Mark Wesson stopped by today to look at the project. He is building an RV9 in Longwood.
I fiddeled with the dimmer system for some time today. I don't know that I actually got anything accomplished. I may have screwed up more than I fixed.
The map light for pilot has 4 led's, two white and two red. A switch next to it will switch it from white to red. There are 3 dimmer knobs on the console on the right side of the cockpit. They correspond to positions 1,2 and 3 on the dimmer unit. No 1 being the most forward.
The aft most controls the map light. The middle one does not control anything. The most forward knob controls the backlighting on the ICOM radio.
The system acts strangley. Sometimes turning the middle knob to the right will make the map light brighter, notwithstading the fact that the map light is not connected to that knob. Perhaps the soldered wires on the pots under the knobs are touching, too close etc.
I determined that the wire labeled panel dimmer bus has actually been routed to the ICOM radio dimmer line. I relabeled it "ICOM radio".
I finished routing the wire for the clock dimmer circuit to the dimmer module. At first I connected it to one of the dimmer pots. When I turned the pot to the left the clock got brighter, jus the opposite of the way is should be. I hooked it to the same pot as the map light. When the knob was turned to the right the radio backlight got dimmer while the map light got brigher, turning it the opposite way reversed that.
I ended up connecting the clock dimmer wire to the 12v power input from the nav light switch. It works as advertised. When the nav switch is on the clock dims to half bright.
I tried to sort out the dimming of the blue light strips that I intend to use over the panel. I blew a fuse trying to connect it to the dimmer at position 4, which is not active.
Attaching the red wire from the strip to an active position on the dimmer does nothing. I think the dimmer circuit may only put out 5 volts. The light strip m
