Today I finished up the battery monitor system.    It is a tiny circuit to monitor the battery and lets you know if you have a dead cell or if (when you are flying on backup battery power) when the voltage of the circuit is less hits 11 v.  By this point the battery is just about dead.

Three of them have been made to monitor the aft, forward and emergency extention batteries.  When activated a blinking red LED light on the dash notifies the pilot.

A little heat shrink and they are nicely protected.  They are all interchangeable if necessary.

I think the epitomeof a good wiring job is how the wires are bundled together.  When ever I look at someones wiring, I look at how the wires are grouped together, are they in nice straight lines, do the corners have radius’s, etc.  Good wiring is an art as well as science.

The most important aspect of wiring is how the wires are grouped or bundled.  Lets say you have a 100 wires, it is not a good idea to bundle them all together.   The problem is that when trouble shooting you can’t determine which wires goes to which plug or if you need to test a wire or spice into one, which one is it?  If you have 30 white wires in a big bundle you’re got a problem. 

In production shops identification information is actually printed on each wire.  I dont have the luxury of having a dedicated piece of equipment to do this.

A better way is to bundle wires is to separate them into smaller groups for a dedicated purpose.  An autopilot bundle, a trim controller bundle, etc.  This way if there 8 wires in the bundle, you can figure out the purpose of the bundle is and therefore what each wire represents.

There are a number of ways to fasten the wire bundle together.   The easiest and quickest way is to use zip ties.  I dont like them but they have their place.   They are heavy and the little cut ends (if you are not careful to trim the properly) will slice your hands when reaching around them.   Boeing decided to stop using them in the 747’s which saved them over 400 lbs per plane.    Granted, I am not using tens of thousands of them in this plane but you get the point.  Besides I think they look unprofessional, they can squeeze the wire to tightly, or not tightly enough. 

The “old fashioned” and I think the best way of  bundling wires is using lacing cord.  It is bee’s wax coated polyester cord and is the standard for the aerospace industry.   I think it looks great, is very light weight and wont cut you.    The only issue with lacing cord is that it is a bit time consuming to use (although I am getting faster with practice).   When done properly it is very artistic.   

When I went to the National Air and Space museum in Washington DC, I marveled at the wiring on the old NASA space craft.  All the wire bundles were beautifully stitched together.  Nice even knots and they used techniques I couldn’t even find on the web.   Wire lacing is truly an art if done correctly.

Here is a picture a wire bundle using individual knots. 

Fairly easy to do, but as I was sitting (butt getting sorer by the moment) I remember seeing on the web techniques for “continues” lacing, so I did a little more research and printed out some instruction sheets.  Continuous lacing uses a starter and end knots and a repeating lace stitch between them as you just move down the wire bundle.  I think it looks fantastic and is much quicker than individuals knots.  Not as nice as NASA, but I am getting better and faster.

Here you can see the left bundle with a continuous lace stitch and the right bundle with individual knots.    The continuous  lacing looks much better for sure…

I plan to lace as many bundles of  wires I can.   Sure makes for a good looking an professional job!

Today was a somewhat short but productive for me.  I just had constant interruptions in the morning and didnt even get to work until 12:45. 

I finished of the Pilot entertainment system input.  I wanted to add a input jack to the port side ball mount to add a second stereo input for the pilot.  This will allow the pilot to mainly use the stbd side input for the Garmin hand held GPS or by plugging into the port side jack switch the entertainment system input to the other side of the plane for such things as watching a move, or listening to an ipod.

In order to keep it clean, I had to mill out the back side of the ball mount for the stereo input jack.

Here is the recess for the input jack.

The jack is now sitting into the little pocket.

Finally, installed in the plane with all the wires hidden in the foam.   Before painting the plane, I had installed a ring of aluminum with nutplates for the screws and covered everything with 3 layers of glass.  The ball mount will be able to support anything you put on it (iPad, iTouch, GPS, 19″ tv, you name it).  

You can also see the LED map light (it has both red and white lights in it)

The map light is controlled from a small panel on the stbd side.   I chose to have the light on the left (you usually have your maps and knee board on your left leg),  but positioned the control on the right side since you are flying with your right hand.    This way you can use the left hand to control the brightness.  When designing the plane, I wanted all controls to be manipulated by the left hand since you dont want to move your hand off the the joy stick.

