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Kupe's Zodiac 650B
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Date:  6-27-2016
Number of Hours:  2.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  ELT Wiring

Fabricated the power and data harness for the ELT this morning. The harness carries power, ground, and GPS data to the ELT plus a line for testing it. I mounted back near the tail section of the plane. The ACK ELT kit comes with a female 4-pin mini-DIN plug that requires the installer to solder 4 leads onto it. I just happened to have a whole bunch of leftover 4-strand, braided GPS wire that reached from the avionics area back to the tail, so I chose it to serve as my ELT harness.

This task was the most detailed soldering I've ever done and even after reading up and YouTubing about it for a couple hours, I was still out of my depth when I started the task this morning. After making every mistake the instructional videos warned me about (too much solder, not enough solder, too much twist on the leads, too much pull on the leads, etc), I finally aborted my first attempt, cut the wires back a couple inches and cleaned off the solder terminals for a fresh try.

The second attempt was wholly successful. Learning from my earlier mistakes, I was able to solder all 4 wires to their terminals, keep them separate from each other (and stabilized) via heat shrink, and further stabilized by flooding the inside of the wire cover with RTV silicon before replacing it and enclosing it all with the outer cover.

So, a mere two hours after beginning this 20 minute job, I completed the plug and attached it to the ELT.
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4-pin mini-DIN connector was a new soldering challenge for me.

4-pin mini-DIN connector was a new soldering challenge for me.

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4-pin mini-DIN complete.

4-pin mini-DIN complete.

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In the belly of the beast: Power and data wires connectd to the ELT

In the belly of the beast: Power and data wires connectd to the ELT

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