Planning the wiring and installing the main harness that ran down the co-pilot duct was a big job. I will post my schematics at some point, but they are still a live document that I keep updating. In planing the system, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t hard-wire anything in place that would make it difficult to troubleshoot or remove for maintenance/upgrade.
I made the panel removable by creating electrical interfaces for all wiring:
- One main circular 37-conductor connector that makes the bulk of the connections to the main wiring harness
- A separate DB-9 for all ignition wiring
- 3 separate Molex Mini-Fit Jr connectors to things mounted in the keel (i.e. control stick, trim/spd brake motors, rear head/mic connections)
- Network/RS-232 connections plug directly into the Dynon Skyview panel
I’m pretty pleased with the way the panel wiring turned out. It is quite simple to put the panel in/take it out. I was also able to fully bench-test the panel separate from the plane. I’m hoping this will make it much easier to troubleshoot the inevitable little issues that will come up once it is fully assembled.
Once I had the wiring harness planned, I began laying out the wires. After checking, double checking and triple checking that all circuits were accounted for, I bundled the wires and pulled the main harness through the co-pilot duct. This main harness plugs into the 37-pin connector behind the panel. Part of it exits before the firewall and the remaining aft of the firewall. The wire bundle from the Dynon Skyview EMS mounted behind the keel was run to the engine connector.
For the engine, I also wanted to be able to easily remove the engine without having to remove all the engine sensors. I used a smaller, 27-pin circular connector for the engine wiring harness. All low-current engine connections are made through this connector (i.e. thermocouples, oil temp, low throttle indicator, alt field et cetera). One other firewall-mounted DB-9 is used to connect the LightSpeed electronic ignition. For the main current-carrying conduit between the battery and starter/alternator, I used a 1/2″ copper pipe for ground with a #4 AWG wire running through the middle of it. I placed the starter solonoid on the firewall (not sure why Velocity installed it on the RG panel that is up front which requires an extra heavy-gauge wire run).
With the main harness installed, panel completed and engine wired up, I need to focus on the interior firewall and get the EMS, electronic ignition and lighting installed.