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RV14 Seat Heater Elements

FlyingFox

Member
If anyone who has installed seat heater elements, in a 14, has any photos of where/how they ran their wiring from the seats up to the panel, please email or post the photos.
Thanks in advance,
[email protected]
 
Hope these pictures help, they are all I have tonight. The pink string is temporary until I run the wires up through the hole and plug them into the seat elements.


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Hope these pictures help, they are all I have tonight. The pink string is temporary until I run the wires up through the hole and plug them into the seat elements.


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Thanks I did a similar install but put the bushing hole for the seat wires to go through on the cover that the hinges are in. I thought to would be easier to plug in with the front cover completely off. Found if you took the pins out of the plug you can feed wires through the existing sized holes in the spar using a bushing.
 

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No -14 but...

I installed heater in my -10. I was appalled at the wiring harness that was included with the heaters. Removing some of the vinyl loom, I found several cold soldered joints that were ready to fall apart.

I ended up fabricating new harnesses from Tefzel wire with proper connections...

Just an FYI...
 
I kept all the seat heater wiring, switches and relays in the flap actuator area and shortened the wiring as much as possible. The seat heat high/low switches are on the forward part of the flap actuator brace and easy to get to. I totally agree with the poor quality of the wiring, so ALL the wiring forward of that is Tefzel, a DPST power switch on the panel with the heaters on separate parts of the switch, and each with their own fuse.

That way I have an easy way to cut power to the system if things get busy, Summer time, or any other issues.
 
If one is installing heated seats there's an idea that's really worth considering. I'm not sure how much it would interfere with the "pre-packaged" solution for the RV14. I know it's something I wish I had thought of before wiring mine.

Traditional seat heater controls use relays to provide two heat settings, high and low. In low setting the seat cushion and seat back elements are tied in series. In the high heat position they are tied in parallel. This works but it's very finite in the level of control it offers.

We have ready access these days to semiconductors which will control power output either through pulse width modulation or through a linear circuit such as this one (not heavy-duty enough for this application but you get the idea)
https://periheliondesign.com/egpavr.htm

If I were doing mine again I would wire the seat heat elements in parallel and control them with a rotary control much like a dimmer control with an on-off switch at the end of the range of rotation. This way one could have a relatively large range of temperature control for the seats.
 
Sorry for the dumb question, but where are you purchasing the sear heaters from?

Mine came with the interior from Classic Aero. My wiring looked good to me. I removed the pins from the plugs to fish it through the bushings and took off the cable sheathing and reassembled without any issues.
 
Seat heaters are nice but has anyone heard or seen ventilated seats installed? I would prefer that to heated seats if it was an option.

Eric
 
Seat heaters are nice but has anyone heard or seen ventilated seats installed? I would prefer that to heated seats if it was an option.

Eric

Not sure about the -14, but with the older models if you remove the aileron pushrod boots in the wing intersection, the seats will ventilate better than an Escalade!
 
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