---------------------------------------------------------- AeroElectric-List Digest Archive --- Total Messages Posted Sun 01/23/11: 20 ---------------------------------------------------------- Today's Message Index: ---------------------- 1. 05:18 AM - Re: Off topic electric drag racer (Harley) 2. 06:51 AM - Re: tool multitasking (Noel Loveys) 3. 08:18 AM - Re: Off topic electric drag racer (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 4. 08:37 AM - Re: tool multitasking (DeWitt Whittington) 5. 09:22 AM - Re: tool multitasking (Robert Borger) 6. 10:25 AM - Re: Off topic electric drag racer (Jim Berry) 7. 10:36 AM - Re: Off topic electric drag racer (Terry Watson) 8. 11:32 AM - Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? (Bob Falstad) 9. 01:35 PM - Manifold Pressure Tranducers (Richard Reynolds) 10. 02:03 PM - Re: Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 11. 02:04 PM - Re: Manifold Pressure Tranducers (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 12. 03:49 PM - Re: Off topic electric drag racer (Noel Loveys) 13. 04:08 PM - Re: tool multitasking (Noel Loveys) 14. 04:30 PM - Re: tool multitasking (DeWitt Whittington) 15. 05:47 PM - Re: tool multitasking (Noel Loveys) 16. 06:43 PM - Re: Off topic electric drag racer (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 17. 06:48 PM - Re: tool multitasking (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 18. 07:07 PM - Re: Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? (Robert L. Nuckolls, III) 19. 07:27 PM - Re: Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? (Dj Merrill) 20. 08:06 PM - Re: Off topic electric drag racer (Robert Mitchell) ________________________________ Message 1 _____________________________________ Time: 05:18:15 AM PST US From: Harley Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Off topic electric drag racer He switched from lead acid to lithium batteries in 2010...that's what he used to get his latest world quarter mile speed record. Kilocycle loaned him the batteries...here's a page from his website that lists all the features and details of this Datsun...type of batteries, motor, controller, etc. www.plasmaboyracing.com/history/2010.php I remember seeing an article back in the 60s or 70s in Popular Mechanics or Mechanix Illustrated that outlined installing a jet engine starter motor to replace the gas engine in a sport car. I almost tried it as I only had a five mile drive to work...! Harley ----------------------------------------------------------------- On 1/22/2011 10:20 PM, Robert Mitchell wrote: > So, what are the Batteries here? > > Bob Mitchell > L-320 > >> >> >> >> If a little guy in a home garage can make this, what are >> all the big car makers doing in all their giant labs? >> www.opb.org/programs/ofg/videos/view/56-Electric-Drag-Racing >> >> >> > * > > > * ________________________________ Message 2 _____________________________________ Time: 06:51:35 AM PST US From: "Noel Loveys" Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking If you want to see what the off type crimper will do to a D sub din just try it... but get an extra pin first. I don't think you will try again. When I trained we were told to try it. We even tried non-ratcheting crimpers and just about anything else you can imagine. What worked was the right crimper with the right size jaws for the right pin. Do you guys use coloured wire or white printed wire and if you use the printed stuff where do you get it printed? Noel From: owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com [mailto:owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Tim Andres Sent: January 22, 2011 12:58 PM Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking I'm cheap also, but I saved several thousand dollars over having this panel built for me. One of the panel builders qouted me $8K to build the panel and wire it with power only. That did not include the avionics interconnects. So I bought the Daniels crimpers with the proper positioners for about $200, and spent about 3 weeks doing it myself including having the panel CNC cut. I believe to crimp the HD pins you need the Daniels crimper (or equivalent) Tim Andres _____ From: Charlie England Sent: Sat, January 22, 2011 7:48:59 AM Subject: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking OK, I'm cheap. Is there any chance that the B&C RCT-2 crimper will crimp regular &/or hi-density d-sub pins? If so, I can just buy the RCT-2 instead of both it and the RCT-3. Will the RCT-3 crimp the hi-density d-sub pins, or is one of the +$100 tools needed for those? Thanks, Charlie http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElect.matronics.com/contribution " rel=nofollow ====== AeroElectric-List Email Forum - Matronics List Features Navigator to browse utilities such as List Un/Subscription, Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, much much more: http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List ________________________________ Message 3 _____________________________________ Time: 08:18:36 AM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Off topic electric drag racer > >I remember seeing an article back in the 60s or 70s in Popular >Mechanics or Mechanix Illustrated that outlined installing a jet >engine starter motor to replace the gas engine in a sport car. I >almost tried it as I only had a five