 as a position source. Its my understanding that Garmin has integrated the GPS source into the GTX45 as an option which I would have to assume its a very similar technology so there should be some positive transition of knowledge and technique.

    "15.8Antenna Cable Requirements
    Cable loss from the GPS/SBAS antenna should be between 1.5 dB and 6.5 dB in order to maintain proper
    rejection to interference signals.

    Coaxial connectors and adapters, such as TNC to BNC, add additional loss to the cable and should be considered when computing the cable loss. A typical loss of 0.2 dB can be used for each connection.

    For RG-142B or RG-400,1.5 dB equates to a length of approximately 6.5 feet of cable with a connector on each end.
    For installations that require less than 6.5 ft of cable, the cable may be coiled, taking into account the minimum bend radius of the cable."

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