May 13, 2004

Yesterday, I ordered the standby regulator from B&C. Man, this stuff is adding up. $268! Wow. Then, there’s an installation kit too for another $228! Ouch! I didn’t bother ordering the installation kit for fear of the wife… I did order a dimmer though too!

Tonight, I got to the hangar and started the Co-Pilot stick. I found a perfect solution (or near perfect) for the connection. I need to connect 16 wires, but three are grounds, and can be linked together making a requirement for a 14 pin plug. I managed to find a 13 pin DIN plug! The outside has a grounding shell, so effectively making it a 14 pin! Perfect! So, I started soldering. Now this took forever! All the little solder cups were so close together. Anyways, the end result turned out pretty good.

Unfortunately, in my excitement, I forgot to snap a picture of the connector on the cable before sticking it in the stick. I’m sure you can imagine it… It’s like an audio/video connector. Not sure why 13 pins would be necessary, but it worked for me. Here’s a shot of it in the stick base. I’ll be leaving it sticking out a bit on the base and the stick, then when the stick is connected, it’ll push up into the stick itself due to flex in the wires. Stick, stick, stick… I used this word a lot in this paragraph didn’t I?!