mile drive to work...! I think it was Mother Earth magazine that published a number of articles on gas to electric conversions. They became popular DIY projects in the 70's and 80's. I think I recall somebody in the aviation industry complaining that a particular starter-generator, once prolific in the used/surplus market was hard to find, "all those electric car guys snapped them up". No doubt production electric cars of the future will have brushless DC motors at each wheel. Drive train transmissions will evaporate. Indeed, the electric airplane projects are brushless motors too. These motors lend themselves to higher voltage operations which keeps I(squared)R losses down. Lower currents help offset trade off for Li-Ion with very high energy densities but higher internal resistances in the cells. It's a big hat dance around the simple-ideas in physics that drive the quest for a successful recipe . . . where success is measured in market acceptance (pure economics). The cool thing is that we can sit back and watch somebody else's time/talent/resources being expended at the hat dance. As with many 'automotive' products that found their way onto our airplanes, products that arise from these new technologies will have millions of road-miles on them before we need to spend out time/talent/resources figuring how to best benefit us in the air. The micro-controller was field-tested in millions of personal computing products and coffee pots before an EFIS system became a gleam in somebody's eye. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 4 _____________________________________ Time: 08:37:57 AM PST US From: DeWitt Whittington Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking All, On our Sportsman 2+2 we have been using a Dymo Rhino 3000 printer and use the Rhino printable heat shrink and labels. It does a smashing job of allowing us to put any text label on our wires which we do on each end. The printer prints on the flat heatshrink available in colors, so we can color code white wire and label in plain English or any sort of code we want. Not cheap but very professional. We use some basic wire colors too to generally delineate power/ground/signal wires. Dee Whittington At 09:48 AM 1/23/2011, you wrote: >Do you guys use coloured wire or white printed wire and if you use >the printed stuff where do you get it printed? > >Noel > DeWitt (Dee) Whittington 406 N Mulberry St Richmond, VA 23220-3320 (804) 358-4333 phone and fax SKYPE: hilltopkid dee.whittington@gmail.com ________________________________ Message 5 _____________________________________ Time: 09:22:05 AM PST US From: Robert Borger Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking Y'all, Same solution I was going to suggest. Works great. Bob Borger Europa Kit #A221 N914XL, XS Tri-Gear, Intercooled 914, Airmaster C/S Prop http://www.europaowners.org/forums/gallery2.php?g2_itemId=60232 http://www.biplaneforumgallery.com/index.php?cat=10046 Europa Flying! 3705 Lynchburg Dr. Corinth, TX 76208 Home: 940-497-2123 Cel: 817-992-1117 On Jan 23, 2011, at 10:32, DeWitt Whittington wrote: > All, > > On our Sportsman 2+2 we have been using a Dymo Rhino 3000 printer and use the Rhino printable heat shrink and labels. It does a smashing job of allowing us to put any text label on our wires which we do on each end. The printer prints on the flat heatshrink available in colors, so we can color code white wire and label in plain English or any sort of code we want. Not cheap but very professional. We use some basic wire colors too to generally delineate power/ground/signal wires. > > Dee Whittington > > > At 09:48 AM 1/23/2011, you wrote: > >> Do you guys use coloured wire or white printed wire and if you use the printed stuff where do you get it printed? >> >> Noel >> > DeWitt (Dee) Whittington > 406 N Mulberry St > Richmond, VA 23220-3320 > (804) 358-4333 phone and fax > SKYPE: hilltopkid > dee.whittington@gmail.com > > > > ________________________________ Message 6 _____________________________________ Time: 10:25:51 AM PST US Subject: AeroElectric-List: Re: Off topic electric drag racer From: "Jim Berry" If you liked Bill Dube's electric motorcycle dragster, wait till you see their new electric Bonneville racer. It will take a longer extension cord though. Jim Berry RV-10 Read this topic online here: http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=328054#328054 ________________________________ Message 7 _____________________________________ Time: 10:36:54 AM PST US From: "Terry Watson" Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: Off topic electric drag racer Way back in the 1950's, my Dad had an electric feed cart that we used on our mink ranch. The motor was the starter-generator out of a 1928 Dodge. I remember that when he decided to buy the semi-custom cart from a company in California, he and Mom drove the station wagon from 100 miles north of Seattle south, stopping at junk yards along the way looking for '28 Dodge starter-generators. By the time they got to the manufacturer's facilities in California, they had enough of them to swap for the feed cart. The cart had a couple of truck batteries in it. I think I remember it had a chain drive from the motor to a differential with the drive wheels in the back, with a single wheel in the front steered by a vertical tiller with a handle at the top that fit between