I am VERY happy to announce that the first run of Dial-2-Start Cellular Remote Switches are ready for sale.
For those who haven’t been following the development of this product, I have been developing a device that will control your engine pre-heater allowing you to start heating up your engine by simply calling the unit.
The unit plugs into any standard 110 volt socket and can supply 12 amps to any type of heater or other device you choose. It has 2 output circuits that have LED lights in the ends so you can tell if the unit is activated. The outputs can be set to turn on for a specific amount of time up to 18 hours and can be activated by a phone call or via SMS text message. When activated via SMS text message the unit will send you a confirmation text message saying that it has activated.
This device has been designed to replace cyclical timers which are not good for an engine. Turning on the pre-heater daily will result in condensation forming inside the engine. In time this results in rusting of wear surfaces and premature component failure.
It is best to pre-heat your engine and then fly the airplane. This will drive the moisture from the crank case. When you return the engine is allowed to cool to the surrounding temperature without undue moisture in the crank case.
Imagine being able to get up in the morning to a beautiful sky then calling your aircraft to prepare it for flight while you have your morning coffee. By the time you drive to the airport the engine is toasty warm and ready for flight. You open the hangar doors and are ready to fly!!
There will be winter cost savings in fuel simply because you do not have to wait for the engine to get up to the 100 deg. take off temperature. Burning AV gas is a very expensive way of getting your engine up to temperature. It is even more so when the temperatures are below 10 deg. C!!
I took the time and effort to develop this product the safe way as well. I have used ONLY tested and rated components. Others are using boards with unrated Chinese relays and such. I have put the unit through safety testing and it has obtained a c TUV us safety rating.
I am very happy with the units and have the available for sale at www.dial2start.com
Thanks for listening and I hope you have a tailwind!
I thought that I would talk a little bit about the axillary fuel tank I have installed in the forward part of the baggage compartment in my RV-10.
The RV-10 is a four place aircraft and as such is pretty nose heavy when you are flying with only the front seats occupied. As such, many owners fly with removable ballast in the baggage compartment. This ballast can take many forms such as a bag of sand, tool bag or in my case fuel.
I designed a fuel tank that fits in the forward co-pilot’s side of the baggage compartment. It occupies the triangular shaped cavity below the cross member at the front of the baggage compartment. It is mounted to the airframe using four AN4 bolts into the upper cross member and seven #8 screws through 2 mounting flanges. One to the forward side wall and one to the front center tunnel cross member.
The tank holds about 11.3 gallons of fuel. At 5.83 lbs/gal that works out to 65.9 lbs of fuel. The tank itself weighs in at approx. 14 lbs. The associated pumps, wiring and plumbing weigh in at about 10 lbs. Total weight of the system with full fuel is around 90 lbs.
This tank is directly connected to the right wing tank supply line that runs to the main fuel valve. The line to the aux. tank tees off of the Right wing tank feed line and runs through a 12v NC (normally closed) fuel shut-off valve that prevents fuel from flowing through the line when not energized.
Through a pair of wobble pumps I can either fill or drain the aux. tank from the right hand wing tank. There are both an electronic fuel gauge and a sight tube incorporated into the tank. The electronic sender is required if I want to directly supply the engine during takeoff. The site tube is there to aid in filling or emptying the tank as ballast.
There have been many trials and tribulations in the design, manufacture and installation of this tank. The process is not for the feint of heart. I have had some small leaks show up where the mounting brackets are welded to the tank body. I have also needed to add the fuel shut-off valve when I realized that the fuel in the aux. tank was gravity feeding back into the right wing tank. This oversight cost me a couple of days work in fabricating new plumbing in the pump bay to make room for the new valve.
What I do have now though, is a tool that will allow me to adjust the plane’s center of gravity depending on the mission. The plane flies much better with some additional weight in the back when the rear seats are unoccupied. I can now tailor the amount of ballast I carry and as a bonus I have an extra hour+ of fuel to be able to get into areas without fuel and the ability to be able to purchase a larger quantity of cheaper fuel.
I feel that this approach to the addition of extra fuel capacity in the RV-10 is much better option as compared to adding extra fuel to the outboard areas of the wing. By adding the weight to an area already designed to carry it I am not altering the wing in any way. I didn’t feel comfortable in adding the extra weight out at the end of the wing because I would not have been able to test it properly. The added outboard weight could have an adverse effect on the aircraft in the stall/spin envelope and I don’t play in that sand box.
Anyway, I have almost all of the kinks worked out of the design and have had fuel in the tank for calibration of the fuel level sender and sight tube. I have to determine the moment location of the tank and factor the weight of the fuel into the weight and balance calculations.
I will take some pictures if I think about it and post them later.
Just a note to let everyone know that I am still here and still plugging away at my RV-10 and the myriad of other projects I have on the go.
Since I last posted I have been able to move the plane to the hangar and substantially complete the construction and wiring. I am now working on the little details while testing the fuel system for leaks.
