Vertical Power/Panel Upgrade to Vans RV-4

Parts for Sale

2009-12-19T12:13:00.051-07:00

I am going through the hanger and putting all of the un-needed items up for sale and will be adding items for the next couple of weeks so check back if you dont see anything that you need right now. We like the Dynon setup in our RV-4 so much we are going to do a Dynon setup as well for the new RV-6a.

I prefer paypal for payment and prefer to just ship to the continental USA but open to others.
My paypal account is tomvelvick@cox.net.

Never used RV-6 gear leg.
Priced at 1/2 of Vans price plus whatever the shipping is.
Ordered two new RV-4 long gear legs and Vans sent a RV-6 gear leg by mistake. We couldnt send it back as we had already painted it with a white epoxy paint.

New RV-4 undrilled Gear Leg.
Priced at 1/2 of Vans price plus whatever the shipping is.

Cleveland brake master cylinders removed from RV-4.
$80 plus $10 shipping.
Removed to replace with new Matco master cylinders that we were able to mount right side up instead of upside down as these Cleveland master cylinders were mounted. Dissasembled and checked the interior parts. Everything looks ok. Should probably replace the O-rings before use. They look ok but are old.

Vans 2 1/4 Voltage gauge
$25 plus $ 8 shipping

Rapco 211C Vacuum Pump and filter. $100 plus $15 shipping to USA. Working when removed from RV-4 and replaced with B&C 8 amp standby alternator.

Balmar ARS-4 Sophisticated microprocessor Voltage Regulator for externally regulated alternator. Never Used. List price $299 for sale for $125. $12.00 shipping.
Specs at http://www.balmar.net/page18-ars4.html
I am also putting this for sale on ebay in the marine division, so its subject to prior sale.

More stuff to be added later.

The Need for Speed

2009-11-14T07:36:00.001-07:00

53L has most of the work done on her, but she still isnt as fast as other RVs so we are going to spend some time in trying to get another 10 mph out of her. To start, we are going to change out the old stlye wheelpants for Vans new pressure recovery wheelpants. They are larger than the old style, but their aerodynamic shape is supposed to give a 3 to 5 mph speed increase. We shall see.

Elevator Counterweights and skins

2009-01-02T23:01:00.001-07:00

Elevator counterweights were trimmed from rectangular blocks of lead from Vans aircraft. The first one took about 1200 strokes of my vixen file to smooth into the correct shape. I found out on the others that I could use a hacksaw blade to make the preliminary cut and save a lot of time and filing!

The elevator counterweight skins were clamped into place for for drilling to the counterweight spar underneath.

Top of counterweight skin drilled and clecoed.

Trim Tab... 2nd Day

2009-01-01T18:28:00.016-07:00

The electric trim motor from Ray Allen comes with two rods. The shorter one works on the RV-6. The RV-4 takes the longer rod. I had to trim 1 1/4" off the longer rod.

Adjusting the length and interference on the elevator skin with the old trim tab.

I added an extra piece of .032 alumimum to the tab arm. It takes most of the slack between the sides of the clevis arms and najes the tab arm a little stronger. Not necessary according to the plans, but I am trying to eliminate all slop in the trim system that I can. It should help with the altitude hold.

A battery from a cordless drill makes a great 12 volt source for running the electric trim motor back and forth.

Tab arm is riveted to trim tab. Plans call for MD-42BS pop rivets. I was able to use AN426-4 rivets because I had not riveted the top of the trim tab yet.

Trim tab complete, installed on wing and adjusted for length.

Left Elevator 6th day and Trim Tab Assembly

2008-12-31T18:24:00.012-07:00

My solution from yesterdays problem of riveting the trim tab spar and piano hinge was to take a squeezer die and cut off the shaft. After smoothing off the bottom of the die, I superglued it to my no-hole yoke as shown in the picture below.

This worked great and kept the yoke from bending the piano hinge.

I decided to add a couple of stiffeners to the trim tab as is done with the elevators. The plans dont call for them; however, our old trim tab had flexed a little so maybe this will help the new trim tab.

Lining up the new tab against the piano hinge to make sure the trim tab edge line will match the edge line of the elevator.

Drilling the piano hinge to the trim tab.

Drilling the trim tab spar to the top of the trim tab.

Deburred, dimpled and primed everything.

Almost finished trim tab. The top wont be riveted until the two pieces of angle that attach to the trim motor arm are riveted to the trim tab tomorrow.

Left Elevator... 5th day

2008-12-30T18:15:00.001-07:00

Drilled hole in spar for the 5 wires that go to the electric trim motor and put in a plastic grommet.

Drilled and cleoced the piano hinge that holds the trim tab. Plans call for AN257-p2, however, the AN257-P3 piano hinge (a little deeper hinge) fit better so that is what I used.

A problem came up in riveting the piano hinge to the spar. The heads on the piano hinge interfer with the squeezer because they are lower than the rivet. If I turned the piano hinge over, it would work fine, but the top of the piano hinge would protrude a little above the elevator. Going to quit for the evening and research how to fix this.

Left Elevator Continued..4th day

2008-12-29T22:02:00.008-07:00

Laid out the lines on the aluminum cut from the left elevator to make the trim tab from.
Cut out rough shape using hand shears.

Installed spar skeleton into skins and started all the prep work that needed to be finished before riveting. Finished drilling and dimpling all holes into skeleton.

Cut edges from leading edge for the counterweight rib skins will go.

Cut edges from leading edges for where the horizontal stabilizer attach brackts will mate with the rod end bearings on the elevator. Skins are cut 1/8 inch undersize on each end. Final cuts will be made after leading edge skin is rolled and pop riveted together.

Left elevator is ready for final riveting. Am going to go home and review all plans to make sure I didnt overlook anything before riveting elevator skin to spar skeleton tomorrow.

Left Elevator Continued..3rd day

2008-12-28T21:41:00.001-07:00

Drilled electric trim brace to elevator skin.
Drilled holes at each corner of cutout and enlarged with unibit.

I used a cutoff wheel to cut between each of the holes.

Preliminary hole shaped. Now lots of filing and sanding and shaping to get it to final shape.

Since the bracket for the RV-6 is the same as for the RV-4, borrowed the bracket and motor from the RV-6 and used it as a template to cut the outer shape into the elevator skin and as a guide for the holes for the 7 screws that will hold the bracket and motor to the elevator.

Hole in skin was cut the same way as the electric trim brace. Drill a hole at each corner , use a cutoff wheel to cut between the holes and then file and sand to final shape.

K1100-6 countersunk platenuts are attached to the electric trim bracket .

Platenuts attached. Now time to prime and backrivet plate to skin.

Electric trim bracket riveted to skin and motor and cover temporarilly installed. Everything fits ok. Whew! I have to remember to drill a hole in the spar behind the motor because as it retracts the shaft extends backwards from the motor and will hit against the spar unless a hole is drilled for it to extend through.

Time to call it a night and head home to barbarque some steaks on the new grill.

Left Elevator Continued...2nd day

2008-12-27T21:24:00.002-07:00

Cut the aluminum from the left elevator skin to make the trim tab. If I cut it wrong, I will have to start over on the left elevator.

Finished drilling holes for stiffeners and spar.
I used the same template I made for the right elevator which saved some time.

Fabricated the stiffeners from 3/4 x 3/4 x .032 angle and drilled to skins.

Primed elevator skin and stiffeners and riveted stiffeners to skin.

Taped 1/8 in metal rod to bend in skin and used home made brake to finish bend in elevator skin.

Riveted left elevator horn to spar.