my legs when I got tall enough. You stood on a platform at the back that was the forward-reverse and speed control. Lean forward for forward; back to stop or reverse. Leaning to the side turned the front wheel. We typically hauled maybe 200 pounds of mink feed on it. It was a very useful little vehicle around the ranch, but it didn't do well on rough ground. Terry Seattle From: owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com [mailto:owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Robert L. Nuckolls, III Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 7:14 AM Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Off topic electric drag racer I remember seeing an article back in the 60s or 70s in Popular Mechanics or Mechanix Illustrated that outlined installing a jet engine starter motor to replace the gas engine in a sport car. I almost tried it as I only had a five mile drive to work...! I think it was Mother Earth magazine that published a number of articles on gas to electric conversions. They became popular DIY projects in the 70's and 80's. I think I recall somebody in the aviation industry complaining that a particular starter-generator, once prolific in the used/surplus market was hard to find, "all those electric car guys snapped them up". No doubt production electric cars of the future will have brushless DC motors at each wheel. Drive train transmissions will evaporate. Indeed, the electric airplane projects are brushless motors too. These motors lend themselves to higher voltage operations which keeps I(squared)R losses down. Lower currents help offset trade off for Li-Ion with very high energy densities but higher internal resistances in the cells. It's a big hat dance around the simple-ideas in physics that drive the quest for a successful recipe . . . where success is measured in market acceptance (pure economics). The cool thing is that we can sit back and watch somebody else's time/talent/resources being expended at the hat dance. As with many 'automotive' products that found their way onto our airplanes, products that arise from these new technologies will have millions of road-miles on them before we need to spend out time/talent/resources figuring how to best benefit us in the air. The micro-controller was field-tested in millions of personal computing products and coffee pots before an EFIS system became a gleam in somebody's eye. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 8 _____________________________________ Time: 11:32:49 AM PST US From: Bob Falstad Subject: AeroElectric-List: Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? Bob, et al, I'm upgrading/replacing the instrument panel in my GlaStar. Part of the project includes the installation of a Comant CI-122 "bent whip" antenna on the belly under the baggage compartment area. This antenna will be my "Comm 1" antenna and will be connected to a Garmin 430W. Because of the composite fuselage, I installed a 24" x 36" Al ground plane in the belly. The antenna is positioned so that the entire antenna is "covered" by the ground plane (i.e., the antenna base is mounted about 12" from the long-axis end of the ground plane. The antenna is connected (and bonded) to the ground plane with the four stainless machine screws used to mount the antenna. A friend who is a ham/EE/PE tested this antenna for SWR and he wasn't very encouraged by the results. Here are the data: Equipment: Bird Watt Meter with (slug?) 5C at 5W, 100 - 250 Mhz 100W Dummy Load: Decibel DB4303G We used my Yaesu handheld as the transmitter. Everything was coupled together with BNC connectors. Test 1: 122.9 MHz (the CTAF at my base): Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.43; VSWR 6.5 Test 2: 125.0 MHz Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.4; VSWR 5.8 Test 3: 130.0 MHz Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.4; VSWR 5.8 We checked the resistance between the four mounting screws and the outside (ground?) of a BNC connector connected to the antenna. The resistances were all ~0.1 Ohm. The Bird meter was connected directly to the antenna BNC through my buddy's feedline which appeared to be about 4 feet long. I don't know what type of coax he used. (The feedline for this antenna to the 430W will be RG-400.) The test was done in a closed metal hangar. Would that or the proximity of the antenna to the concrete hangar floor affect the results? What's your take on this? Should the SWR be significantly lower for good performance (I plan on flying this plane in IMC)? Are there things that I should/could do to improve performance before I put the baggage compartment structure back in and make things much less accessible? Or should this installation/SWR readings indicate acceptable performance? With these SWR readings, will the reflected power cause any damage to the Garmin 430W? Does testing the SWR of a "cat's-whisker" VOR/Loc/GS antenna make sense? I installed one of those, as well, but the feedline (the yellow tri-ax that comes with GlaStars) wasn't terminated on the radio end. If it makes sense to do so, I can go back and test it after I've terminated that feedline. Thanks in advance. Best regards, Bob Falstad GlaStar N248BF ~310 Hours ________________________________ Message 9 _____________________________________ Time: 01:35:16 PM PST US From: Richard Reynolds Subject: AeroElectric-List: Manifold