Time: 4 Hours
I had some time this morning before I had to fly so I went to the shop to work on two projects. The first was to fabricate a shelf for the Vertical Power VP-X box. It was pretty easy to measure and draw out the shed on some .040″ sheet. I just used the measure ya of the box from their website and made the shelf just big enough to support it. It will eventually be bolted to the aft crossbrace and the forward part of the shelf once I buy it. I cut it out and made the necessary notches for the screws that were in the way. I then drilled four holes in the forward crossbrace in between the screws that were holding the adel clamps. Once I had those done I clamped the shelf in place and match drilled the holes through the shelf. I removed the shelf and drilled for four nutplates on the shelf for #8 screws that would hold the forward edge in place. Once all the holes were cleaned and dimpled where required I scuffed the entire peice and primed it. Once the primer was done I riveted the four nutplates on and screwed it in place.
The second task I wanted to do was drill the left and right consoles for all the switches that I was planning on using. I wanted to wait to do this until I recieved my custom panels from engravers.net. They do all sorts of engraving from instrument panels to fuel caps. I had been working with them on the layout and placement of all the items I wanted. Once it was settled they engraved a .020″ thick piece of matte black sheet that had a white sheet under it. Where they engraved the black the white showed through it. This panel has an adhesive back that will hold it in place. Once I recieved it I used it as a template to mark all the holes on the consoles which made sure they would all align. Once I had them marked I drilled them all using the step bit. Now that I have them all drilled I can clean the consoles up and paint them. Once that’s done I can install the panels and switches and wire them up.
Fun day although short and happy with how everything turned out. I recieved a big shipment from Aircraft Spruce that included several wiring harnesses including the Skyview main harnesses and the connector kit for the VP-X. One note on the VP-X is that they have an online planner that is really cool and allows you to input every device that you are going to need power for and assign a circuit breaker value. The best feature is the ability to send your configuration to them with a push of a button for them to give you feedback. Chad Jensen provides the best customer service and gets the feedback to you very quick. He gave me several recommendations over several tries and I recieved the best feedback yesterday, “looks good” which means I’m ready to final cut and build the connectors. Thanks Chad for all the great feedback!
