R

ron sterba

Well Known Member
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.
 
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.
 
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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.

 
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
 
Nav lights

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
 
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!
 
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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?
 
At the same time?

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

Vic
 
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.
 
brad walton said:
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.
Click to expand...

I remember seeing threads about this back about then, IIRC, a lot of them had a bad connection at the ground trace on the circuit board.
 
bkthomps said:
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?
Click to expand...

Both of mine have segments failed. Vintage is ~2003. I've already opened them up to check for bad connections but it's the LEDs themselves that are bad.
I've bought 2 replacements from a seller on the VAF classifieds but haven't installed them yet... will do that during the annual inspection next month.
 
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bkthomps said:
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?
Click to expand...

Yes. And to answer the question of "where's the best place for these indicators?"

...it's in the trash!

I got rid of these in favor of the EFIS Imbedded indicators and went from troublesome to rock solid as soon as I made the switch.
 
Waste of space

I have one in my panel. Looked at it a few times when I first started flying my 7A to make sure trim was neutral. Now, I never look at it.
 
Vic and Doug. Installed the LED indicator high and just above Skyview. Wired it to navigate light switch. Works great guys thanks.

Ron in Oregon RV9A
 
vic syracuse said:
Brian, I have seen the digits fail more so than the whole indicator. Did they both fail at the same time?

Vic
Click to expand...

I believe one went out, then the other. I assumed it was the daylight washing it out for a while and then never flew at night when I had concerns for compression on the top end, and now i haven't flown it since november as you know

so i'm not sure what we're dealing with! i was told the wiring seemed good and it must be bad indicators

these would have been bought anywhere between 2003 and 2006
 
I got a pair of replacement indicators to swap out, if mine are indeed bad I'll see if Ray Allen will replace
 
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