Pressure Tranducers Will the manifold pressure transducers hold vacuum when vacuum tested? I have one for the Rocky Mountain Instruments uMonitor and one for the Lightspeed CDI system. Richard Reynolds Norfolk VA RV-6A - N841RV ________________________________ Message 10 ____________________________________ Time: 02:03:25 PM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? Test 1: 122.9 MHz (the CTAF at my base): Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.43; VSWR 6.5 Test 2: 125.0 MHz Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.4; VSWR 5.8 Test 3: 130.0 MHz Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.4; VSWR 5.8 We checked the resistance between the four mounting screws and the outside (ground?) of a BNC connector connected to the antenna. The resistances were all ~0.1 Ohm. The Bird meter was connected directly to the antenna BNC through my buddy's feedline which appeared to be about 4 feet long. I don't know what type of coax he used. (The feedline for this antenna to the 430W will be RG-400.) The test was done in a closed metal hangar. Would that or the proximity of the antenna to the concrete hangar floor affect the results? Some but I don't think all that much. What's your take on this? Should the SWR be significantly lower for good performance (I plan on flying this plane in IMC)? Are there things that I should/could do to improve performance before I put the baggage compartment structure back in and make things much less accessible? Or should this installation/SWR readings indicate acceptable performance? Could be. We need to consider the effects of making measurements on the transmitter end of a piece of coax when studying the characteristics of a particular load (antenna). The only time a piece of coax will show 1:1 SWR is when the OTHER end is terminated in a load having the same characteristic impedance. In this case 50 ohms resistive and no reactive component. Consider also that the antenna's characteristics measured at the base may never be exactly 50 ohms and it may include reactive components (inductance/ capacitance) as well. Just went to the bench and fabricated this test article. Emacs! It's 22" of 12AWG copper soldered to a BNC chassis connector mounted to approximate center of a copper sheet 24 x 36 inches. The investigative instrument of choice is the MFJ-259 antenna analyzer. Here is a chart of measurement results: Emacs! A fine wire, 1/4 wave radiator has a resonance base impedance that is quite low. As you can see, at 126 MHz and minimized feedline, the reactive component of this antenna went down to 0 ohms (resonance) and the resistive component was about 12 ohms. Hmmm . . . 12/50 explains the 4:1 SWR reading that was observed. So in terms of best performance (resonance) this antenna is rather crippled for accepting all the power that a 50 ohm feedline has to offer. At the extreme ends of the comm band, the reactive and resistive components did their expected hat dances with SWR readings that never got better than about 3:1 at any frequency. Okay, let's put a piece of "test coax" between the antenna and instrument. SWR figures got better over the range of interest although resistive and reactive components became a bit more agitated. This is because of the effects of frequency on a mismatched piece of coax can be profound in terms of what is viewed looking into the same end as your transceiver. We take advantage of these "transforming" effects offered by mis-matched transmission lines but in the case before us, there's no particular advantage to be gained. The question to be answered is "how much practical difference does it make?" Interestingly enough, the longer a transmission line, the BETTER things get. This is because of losses in the line. You can hook your transponder to one end of a 1000' spool of the best coax out there and it wouldn't know if the other end was open, shorted, or had a good antenna on it. Even if there WAS a good antenna on it, no practical amount of energy would even reach it due to transmission line losses. So back to your quest and questions: The effective testing for antenna systems generaly assumes that the antenna itself is okay. It MAY have some pretty squirrely characteristics . . . but that's how monopole-quarterwave antennas are. So is your feedline good? Put a dummy load on the antenna end of the feedline and check SWR over frequency range of interest from the transceiver end. Since you've terminated the feedline in a value it LIKES, the SWR should be 1:1 over full frequency range. If the feed path is compromised with opens or shorts, the SWR will not be 1:1 at any frequency and will wobble all over the place as frequency changes. But if the antenna is not damaged, the mounting hardware is tight, the ground-plane moderately adequate, then consider it good. Now, it is useful to make SWR observations over range of interest when the installation is new and write them down. Use them as a benchmark for future reference if you ever have a reason to question antenna performance. With these SWR readings, will the reflected power cause any damage to the Garmin 430W? No. Modern transceivers have built in protection for poor performing loads . . . up to and including shorted and open transmission lines. Does testing the SWR of a "cat's-whisker" VOR/Loc/GS antenna make sense? Sure. But keep in mind that SWR is