Overhead Switch Panel

This puppy was an easy thing to install in the upper panel

but something odd is the hole we cut into the roof is crooked.  It is lined up in line with the ship but if you look at the roof panel as a square it's in at an angle. 

We modified the panel with a hinge at the rear so if we needed to work on it after it was installed in the ship we could just take out the 6 screws and let it swing down and we wouldn't have to hold it suspended in the air to keep it from pulling on the wires (bad thing to have happening).

After we were sure everything fit well we siliconed the box to the top of the roof panel, we had planned on fiberglassing it to the roof panel but that crooked hole thing bugged us, so for now it's only siliconed in place just in case LOL!.

The only problem we had in our first startup was the engine missed a little and then the starter stopped working all together. All circuits checked out ok when we were trying to diagnose the problem and then one side of the ignition switch didn't show a connection at all.  We tightened the nut on the wire and wallah! we had a starter again.

Be sure to tighten all wiring and that all nuts have lock washers under them to torque into the terminal ends so this doesn't happen to you.

If this came loose in flight I'm not sure but I think it would be the same as shutting off the engine (another bad thing to have happen) :o(

We added 2 switches to this panel

 
A Master Strobe
and
a Nav Light Switch

The master strobe switch helped us to eliminate an electrical popping noise in the headsets.  In the end we found that the strobes must have their own separate power source and ground point or we would get this noise when it was hooked up to the ships battery.  Funny thing about it is when we tested all this stuff everything was great (clear as a bell) while we were running it all off of an AC to DC converter but when we thought we were all done and installed the battery and hooked it all up we had a loud popping noise every time the strobe light blinked, it about drove us nuts but in the end we whooped it lol.

Something else we discovered later on when I started Flying in the late evening I discovered I over looked a post light for the panel. When dusk comes upon you,  you better have the panel memorized because you sure can't see what your doing up there.

Someday we plan on making one from acrylic so it will light up at night.

We Used our nifty label maker to label the switches

1/18/05

While we were down for our secondary shaft and 100 hour service we installed post light on the upper instrument panel.

Lord willing it won't reflect back at us from the windshield.

Did you know there isn't a ground wire up there?

We got lucky and found one and ended up tapping into the switch for our Pro-Drive electric clutch for a ground so it would be a good idea while your wiring your ship during the building stage to be sure to run a couple of ground wires up there just in case for future add ons.

END