Today I dove in to the assembly of the GIB light circuit. It really is a very simple circuit but made simpler by my friend Ralph. I spent a session with him doing a lot of the work on the front seat flood lights and learned a lot from Ralph not only in the wiring theory but also the fine points of soldering and stuff. I have done wiring repair in aircraft and a lot of house wiring but not the extensive wiring in building an airplane. Thanks to Ralph!
I started by assembling the dimmer pot to the D-sub. That involved soldering the pot and crimping the pins for the D-sub. Next I connected the XLR connector. The light is not led, but has a light at the end of a gooseneck that pops into the XLR connector. It is a light that my wife bought me years ago so I decided to keep it and install it. The gooseneck is nice also for the GIB and can be removed and stowed when not being used (and from my experience most of my flying in recent years is done in daylight.
After connecting the XLR I attached the ground and power wires. I did put a pin into a wrong hole so it took a few minutes to extract it and get it in the right position. I hooked up the power source and saw success shine in my eyes. I am debating whether to put a switch for on/off as the dimmer pot does not have an OFF feature to it and without the gooseneck the power will be constant to the socket....we will see.