Started laying out brace for electric trim option for elevator.
Vans traced out opening on sheet of aluminum. You have to cut it out yourself.
Somehow I either lost of didnt order the plans for the electric trim option so am using the plans from the RV-6 to fab the trim on the RV-4 elevator.

Left Elevator Started

2008-12-26T20:24:00.002-07:00

Started the left elevator today. Its pretty much a duplicate of making the right elevator except for the addition of the trim tab which is cut out from the elevator skin.
Stiffeners are fabbed and clecoed to the skin.

Spar skeleton is fabbed, primed and test fitted to skin. The inner rib is shortened to make room for the trim tab to fit below it.

Right Elevator Continued ...5th day

2008-12-25T20:03:00.002-07:00

Riveted the inner rib to the spar.

Riveted on the elevator horn to the spar.

Attaching the outer ribs that hold the counterweights to the spar.

Set the elevator skin and spar skeleton in the jig and started drilling the spar to the skins.

The inner ribs are too small to dimple normally. The Avery vise grip dimpling tool is a vise grip with the two mating dimpler parts welded onto the vise grip jaws. Works great.

Heavy rain on Christmas Day started pouring in the hanger door as well as creating a deafening cacophony of sound that reverberated off the roof.

Started final riveting.

The no hole yoke head came in handy to finish riveting at each end of the ribs where there wasnt much room.

The left elevator is test fitted onto the horizontal stabilizer.
The gap between the counterweight ribs and the horizontal stabilizer looks about right.

Right Elevator Continued ...4th day

2008-12-24T13:35:00.005-07:00

Christmas Eve here so only worked for a few hours.
Started by dimpling all of the holes for the spar on the elevator skin. The pnuematic squeezer makes it easy. I had to use the 4" head to reach all of the rivet holes.

Primed and painted both the left and right elevator horns while I had the painted mixed. A finish coat of PPG DAR pairnt was put over the primer to make sure no corrosion happens to the steel horns. I will let them dry overnight before riveting the right horn to the elevator spar.

Started laying out the stiffeners for the left elevator.

Right Elevator Continued ...3rd day

2008-12-22T18:27:00.013-07:00

A template was made from 3/4 in angle for the holes that need to be drilled in the elevator skin that mate to the spar.

The template was clamped the each side of the elevator skins and used to drill the spar attach holes into the skin.

A piece of .032 2024-t3aluminum was used to make the two bands of aluminum that go over the tip of the elevator that projects forward to hold the counterweights.

Since the tips are angles, the pieces look like long boomerangs until they are bent in the middle.

Ready for test fitting. Pieces were cut 1/4 in oversize and over length. Final fitting will determine actual size and length.

The pieces of the spar skeleton were matched up, fluted and drilled.

The elevator horn was drilled to the spar. Since the spar tapers through the full length, it was hard to get the elevator horn square. The edge of the table was used as one side and the spar was clamped parallel to the table. A 90 degree carpenters square could then be placed on the table edge and the other end of the square was used to line up the horn.

The spar was temporarally attached to the horizontal stabilizer to get the exact distances needed for the rod end bearing and ribs.

A sharpie was used to draw a line down the center of the spar where the holes would be drilled.
The spar was then inserted into the skin to where the sharpie line could be seen through the center of the holes and clamped and drilled.

Right Elevator Continued ...2nd day

2008-12-21T07:23:00.010-07:00

Vans plans call for making a bending brake fromtwo 2 X 8s joined together by hinges. I decided to use my table top as one side of the brake instead. This would give me a stable surface to rest the elevator skins on. So I bolted one side of the hinges directly to the table.

I put an 1/8" rod at the skin bend and taped it in. This is to keep from over bending the skin.

Below is a picture of the elevator skin in the brake. The brake is about 4"s longer than the elevator skin on either side to use a grips to push down on. The actual bending was quite easy.

Below is the skin at the joint.

The next step is to buid the jig that supports the elevator while riveting the elevator frame to the skin. This is real important to get aligned correctily or you can get a twist in the end of the elevator. I had evidently discarded the particle board V-jigs when I moved hangers so I had to take a trip to Lowes to pick up a piece of 2' x 2' x 3/4" plywood to cut into 3 V-jigs. Fortunately, Vans supplies a drawing for the V-jigs if you need to make your own.

New Elevators for 53L part 1

2008-12-17T20:37:00.006-07:00

The elevators on 53L were found to have a severe twist in them from the original builder. This was offset with a large trim tab on the vertical stabilizer. We decided to remake the elevators to remove the twist and replace the .016 skins with .020 skins as many people have reported cracking in the thinnner skins.

The parts from Vans are pretty basic. No holes in the skins like the RV-6 elevator skins, and pieces of aluminum to fabricate brackets from. The elevator horns did come with some lightening holes in them, but not powdercoated as I understand is done with the steel parts on the over higher number RVs.
A lot of time was spent in laying out the lines on the skins to make sure everything was going to line up correctly. Then the stiffeners need to be measured for each position and cut from the supplied 4' sections of angle. The angles have to be cut at an angle at one end when it fits into the tip of the elevator. I used a jig on the drill press to make sure that each hole is in line on the angle.
First row of stiffeners clecoed to the elevator skin.
The other side of the elevator skins was done exactly the same as the first side.
After removing all of the stiffeners, the holes were deburred then it was time to dimple the skins. I use the C frame tool from Averys for this procedure.

Then dimple all of the stiffeners.
Next is to rough up all surfaces with scotchbrite pad, clean and prime parts.
After drying, the stiffeners are back-riveting to the skin.
I put all the rivets for one side in at a time and cover with tape.

Between the heavy steel plate under the skin and the back riveting tool for the rivet gun, the riveting went really fast.

VP-50 Installation

2008-11-24T18:44:00.000-07:00

I am at the point when I had to make a commitment to the wiring in the new RV-6a I am finishing. About this time, the VP-50 was getting close to shipping and Marc Ausman at Vertical Power approached me about beta testing it since I had beta tested the VP-100. I downloaded the VP-50 load planning worksheet from the Vertical Power website that is used to assign wiring and power to all of the electrical equipment and found out that the VP-50 would work find in the RV-4.
So, the long story short is that I decided to remove the VP-100 from the RV-4 and put it in the RV-6a and put the new VP-50 in the RV-4.
I had a large amount of wiring left over from the installation kit for the VP-100 so I didnt need a complete wiring installation kit for the conversion. Marc loaned me the crimping tool for the connectors that the Control box uses so I could crimp my own connectors.
I started on a Saturday morning and was operational by noon on Sunday, including talking with several visitors who came by the hanger to check out what was happening.
I was hoping that the VP-50 box pattern was as the same as the VP-100 but the VP-50 box is slightly smaller. I had to redo the brackets that attach the VP-50 to the angles in front of the instrument panel. This took several hours to make new brackets, install platenuts, and prime.

The actual wiring was extremely easy as I used my old load planning and new load planning spreadsheets to remove the power pins from connectors one by one and either use them as is in the new connectors or redo the power and ground connects to the various avionics equipment.
The VP-50 doesnt have all of the features of the VP-100 so I had to reinstall my master switch and flap switch. As I still had them available, it was simple to redo them. I had to drill a new whole in the panel to the right of the last switch on the VP-50 switch panel for the flap switch.

Here is the finished panel with the VP-50 installed. The Trio AP was also removed to be installed in the RV-6a and replaced with a Dynon AP for RV4chicks simple VFR fun plane.