I have been working on the Dial2Start units and we are finally ready for production! The path in getting this unit ready for sale has been MUCH longer than I anticipated and much more costly. The Dial2Start unis are now certified under the c TUV us mark and I am now confident in selling them to the general public.
I will be posting more information here shortly and will get a few more articles posted regarding the LS1 conversion.
I heard through the Matronix RV-10 forum that owners of RV-10s are finding the main gear wheel pants a bit loose when being inspected during the annual inspection.
What is happening is a purely material thing! The aluminum bracket that the wheel pant attaches to on the inboard side is attached to another steel bracket that is bolted to the axle. These two parts are not bolted directly together. Instead, they are separated by a length of aluminum tube. This tube spans between the face of the aluminum pant attachment bracket and a 1/2″ steel insert that is reduced to 3/8″ where it rests in a hole in the steel bracket attached to the axle. Have a look at the picture to get a feel of how this all goes together.
What is happening is that vibration generated by the wheel/pant assembly is placing a bending load on the three bolts that hold this wheel pant attachment bracket. This load is borne in compression by the aluminum spacers. Mushrooming of the ends of the spacers has been observed which leads to a shortening of their length. This length reduction results in a reduction in tension of the bolt/nut assembly and ultimately loose assembly and a sloppy wheel pant.
The fix for this is relatively easy. I chose as others have to replace the 2 pieces that define the gap between the two brackets with a single machined piece that has a larger diameter and more contact area. This will help distribute the loads over a larger surface area between the brackets. I have also made the bushing from a more durable material. Due to the moisture in the wheel area 304 stainless was chosen.
This picture shows the two piece bushing set and the new replacement one piece bushing.
This picture shows the increased amount of contact area of the new bushing.
This is a picture of the new bushings installed between the aluminum and steel brackets.
This was an inexpensive fix that I was very happy to hear about before I finished the plane. I do not have my wings installed so it was an easy swap out.
I am going to make a few sets for other RV-10 owners and builder. I haven’t got a price put together yet but they won’t be very expensive.
Have a great time building and modifying your experimental planes!
I am building a Van’s RV-10 with a Chevrolet LS1 V8 engine in place of the Lycoming IO-540. My build has progressed along pretty much as planned but I did run into a bit of a problem when it came to wiring the firewall forward.
As many of you have seen under the hood of your automobile, there is a large mass of wires that originates at the engine computer module (ECM) that fan out to the various sensors and actuators throughout the engine compartment. As the engine I have chosen is of the same automotive origin, I have had to play in their sandbox so to speak when it comes to wiring harnesses.
I first started looking in to this issue when I received my engine computer and wiring harness from Geared Drives. They are a distributor of Painless Ignition Systems. These are the people who supplied my propeller speed reduction unit (PSRU). The trigger for me was in looking at the terminal ends that went into the ignition relay. I saw bright shiny copper!
I remembered then that the Tefzel wire that was used in the rest of the airplane had a silvery colour rather than a copper colour. This led me to do some more digging because I wanted to understand the issue fully. Up to this time I had followed the wire recommendations found in the assembly manual and AC 43.13 but I didn’t fully understand the reasons behind them.
Tefzel coated wire has 4 things going for it that standard PVC coated automotive wire doesn’t.
The extruded coating (ethylene/tetrafluorbethylene)on Tefzel wire has a much higher melting point as compared to PVC. 150 deg. C verses 75-85 deg. C. This is a significant difference!
Polyvinylchloride (PVC) is toxic when it burns which it does at a much lower temperature.
The wire used in the core of Tefzel is tinned throughout so it is much more resistant to corrosion than bare copper.
Lastly, the core wire has many more strands that are able withstand voltage up to 600v.
This led me to a decision I need to make regarding the safety of my aircraft. I sat down with Charlie Murray one day over coffee to discuss the issue. Neither of us had ever heard of an instance where the builder of an aircraft with an automotive conversion engine had replaced the wiring in the engine wiring harness with Tefzel. This said, he agreed with me that it would be proper to follow AC 43.13 and change it out. I decided at that time to convert to Tefzel wire.
The first step in the replacement process was to define a couple of firewall forward wiring standards relating to my LS1 installation.
1.The main wiring run from the front of the engine to the ECM has to be thermally protected as it comes in close proximity to the exhaust headers. This will be done using the same type of fire sleeve used on fuel lines.
2.As completely as possible, all wiring in the engine compartment will meet the MIL-Spec wiring standard.
Next, the supplied wiring harness needed to be documented so that its operation was understood and pin diagrams could be made. This process involved searching the internet for specific wiring diagrams and becoming intimate with the Delphi MEFI-4b ECM. All of this information was readily available. MSD was a great source of information as they manufacture a very similar harness and ECM combination. Their documentation was superb.
Each of the connectors incorporated into the engine wiring harness had to be identified along with the terminals within them. This was a very important exercise as there are 6 different types of terminal used in the harness. I ended up purchasing 4 types locally and had to order 2 from the U.S. I will list the terminals used, the manufacturer/distributor and part numbers at the end of the article.