a measure of the antenna's ability to accept/deliver energy and says nothing about operational performance. I've seen antennas with 'terrible' SWR out-perform antennas with 'excellent' swr but for reasons other than impedance matching. Do separate dummy loaded and antenna loaded measurements of the as-installed antenna and associated feedline. Hooking any sort of analyzer to the antenna itself will yield good data but it will be data that has little or no significance in terms of performance. Given what we know of your system based on data you cited, I have no reason to suspect that anything is amiss. It would be good to get forward/reverse power measurements of the as-installed antenna and feedline. Check THESE numbers against manufacturer's limits in the installation manual. A caveat: Your own results may vary. Some commercial antennas MAY have impedance transformation networks built in that are intended to improve power transfer over the range of interest. Further, the test I just demonstrated is a fine-wire antenna . . . sharply resonant compared to say a piece of 1/2" tubing which would be broader (and harder to mount plus more drag) Shark fin antennas on air-transport category airplanes have impedance matching in the base and 'broadness' in the radiating components. Finally, keep in mind that Cessna and others fitted their products with antennas that looked a lot like this: Emacs! Tens of thousands of antennas went out the factory doors with this or similar configuration. This was in a time when radios were MUCH less capable in terms of sensitivity and signal/noise ratio of modern avionics. The upshot is that it's more important to BE CONNECTED to what ever antenna you have than it is to massage measured or perceived performance. No antenna is bad, any antenna is probably good. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 11 ____________________________________ Time: 02:04:54 PM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Manifold Pressure Tranducers At 04:29 PM 1/23/2011, you wrote: > > >Will the manifold pressure transducers hold vacuum when vacuum tested? > >I have one for the Rocky Mountain Instruments uMonitor and one for >the Lightspeed CDI system. I've never encountered any pressure transducer that was not 'air tight' to the environment. It sorta hoses performance. Yes, you can test by pulling a vacuum and watching for leaks. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 12 ____________________________________ Time: 03:49:30 PM PST US From: "Noel Loveys" Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: Off topic electric drag racer Snip No doubt production electric cars of the future will have brushless DC motors at each wheel. Drive train transmissions will evaporate. Indeed, the electric airplane projects are brushless motors too. These motors lend themselves to higher voltage operations which keeps I(squared)R losses down. . Years ago I think it was Popular Science had a story on a vehicle with that particular drive. Theirs was a 6X6. Snip The cool thing is that we can sit back and watch somebody else's time/talent/resources being expended at the hat dance. As with many 'automotive' products that found their way onto our airplanes, products that arise from these new technologies will have millions of road-miles on them before we need to spend out time/talent/resources figuring how to best benefit us in the air. Bob, I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention the serious work thousands of amateur radio buffs did on digital controls let alone digital emissions. I still remember sending full colour photographs around the world through a 1 khz bandwidth. Noel ________________________________ Message 13 ____________________________________ Time: 04:08:22 PM PST US From: "Noel Loveys" Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking Great to hear. Problem with coloured wires is of course getting a fool up between a red wire with a green trace and a red wire with a blue trace (colour blindness) and or the red wire with the yellow trace and the yellow wire with the red trace. I like number codes... Eg. Charging circuits may be all marked 1- the next number in the code will be the piece in the run so if you have a firewall through put the second piece of wire to your regulator/rectifier could be 1-2. Then from the rectifier to the master switches could be 1-2-1. Makes things so easy to follow on a schematic as well as in the plane. The white colour allows you to see any heat problems. Being a bit old school... Make that a lot old school... I'd like to see the inventor of nylon tie wraps severely flogged with a piece of his own tie wrap. I wish I had a penny for every time I gashed my hands or arms on that stuff. Wax string and Cora Seal is a lot neater but does take a bit more time to do properly. Noel From: owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com [mailto:owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of DeWitt Whittington Sent: January 23, 2011 1:03 PM Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking All, On our Sportsman 2+2 we have been using a Dymo Rhino 3000 printer and use the Rhino printable heat shrink and labels. It does a smashing job of allowing us to put any text label on our wires which we do on each end. The printer prints on the flat heatshrink available in colors, so we can color code