Dynon Lean of Peak

2008-06-01T20:54:00.003-07:00

We flew to Sedona, AZ for breakfast this morning. On the way there, I was playing with the leaning mode in the Dynon EMS. I was able to get the engine lean of peak without running rough which I hear is pretty rare on carburated engines. I attribute it to the new10-5217 carb that we installed last year. It runs lots smoother and uses less gas than our previous carb. I had noticed that the rpm will decline when leaning before it gets rough so thought it might run LOP. We were told that the 10-5217 incorporates an atomizer on it that more evenly distributes the gas into the incoming air.
Heres proof.

We were still climbing in this picture. I leveled off at 7500 feet and was able to get the gph down to 58% hp, 6.1 to 6.3 gph at 2350 rpm and 170 mph TAS.
This would give us a range of over 6 hours in our RV-4 (41 gal tanks). We were showing about 22 nautical mpg. Will try this at 10k to 12k and see what happens at the higher altitudes.

Trio Autopilot ReInstalled.

2008-01-08T18:39:00.001-07:00

The Trio Autopilot was reinstalled into the panel.

12/16 First Flight with new panel

2007-12-16T18:04:00.000-07:00

Dynon repaired the EMS-d10 (solder joint problem) and returned it Friday afternoon so we were able to get everything installed again this weekend. I removed the Trio Autopilot to send back to Trio to get the latest firmware updates. I also removed the panel on Saturday and painted it black (the color RV4chick requested).

The RV-4 is ready to go after being down for so long.

We flew to Casa Grande for some cheaper fuel (4.17) versus >5.00 and then to Marana Regional for lunch and then back to Phoenix. Total time about 1.5 hours.
Dynon tries to preserve your settings when you send a unit back, but with mine all of the settings were wiped out so I have to reprogram then because I had not downloaded them to a laptop yet as Dynon suggests. I will definately do that when I get everything reprofiled.
Everything went well. It was really neat to see the TAS, density altitude and relative winds aloft on the Dynons. It felt very strange to fly with the digital readouts instead of analog gauges. Its going to take some time for us to get comfortable with the new setup. One thing that the Dynon EMS showed us was a 60 degree difference between our hottest and coolest cylinder in flight. We will have to redo the baffles to try to get the temperatures evened out.
The VP-100 worked great. It showed about 6 amps being used with all normal daytime avionics powered up in flight including strobes.

This week I will work on recalibrating everything for the Dynons again and making backups so I can restore the settings in the future if needed. I am also ordering the backup battery from Dynon for the EFIS. This coming weekend RV4chick will finally get to fly her RV-4 after all of the changes I made to it and I can get back to finishing the other RV-4 I am currently building. Hope she likes it.

12/9 VP-100 Start Up Sequence

2007-12-09T19:50:00.001-07:00

I thought that while I was waiting for the Engine monitor to arrive, I would show how I use the VP-100 during engine start.
I have decided my start sequence is with all buttons on the VP-100 switch panel turned off.
The first step to to press and release the button on the VP-100 switch panel to turn on the VP-100. The VP-100 goes thru its test sequence and then shows the current volts and amps being used and the button turns green.

The next step is to run the boost pump which primes the line to the carburator. I currently have the boost pump on switch 3, but it can be programmed to any of the buttons. You can see that my volts dropped from 12 volts to 11.7 and the amps increased from .5 to 1.3 amps while running the boost pump.

The next steps are mixture rich, crack the throttle and use the keyed ignition switch to start the engine. When the engine starts, I move the first switch from its center position to the up position. This engages the primary alternator. If I moved the first switch to the down position, it would engage the backup alternator.
The volts now show 14.4 volts and indicate that the alternator is charging the battery.

Turning on switch 2 engages the rest of the avionics. The switches have a colored led in the tip of the switch. A green light indicates there are no problems with the circuits that are controlled by the switch. If there is a problem, the led at the end of the switch turns red.

With every light and avionics engaged, the RV-4 uses 24.6 amps. The Plane Power 60 amp alternator should be able to handle this load with no problem.

For shutting down, I turn every switch off and then mixture to idle to stop the engine and mags off.

Final step is to hold the button on the VP-100 in for about 3 seconds and then the VP-100 turns off.
The starting sequence is really not that much different from our old system, but for the first time, we am really aware of what is going on with the electrical system. If any problems show up, the VP-100 will alert us immediately. Between its monitoring of the electrical system and the engine monitoring of the Dynon EMS, and the Garmin 496 audio warnings, hopefully, we will know right away when any problems occur and we can spend more time looking outside the cockpit instead of at the instruments.

12/8 Garmin 496 audio hookup

2007-12-08T19:30:00.001-07:00

When I went to the airport last Sunday to fly, the Dynon EMS would not boot up. So I overnighted it to them last Monday. I am expecting it back this week so we should finally be able to get 53L back in the air.
I decided to hook up the audio output from the Garming 496 to the intercom while we am waiting. The Garmin 496 outputs a stereo signal through a 1/8 " stereo female connector on the back of it. Since my PS1000 II intercom is mono, I needed to adapt to it.
This required a trip to Radio Shack to pick up a 1/8 stereo male to male extension and a 1/8 female stereo to 1/8 male mono jack.

Its only a short distance from the Garmin 496 to the aux jack for the intercom so I didnt need a very long cable. Radio Shack had a 1 ft connector so I was in luck.

The "Sound" setup menu for the Garmin controls the sound options.
I turned the Audio Volume up about 3/4 of the way and turned the Terrain Audio to On.
I left the TIS Audio off since I dont have a mode S transponder connected yet.
The Audio Jack option has two settings Headphones or Line Out. I used the Headphones settings and a set of Sony Walkman ear buds to test the sound, but changed the setting to Line Out for the connection to the intercom.

The next screen shows the "XM" setup. We havent activated the XM music subscription yet, but there are still 4 channels that you can receive without a subscription. A preview, news, sports and emergency alert channel. These channels work real good to test the audio output.
When you press the "Menu" key while in this screen, an option pops up that lets you mute or enable the sound.

The audio output worked great on the PS1000 II intercom. Whenever a radio transmission is received it mutes the audio from the GPS and then gradually increases the volume back to the original level after the radio transmission ceases.
Alerts will also sound through the intercom. Garmin uses a female voice to announce the alerts as well as a tone.

11/29 Garmin 496 Installation

2007-11-29T19:35:00.001-07:00

Tonight I installed a temporary handheld GPS bracket on the right side rail just in front of the instrument panel for our Garmin 496. I am thinking of putting an Air Gizmo panel mount in the instrument panel and mounting the 496 there. With it mounted on a RAM ball mount, I can move it if there is glare from the sun on it. If it is permanently mounted in the panel, I will have to live with whatever glare there is.

11/28 Programming Dynons continued...

2007-11-28T19:38:00.001-07:00

Tonight I set in the airspeed set points for Vs0, Vs1, Vfe, Vno, and Vne into the Dynon EFIS-D10a.

Then I taxied the RV-4 to the compass rose on the airport and calibrated the remote magnetometer for the Dynon EFIS. It turned out to be a very easy procedure. I lined the RV-4 up pointing magnetic north on the compass rose and started the calibration program and pressed the north button on the Dynon. Turned the aircraft to face magnetic east and pressed the east button on the Dynon. Turned the aircraft to face magnetic south and pressed the south button. Turned the aircraft to face magnetic west and pressed the west button. The program took about a second to finish the alignment program.

After calibrating the remote magnetometer, I calibrated the fuel tank level sensors for the Dynon EMS. I drained all of the fuel out of both tanks. Then I arranged to have the fuel truck from the local FBO help me calibrate the tanks. Again it was very simple with the Dynons, put it into fuel calibration mode and press the start button. The screen prompts you to add 2 gallons at a time and press the add button.