The passenger entertainment system panel is done.  It is actually a fairly complex panel to wire.   It is removable with one plug in case you need to do maintenance in this area..

As will be installed in the plane.  It looks great!

The wiring is starting to come together as more and more wires are installed.  It’s fun and frustrating at the same time.   Cant wait until tomorrow to get back to it.

The porch roof has been completed.  Yaaa!  I Had to carry 3 square of shingles (10 bundles from the roof to my truck.  A lot of work, but I would much rather carry them down off the roof than to carry bundles up onto the roof!

I really like how the color of the shingles complement the brick and the colors I had painted my deck  last year. 

I also started getting ready to have the construction dumpster removed from my yard.

I sent all day Monday working on the two light tubes in the kitchen.   They were a major PITA to install mainly because of the double roof rafters in the attic (from repitching the roof).    Unfortunately, the rafters were not lined up so I had to work in between them.   

After finishing up the wiring the fluorescent lights in sola tube, it is on to the porch roof.

I was able to strip it down and start clean up the mess by COB. 

Today is a day to celebrate!  Not only is it Christmas Eve, but roof 1 of 6 has been completed. 

The second story is now done.   It has 4 hips and 4 penetrations and a chimney is certainly the most dangerous and complex of house.   I did a hearty Ho Ho Ho after the last nail went in, and even had time to start on one of the storage sheds (almost finished 1/2 of it) .   I can now see can see just how quick and easy flat roofs can be covered (3 of the 6 roofs are flat).   I’ll easily be able to bang out the remaining 3 flats roofs in a day.  

You know it is kind of a shame that now that I REALLY understand roofing, hips,  valleys, vents, flashing, etc  and how quickly and easily it is to do master level work, I will never roof a house again.  Period.  I spent a LOT of time visiting websites talking to roofers to figure out the absolutely best way to accomplish this job.  

I can see how easy it would be for a “professional” roofing company to bang out a house in a day or two.  It all comes down to having a large group of workers (lots of man hours) and  grunt work.   Roofing is just repetitive manual effort.  Now I can also see how easy it is to do a substandard job and take short cuts.   All I have to do is drive around my neighborhood and look at the roofs.  Talk about poor quality workmanship.   The errors just jump right out and smacks you upside your head. 

Maybe it would be best for me to just work with Habitat and teach others what I have learned.  

After finishing another hard day, I just spent ???? amount of  time(I think it was over an hour) in the hot tub with a drink relaxing, listening to Pandora and stretching my sore muscles.   I feel great knowing that the next two days (Christmas and a Sunday is a rain day) will be a vacation for me!   LET IT RAIN!    I DONT CARE!  I’ll hit it again on Monday.

I absolutely  love the rain and I haven’t been able to enjoy it for over a month.  I even replaced the aluminum vent cap on my bathroom exhaustfan with a bigger one becuase I love to hear the first drop of rain fall in the night.  Sort of like when you used to sit at grandpa’s house in a tin metal barn on a hay bale an  listen to the rain .

I really have been freak out by this job and constantly watch the weather shows check the weather website many times a day.  What is the temps doing?  When is it going to rain?  What is the wind direction?  Cloudy/Sunny?   How many layers do I need to wear for the cold?  I guess that’s what happens when your freezing your ass off and have water dripping from every light and vent opening in ones ceiling. 

I even used my cordless drill to drill holes in my plaster ceilings to let the water out.   I figured if you could let the water out immediately there would be less possible damage.   Besides it easier to put the buckets, pans and plastic containers under the holes to collect the water.

At night I couldnt hardly get a good sleep at because if ONE drop of rain hit the roof I would wake up.  Weird sounds like the traps flapping in high winds would keep me up.  Most nights the earplugs would go in and when I woke up, check for damages, and move on.

All that being said, the end is in sight and the job is everything I had hoped for.   I just love the color and texture of the roof.    The new roof line over the front porch exactly what I wanted.  The porch looks straight for the first time ever.  I think I’ll paint the trim a deep maroon color to match the brick and roof.   Would I do it again…..hell ya.  I would certainly have been smarter about buying LOTS of tarps and choosing a different month to work in, but yes, I am very pleased.

Strangely, I am already looking forward to doing the porch.  Cant wait but have a plane to complete first.   I am planning to engineer the entire porch design in ACad so I know visualize exactly how it will look and what needs to be done.  Good planning makes for fast work.    I can even render the design and print it out on the color printer to have a photo of the finished product.  

