As I work on the cowl fiberglass work, I will do a layup, set it off to the side and then move to wiring work. Whenever you are doing fiberglass work, you need to have a supplemental job going at the same time so you can switch off and stay busy.
So, my next accomplishment was getting the Dynon 262 transponder up and running and configured. Although hard to read, this screen shows the transponder updating on the SkyView after being detected on the network. Since my n-number is now 'live', I was able to go to the FAA website and get my unique transponder code and input it into the SkyView. As far as I can tell, I am good to go...I did not roll it out of the hangar for an actual test, but everything looks good.
Next I moved onto getting the Vertical power to come up on the SkyView. First step is 'finding' the VP-X on the appropriate serial port. I did this, or thought I did...you need to see incoming and outgoing 'packets'...which I thought I saw. When I went to the "Engine" page and then hit the VP-X button it said "Vertical Power Offline". Crap!
I sent emails to Marc at Vertical Power and also Dynon support with no luck. Then, I decided to check my wiring. Sure enough I had wired Tx(Transmit)-Tx(Transmit) and Rx(Receive)-Rx(Receive), instead of the correct way of Tx-Rx. This is an easy mistake to make when you get in the mode of red wire goes to red wire, yellow wire goes to yellow wire, Tx goes to Tx...d'oh, no it doesn't! My only excuse is, I wired this way back when I was a "rookie". For the wiring rookies out there, always remember for data lines Tx goes to Rx.
Once I swapped these around, up came my Vertical Power screen. So cool! You can see the green checkmarks indicate which devices are powered up and their current draw. I can toggle through these and turn them on/off at will. This can serve as your 'E-buss' pretty easily (which I don't have because of this). If I have an in-flight problem where I need to shed load...I can pick and choose what equipment I need for that particular flight emergency. I also tested the 'short' feature...although not intentionally. :) A red box comes up on the screen that says "short" and the device shuts down when the electronic circuit breaker 'pops'. You hit the "reset" button and then turn it back on and you are back in business lickity split! Love this technology.
Of course, another gratuitous shot of the panel and lighting fired up...this always makes me smile. I am working through each piece of equipment, one by one, and getting the wiring finalized. Next up are the A/P servos...
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