Wiring run diagrams?

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

I have seen references in various places to RV wiring diagrams or wiring run suggestion diagrams being in some Van's instructions. Not in mine. Does such a reference exist anywhere?

[Gary 40274]

Aero Electric connection has several. Bob's book is well worth it. You can get it from Stein.

Gary

[cytoxin]

they come with vans harness. the harnesses are useless unless you are building the plane to spec. meaning no efis, no engine monitor, standard switchbreaker bank and so on. if you are building it to spec they are nice. the diagrams give a good flow to things. the vans harness sends a wire to each wing for strobe power but the reccomended kit is a single power supply unit. IIRC

[N941WR]

Originally Posted by cytoxin

... the harnesses are useless unless you are building the plane to spec...

I agree 100%. I bought the harness and cut it all apart and used parts of it. The drawings were worth the cost. Check with Van's, you might be able to buy just the drawings.

I did use 'lectric Bob's book, Van's diagram, Tony B's diagram, and a few others to come up with my own design.

Running the wires was fairly straight forward. Just run them one at a time, terminate them, test them, and move on to the next run.

[Bob Axsom]

Drawing your own by hand develops a good feel for your system and supports your later maintenance efforts. I drew the wiring on two sheets with common interconnect symbols for power and ground. One sheet was dedicated to electrical systems of all varieties except avionics and the other is for avionics. Basically all you have to do is draw rectangles representing all of the termination items: lights, radios, antennas, relays, switches, circuit breakers, alternators, starters, etc. Then identify all of the termination points on them and draw in the interconnecting unshielded wires, shielded wires and coaxs. Identify the wire types and gauges that you are going to use. There is an FAA document that will allow you to determine the wire guage needed for voltage, current and length of wire involved. The drawing in Van's manual was good for the requirements for the the basic power system and the vendor documents tell you what the input and output requirements are for the items you want to include in your airplane. Different manufacturers have different identification standards for signals so it can get a little complex deciding which wire on box 1 connector P1 pin A is connected to Box 2, connector P3, pin Z if say you are using a Terra comm panel and a mixture of Terra, Apollo and Garmin avionics. However, going through the grunt work of figuring this out is a very valuable experience.

Bob Axsom

[mannanj]

Bob:

Look in the front part of the Builders Manual, the part with the tools needed, pop rivets etc. IIRC there was a rudementary electrical schematic/drawing in that general info section before you get to the actual building instructions.

It even had a wire guage/length chart. You can use that to make your own by adding or deleting items.

[Jim P]

Bob, I found there are three things that really worked for me.

1) AC43-13B, Chapter 11 (Electrical). You can download this section from the web through the FAA site. Lots of good stuff from wire sizing to securing your bundles.
2) AeroElectric Connection: The architecture drawings are well worth it.
3) Wiring kit from Stein. I bought almost all my electrical stuff from Stein with no problems.

Jim

[noelf]

Van's construction manual, section 5, has several pages on wiring and also Van's 1-pager of a "typical" wiring solution. Section 5 can also be downloaded from Van's web site. Go to Van's Construction FAQ, and look for "Materials used in RV Airframes (Section 5) Part 2". This is the section that talks about the aircraft wiring.

Van's airframe wiring kit contains several large sheets of wiring diagrams that correspond to the pre-fabricated wiring harness (kits) that can be ordered for the different models of RV's.

I am a huge fan of the AeroElectric Connection Book. Even if you decide to just follow someone elses wiring schematic, THE BOOk will answer just about any question that may come up...and the pros and cons for different solutions.

I created my RV-6A wiring diagrams using the "DRAW" feature of MicroSoft's Word program. Most people do not realize, or take advantage of, the ablities available in that app. If you would like, I can send you what I have. The file includes about 15 pages of schematics , including the static/pitot system, fuel system, brake system, and a page of electrical symbols (all in Word) that can be coppied/ pasted in different parts of the document. Just open it with Word as you would any .wrd document.

[Rick6a]

Originally Posted by Bob Collins

I have seen references in various places to RV wiring diagrams or wiring run suggestion diagrams being in some Van's instructions. Not in mine. Does such a reference exist anywhere?

Bob,

I found DWG OP-10 to be a very helpful reference and referred to it often. It contains plenty of concise information relevant to wiring a basic RV. The DWG includes a detailed and easy to understand wiring schematic and all manner of useful information that answered many of my wiring questions.

[Jeff Vaughan]

Bob I have an extra drawing and I can send to you if you wish.