S.N.A.F.U.

Jay Honeck wrote:


JPI made good on the quick turn for me. They had it in their shop
for 4 days when they did the fuel flow upgrade and added the internal
USB data download (that is really nice, no more fumbling with trying to
get windows to find a usb serial port etc, now I just plug in a USB
stick and it goes into program mode automatically, asks the dump all
question and downloads). They told me it would be 3-5 days, so I was
happy. It took longer for the round trip shipping than it did in the shop.

Jay, my flasher came with its own switch too, but it would have required
cutting a new switch hole, plus it looked nothing like the original
switches. Also, it would have meant 4 switches to control the landing
lights (one for each light, plus one for the flasher unit). That's why
I went with the relay circuit which I have up on my website at
http://www.andraka.com/images/plane/...ght_wiring.pdf. Assuming
you followed the skycraft installation instructions, each light has its
own switch and its own circuit breaker. Each switch is rated for 10A,
so you can only put one 4509 lamp on a switch. I don't have Avtek's
flasher, but I am sure his connects the same way as mine does (mine is
the one Skycraft offered when I bought the lights) with an output lead
connecting to the existing circuit between the landing lights and the
switches, plus a power lead coming from a separate circuit breaker and a
ground lead. The solid state switches in the flasher unit parallel the
mechanical switches in your panel, well actually the combination of the
solid state switches and the flasher's circuit breaker parallels the
switch and circuit breaker for each light. You can't tap in at the
circuit breakers, it has to tap in at the load side of the switch,
otherwise the flasher would only work when the landing light is also
turned on.

With my relay circuit, I replaced the wing landing light switches with
piper avionics relays, then removed the original landing light switch
and replaced it with the split switch from skycraft. The L side is
connected to the nose light circuit (i.e. it replaces the piper landing
light switch), and also connects to the coils on the two relays so that
the other lights go on with the nose light. The "R" side of the switch
replaces the switch for the recognition flasher, and the switch that
came with the flasher was discarded. The A&P put the relays in the log
as a logged entry--minor change-- along with the installation of circuit
breakers to replace the fuses I had.

My biggest concern with the gizmo is whether the viewing angle will be
too great to see the display. I intend to mount it at the bottom of my
center stack of radios (the six has a center stack and a second stack to
the right of it). I had been planning to mount it below my Loran, but
it looks like in addition to cutting the panel and extending the rails,
it also may not have enough clearance behind. Instead, it looks like
the best bet is to pull out the Loran, and put the gizmo in 2" higher
than I originally intended. That should help with viewing angles anyway,
but also does involve more work.