white wire and label in plain English or any sort of code we want. Not cheap but very professional. We use some basic wire colors too to generally delineate power/ground/signal wires. Dee Whittington At 09:48 AM 1/23/2011, you wrote: Do you guys use coloured wire or white printed wire and if you use the printed stuff where do you get it printed? Noel DeWitt (Dee) Whittington 406 N Mulberry St Richmond, VA 23220-3320 (804) 358-4333 phone and fax SKYPE: hilltopkid dee.whittington@gmail.com ________________________________ Message 14 ____________________________________ Time: 04:30:53 PM PST US From: DeWitt Whittington Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking No, Noel, We do not use colored wires with color traces. Only easy to distinguish solid colors and only a few of those. The detail we leave to the plain English or as desired coded printed heat shrink labels placed everywhere as needed. Agree cord is the best, but our Ty-Wraps (we only use that brand by Thomas & Betts) we cut totally flush with a special pair of diagonal cutters easily available on the market. No sliced hands so far. Dee At 07:04 PM 1/23/2011, you wrote: >Great to hear. > >Problem with coloured wires is of course getting a fowl up between a >red wire with a green trace and a red wire with a blue trace (colour >blindness) and or the red wire with the yellow trace and the yellow >wire with the red trace. > >I like number codes... Eg. Charging circuits may be all marked >1- the next number in the code will be the piece in the run so if >you have a firewall through put the second piece of wire to your >regulator/rectifier could be 1-2. Then from the rectifier to the >master switches could be 1-2-1. Makes things so easy to follow on a >schematic as well as in the plane. The white colour allows you to >see any heat problems. > >Being a bit old school... Make that a lot old school... I'd like to >see the inventor of nylon tie wraps severely flogged with a piece of >his own tie wrap. I wish I had a penny for every time I gashed my >hands or arms on that stuff. Wax string and Cora Seal is a lot >neater but does take a bit more time to do properly. > >Noel > >From: owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com >[mailto:owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of >DeWitt Whittington >Sent: January 23, 2011 1:03 PM >To: aeroelectric-list@matronics.com >Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking > >All, > >On our Sportsman 2+2 we have been using a Dymo Rhino 3000 printer >and use the Rhino printable heat shrink and labels. It does a >smashing job of allowing us to put any text label on our wires which >we do on each end. The printer prints on the flat heatshrink >available in colors, so we can color code white wire and label in >plain English or any sort of code we want. Not cheap but very >professional. We use some basic wire colors too to generally >delineate power/ground/signal wires. > >Dee Whittington > > >At 09:48 AM 1/23/2011, you wrote: > > >Do you guys use coloured wire or white printed wire and if you use >the printed stuff where do you get it printed? > >Noel > >DeWitt (Dee) Whittington >406 N Mulberry St >Richmond, VA 23220-3320 >(804) 358-4333 phone and fax >SKYPE: hilltopkid >dee.whittington@gmail.com > > >http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List > > >http://forums.matronics.com > > >http://www.matronics.com/contribution > > DeWitt (Dee) Whittington 406 N Mulberry St Richmond, VA 23220-3320 (804) 358-4333 phone and fax SKYPE: hilltopkid dee.whittington@gmail.com ________________________________ Message 15 ____________________________________ Time: 05:47:34 PM PST US From: "Noel Loveys" Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking Any tie wraps can be made safe by simply sanding the sharp ends where the excess gets cut off. Too bad not many people take the seconds required to do that. You've been luckier than I have... and I have scars to prove it! Noel From: owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com [mailto:owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of DeWitt Whittington Sent: January 23, 2011 8:56 PM Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking No, Noel, We do not use colored wires with color traces. Only easy to distinguish solid colors and only a few of those. The detail we leave to the plain English or as desired coded printed heat shrink labels placed everywhere as needed. Agree cord is the best, but our Ty-Wraps (we only use that brand by Thomas & Betts) we cut totally flush with a special pair of diagonal cutters easily available on the market. No sliced hands so far. Dee At 07:04 PM 1/23/2011, you wrote: Great to hear. Problem with coloured wires is of course getting a fowl up between a red wire with a green trace and a red wire with a blue trace (colour blindness) and or the red wire with the yellow trace and the yellow wire with the red trace. I like number codes... Eg. Charging circuits may be all marked 1- the next number in the code will be the piece in the run so if you have a firewall through put the second piece of wire to your regulator/rectifier could be 1-2. Then from the rectifier to the master switches could be 1-2-1. Makes things so easy to follow on a schematic as well as in the plane. The white colour allows you to see any heat problems. Being a bit old school... Make