Work for the day began by pulling the wiring that will connect both control stick grips together through the seat rib grommets and then adding the pilot push to talk wire and ground wire into the Molex connector on the pilot side.
Pulling in the wires that will run between the
two Tosten CS-8 control stick grips.
After the pilot side Molex connector received the pilot push to talk wire and grounding wire, the Molex connector halves were slid together. While looking at the connector and contemplating placing a small wire tie around the connector between the wires to prevent it from opening, I had a great idea. There are spare holes in the Molex connector because only 9 of the 12 of the circuits are in use … so there is already a hole in the connector to run a wire tie through which will prevent the connector from opening. A small wire tie was just ever so slightly too wide, so I ran one edge of the wire tie across the ScotchBrite wheel to shave off just a little material … and presto the perfect connector lock.
Created a connector lock by passing a wire tie
through one of the unused holes of the Molex connector. Worked great!
The wire from the control stick grip was given one loop and an existing tooling hole in a seat rib was used to secure the connector onto the seat rib. Have to say, am quite pleased with the way the pilot side grip wiring turned out. The wires and connectors are out of the way of moving parts and the wires have plenty of flexibility for stick movement.
Completed pilot’s side Tosten CS-8 control stick
grip wiring.
Moved back to the right side of the RV-12 and crimped the terminals for the Molex connector onto the ends of the wires from the Tosten CS-8 control stick grips. As with the pilot side wiring, the high hat common wire was doubled up with the common wire for the switches ... doing this only requires one ground wire run to the Molex connector. The wires were inserted into the Molex connector body and then dressed with heat shrink tubing.
Stripping wire for the .062" crimp terminals
that will be inserted into the Molex connector body.
Completed Molex connector terminating the wires
from the co-pilot’s Tosten CS-8 control stick grips.
The last major part of the puzzle to be installed is the wiring that will connect the control stick wiring to the instrument panel. The wires were run through the wire grommets on the co-pilot seat ribs and into the center tunnel. A short cut was taken to avoid the tight grommets in the F-1203A bulkhead by running the wires through the center lightening hole in the F-1203A bulkhead. When the wires get secured with wire ties, they will not rub on the edges of the lightening hole so this should work out well. This was done because the center tunnel grommets in the F-1203A bulkhead are really tight … primarily due to some of the shielded cables making 90 degree bends right after the wire grommets. When this happens the shielded cable tends to pass through the grommet at an angle taking up additional room thus making less room for additional wires.
Feeding the wires that will connect the control
stick wiring to the instrument panel through the co-pilot seat rib grommets.
By this time my back was starting to get a little sore from all the bending over, so decided this was a good point to stop for the day.
