owners of Ray Allen LED trim indicator

[ron sterba]

Do you have a preferred location for the LED elevator trim indicator? In night flying it's my understanding the brightness of the LED ' S are NOT dimable. .3 locations iam thinking about. Front of pilot, near top of instrument panel. Center top of panel and center bottom of instrument panel just a inch above throttle. Thanks. Pictures always helpful.

Ron in Oregon.

[BobTurner]

They are dimable, but not adjustable, e.g., there are two levels, full bright or low. You bring to 12 volts, one wire, to dim. I find the two levels about right for day/night, respectively.
Mine is high, right-center.
edit: bring white wire to 12 volts to dim; open (no connection) for full brightness.

[rightrudder]

Hi Ron,

I put mine fairly high in the panel, just left of the PFD. Just seemed logical to me. I've got trim buttons on the stick; if I had the dash-mounted rocker switch, I'd probably group it and the indicator together.

[erich weaver]

Do you have an EFIS? If yes, why not do away with the separate trim indicator and set up your display to show trim?

Erich

[vic syracuse]

It's easy really... just connect the wire to the nav light switch. When you turn on the nav lights the indicators get dim.

Vic

[ron sterba]

Thanks for the heads up Guys. (Bob,Doug,Erich, & Vic.). Yes I have a Dynon Skyview 10" and a 7" to the right. After flying in several RVs I found the pilot taking to much time (just seconds of course) to get to the EFIS trim display. both had the flap indicator ON the lower right corner of the screen. Now what I FELT I observed was a little more time looking at the small print on the screen and then refocusing back outside. In my recent ride in this RV, it had the LED Trim indicator at the top and CENTER of the instrument panel. He said he liked the quick glace down and peripheral vision advantage. He also had a EFIS big screen. Now I grant you looking at the trim indicator is a limited time item when flying. And most of the time its by the seat of the pants and the horizon position on the wind screen. I bring this up only because during a Bi-annual flight review 6 years back my flight instructor said leave the GPS buttons alone and get your eyes back out on the horizon! He made a big impact on me. (GPS manufacturers have done a good job of just the essentials on the screen in the past several years) ( due to pilot inputs in round table discussions). I had the chance to see what the biggie planes had on the panels and saw many items that could be put on a EFIS display but were stand alone gizmos. I like that because they were always there in the same location and there was comfortable feeling about that setting. ( just my thoughts) Now on the other item of using 12v from the nav lights I love that! I like DIM, and thats how I'll wire that. plus a had two rectangular holes in the panel,front and center so I'll go with the hole next to the EFIS, Pilot front view. I like the experience from the four of you! and anyone else who would like to sound in is surely welcome! This article should be a library item when the experience flows in!

Thanks for the foresight as always.

RV9A Ron in Oregon.

If i quit modifying the plane I might get er DONE SOONER!

[bkthomps]

both of mine stopped working, i was told this is normal for these and that I should just buy new ones, anyone else had this problem? what are the odds that two fail?

[NYTOM]

Originally Posted by vic syracuse

It's easy really... just connect the wire to the nav light switch. When you turn on the nav lights the indicators get dim.

Vic

Your right Vic, I did the same thing.

[vic syracuse]

Brian, I have seen the digits fail more so than the whole indicator. Did they both fail at the same time?

Vic

[brad walton]

Brian, i think they had a bad batch maybe 8 or 10 years ago. If they are in a certain time frame, RA will replace them at cost.