Duckworks Power Supply/Ballast Mounting

[Mark L]

For those who have mounted the Duckworks HID Power Supply/Ballast; did you choose to mount on the wing rib or light mounting bracket. Would one be better than another considering some concerns for electrical noise to wingtip antenne, etc. What would you consider to be the advantages or disadvantages of one over the other? Would you do it the same way again?

[rleffler]

Originally Posted by Mark L

For those who have mounted the Duckworks HID Power Supply/Ballast; did you choose to mount on the wing rib or light mounting bracket.

As you can see in the photo below, I mounted mine to the back of the light mounting bracket in my RV-10.

Originally Posted by Mark L

Would one be better than another considering some concerns for electrical noise to wingtip antenne, etc. What would you consider to be the advantages or disadvantages of one over the other? Would you do it the same way again?

I don't have a strong opinion, but I believe that the farther you keep the ballast away from any noise sensitive circuit the better off you'll be.

bob

[Bob Kuykendall]

I just helped Steve Smith install his Duckworks HID setup; his RV-8 has the landing and taxi lights in the wingtip. Here's a photo showing how we mounted the boxes:



Note: It looks like we've got tefzel connected straight to the red cable, but that's just a trick of perspective. The wiring bundle behind the red cable comes through a snap bushing in the last rib and goes to the strobe and nav lights and such. In the photo we just haven't installed and connected the power leads that go to the red connector.

As you can see, the aluminum box is mounted to the last nose rib near the spar using the three screws and mounting ears on the edges of the box. The black plastic box is secured with a cable tie through two holes in the nose rib. I put a piece of double-sticky foam mounting tape between the black box and the rib to keep it from squirming around under the cable tie.

It was kind of tricky to find a location for the aluminum box that wasn't interfered with by the stiffening beads in the ribs. This location and orientation was one of few that didn't require any spacers between the box and the rib to clear the beads.

We discussed many different ways of mounting this stuff, including various arrangements on the spar shear web, and arrangements on a separate aluminum mounting bracket. In the end, we decided that this was the easiest and simplest, and had the major benefit of being doable with the tools and parts at hand. It also eliminated the need for any more wire holes and snap bushings, since the power leads for the landing light already came through that last rib. I imagine we'll have a look at it next annual to see how it's all faring.

Thanks, Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24 <---- now with real wings!

[scsmith]

Just an added note, part of our thought process here was that the power supply box has some shallow cooling fins on it, and we did not want to piggyback the black blob that is in the cable onto the power supply box, concerned about affecting the cooling adversely, and/or exposing the black blob to higher temperatures than it would like. They packaged that component separately for a reason.

Steve.

Originally Posted by Bob Kuykendall

I just helped Steve Smith install his Duckworks HID setup; his RV-8 has the landing and taxi lights in the wingtip. Here's a photo showing how we mounted the boxes:



Note: It looks like we've got tefzel connected straight to the red cable, but that's just a trick of perspective. The wiring bundle behind the red cable comes through a snap bushing in the last rib and goes to the strobe and nav lights and such. In the photo we just haven't installed and connected the power leads that go to the red connector.

As you can see, the aluminum box is mounted to the last nose rib near the spar using the three screws and mounting ears on the edges of the box. The black plastic box is secured with a cable tie through two holes in the nose rib. I put a piece of double-sticky foam mounting tape between the black box and the rib to keep it from squirming around under the cable tie.

It was kind of tricky to find a location for the aluminum box that wasn't interfered with by the stiffening beads in the ribs. This location and orientation was one of few that didn't require any spacers between the box and the rib to clear the beads.

We discussed many different ways of mounting this stuff, including various arrangements on the spar shear web, and arrangements on a separate aluminum mounting bracket. In the end, we decided that this was the easiest and simplest, and had the major benefit of being doable with the tools and parts at hand. It also eliminated the need for any more wire holes and snap bushings, since the power leads for the landing light already came through that last rib. I imagine we'll have a look at it next annual to see how it's all faring.

Thanks, Bob K.
http://www.hpaircraft.com/hp-24 <---- now with real wings!

[Auburntsts]

+1 on Bob Leffler's install on the back of the mounting bracket --I did it the same way which is also the example way descibed in the RV-10 instructions (which I assumed were the same for all RVs).

[Rick_A]

I put the reflector mounts together long before I actually mounted them in the plane. I ended up installing the lights after I was flying for almost a year.

When I originally made the mounts, I mounted the ballasts on the reflectors. When I finally installed them, I decided it was a lot easier to mount the ballasts on the outboard ribs. IIRC, it was very difficult to plug the wires into the ballasts with them mounted on the light bracket. I knew I would thank myself later for making them easy to unplug (being mounted on the rib).