First, Build a Shed

[ken nougaret]

The non-skid tape i bought was on clearance at home depot or lowes from the riding mower section.

[Cherrybark]

I thought putting a temporary 4 x 8 sheet of plywood on the workbench would give plenty of room for the wiring project. Nope, it just let the mess grow! Finally got smart and used the plastic bins to organize the pins and other bits related to each avionics device.

The CAN Bus was the first step and it made me decide on the routing to the Transponder, GPS, and Servos mounted behind the cockpit. More than one "please don't let this new splice be too short." With the routing decided and a little confidence after making several splices of "T- branches" at each device, the wiring started to go a little quicker.

Not sure how much work will get done during the week of Thanksgiving but I hope to be smoke testing in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I was generous with my wire estimates and won't get stuck waiting for UPS. I'm happy to be working a naked fuselage and standing in front of rotisserie to work behind the panel hasn't been a problem.

Raychem Solder Sleeves (Aircraft Spruce) are very convenient when attaching a short ground wire to the shield braid at each connection. The ground wire gets a ring terminal and attaches to the metal connector, a DB9 for instance, at each device. Not cheap, but a real time saver and makes a neat connection.

[jiott]

Just a heads up on those solder sleeves. I used some of them and had a few bad joints that had to be redone. There is not much solder inside the sleeves and if everything is not just right you can get a weak joint. Make sure to give each joint the old tug test before you call it good.

[Cherrybark]

I had one ground wire fail the tug test. Fortunately it slipped back into the sleeve and additional heat secured it. During the second heating I noticed the red color band of the solder ring faded to silver. Taking that as a clue, I reheated the other completed terminals until the red color faded as well. Finally found these linked instructions and learned this colored ring is an intentional indicator for those clever enough to have read and followed directions. Working well so far.

https://www.corsa-technic.com/produc...S01-Manual.pdf

[colospace]

"Required work space" always equals "Available work space" + "More"

[PapuaPilot]

I was told to tin the bare wire that is inserted into the solder sleeves because they don't have much solder inside. Doing this gave me a good bond every time.

[Cherrybark]

That's an excellent idea Phil. Wish I had thought of it at the first connection.