Lightspeed Plasma Mounting and Wiring Questions...

1. Where have you all who have the Plasma II mount the control unit? Does it matter if it is oriented horizontally or vertically?

2. The instructions say to wire the unit directly to the battery (no intermediate bus) Is it okay to wire it to the stud on the battery bus or do you guys run a wire all the way back to the battery terminals? If you do run it back to the terminals, what is the best way to secure it along the run? if it is wrapped to the large battery cable what is the best thing to wrap it with on the engine side of the firewall?

3. On the the input diagram it appears pins 7 & 8 are combined together and pins 14 &15 are also wired together. Is it best to run both wires for each set of pins together and combine them at the battery or do you jumper the pins at the connector and run a single wire to the battery? Or am I understanding the schematic for these pins incorrectly? Here is a link to it: http://www.lightspeedengineering.com/Manuals/InputDiagram.htm

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Matt

Mounted the control unit on the left forward rib of the subpanel on its side, using nutplates. Makes it hard -- but not impossible -- to get to but it's out of the way.

The wire runs to a circuit breaker on the panel and then to the battery. I put mine directly to the stud. There's also a ground wire.

Re: tying pins together. I use the technique Bob Nuckolls recommends.

Thank you much Bob!

- Matt

similar to Bob ...

I mounted the LS brainbox the same location as Bob, but mine is accessible thru the access panel I put in the fwd fuse top skin (TU canopy). I ran the power feed all the way to battery terminal ... since I had a small bundle that went to the battery and solenoids anyway.

Terry,

I also put in those access panels. Did you create a shelf under the access panel to mount the busses? Do you have any pictures? Also did you create a proseal gasket for them?

- Matt

Being an engineer (which too often means over-engineering), and being paranoid about wanting the option of module removal without a huge amount of groveling, I came up with a solution for mounting dual Light Speed modules that made for one-screw removal. This is probably less of an issue with a tip-up than it is with my slider. I wasn't comfortable installing access panels through the forward skin.

The modules are fastened together with a "hanger" bracket that is suspended from an angle bracket fixed to a subpanel rib. Posts on the hanger bracket engage rubber grommets in the angle bracket. By removing one screw at the bottom (which goes into a nutplate) I can lift the assembly up, slide it out of the way, then drop everything. After which I disconnect the connectors and remove the whole thing. I've already had to do it once to get the modules upgraded; as much extra work as it was to initially design/fabricate/install, I was glad I went through the trouble when the modules had to come out.

Here are a few pix:







More at this link.

If anyone's interested I can provide more details...