The pouch will be lots of brick and I’ll expressly use Hardiplank (concrete board) and cast concrete.  I want NO maintence and the materials will totally eliminate rot and deterioration.    Hardipank is actually very soft (but extremely durable) so I can cut thin sheets of it into anything I want (decals, reliefs, house numbers) and use construction adhesive to permantely bond it in place.  How cool is that. 

The tooling has already been imagined for casting the concrete.  I am sure there is a lot of information on the Internet for casting concrete kitchen counter tops, so I’ll be able to easily learn the basic casting process. 

Well it is time to eat.  I must have lost a lot of weight these last 3 weeks.  I bought some new jeans at a right (maybe a bit snug) size of 32 inches before I started this odyssey from hell and now when I put the jeans on they are WAY too big.  I must be a 31 or a 30 waist now (the same as my 1971 High School wrestling team) .   It will be nice to start going to the gym again where I can check my weight on their scale.   As Tony said, “roofing a house is better than going to a gym”.   He was right, I am am positive I’m in better shape and can work much harder than I could a month ago.

The good news is I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want and as much as I want.  Won’t last long, but am enjoying the teenage boy eating pattern while I can. I am hungry and have no guilt about stuffing myself till I explode..

Let the Christmas dinner feasting begin!

Today was a great day.  I drove up to Summerville this morning to look at a 1995 Mercedes diesel.  It turned out to be a bust…  I then flew over to Mt Pleasant to meet up with Mike to fly together.  

He has a beautify acrobatic plane a IO-360 (180 hp) christian eagle.   Mike is taking his wife up for her fist flight. 

I bet she was happy when he did a quick barrow roll!

This is a great shot over Charleston with the new bridge in the background.  The crazy thing he kept asking me to slow down.    Mike had his plane firewalled at 130 kts, so we slowed down to 125 kts (2700 rpm) and  I was only turning 1900 rpm.    When I left him, I firewalled my plane and quickly pulled away from him.  I never felt so fast!

While I was landing, I noticed the lock gear down light was not lite and I could not cycle the gear down properly (about 1/8 turn from full down).   This seemed strange to me and  I felt the over-center device hadn’t engaged so I called the tower to let them know I had a gear warning light.   Sure enough when I touched down, the nose started to collapse.   Sort of progressively dropping instead of a quick drop, BANG.    I was almost stopped with I hit the ground.   The plane was moved off the runway, I lowered the gear (this time it locked) and taxied back to the hangar.

Minutes later the towered called me.  Within 30 minutes the S.C Flight Standards Office called for an update.  If only the rest of the federal government worked as well as the FAA.  

I told the FAA there was no problems, the plane wasn’t damaged, (it wasn’t) and everything was ok (it was) then immediately started tearing into the nose to find what what going on.  I was lucky this time, I only ground about 1/4″ off the nose bumper!

I removed the nose gear assembly and found the gear had stripped.  It was tuned 180 degrees (just flipped over) and it was as good as new.  Reassembled the plane, test all and decided it was an anomaly and watch for any warning signs in the future.    Another new experience to learn from.

One good thing about this event is that I now think I can install a electric nose lift in the plane.    I always thought there was not enough clearence in this area, but after disassembling everything, I now believe it can be done.

After fixing the plane, I stopped by to see a bunch of my retired navy officer friends at the yearly RINK roast at the Elks Club.  It was great seeing some of my old buddy’s.

Overall, quite a busy and exciting day!

A buddy from the Charleston Ski Club called me this morning with a free ticket to the the grand opening of a new hospital at Mount Pleasant.  The highlight was the musical group the Beach Boy (aka, the Beach Boys).  I have seen the revival group at Oshkosh a few years ago and realized there was only one member of the original group still singing.    For some reason to me, I just doesn’t seem right to call the the Boys as there is only one left singing.  You can fool me once with the the Boys, but you cant fool me twice.

It was a beautiful day and a great day to be out and about instead of the shop.  I should do it more often.

I have been working on my plane for the last few days….  I spent a whole day relocating the stormscope antenna (to reduce drag).  Found out it wouldn’t work properly, so I spent another day relocating it back to the original spot.  I guess this is why they call it experimental aviation.  The crazy thing is I went flying today with it back in the “old spot” and it doesnt work as well as it did before.  That thing drive me nuts!

