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Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

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Nick(at)Scholtes1.com
Guest

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:37 am Post subject: Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

Hey Listers!



I bought a Model IV Speedster recently.  It was designed to have 

electric trim, so darn-it, I want it to have electric trim!  The seller 

(also the builder) told me:



"The servo is installed and the wire goes from here (up under the panel) 

back to the servo.  I just never connected the switches and the 

indicator."    Ok, I can connect the wires under the panel, no problem.



Well, last night I opened up the "hatch" in the elevator to take a look 

at the servo.  Sure enough, it's in there.  Then I noticed the wires 

that come out of the servo are bundled into a neat package and stuffed 

to the side.  They're not connected to anything.  The wire that is under 

the panel heads aft and dissapears somewhere in the back of the 

fuselage, never to be seen or heard from again! It never comes out.



So, my question:



-- How do I route the wire out of the back of the fuselage and into the 

elevator to connect to the servo, especially now that the elevator has 

been covered and the wire wasn't installed prior to covering?  

Recovering the elevator would be SO unappealing!



-- How is the wire normally routed?



Any suggestions?



Thanks!



Nick

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starlaker

Joined: 24 Jun 2006
Posts: 16

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:24 am Post subject: Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

Nick Scholtes wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   



 Hey Listers!



 I bought a Model IV Speedster recently.  It was designed to have 

 electric trim, so darn-it, I want it to have electric trim!  The 

 seller (also the builder) told me:



 "The servo is installed and the wire goes from here (up under the 

 panel) back to the servo.  I just never connected the switches and the 

 indicator."    Ok, I can connect the wires under the panel, no problem.



 Well, last night I opened up the "hatch" in the elevator to take a 

 look at the servo.  Sure enough, it's in there.  Then I noticed the 

 wires that come out of the servo are bundled into a neat package and 

 stuffed to the side.  They're not connected to anything.  The wire 

 that is under the panel heads aft and dissapears somewhere in the back 

 of the fuselage, never to be seen or heard from again! It never comes 

 out.



 So, my question:



 -- How do I route the wire out of the back of the fuselage and into 

 the elevator to connect to the servo, especially now that the elevator 

 has been covered and the wire wasn't installed prior to covering?  

 Recovering the elevator would be SO unappealing!



 -- How is the wire normally routed?



 Any suggestions?



 Thanks!



 Nick



Nick,
	


Have you removed the cover around the horizontal stabilizer to see if 

the wire from the panel is  visible there?  Mine exits at the rear of 

the horizontal stab  and  enters the  elevator on the top front corner.

Dick

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_________________
Dick D'Archangel
Classic 4 6061D

Fox5flyer
Guest

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:24 am Post subject: Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

Recovering a small portion of the underside of the elevator is not really a

big deal.  If it's painted with Polytone the patch can easily be made

invisible.  I doubt there is any other effective way to do it other than

some sort of surface mount.



Deke



---

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Guy Buchanan

Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 1204
Location: Ramona, CA

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:01 am Post subject: Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

At 08:36 AM 2/1/2007, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  How do I route the wire out of the back of the fuselage and into the 

elevator to connect to the servo, especially now that the elevator 

has been covered and the wire wasn't installed prior to covering?

Recovering the elevator would be SO unappealing!


	


I recently routed a manual trim cable without re-covering so this 

should be easy.



1. Locate an exit point near the inboard end of the elevator. Be 

careful because there are steel reinforcements in this area so the 

exit may not be in as ideal a location as you'd like.



2. Melt a hole in the cover with a soldering pen.



3. Bend a small loop in the end of a piece of coat hanger.



4. Gently feed the coat hangar from the new exit hole toward the 

servo. Try to pass "below" the elevator longerons; that way any bumps 

caused by the wire feeding over the longeron will be less noticeable.



5. Attach the end of the wire to the loop and very carefully pull it back out.



6. Tie-wrap the wire to the elevator cross tube and feed it forward 

below the elevator to meet the wire coming aft.

Guy Buchanan

K-IV 1200 / 582-C / Warp / 100% done, thanks mostly to Bob Ducar.

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_________________
Guy Buchanan
Deceased K-IV 1200
A glider pilot too.

Float Flyr

Joined: 19 Jul 2006
Posts: 2704
Location: Campbellton, Newfoundland

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:23 am Post subject: Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

I would dope a doubler on the bottom of the elevator first.  Try to make the

hole flow with the paint job... E.g. speed stripes etc.  The second thing is

instead of cutting with a razor I would consider using a 15-20 watt

soldering iron. And slowly burning the hole. The iron helps heal around the

hole.



After the wires are installed it should be easy to dope a patch on and

shrink the patch and finish to match the rest of the elevator.



You could also just cut a small straight slit on the bottom of the elevator

pull the wires through with an electricians pulling wire and then patch the

slit with tape.  To hide the job put a dummy tape on the other elevator to

balance the appearance.



You may have to bribe a neighbourhood kid to crawl carefully down in the

fuselage to attach the wires in a reasonable fashion to the frame.  Maybe

the age of Dickens isn't over yet 



Noel



[quote] --

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_________________
Noel Loveys
Kitfox III-A
Aerocet 1100 Floats

Michel

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 966
Location: Norway

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:49 am Post subject: Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

On Feb 1, 2007, at 8:00 PM, Guy Buchanan wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		   I recently routed a manual trim cable without re-covering so this 

 should be easy.


	


Guy, like most of us, I keep some email from this list for later 

reference, in a special folder. While I am not specially interested in 

the electric trim of a Speedster (I have a model 3 without trim), I 

would like to take the occasion to salute you, and the nice way you 

document your work and explain it to the benefit of everyone. Together 

with e.g. Lowell, Torgeir (and many others, I can't write them all) you 

make this place worth the reading and archiving of good stuff that 

makes our flying a safer and enjoyable experience.



Thank you, Sir! Keep up the good job (and everyone else)



Michel



do not archive

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_________________
Kitfox 3 - Jabiru 2200

Guy Buchanan

Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Posts: 1204
Location: Ramona, CA

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:17 pm Post subject: Speedster Electric Trim Wire Routing

At 10:49 AM 2/2/2007, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  I would like to take the occasion to salute you, and the nice way 

you document your work and explain it to the benefit of everyone.


	


Thank you. :-[ And to think I un-subscribed last month because the 

signal / noise was just too low to justify the effort. I 

re-subscribed after a couple of days cooling.

Guy Buchanan

K-IV 1200 / 582-C / Warp / 100% done, thanks mostly to Bob Ducar.



Do not archive

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_________________
Guy Buchanan
Deceased K-IV 1200
A glider pilot too.

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