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Heads up to a potential problem with Van’s WH-00012 ADAHRS wire harness. It’s really easy to check before or after installation with a multimeter continuity check. Obviously, if you can catch it before installation, it can surely save troubleshooting time.
I have an Advanced Flight Systems (AFS) and Dynon installation but suspect the Garmin system also uses this same Van’s supplied harness. I found the problem after I installed my two ADAHRS and scanned the SkyView network. Data channel 1A came up missing. Ultimately the problem was this WH-00012 harness was mis-wired. One end of the harness has a DSUB-9 connector that plugs into the ADAHRS. The other end has Molex pins. You first route the harness through four small wing walkway rib grommets starting from the ADAHRS bay to the wing root. The build instructions page 19-03 and Figure 1 shows how to install the eight harness wires into the Molex 9-pin housing. Note, the one green wire on this Molex end is installed in pin #9 location. At this end, there is only one green wire. However, at the preinstalled D'SUB-9 end there are two identical green wires. The wire coming from the Molex end (pin 9) should go to the D'SUB-9 pin #1. Check with a multimeter if yours does. If Molex pin 9 goes to D'SUB pin 1, you’re okay. The problem comes from the other identical green wire that is used for cable shielding of four wires in the harness. If they’re swapped, you have a problem.
Apparently, this happens quite often. Tech support at AFS, when I asked about my data channel problem suggested I might have swapped the green wires. Humm, I was confused because at the Molex wing root end there is only one green wire. (Apparently in some installations, the builder inserts the tiny pins in the D'SUB connector and then they are the confused/guilty party.) Maybe it’s a bad manufacturing design to have two easily confused wires in the same harness. Vans helped us builders out by having us only deal with the larger Molex connector pins and sockets. However, it turns out their vendor can confuse wires too. I found the harness inspection sheet which said mine passed, humm.
I received my wing kit in February 2021. Maybe my harness was just a fluke but it’s easy to check yours. If you’ve already installed the harness and it is bad with D'SUB pins 1 and 5 swapped, find an avionic tech with the right tools and know-how. I’ve learned it’s relatively easy for them to switch the pins. For me, I ultimately cut four of the Molex pins off to pull the harness out of the wing before I understood the problem. My avionics wizard fixed the cable but it still took me hours to rethread the repaired harness through the four ribs. My AFS systems are now working nicely and last week my transponder and altimeter (ADAHRS) easily passed their checks and were signed off. I hope to get my DAR review in the next few weeks.
I have an Advanced Flight Systems (AFS) and Dynon installation but suspect the Garmin system also uses this same Van’s supplied harness. I found the problem after I installed my two ADAHRS and scanned the SkyView network. Data channel 1A came up missing. Ultimately the problem was this WH-00012 harness was mis-wired. One end of the harness has a DSUB-9 connector that plugs into the ADAHRS. The other end has Molex pins. You first route the harness through four small wing walkway rib grommets starting from the ADAHRS bay to the wing root. The build instructions page 19-03 and Figure 1 shows how to install the eight harness wires into the Molex 9-pin housing. Note, the one green wire on this Molex end is installed in pin #9 location. At this end, there is only one green wire. However, at the preinstalled D'SUB-9 end there are two identical green wires. The wire coming from the Molex end (pin 9) should go to the D'SUB-9 pin #1. Check with a multimeter if yours does. If Molex pin 9 goes to D'SUB pin 1, you’re okay. The problem comes from the other identical green wire that is used for cable shielding of four wires in the harness. If they’re swapped, you have a problem.
Apparently, this happens quite often. Tech support at AFS, when I asked about my data channel problem suggested I might have swapped the green wires. Humm, I was confused because at the Molex wing root end there is only one green wire. (Apparently in some installations, the builder inserts the tiny pins in the D'SUB connector and then they are the confused/guilty party.) Maybe it’s a bad manufacturing design to have two easily confused wires in the same harness. Vans helped us builders out by having us only deal with the larger Molex connector pins and sockets. However, it turns out their vendor can confuse wires too. I found the harness inspection sheet which said mine passed, humm.
I received my wing kit in February 2021. Maybe my harness was just a fluke but it’s easy to check yours. If you’ve already installed the harness and it is bad with D'SUB pins 1 and 5 swapped, find an avionic tech with the right tools and know-how. I’ve learned it’s relatively easy for them to switch the pins. For me, I ultimately cut four of the Molex pins off to pull the harness out of the wing before I understood the problem. My avionics wizard fixed the cable but it still took me hours to rethread the repaired harness through the four ribs. My AFS systems are now working nicely and last week my transponder and altimeter (ADAHRS) easily passed their checks and were signed off. I hope to get my DAR review in the next few weeks.
