No photos today. I could have taken another photo of the harness as it stands now, but at this point I think it’d just be “here’s a slightly different-looking pile of wire.” I’m starting to feel like I’m reaching maximum chaos here; like I still have my head wrapped around what’s going on on that table but it sure doesn’t look clean and organized. Anyway, that’s probably enough existential musings for the time being.
Really, there’s not a lot to say other than I kept going. I built out the main backbone network cable that connects the forward and aft network hubs. I got the network data lines put together and run out to the right wing root connector branch. In fact, I got both the wing connector branches closed out completely, along with the front stick grip (all eleven connections) and front seat heat feed. At this point, almost everything aft of the spar is complete; all I have left back there is the run from the flap relay to the flap motor (waiting on the 18ga black wire I ordered) and the tail light run (looks like that cable won’t be here until Monday).
I think tomorrow I may pause from laying in wires to try and impart some organization to what’s already on the table. Aft of the seat pans, everything is in pretty good order, since I was laying in from that direction for the most part, though it could probably use a once-over with a cable comb. The under-seat stuff is in decent shape as well, but could use a bit of attention. What I really want to work on, though, is the rest of the harness, up around the panel area. Starting from the rear has meant that I’ve brought in lots of wires piecemeal, so they’re all sort of crossed up. Since I’m rapidly approaching the point where I’ll be working on the really complex stuff behind the panel, I want to start with things as organized as possible.
Put another way, I don’t want to wait until every wire is laid down before I try and bring some order to the chaos.
Additionally, I had another thought today. I’ve been sort of idly trying to think through what the procedure for getting this harness into the airplane will be like. My main concern all along had been getting the harness to the tail worked through the conduit under the seat, but today I realized I’ll have much more of a problem getting this thing through the spar center section. The conduit shouldn’t be much of a problem; essentially, every wire aft of the conduit starts on the forward side, which means the entire aft harness can be at least temporarily consolidated into a single thick cable.
Under the seat floors is a different matter; I’ve got wires crossing among a few different boxes here, like the nav/strobe controller and the flap relay. What this means is that the harness is going to be fatter aft of the spar, which may complicate feeding it through from the front. And I have to feed it through that way because otherwise I’d be stuffing the super complex panel harnesses through, and that’s a no-go for sure. So far my plan is to temporarily remove all the “local” stuff under the seat floors from the main harness before I install it in the fuselage; it’ll be a bit on the annoying side, but I don’t think there’s any way around it.
That’s a problem for another time, though; for now I just need to get things really finalized and cleaned up. Too bad I’ll likely have to wait until Monday for the harness to be complete, no matter how much progress I make over the next couple days. But I can still focus on finishing up and organizing the panel section; the tail portion should be a relative piece of cake after that.
So…until tomorrow…
PS Also, if I sound a little bit down here, I’m not. I’m still enjoying myself, just being cognizant of the challenges in front of me. At the end of the day, I’m overjoyed with how well this is going. I’ve heard folks talk about spending months getting wiring done, and here I feel like I’m on track to do it in a few weeks. Granted, there was a whole ton of planning effort ahead of this, but still…I’m feeling very accomplished right now.