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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date: 12-4-2016
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Number of Hours: 4.50
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Autopilot wiring
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After about an hour’s worth of plans & installation manual study, I had come to the conclusion that the features of the GTN 625 allowed the GPS to provide full vertical path guidance only by using ARINC communication directly from the GTN to the autopilot. Very simply stated, the G3X is capable of providing guidance to the autopilot via RS-232 serial communication, but full functionality for RNAV approaches requires ARINC communication directly between the GTN and Vizion…this is high tech stuff. The challenge was that the original harness from Steinair had not accounted for a Vizion autopilot, and therefore, I was going to get to climb under the panel for some more fun with wiring.
Fortunately I still had a number of blankets and some foam padding, so I was able to make it moderately comfortable to lie on my back and access the upper reaches of the forward fuselage to remove the GTN backshell connector. Somehow I was smart enough during initial install to attach the bundle to a cable spacer with a single zip tie, so I actually was able to drop the GTN connector down and work on it in relative comfort. Open the connector, remove the wire clamps, strip and crimp the pins, insert in the proper sockets, close everything up and then back under the panel to reattach the connector. Once that was done, I spent some time tidying up wiring with more zip ties, and then climbed back out to repeat the process with the autopilot connector.
After all of that, I finally ran the two wires that facilitate RS-232 communication from the Vizion connector to the PFD connector (which included another round of pin installation as described above), and was done with all of the component wiring. Now all I have remaining is running a power wire from the A/P switch to the terminal block, and doing the same for ground.
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Removing the autopilot connector...
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...for two lousy pins...
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