Brief Description: Fabricated an D-sub avionics grounding bus.
I took a 25 D-sub connector and fabricated an avionics grounding bus as shown in Bob Nuckolls' AeroElectric Connection chapter 18. Though not difficult in concept, I screwed up a D-sub connector because of my inept soldering. On my first try, I soldered the two14 AWG wires to the solder cups on the connector and then tried to gang them together. That approach did not work very well, so I scrapped that half of the connector.
The next attempt was more successful because I ganged the two 16 AWG wires by soldering them between the solder cups. This allowed the wires to be held better by the cups. I then connected the male half of the D-sub using a couple of screws that also held a short piece of angle at each end of the connector. The angles allowed me to connect the assembly to the center upper fuselage rib behind the subpanel. Most of the avionics grounds will be pinned into this D-sub connector which is wired to the Forest-of-Tabs FW ground by the two soldered wires.
25 D-sub avionics ground bus, viewed from bottom left.