The sensors didnt change after 14 gallons so I pressed "FULL" to finish up with that tank then repeated the steps for the right tank.
The tanks actually hold 16 gallons in each but the sensors hit the top of the tank before the last gallons can be added because of the tilt in the wing. The picture below shows the fuel levels on each tank with full tanks.

11/26 RV Reassembled.

2007-11-26T20:58:00.002-07:00

The RV-4 was finished assembling this evening. The wheel pants are left off because they are in the process of being refinished.

Below is an image of the instrument panel while the engine was running.
The instrument panel will be removed and painted in the near future.
The Dynon EMS shows the idle at 1040 rpm and the fuel flow at 6.3 gph.
This seems too high an idle and the fuel flow is way to high for idle. Normally it is around 2 gph at idle. The idle was showing about double the RPM until I doubled the Dynon recommended setting for the tach sensor. The fuel flow K factor was at the recommended setting of 30000. I increased the K factor to 36000 and the fuel flow dropped to 4.6 gph at idle. Still too high.

I got the digital handheld tach out to compare the rpm but it evidently doesnt work in the dark.

11/25 Reassembly continues...

2007-11-25T18:46:00.001-07:00

When I was installing the protective white rubber boot over the battery solenoid, I put a little pressure on the terminal I was forcing the rubber boot over. The battery solenoid energized! I found I could energize it by applying up pressure against the terminal from the battery. Definately bad internally. I got a new solenoid from Aerozona Parts but the new solenoid had two small terminals on the front of it instead of one like I had. No problem, you just hook one wire to 12 VDC and one to ground to energize the relay. I hooked the red Vertical power lead to one of the terminals and then ran a line from the other terminal to ground. When I turned on the power, the Vertical Power switch panel gave me a Battery Contactor failure alarm. I disconnected the power lead and applied power directly from the battery and the contactor energized. After a quick call to Marc at Vertical Power, he told me in a polite way that the Vertical power lead supplies ground to the contactor not 12 VDC as it states in the installation manual so I had wired it backwards. :<( This makes sense as you can use the vertical power lead with either the single or dual post battery contactor. I knew this but had forgotten it and felt embarrased that I didnt consult the installation manual again. I was thinking the red lead meant 12 VDC. After wiring the battery solenoid the correct way (run a jumper from the hot batt terminal to one of the small terminals and install the Vertical Power lead on the other terminal), the battery contactor failure alarm went away. It made me more comfortable with the robustness of the VP setup knowing that even though I had installed the wiring backwards, nothing was damaged or messed up. The VP-100 just notified me of the error and once I wired it correctly, everything was ok again. Below is a picture showing the two post battery solenoid. The yellow wire between the two small posts is a diode that helps prolong the life of the solenoid.

I spent a couple of hours this morning going thru the dynon EMS setup menus item by item.
Shown below is the Dynon Install setup menu.

After getting everything mostly programmed, I finished up all of the final little details that needed to be done before the airplane was ready to fly. I had rebuilt the master brake cylinders a couple of weeks ago, but had not added any brake fluid yet. Since the RV-4 brake cylinders are mounted upside down, its a little difficult to get all of the air out of them. I made a pressure bleeder out of a 1/2 gallon pump up sprayer from Ace hardware and some 1/4 tubing.
It took us a long time to get the brakes bled properly. We added the fluid from the bottom of the brake calipers. Next time I am going to try using the pressure bleeder from the top of the master reservoir.
Heres a picture of the Dynon EMS right after first startup. One thing I immediately noticed is that the tach is not working. After thinking about it I realized I had ran a new power lead from VP control unit and had not programmed it yet. So once I profile the power lead correctly in the VP switch panel, the tach should start working. The fuel flow is showing 12.4 gallons an hour. I know that is incorrect for an idle setting so I need to adjust the K factor until the fuel flow is correct.

I also need to drain my fuel from the tanks and then add a gallon at a time while running the Dynon fuel calibration progarm. The picture below shows the fuel screen.

Tomorrow I will work on getting the problems fixed that came up during the startup. One other problem that kept me from flying today is that the Plane Power alternator is not charging so I have to figure out what the problem is with it.

11/24 Reassembly continues.

2007-11-24T20:44:00.001-07:00

I had to make new supports for the two air controls. The old supports were in the subpanel bulkhead that was removed. I made a little triangular bracket to fit against the new sidepanel that will hopefully be out of the way of my long knees.

The Dynon manifold pressure sender installs in the engine compartment. The sender looks like an automotive part. It uses weatherpack connectors.
http://www.weatherpack.com
There are little green rubber seals that go around each wire. You are supposed to use a special weatherpack tool to crimp the connectors, but one of my crimpers did a good job on it. The pins have an extra long connector that wraps around the little green rubber seals. Don't drop them as they disappear. I am still missing one.

Since I am not using the rpm gauge anymore, I don't have to run the long cable from the engine through the firewall to the rpm gauge anymore. However, I need an electrical signal for a source for the Dynon EMS. There are at least two options. Use the wires from the magnetos or install a transducer on the rpm takeoff on the engine. Vans sells a transducer that mounts directly on the rpm takeoff on the engine, but it wouldn't work on mine because of interference from the SD-8 backup alternator. Vans sells a 12 inch extension for it so you can put it in a different location. I got the extension but had a hard time finding a place to mount it as I didn't want to drill more holes in my already cluttered firewall. I ended up attaching it to the engine mount with Adel clamps. I am reconsidering my choice and may change back to driving the Dynon rpm from the magnetos. You have to put a 30K ohm resistor in line with the magneto output to knock the signal down to an acceptable level for the Dynon. This would clean up my engine compartment a little.

The fuel pressure was also mounted on the engine mount. It uses fast on connectors attach the two wires from the Dynon EMS.

Since I had removed the 60 amp circuit breaker (on the instrument panel) for the alternator, I had to replace it. Vertical power shows an ANL fuse that mounts between the alternator and the output side of the battery solenoid. I ordered one from http://www.BandC.biz.
We had replaced our 35 amp externally regulated alternator with a Planepower 60 amp internally regulated alternator. We had left our regulator on the firewall shelf. We figured if we were ever out of town and we lost out alternator and could only get an external unit, we could reuse the regulator to get us home. However, its location looked like a good spot for the ANL fuse so I removed it and added it to the pile of discarded parts.

Here is what the ANL looks like when its connected.

The next step was to hook up the CHT and EGT sensors to the Dynon EMS harness. The Dynon EMS has a 25 pin lower connector (brown wires in picture below) dedicated to just the CHT and EGT sensors. The harness comes prelabled with the function of each sensor so its a simple matter of matching the color coded wires to the same color wire on the sensors, adding a faston connector and plugging it into the sensor wires.

11/20 Remote Magnetometer rewiring

2007-11-20T20:15:00.001-07:00

Tonight after work I squirmed back into the fuselage and took the D sub 9 pin remote magnetometer connector apart. The 2 wires from the outside air temperature (OAT) probe have been put into the wrong holes as I counted from the wrong side. Using the D sub extraction tool, I removed them and reinserted them into the correct holes. Dynon supplied a plastic D sub extraction tool with the wiring harness which I thought wouldnt work as well as my metal ones, but it seemed to work ok. I dont think it would hold up to repeated use though.

Here is what the connector looks like almost reassembled.

11/18 Dynon Remote Magnetometer and OAT install

2007-11-18T19:25:00.002-07:00

Saturday, a friend and I went hiking in the West Fork of Oak Creek wilderness area. Its about 15 miles north of Sedona, AZ and is a great hike. Since its so easy to get it, it gets crowded during the day, but if you leave at daybreak you have the trail to yourself. Normally we fly into Sedona, but since the plane is down, we had to drive up. Note to self: Get RV-4 back in the air!!

