Daily Archives: 19/05/2019

Instrument Panel

Sunday 19th May 2019

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Music: Fleetwood Mac

I wasn’t expecting to do any work today but the opportunity came up to visit my workshop.

I have come to the stage where I need to finalise the design of the panel. I’ve designed the electrical circuits so know how many switch and circuit breaker holes I need so I can drill those. I’m still awaiting the key switch to arrive which is due in a week or so but I know where that will be located.

Another look at possible panel layouts and to see how the logistics of the panel layout will work at different stages of flight.
Sitting in the normal flying position allows me to see how high I can have each unit before the glare shield obstructs the view. The main panels are positioned directly in front of the respective pilot positions which I believe is the best position. I have the switch layout right but still am not quite decided on the sub panel layout. I quite liked this layout but it is a bit cramped so I probably won’t use it.
I thought the best way to ensure that the holes are located exactly where they need to be is to mark a strip of 20 x 1mm aluminium with the spacing and centres.
A centre punch is used to mark before drilling ensuring that the drill doesn’t move off centre.
After a pilot hole is drilled I can open up with a 12mm drill for the switches and 10mm for the circuit breakers. I tried using a step drill on a piece of scrap first but the aluminium seemed to soften and bung the step drill up so a normal HSS drill was used instead.
All the holes now complete. They will require cleaning up with some wet & dry before they can be used. The panel hasn’t been painted yet but I’ll do that once all the holes have been cut. Tomorrow I start on the main panel cut outs.