that a lot old school... I'd like to see the inventor of nylon tie wraps severely flogged with a piece of his own tie wrap. I wish I had a penny for every time I gashed my hands or arms on that stuff. Wax string and Cora Seal is a lot neater but does take a bit more time to do properly. Noel From: owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com [ mailto:owner-aeroelectric-list-server@matronics.com ] On Behalf Of DeWitt Whittington Sent: January 23, 2011 1:03 PM Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking All, On our Sportsman 2+2 we have been using a Dymo Rhino 3000 printer and use the Rhino printable heat shrink and labels. It does a smashing job of allowing us to put any text label on our wires which we do on each end. The printer prints on the flat heatshrink available in colors, so we can color code white wire and label in plain English or any sort of code we want. Not cheap but very professional. We use some basic wire colors too to generally delineate power/ground/signal wires. Dee Whittington At 09:48 AM 1/23/2011, you wrote: Do you guys use coloured wire or white printed wire and if you use the printed stuff where do you get it printed? Noel DeWitt (Dee) Whittington 406 N Mulberry St Richmond, VA 23220-3320 (804) 358-4333 phone and fax SKYPE: hilltopkid dee.whittington@gmail.com http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List http://forums.matronics.com http://www.matronics.com/contribution DeWitt (Dee) Whittington 406 N Mulberry St Richmond, VA 23220-3320 (804) 358-4333 phone and fax SKYPE: hilltopkid dee.whittington@gmail.com ________________________________ Message 16 ____________________________________ Time: 06:43:22 PM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: Off topic electric drag racer > >Bob, I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention the serious work >thousands of amateur radio buffs did on digital controls let alone >digital emissions. I still remember sending full colour photographs >around the world through a 1 khz bandwidth. Yeah, there was a lot of packet work begin done in the late '80s and slow-scan tv predates that by 10 years or more. There are no doubt thousands of examples of 'leading edge' process and technology that laid the groundwork for the future of today's product. But we were talking about systems and components that provide low risk, useful services in the airplane. Development costs need to be amortized over great numbers for them to become insignificant. Little airplanes don't represent much of a market! Our demonstrated reservoir of successful recipes have come from the volume consumer markets. The SVLA battery has been around commercially since 1970 but it wasn't until 1990 that they got a real toe holed in OBAM aviation . . . and only then after the un-interruptible power supply market bloomed. When LORAN was still king and a panel mounted GPS was prohibitively expensive, I bought a perfectly serviceable GPS for airplanes from a Boat US catalog for $200. I didn't mean to 'slight' any of the guys who did it first. But doing if first doesn't immediately and directly translate into useful, cost-effective product. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 17 ____________________________________ Time: 06:48:49 PM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: RE: AeroElectric-List: tool multitasking > . . . we cut totally flush with a special pair of diagonal cutters > easily available on the market. No sliced hands so far. I suspect the "special" cutters are commonly referred to as jewelers flush cutters. The come in a variety of qualities and prices. The ones I've been using around here for awhile are. http://tinyurl.com/4nptpy5 These are not yer granpa's fence wire tool. Apply these judiciously. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 18 ____________________________________ Time: 07:07:05 PM PST US From: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? At 02:27 PM 1/23/2011, you wrote: > >Bob, et al, > >I'm upgrading/replacing the instrument panel in my GlaStar. Part of >the project includes the installation of a Comant CI-122 "bent whip" >antenna on the belly under the baggage compartment area. I did some searching for manufacturer's specs on the CI-122 and found VSWR specs of both 2:1 and 3:1 maximum. These kinds of figures imply some sort of impedance matching hardware in the base of the antenna. It would be interesting to do an ohmmeter test from center pin on the antenna's connector and ground. If is shows a 'short', I suspect that some sort of matching system is installed. If that's true, then the values you were reading for the tests are perhaps more worrisome. Get your ohmmeter out an take a peek. Bob . . . ________________________________ Message 19 ____________________________________ Time: 07:27:00 PM PST US Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Comm Antenna & SWR Reading -- Too High? From: Dj Merrill On 1/23/2011 2:27 PM, Bob Falstad wrote: > > Test 1: 122.9 MHz (the CTAF at my base): Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.43; VSWR 6.5 > Test 2: 125.0 MHz Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.4; VSWR 5.8 > Test 3: 130.0 MHz Forward Power: 0.8; Reverse Power: 0.4; VSWR 5.8 Hi Bob, In my opinion, anything greater than 2:1 would be unacceptable for use in my ham station or my airplane. The very high SWR you have indicates a significant loss of signal. At an SWR of 6.5 to 1, you are losing over 50% of your radio signal (ie, less than half of your signal is being transmitted out the antenna, and the rest is being reflected back into your radio). Google SWR for a ton of info on the topic, with a good reference at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_wave_ratio (Scroll down to the Practical Applications section) and an online calculator showing percent of loss at: http://www.csgnetwork.com/vswrlosscalc.html 6.5:1 indicates you may be losing 53% of your signal. 