June 21, 2005

I stopped by the hangar tonight on the way home from work. A first for a long time. I had made some wire markers at home last night, so I could finish up the cabin wiring for the FADEC.

I spoke to the guys at Aerosance today to ask about my switch set up. Turns out, that’s what they do on the STC for the Beech Bonanza, so looks like I’m on the right track! Magic!

Tonight I labeled the wires going to the switches and the FADEC busses. I also got all the ECU 1 wiring out of the way. Here’s a pic showing what’s going on.

The fuse block on the left is FADEC bus #1, and on the right is FADEC bus #2. So far, I have ECU 1 wired. This comprises four wires paired up with their respective grounds, PWR & GND A, PWR & GND B, SSA PWR & GND A, and SSA PWR & GND B. You can see the power wires going to the busses. All the PWR A’s are heading to Bus #1, and all the PWR B wires are heading to Bus #2. This provides redundancy if a power supply path should fail. A similar thing is done with the grounds. My ground block has two strips connected to a plate. Each strip has two rows of connectors. It’s the typical B&C ground block. All my GND A’s go to one of the strips, and all my GND B’s go to the other. That way, if one should come off by a freak of nature, then in theory, the other should keep the whole thing alive, including the pilot & passenger!

I still have ECU 2 to do, and the HSA (health status annunciator). These also have redundant PWR & GND’s. By the time I’m done with this, there’ll be a lot more wires connected to these busses! I ran out of 2 amp fuses too, so I need to go get some some time. I’ll be stopping by tomorrow to wire ECU 2 and maybe I’ll have time to get the HSA done too.