The RV-4 has manual pitch trim, but we want to convert it to electric pitch trim. Since Vertical Power included a 25 ft 5 wire cable for pitch trim in the wiring harness and I had the floor removed for the remote magnetometer installation, I decide to go ahead and wire the electric pitch trim cable up and run it to the tail so it will be an easy electrical hookup in the future when we convert the trim system to electric.

The 5 wires go into the connector J6 on the control unit. 3 wires on the top row and 2 wires directly underneath them on the bottom row.

The Dynon EFIS Outside Air Temperature Probe (OAT) is installed to the remote magnetometer. This means if you put the remote magnetometer in the tail, the OAT needs to go somewhere close to it. I decided to put the OAT probe under the horizontal stabilizer. It should be out of the sun and hopefully not get any of the engine exhaust.
Dynon does sell an OAT that connects to the EMS instead of the remote magnetometer. I originally was planning on putting the OAT under my left wing about half way out in an access panel. With the EMS OAT, I could have did it. However, until the release of the latest firmware, the EFIS couldnt use the EMS OAT for all of its functions. Now I think either OAT works great with the EFIS if you have the Dynon Smart Avionics Bus hooked up.

The wiring harness for the remote magnetometer comes with the D sub pins already connected.
The blue wire and the ground wire from the OAT probe has to connect to the white ground wire that goes into pin 1 of the remote magnetometer connector. The picture below shows how I hooked them together. I removed the insulation from part of the ground wire on the remote
magnetometer cable that comes from the Dynon EFIS.

After stripping back the insulation in the OAT cable, I used a pick to remove the red, yellow and blue wires from the shielding without damaging it.

The blue wire and the ground wire from the OAT is then soldered onto the ground wire from the EFIS and shink wrap put around it to protect it.
Here is a picture of the complete connector.

I had to build a bracket to hold the remote magnetometer in the fuselage where it is away from any metals that may interfere with it. This turned into a major pain because I decided to put in the the rear of the fuselage. The bulkhead is about 1/2 the width of my body. It a real tight fit and then my arms wouldnt be in the right position to do what I wanted so I would have to squirm out and turn over or on my side and try from a different angle. The remote magnetometer is supposed to be within 1 degree on all three axis of what the Dynon EFIS is at.
I was able to get this with the help of a smart level but it sure was a lot of work. It took about 10 hours to do everything. Here is a picture of the installation. What the picture doesnt show is that my OAT is not working so I will have to go in tomorrow and take the connector apart and see if I have something wrong in the connector.

The plan was to get the remote magnetometer installed and button everything up and go flying today. I severely underestimated how long it take to install the remote magnetometer and the OAT.

11/16 Right side cleanup

2007-11-16T23:19:00.001-07:00

dI worked on the right side of the aircraft this evening after work. Since Friday is date night, I only spent a few hours on cleanup. I temporarily wrapped up tied off the dynon dual serial ports. I will build a little bracket for them and shorten them up to remove the excess wire in the future.

11/15/2007 Serial to Parallel Converter for Transponder

2007-11-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

Finished wiring up the serial to parallel converter box that Dynon includes for transponders that dont have a serial port. Our Garmin GTX-320A transponders can only take the gray code (parallel wires).

The left side of the aircraft between the firewall and the panel is basically done. There is still a lot of tidying up to do.

My wife is sick fighting the flu and asked me to get her some spicy chicken strips and red rice and beans so I had to quit early and head out to Popeyes chicken.
Heres a picture of sunset at our hangers I snapped as I was closing the hanger door.

11/14 Dynon upgrade to 4.0 firmware

2007-11-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight, my friend Mike Taylor came over with his laptop. He had just upgraded his Dynon D-10a to the latest version 4.0 software and offered to upgrade mine as well. It turned out to be very easy. Plug the serial cable from the Dynon into the serial port on the laptop. On the Dynon support software running on the laptop, you select the Dynon type you want to upgrade and have it autodetect your equipment. With the Dynon turned on, the software program takes control and downloads the necessary software. For the Dynon EFIS, the software program wants the remote compass connected as well because it upgrades the firmware on it. I had run the cable into the back of the fuselage but had not connected the remote compass module yet. The cable comes from Steinair with the connectors already on the wires but not inserted into a DB-6 connector yet. I just plugged the four wires directly into the remote compass connector so I could upgrade it.

The Dynon EMS-D10 took only a few seconds to update to version 4.0. The Dynon EFIS-D10A took a couple of minutes. With the new software and the DSAB wires from each unit tied together, you can swap the screens on each unit to the other unit. Heres a picture of both units showing the primary flight display window.

Or you can put the HSI from the EFIS on the EMS.

Or you can swap both displays if you would rather have the engine stuff on the left side.

Another combination is to show the checklists from the EFIS on the EMS.

Oops, the vertical compass is in upside down! Don Ridder, the president of our EAA 538 chapter, actually spotted it. Don is building a RV-8 and is putting in dual large screen Dynons.

11/13 Intercom Install

2007-11-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Tonight after work I fabricated a quick temporary bracket for the intercom and attached it under the instrument panel. As part of the panel upgrade, the plan was to eliminate the intercom because the ICOM A-210 digital radio has a two place intercom in it that is supposed to work good. I decided to wait on wiring up the intercom portion of the ICOM A-210 until I hear more user reports on how good it works. The RV-4 is tandem seating and the noise levels can be different front to back. The PS 1000 II intercom has separate volume and squelch controls for the pilot and copilot and works well. Also if the radio goes out, the pilot and copilot can still talk through the intercom. Had to stop woring around 6:30 pm for our monthly EAA 538 chapter meeting.

11/12 VP Programming and install clean up

2007-11-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, I didnt get much done tonight. Too busy playing with the VP system. Of course, this is necessary training so its ok.
The picture below shows the settings for the primary alternator. Its on J6 pin 2. I named it ALT1. The circuit breaker has been set to 5 amps. Its energized when switch 1 is in the Up position. The little "p" means its the primary alternator field.

This picture shows the device setup for the SD-8 alternator.
It shows connector is J4 pin 4. The device name is Alt2 (backup alt, you can name it whatever works for you). The circuit breaker value has been set at 2 amps. The last numbers on the right show that the SD-8 backup alternator is energized when switch 1 is in the down position. The little "s" shows its the secondary alternator.

The picture below shows what a device listing looks like before you program any values into the fields.

I programmed the remote keyfob to work with the VP system.
There is a little antenna that you have to screw onto the control unit.
Then under the setup menu, you select Program Remote.

I tried the remote from about 1o feet away and it turned on the power as its supposed to. The manual says its good for up to about 30 feet and if you want a longer distance, you can buy a different antenna from VP to increase the range.

The picture belows shows the current draw for the field wire on the primary alternator with the engine off. I was surprised to see so many amps on it.

Heres the latest picture of the panel with all instruments turned on (no nav or strobe lights).
It shows 6 amps being used of which 3.2 is for the alternator.
I dont think I am going to have a problem keeping the total current draw under 8 amps for my essential bus if the primary alternator fails and I use the SD-8 backup alternator.

11/11 Final Vertical Power Install

2007-11-11T20:02:00.001-07:00

I started work this morning by making the shelf to hold the fuse block and terminal strip behind the instrument panel. I had originally designed it to bolt in. I decided to change it to a drop down design so if a fuse needed to be replaced, I could do it without removing the top skin (lots of screws). Below is the main shelf with hinges being added to either end.

Here is the primed shelf with the hinges installed that is ready to be installed in the aircraft.