2:1 is only 11%. The better (lower) the SWR, the better the performance, and IMHO if I were going IMC with it, I'd want the best performance I could get. Will it work at 6.5:1? Yes, it will. Is it "the best we know how to do"? In my opinion, no. I'd ask your Ham buddy to look it over to see if anything can be done to help. Some things I can think of to try: - With the Glastar's metal cage and landing legs, if the antenna is installed close enough to either that might have an effect on SWR. Even the rudder and elevator cables running down the center of the baggage area could possibly have an effect. Does the SWR change of your move the rudder or the control stick for the elevator? You might try taking the antenna out of the plane, installing it on a ground plane on your work bench and test it there to see if you can duplicate the results. - The Glastar has a fairly thick fiberglass shell. When you installed the antenna, did you carve out the fiberglass so that the antenna is touching the ground plane, or did you install it such that there is a gap between the antenna and ground plane (ie, the thickness of the fiberglass)? This could have a significant difference in SWR if the antenna is supposed to be mounted directly to the ground plane with no gap, as in the case of a metal plane. - Is there an adjustment on the antenna itself? - Double check that all of your coax lines are good, and there are no stray pieces of the shield material that might be shorting out to the center conductor. Good luck! Please report back and let us know what you find if you decide to look into it further. -Dj -- Dj Merrill - N1JOV Glastar Sportsman 2+2 Builder #7118 N421DJ - http://deej.net/sportsman/ Please use Netiquette Guidelines http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855 Kindly TRIM your email replies and post AFTER the relevant text ________________________________ Message 20 ____________________________________ Time: 08:06:33 PM PST US From: Robert Mitchell Subject: Re: AeroElectric-List: Off topic electric drag racer And, don't forget all the free hand me down benefits we get from NASA thru taxpayer dollars. Bob Mitchell Sent from my iPad On Jan 23, 2011, at 6:39 PM, "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" wrote: > > >> >> Bob, I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention the serious work thousands of amateur radio buffs did on digital controls let alone digital emissions. I still remember sending full colour photographs around the world through a 1 khz bandwidth. > > Yeah, there was a lot of packet work begin done in the late '80s > and slow-scan tv predates that by 10 years or more. There > are no doubt thousands of examples of 'leading edge' process > and technology that laid the groundwork for the future > of today's product. But we were talking about systems > and components that provide low risk, useful services in > the airplane. > > Development costs need to be amortized over great > numbers for them to become insignificant. Little > airplanes don't represent much of a market! Our > demonstrated reservoir of successful recipes > have come from the volume consumer markets. > > The SVLA battery has been around commercially > since 1970 but it wasn't until 1990 that they got a real > toe holed in OBAM aviation . . . and only then after > the un-interruptible power supply market bloomed. > > When LORAN was still king and a panel mounted GPS was > prohibitively expensive, I bought a perfectly serviceable > GPS for airplanes from a Boat US catalog for $200. > > I didn't mean to 'slight' any of the guys who > did it first. But doing if first doesn't immediately > and directly translate into useful, cost-effective > product. > > > Bob . . . > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Matronics Email List Services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post A New Message aeroelectric-list@matronics.com UN/SUBSCRIBE http://www.matronics.com/subscription List FAQ http://www.matronics.com/FAQ/AeroElectric-List.htm Web Forum Interface To Lists http://forums.matronics.com Matronics List Wiki http://wiki.matronics.com Full Archive Search Engine http://www.matronics.com/search 7-Day List Browse http://www.matronics.com/browse/aeroelectric-list Browse Digests http://www.matronics.com/digest/aeroelectric-list Browse Other Lists http://www.matronics.com/browse Live Online Chat! http://www.matronics.com/chat Archive Downloading http://www.matronics.com/archives Photo Share http://www.matronics.com/photoshare Other Email Lists http://www.matronics.com/emaillists Contributions http://www.matronics.com/contribution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These Email List Services are sponsored solely by Matronics and through the generous Contributions of its members.