I started back on my project plane.   My immediate objective was to relocate the servos becuase of the depth of the instrument panel radio cans. 

New control arms were manufactured and installed on the elevator torque tube.

This is the final installation.  The elevator autopilot servo on the left and the trim servo in the center.

The control arm for the servo clears the radio can by 1/2″ . 

With the panel installed.  It looks good for the next step, install EVERYTHING to see if there are any more problems.  If not the panel is off to the fabricators for lettering. 

After waiting for months looking and checking out phones, I finally decided upgrade to a data phone.  Yes, I am going over to the dark side of unlimited data, texting (whats that), talk, everything. 

I remember my first cell phone and how reluctant I was to get one.  I didnt want to be “tethered” to everyone via a wireless connection.  Just thenk about it, I’ll be a the beck and call of everyone and expected to be there all the time.   Years later here I am, enjoying the on line community and rapid pace of instant contact. 

I decided on the Sprint EVO.  It is at this point the most advanced and highly rated phones on any market (including the iPhone).

This phone has it all from HDMI out (which I can hook up and stream movies directly to a HD TV) to recording HD movies, video conferencing, 8 megapixel camera, creating a wifi hot spots for up to 8 computer, sending movies, pictures, EVERYTHING you can possibly do on a phone/computer.   It is also a 4G phone which means it’s data through put is as fast as a cable modem (if you are in a 4G market which will take about 2 years to get here in Charleston).   They are VERY hard to get right now as they are extremely popular and out of stock just about everywhere.

After changing my data plan from $59 to $79/month which takes affect on my next billing cycle (26 Sep) I was contacted by Sprint Customer support on my experince with the representative.  Here is my response:

— On Thu, 9/9/10, CustomerSatisfactionTeam@sprint.com wrote:

Thank you for contacting Sprint today and for giving me an opportunity to resolve your issue. I have made a personal commitment to provide my customers world class service. My goal is to make certain you can say YES when asked if your issue was addressed and resolved. Improving our customers’ experience and resolving issues on the first call are our top priorities.

If you require additional assistance, or, you believe your issue was not resolved, please reply to this e-mail. Your response will route directly to my manager……..

—-My response on 9/11/10

To answer your automate survey question, YES and NO.

YES your customer service rep did an outstanding job of changing my plan while retaining my bonus minutes which made me very happy.

NO  Sprint has some screwed up business policies which does its’ best to make me wonder if I am making the right choice by continuing my association with Sprint.

After making my decision to upgrade my plane I quickly went to the local Sprint store to buy my EVO.  They had one in stock now!  I was told if I purchased immediately it I would have to pay a $40 pro-rated amount to switch plans (to execute my more expensive data plan) immediately instead of 2 weeks from now on the Sept 26.  

 I also so found I could NOT purchase the phone now for future (since it is in stock) with out the plan.  If I waited 2 weeks, it might NOT be in stock and would have a plan without a phone.

 This is very upsetting to me as a customer, and a senseless business practice.  I decided to wait two weeks.  So here is the bottom line.

1.  Sprint policies once again upset me off as a customer.
2.  The EVO phone may not be in stock when my plan changes.
3.  I will keep my old plan (saves me $40), so Sprint does not lock me in under a new contract for 2 more weeks (I will be looking for something else in the mean time).
4.  Sprint does not get the benefit of me paying for a higher $20 data two weeks soon than scheduled which means Sprint loses $20 in profit.
5.  Allowing me to change plans immediately does not cost Sprint anything.
6 . Sprint once has proven why Consumer Reports ranks Sprint at or near the bottom in customer satisfaction and why Sprint has had a mass exodus of customer to competing services.

Now all said,  I am happy with the cell phone service I have had with Sprint for the past 10+ years.  It is little things like this stupid policy where I, as a customer, WANTS to upgrade to a more expensive plan, NOW, and being told I have to pay more to do so which makes my dealing with Sprint customer service painful and to be avoided…. 

In my opinion Sprint has one thing going for it…..price.    Sprint’s customer polices haven’t changed over the years which is sad after seeing how hard Sprint is fighting to retain a solid customer base.

It will be interesting to see if I hear anything back from Sprint.   Either way, the last EVO at the Sprint store has been sold.  Hopefully they will be more stock in the next few weeks.