Monday 1
I didn't do any building this evening but I did some paper work for the FAA. They were looking for me to fax in copies of registration and so forth and complete a program letter. They have agreed in principal to give me a 50 nautical mile radius instead of the usual 25.
Tuesday 2
I did a few odd jobs at the hanger this evening. I am getting to the smaller details, for example the fuel inlet must say "Fuel" and describe the minimum acceptable grade of fuel and the type. I also removed the rudder push rod because I was yet to rivet the threaded rod end onto it. I also put the battery on the charger because I am yet to figure out why the alternator won't charge.
Wednesday 3
I riveted the rudder push rod and installed it, although I forgot to paint it so it will have to come out again. I also made some cardboard templates for mounting the wing tip lights. I am using some prototype wing LED lights made by Eric Jones at http://www.periheliondesign.com/ .
Thursday 4
I did a little bit more assembly of the fuel gauge microprocessor board in between watching television and drinking a glass of wine.
Friday 5
No building
Saturday 6 ~ Sunday 7
I ran engine again, putting some more time on the engine. The engine crept up in RPM and I needed to adjust idle and friction lock a bit. The little jobs still continued to grow, I removed outriggers and drilled for the wheels and did some more debugging on the regulator circuit, without a lot of success. I am at least getting some AC out of the engine so I will need to poke around with the regulator wiring a bit more. I am fairly convinced that the error is associated with the over peak voltage detection circuit.
I safety wired bolts on the propeller sensor mounting bracket and marked the engine mounting nuts and bolts with some white pasted so I will be able to tell it they move.
The last few jobs for the weekend was to make some mounting plates for the wing tip lights, apply the registration numbers and add some placards for the trim up and down and the fuel gauge.
Monday 8
I did a bit more assembly of the fuel gauge microprocessor board this evening.
Tuesday 9
No building
Wednesday 10
I did the last bit of wiring on the fuel gauge microprocessor board.
Thursday 11
I powered up the fuel gauge microprocessor board and to my surprise a few bits of it seemed to actually work. I connected it to my PC and I could get a power up message so things were definitely showing sighs of life.
Friday 12
No building
Saturday 13 ~ Sunday 14
Another weekend of small tasks. I fitted up the LED wing tip lights and had to spend quite a bit of time trimming the lens cover on the port side. I ran in the wires and they sprang into life.
I did another taxi test and gave the engine a few run ups with short bursts to 5000 RPM. The engine is still creeping off idle so I tightened the friction lock in the throttle box some more
I had another go at rigging the ailerons but after 5 "on and offs" with the wings I called it quits. I find getting them to line up a real pain and then getting in the spar pins is quite difficult. I sure hope they free up some more. I was a bit disappointed to discover that wing fairing had moved quite a bit with the paint backing process. I was thinking of gently heating them but I suspect that they would only move over time and find there natural position. Instead I found some nice white neoprene weather stripping and I looked very neat.
I find that I have lots of Lots of visitors to the hanger, people will often stay and chat for an hour. While its nice to have some admirers after 3 sets of visitors you tend to find that a lot of time has disappeared.
Monday 15
I added the cable terminations to the fuel gauge circuit board, but other than that didn't get much done
Tuesday 16
I put another 0.2 hours on the engine and found out what was wrong with the regulator. I had used the circuit that had come on the Europa club CD for the over voltage protection. It had a bug in in it and a new one had been published. All I had to do was to shift one wire and it sprang into life.
Discovered that the radio keys up but doesn't appear to transmit. I dug around a bit and it works okay from the passenger side so it looks like the microphone wire is broken.
Wednesday 17
No building
Thursday 18
The push rod on the port wing seems to scrape a tiny bit when the aileron is at its full extension. What would have been a 5 minute job before the wing skin was bonded on turned into about 2 hours worth of work I tried putting some 80 grit paper in the push rod and sanding it out. That didn't seem to work the greatest so I ended up putting about 4 or 5 layers of sand paper on the push rod and reassembling it. I then just operated the pushed rod like normal until I had sanded out the offending bit.
Friday 19
My EIS fuel flow option is a bit of a dead loss. With the fuel pumps turned on and the engine not running it shows about 1.4 gallons an hour flowing. It would appear that the forward and reverse flow sensors are not netting out. I called Grand Rapids and they sent me a new version of code which is supposed to fix the problem. I brought the EIS home and installed the new chip. I'll re install it tomorrow.
Saturday 20 ~ Sunday 21
I installed the EIS and it was useless. The new code he sent me was intended for a turbine so I assume he sent me the wrong version. To give you an idea of the many small tasks you need to do at this stage I have summarized them below.
Monday 22
No building
Tuesday 23
No building, EAA Chapter meeting.
Wednesday 24
I brought the rudder home and installed the rudder tail light this evening.
Thursday 25
I re installed rudder and tried out the LED position light and it works well. It is very bright, uses 1/3 of the current and exceeds the FAA specifications.
I took the aircraft over to the avionics shop for its pitot static check but the altimeter failed the test.
Saturday 27 ~ Sunday 28
I took Saturday off, I feel a bit tired of spending weekends out at the hanger.
Removed altimeter and the encoder out of the panel as the avionics shop only needed a new altimeter and the encoder to complete the sign off. Unfortunately in doing so I forgot to unplug the intercom and I think I have ripped out a bunch of wires, nothing works anymore.
I tried the fuel gauge but it didn't work. I did find a wiring error but still no joy so I decided to take both the display and the controller board home.
Monday 29
I found the error in the fuel gauge circuit and got the RS232 portion of the circuit working. Unfortunately the circuit drawing was missing a ground for the MAX232 RS232 chip. When I got that working I could then get 2 way communication going with my laptop. The thing still wouldn't calibrate properly so I called it a night.
Tuesday 30
I called Tony in New Zealand tonight and we worked through trouble shooting it. It turned out that I had an old version of code that used the external analogue to digital converter. I recompiled the code and it sprang into life. I calibrated it on the bench with a14' tube of water and it is very repeatable. The calibration process can be quite precise if you want it to me. It is possible to set up the 10 segments to represent exactly one tenth of the total fuel capacity.
Wednesday 31
The avionics shop finished with my encoder and altimeter so I re installed the altimeter, encoder and the fuel flow display board. I have to get up early in the morning to taxi the aircraft over to the shop so they can do the final leak test.