The shelf fits right behind the Vertical Power switch panel and before the control panel.
The fuse block is for a "get home back-up power wiring" from the Vertical Power website at:
http://www.verticalpower.com/docs/Backup_Wiring.pdf
The terminal strip is for extra wires from the Dynon EFIS, Dyon EMS and the Vertical Power Control Unit. They are either for some function I am going to add in the future or I need more parts/understanding before I add it.

The Vertical power installation manual has you do single pin testing of the vertical power wiring with the connectors removed from the control unit. Vertical Power supplies 2 cables with connectors that you use to plug into the front of each connector for each power wire you run.
You put a 10 amp fuse in line with it and connect it to the battery. For the data wires (trim) you use a 2 amp fuse.
Since I already had a fuse block I used it as part of the single pin testing to supply power direct from the battery to my test wire.

When you insert the test probe into the connector it applies power to whatever component is connected to that wire. This makes sure that the right component is connected to the wire (It should match your load planning worksheet) and that the component turns on or works correctly. I also hooked an ampmeter to the test probe wire so I can record the actual amps used by the component. As part of the load planning worksheet, you enter the estimated amps the component uses, but it was interesting to see the actual amps.
My left landing light uses 4.62 amps but the right landing light uses 6.25. They use the same bulbs. Not sure why the different amps.
(Once the Vertical Power switch panel is programmed, the individual amps for each component can be viewed one at a time on the switch panel.)
The flaps also had some different amps based on what they were doing.
When the flaps are up but the motor is kept running, they draw 3.6 amps. If the flaps are put all of the way down and the motor is kept running, the flaps only draw .6 amps.

After the wiring was all checked out and verifed to go to the correct component and the component works, the next step is to hook all of the connectors up to the Control Unit, run the cable between the control unit and the switch panel and hook the battery back up and turn on the system. This is done by pressing the green button on the upper left of the switch panel.
The panel cycles through a couple of boot up screens and then displays the current volts and amps that are being used. The OK on the right of the screen tells you there are no faults.

As part of the beta test, Vertical Power asked me to disconnect the 20 amp inline fuse which powers the e-bus. After disconnecting the fuse, an "E-bus Failure" message shows on the screen.

After reconnecting the fuse and recycling the power, the next test was to disconnect the battery contactor while the Vertical Power system is on. This simulates a battery contactor failure.

I then started programming the individual devices from the load planning worksheet. Below is the boost pump after I programmed the correct settings for it. This screen basicallys says that Connector J4, pin 3 has a device named "BPMP" (Boost pump) connected to it and the circuit breaker has been configured for 5 amps. This device is energized whenever switch 4 is in the up position.

After programming all of the devices listed in the load planning worksheet, all of my component started to work properly.

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11/10 Vertical Power Equipment arrives

2007-11-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

I decided to switch the brackets for the Vertical Power Control Unit so they are under the Control Unit instead of outside it. This freed up about an inch more room on each side for access.

While I had the panel out, I decided to rebuilt the brake master cylinders. The left one was feeling like it was bleeding off a bit when brakes were applied hard. The brake master cylinders in the Vans RV-4s are mounted upside down, at least the earlier ones are because of interference problems with the center tunnel.

I decided to do both sides while access was so easy.

The left brake master cylinder has black oily gunk on the rod and spring, confirming my suspicions that it was leaking.

A Snap-On Snap ring tool easily removed the snap ring from the top of the master cylinder. I give my wife a list of Xmas presents I would like each year and she picks some of them for presents. A set of Snap On snap ring tools was one of them.

After the snap ring is removed from the top of the master cylinder, you just pull on the rod and pull the whole intermal assembly out.

Only two o-rings show but there are two more hidden inside. Another small snap ring is at the far right of the assembly. When it is removed the rest of the assembly can be taken apart.
The small o-ring now shows in the picture below.

The fourth medium o-ring is hidden inside the assembly below. I had to use a dentists pick to remove it. You can see some black crud on the teflon washer in the picture below. There was a lot of black crud on most of the pieces and also in the brake fluid in the master cylinder. I wasnt sure what it was until a friend, Mike Taylor came by and said it was probably parts of the o-rings that were rubbed off or decomposing. This makes sense to me. Really happy that I decided to rebuild these cylinders.

A quick trip to the local parts chick (Aerozona Parts) and I returned with 8 o-rings. Each master cylinder took
1 MS28775-110
2 MS28775-112
1 MS28-775-113

After lubricating the o-rings with brake fluid, they were assembled in the reverse order and reinstalled on the aircraft.

The Vertical Power box of goodies was delivered friday afternoon to the airport. The switch panel was heavier that I was expecting. Must be a lot of gear inside it. Hopefully that means its tough and durable.

I had left the cutout for the switch panel on the instrument panel undersize until I had an actual switch panel to mate up to the panel. I spent about an hour with a file enlarging the panel to fit the switch panel.
The picture below shows the backside of the switch panel.

The next picture shows the backside from the pilot side which made me realize I had made a slight design miscalculation. The pilot side of the switch panel contains a telephone type jack for connection to a laptop for upgrades and saving/loading profiles. This side is only 1 inch from my radio stack which is going to make it really hard to get to. However, this turned out to not be a problem as the mounting bracket on the back of the switch panel can be turned by hand. Its really easy to put on and off. I will plan on just reaching up from below the panel and unscrewing the mounting bracket and pulling the switch panel out an inch and access the jack from the front of the panel, then reinstall it once the update is complete. Another idea is to just leave the connector that hooks to the laptop plugged in. ( http://katiesrv4.blogspot.com/2007/10/wiring-programming-cable-for-vp-100.html )
It has a 9 pin D sub connector serial port on the end that plugs into the laptop. Since the Dynons each have a serial connector to connect to the laptop, I now have 3 serial connectors on the RV-4. This is more than I have on my desktop computer at home!

Vertical power sent serial No. 3, so I definitely have one of the first units to beta test.

The accessories bag that came with the switch panel includes a cable to go between the switch panel and the control panel, a key fob that lets you turn the power to your aircraft on and off remotely as well as program other functions and a short antenna that I assume is for the control unit to receive the key fob transmissions.

Here is how the switch panel looks from the rear when it was installed in the panel.

I had to break off work to take my sweetheart out to Abuelos for some good Mexican cuisine.
Tomorrow I should be able to apply vertical power to my Dynons and start programming everything.

11/08 Dynon Wiring -continued

2007-11-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the Dynon wiring diagram for the EMS. The handwritten Xs are the wires that I removed from the Dynon wiring harness because they were not used. I did not install the Dynon amp shunt because the Vertical Power switch panel shows volts and amps.

I did not purchase the flowscan fuel flow sensor from Dynon as our airplane already had the same fuel sensor installed. However, I dont have the right connectors to connect to it. I will make a visit to Aerozona parts tomorrow and see if they have them. Otherwise, I will have to order them or cut off the existing ones and replace them with different ones.

The wires in the Dynon EMS wiring harness were long enough to run to the left and the right fuel tank level sensors.

I started building a small shelf behind the instrument panel.

A plate goes over the angles. This should give me room to mount the remaining electronic components which are shown in the picture below.

I have to make sure there is room for the Vertical Power switch panel in front of the shelf. The switch panel and control unit was shipped yesterday from the Vertical Power and is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. After fitting it, I will decide on the final layout of the shelf.

11/07 Vertical Power VP-100 Switch Panel and Control Unit

2007-11-07T07:42:00.001-07:00

Vertical Power sent a picture last night of my actual switch panel and control unit. They will be shipping soon.

11/06 Dynon EFIS wiring

2007-11-06T21:22:00.000-07:00

The Vertical Power Contol Unit is all wired up except for tidying up and testing each circuit. So today after work, I continued working on the Dynon EFIS wiring. The Dynon D-10A has one set of blue and green wires for the Dynon Smart Avionics Bus (DSAB) that lets you swap screens on the EFIS and the EMS. The EMS harness has two sets of blue and green wires for DSAB in case you want to use tie two EFISs and one EMS together. I removed both sets of DSAB wiring from pins 34, 35, 36, 37 on the EMS connector. Then I ran the DSAB wires from the EFIS pins 4 and 5 to the EMS connector pins 34 and 35. This made a neat installation without having to splice any wires. The DSAB wires are on the bottom of the connector in the picture.

The next step was to wire the serial to parallel converter box for the blind encoder for the transponder. The Dynon EFIS has a serial encoder output but it wont work with the Garmin GTX-320A transponder. Dynon makes a little converter box to change the serial output to parallel (gray code) so it will work with the transponder.
The converter is much smaller than the altitude encoder it replaces which frees up a lot of room behind our panel.

I already had a 15 pin D sub female connector on the transponder cable, so I went to Frys Electronics and got a 15 pin D sub male connector and pins.
The label on the old altitude encoder has the wiring diagram on it so it was a simple matter of stripping about 1/8 in off each lead, crimping a D sub male pin on each wire.

Each wire is then inserted into the 15 pin male connector.

The next step was to run the 20 ft shield cable for the magnetometer from the Dynon EFIS.

The magnetometer needs to be installed someplace where it is not influenced by metal objects around it. A suggested location is the wing tip. However, we have extended range fuel tanks and strobe power supplies in each wing and tip. We decided to run the wire back into the fuselage and install the magnetometer in one of the back bulkheads.

11/05 Vertical Power Wiring - continued

2007-11-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight after work I wired up the strobes. I put the strobe leads across a battery and measured the current draw with an ampmeter. Both strobe power supplies drew 3.35 amps total. I put each strobe on a separate 5 amp circuit from the CU. I could have put them on one, but I had plenty of spares and decided to use separate wires.

I started wiring up connector J7 on the Control Unit. J7 is a 37 pin D sub connector. The trim controls all use this connector. Pin 13 of this connector is a 1 amp keep alive circuit. This is always hot and I connected pin 13 to the two keep alive circuits on the Dynon EFIs and EMS.

The wiring for the J7 connector comes with the pins already crimped on but not inserted yet in the connector. This allows you to make any changes you want. In our case, the RV-4 has electric roll trim but not pitch trim. So we can use the wires for the roll trim instead of pitch trim and just change the wire numbers on our load planning sheet and program the Control Unit accordingly.

Another option I am considering is to just run a power lead to the roll trim and use the existing wiring temporarilly until I can replace the wire from the aileron servo to the fuselage. There are only 3 wires coming into the fuselage now and there should be 5. The position wires were evidently never ran.

11/04 Vertical Power wiring - continued

2007-11-04T21:36:00.001-07:00

I continued wiring the J3 connector first on the Control Unit. I was originally going to show step by step pictures of each wiring, but decided it wasnt necessary. It has turned out to be a lot easier that I envisioned. Just run the wire to the component that needs the power, cut it the correct length and connect it to the component. The thing I spend the most time on is making sure that the wire is all run together in neat wire runs.

After wiring J3, I wired connectors J4 and J5. The wires that are loose in the picture below are either extras or havent been connected yet. I did not wire up the power to the KY-97 radio yet as we are replacing the radio with a new ICOM A-210 that can monitor the standby freq while monitoring the active channel. Some questions and options came up that we have to sort through before we wire it. The ICOM comes with two different backplates and connectors that you can choose between. It also has a built in voice activated intercom. If we use it, it would eliminate the PS1000-II that we currently use.

We reused the firewall penetration holes that were left after removing the vacuum pump fittings and the tach cables. These firewall penetration fittings were intended to be used for throttle and mixture cables, but they work great for wiring as well. Just cut off the long end that sticks out and smooth all of the surfaces. The center part will get filled with fire proof putty as a last step.

Al came over today and volunteered to hook up the Dynon EMS probes for CHT and EGT. This saved me about 1/2 day of work. Thanks Al!

The picture below shows the EGT fitting that goes is the bottom of each cylinder.

The EGT fittings go in the side of each exhaust pipe. The plane already had one EGT of cylinder 3. It was 1 3/4 inches below the cylinder, so Al placed all of the EGT probes at the same distance.

After connector J5 was wired up, we started on connector J6 (on right side of Control Unit.

The picture below shows the ground bus tab. There are 24 connectors on it and about half are used so far. Its going to be close as to whether we have enough tabs or not. All wire ties are temp fittings just to hold wiring in place during the install process.

The items that are left to wire on the Control Unit because of questions are:
ICOM A210 power,
2 Strobe power supplies (not sure how much power they pull each),
Roll trim (wiring from aileron servo does not have all 5 wires)

11/02 VP-100 wiring start

2007-11-02T21:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight I started wiring the VP-100 Control Unit.
I have already created a load planning worksheet. In it you assign all of your power loads to different pins on the Control Unit.

I started with the J3 Power cable. The wires come in different lengths for different applications.

Each wire is stamped with its function. If it is dedicated, it has the name of the function on it, or the number from the load planning sheet so you can cross reference it. Power wires are red, ground wires are black and data wires are white.

The number of each wire is stamped on the back of the connector also.

I wired the flaps first. Pins 1 and 2 from J3 are dedicated to the flaps. I decided to replace all of the wire running to the flaps with the supplied wiring from Vertical Power instead of just splicing into it. I used knife edge connectors instead of soldering or crimping connectors because I have had to remove the flap motor in the past and wanted to be able to remove it again without cutting wires.

A couple of pieces of shrink tubing was applied and shrunk over each connector.

The mag/start switch was rewired next. The existing magneto grounds were left alone. The wiring from the battery was replaced with wiring from the Control Unit to the switch. There was enough wiring left after this to replace the wiring from the mag/start switch to the starter solenoid with the correct labeled wire.

11/1 More panel work

2007-11-01T20:58:00.001-07:00

Drilled the radio stack holes to No 30 and disassembled radio stack from panel. Countersunk holes in panel and riveted radio stack brackets to panel. Reattached radio stack to panel and temp fitted in aircraft.

The bracket that held the VP-100 was hitting the top radio stack after the panel was reattached. I removed an inch from the VP-100 support brackets and moved the bracket that held the VP-100 forward about an inch. Now nothing is touching.

I can move the VP-100 to the right instead on having it centered on the bracket.
The two pictures below show the different locations looking down on the VP-100.

If I move the VP-100 to the right it gives a lot more clearance but I lose a little access on the right side to items below the VP-100 like the brakes and rudders. However, the VP-100 can easily be unhooked and removed to allow access in the future, if access is needed. I am going to run these two scenarios by Vertical Power and see what they think.

10/31 Creating a new radio stack

2007-10-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

The first step after removing the trays from the aircraft is to remove all of the existing attach brackets. The radios were mounted in separate locations in a subpanel under the instrument panel. Now they will be in one stack in the instrument panel since a lot of room has been freed up.

2 -3" pieces of 3/4 angle were used to make the side angles. Side angles were drilled and attached to the trays with 8/32 screws and lock-nuts.

Radio stack was temp fitted to instrument panel and the final hole for the radio stack was enlarged slightly to allow the stack to fit at the top.

10/30 Wiring the programming cable for the VP-100

2007-10-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

The programming cable for the Vertical Power VP-100 comes in kit form. Basically, a coiled cable with two telephone jack ends. One of the ends has to be adapted to a 9 pin d sub serial connector.

Here a picture of the tools I used to rewire the cable.
Not shown is also a DVM that is used to check the continuity of the connection.

The first step is to cut off the head of one of the telephone jacks.
Its critical that you don't cut off the wrong connector as the wires are reversed on it.
VP supplied a color photo of the jack so you can identify which one to cut.
Yellow wire has to be on left with clip on top as shown in the photo.

Trim back the black insulation about 2 inches.
You should have 4 wires: yellow, green red and black.
If you look close at the photo below, you will only see 3.
That's because the black wire had stuck to the black insulation and I cut it off when I removed the insulation. So I have to cut off the rest of the wires and strip back another 2 inches of insulation.
The green wire isn't used so it is cut off.

About 1/8 inch of insulation is removed from the three remaining wires to expose the copper wires.

The exposed wire is pushed into the D sub pins that Vertical Power supplied and crimped with a D sub crimper. I got mine at Fry's Electronics for $26.95.

The three crimped pins are inserted into a 9 pin D sub connector into pins 2, 3 and 5 which I believe is a standard serial arrangement for TX, RX and Ground.

The cover is attached around the connector. Hopefully screwed together instead of screwed up.

10/30 Fab VP bracket , continue teardown of old panel

2007-10-30T23:08:00.000-07:00

I riveted in platenuts for the attach brackets for the Vertical Power Vp-100. The installation manual says to use at least 2 screws to hold the VP-100. I used 4, one on each end. The attach brackets were primered and put aside to dry.

Heres how the brackets look when they are attached to the VP-100 Control Unit.

The attach brackets are fitted to their final position. If this was a new RV, it looks like it could be mounted on its side right against the inside of the firewall. This would free up a lot of room. However, there is already too much interference with stuff already mounted for us to use that location.

Continued work on removing all electrical wiring, breakers, switches that are not longer used.
The bulkhead just forward of the panel had to be removed because it interfered with the new radio stack.
The two pictures below shows everything removed that is not going to be used or tied into the new systems.

If you look at the middle right side panel in the picture below, the two Cessna style red rocker switches for power and alternator are gone, as well as all of the other switches. Everything is done through the VP-100 except we will continue to use our keyed mag switch. We ae going to have to make a cover plate to hide all of the empty spots on this panel.

10/29 Dynon EFIS and EMS installed

2007-10-29T22:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight after work, I installed the Dynon EMS senders that came with the kit. I already had senders on the aircraft but am not sure if some of them are compatible with the Dynon EMS or not so replaced them all with the Dynon senders.
The Dynon senders included the oil pressure sender, oil temperature sender, fuel pressure sender and manifold pressure sender.
None of them matched the existing senders so had to redo mounting and connections for each one.
I also wired up the power to the Dynon EMS and took a picture with both units on.
The existing circuit breakers/switches in the picture below are all being removed and being replaced by the Vertical Power VP-100.

The two Dynon units replaced all of the units in the picture below. The Dynon units also have extra features that the existing panel didnt have as well such as relative wind direction and speed, AOA, TAS, 4 cylinder EGT and CHT monitoring, leaning function, etc. RV4chick is really going to like her new panel!

Tomorrow the fun starts as the VP100 Control Unit will be installed in its final position and the wiring of the Control unit begins.

10/26 New Panel work

2007-10-26T21:05:00.001-07:00

Worked in the hanger for a couple of hours after regular work and finished up most of the work on the new instrument panel. The holes for the radio stack and the VP-100 switch panel are a little undersized yet. Will match to the actual parts when they go in.

10/25 New Panel Cut

2007-10-25T18:56:00.001-07:00

My wife and I have been sick the last couple of days so havent got much done. I was feeling better this afternoon and went out to the hanger and got a big portion of the new panel cut. The holes for the Dynon PFD and EMS, the Trio Autopilot and the VP-100 are rough cut.
Still need to do the cutout for the radio stack and a few small items.
I took a picture, but the camera didnt focus right so its blurry. Will replace with a better picture later.

10/23 Creating the new panel

2007-10-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

We removed all of the instruments from the old panel today so we can use the old panel as a template for the new panel. The curve around the top of the new panel must match the old panel. We are going to try to reuse the old angle from this panel.

The picture below shows the old panel on top of the new panel so the curve can be transferred.

Heres a picture of the new panel with the curve cut and the old angle clecoed onto the new panel. The attach holes for the canopy lock have been match drilled into the new panel as well as the attach holes to mount the panel to the fuselage side panels.

10/22 Relocating Wiring

2007-10-22T18:35:00.001-07:00

Today we started relocating the wiring and equipment in front of the panel.
We need to make room somewhere to put the Control Unit (Red box in the picture below). The Control Unit is the heart of the Vertical Power system. All of our electrical power will connect to this box.

We removed the vacuum pump filter, regulator and hoses from the instrument bay.
The vacuum pump was removed from the engine. When the vacuum pump is removed, it either needs a cover plate installed on the accessory panel to take its place or a SD-8 gear driven aux alternator can be installed. The SD-8 is an eight amp aux alternator that is engaged if the main alternator ever fails. See http://www.bandc.biz/SD8desc.html.
The Lycoming part number for the vacuum pump cover is 60430. ECI sells them for around $26 and their part number is AEL60430. The spacers for the cover are part number 68593.

We relocated some of the electrical components to make room in the bay.
The below pictures shows the VP Control Unit temporarily mounted in the bay.
The final location may change a little. We are planning on moving the radio and transponder up from the subpanel into the main panel after the Dynon engine monitor is installed and we remove all of the analog engine instruments.

10/22 Start of Conversion

2007-10-20T20:51:00.001-07:00

We decided to document the changes in upgrading from a classic 6 pack analog instrument cluster to a Dynon EFIS (Electronic Flight Information System ) and a Dynon EMS (Engine Monitoring System) (see www.dynonavionics.com) at the same time we upgrade all of the electrical system to use the new Vertical Power VP-100 electrical control system. See www.verticalpower.com for info about their system. This basically means we will be gutting our panel and electrical system for a complete retrofit to a more modern glass cockpit and electrical system.

The picture below shows our current RV-4 panel before the start of upgrade. It consists of a standard 6 pack, Trio AP, various analog engine gauges, Fuel flow computer, Dayton density altitude computer and breaker switches.
A radio, transponder and intercom are located on a subpanel underneath the main panel.

The picture below shows the left side of the aircraft in front of the instrument panel.

The picture below shows the right side of the aircraft in front of the instrument panel.
You can see its real packed and lots of wiring everywhere.

The original plan was to put the Dynon EFIS-D10A in the top center part of the six pack. Upon measuring the room, we found out that the Dynon will overlap both of the instruments to the left and the right. The Dynon EFIS-10a is 4.09 in wide.

We decided to remove the turn coordinator and the vertical airspeed indicators and move the airspeed and altimeters down to the lower six pack.

The picture below shows the panel with the Dynon EFIS mounted and the airspeed and altimeter relocated. The Dynon EFIS is powered off a temporary connector because we didn't want to do the final sizing on the wiring until the VP-100 system is installed. It only takes 2 wires to run the EFIS, a power and a ground. A third keep-alive power wire will keep the clock set to the correct time.

In programming the EFIS, we found out that we have the version 2.19 firmware installed. Dynon just released the version 4.0 firmware on Oct 15th. To upgrade to the latest firmware, we are going to have to install 3 more wires in our temporary connector to connect to a 9 pin sub D serial connector so we can download the version 4.0 firmware from a laptop PC. We want to upgrade to version 4 because it enables the Dynon smart avionics bus so we can easily show different screens between our EFIS and EMS monitors.