The wire had to be researched as well. I needed to know the gauge of the wire used in the automotive application so that I could choose a comparable Tefzel product. Again I turned to the internet for this after counting the number of strands and determining their individual gauge. This information led me to the decision to use predominantly 18 Gauge wire throughout the harness. The only heavier wire used in the original harness was used to supply power to a number of sites all at once.
Having gathered all of this information and making a number of trips to Auto Parts Centre in Dorchester to compare terminals to the original I was able to order allnew components for the engine wiring harness. While waiting for the materials to arrive, I was able to get a good start on the fabrication of my magnetic alternate air door. More on that at a later date.
Embarking on this project was purely academic to this point. That all changed when I had to make the first cut of a harness wire! With paper and pen in hand I systematically cut and recorded the wire colour, position and terminal type. I did this one wire at a time. Each connector has identification numbers or letters on them so you know where the wire is supposed to return to. I got ahead of myself once. I cut the wires and pulled them out before recording their position in the connector. It took a frantic few minutes on the internet before I turned up a pin diagram for that specific sensor connector posted on an LS1 engine forum.
Here is where we get into the nitty-gritty of the job. After having separated the old terminal ends from the 2 ECU connectors and labeling the wire ends, I untangled the individual sections of the harness such as the injector connectors and the temperature sensors etc. and set them aside. I then took them individually and removed the terminal ends from the connector blocks. With this complete I cut new wire lengths from the 4 colours I had in stock. Red, White, Black and Yellow. All of this was recorded for future reference.
One of the other decisions I made early on in the project was that as many ground wires as possible would be run to a common grounding point. As such, I have installed a 48 tab grounding block on the cockpit side of the firewall and a 24 tab grounding block on the engine side if the firewall. The engine block is grounded to the large lug common to these two blocks which are back to back on the firewall. This allowed me to run separate grounds back to the ground block instead of merging them into a single wire as had been the practice in the original harness.
As I replaced sections of the harness I connected them to their corresponding sensors and such on the engine. This enabled me to run the wires very neatly along a common path back towards the ECM which is mounted on the firewall. I am looking for a very neat installation and will be tying the bundle with waxed cord when they are all in place to keep them from chaffing.
There are a number of wires that need to penetrate the firewall to be terminated in the cockpit. I have them running through a specially designed stainless steel flange that gets lined with fire sleeve (surrounding the wire bundle). A separate fire sleeve is then placed over the flange and is held in place with gear clamps. The end is sealed with high temperature silicon.
One of the groups of wires passing through the firewall leads to the OBD2 connector. This connector is very similar to the one in your car where a technician can connect to it while the engine is running. I fabricated a bracket to mount the connector where it can be easily accessed. I mounted it to the right side of the throttle quadrant just under the lower lip of the instrument panel.
The relay block that came with the harness has 3 relays. One for the ignition, one for the Air conditioner and one for the fuel pump. In my application the ignition relay is the only one of the three that I am using for its original purpose. The other two are going to be re-assigned to handle the switching of the dual coolant pumps. These will be controlled by the pilot via a switch on the panel.
Final assembly of the various wires into the Delphi main harness connectors is the last large job to be completed in this swap out. Each wire is stripped and hand crimped to the terminal after having been inserted through the hole at the proper location. Unmentioned before in the article, when talking about terminals was the fact that they have been soldered as well as mechanically crimped. Vibration can come into play over time and a bit of solder on the exposed end of the wire will go a long way towards keeping electrical gremlins at bay. Be sure though, to make sure that the soldered portion of the wire does not migrate too far. This could lead to the strain relief area becoming less flexible and a future failure.
The MDRA inspectors are aware of this wiring issue and have started to fail inspections as a result. I hope that I have been able to shed some light on a problem that I think has gone un-noticed in the past. We are all responsible for the safety of our amateur built aircraft. We need to consider the wiring used in every area of the aircraft and replace it with proper Tefzel coated MIL-Spec wire wherever necessary.
Here are a couple of photos of the harness and terminals.
Dean said that he had passengers in the back seat complaining of hot feet and cold shoulders. I have heard this a number of times in other conversations both personal and on the net.
Dean came up with a creative solution to the problem. He purchased one of the high quality eyeball vents from Steinair. In the photo below you will see how Dean cut a hole in the tunnel cover above the Tee manifold supplying warm air to the rear foot wells.
I like this idea as it allows the passengers the ability to regulate and direct the warm air where it is needed and most comfortable.
I have been working on the engine wiring harness and have made some progress. I have taken all of the wires and replaced them with Tefzel wire. I have crimped on new terminals at the sensor or device ends. This went very smoothly and I am happy with the result.
I have run all of the wires across the engine compartment and down one of the rails of the engine mount on the co-pilot side. The engine computer is mounted on the co-pilot side of the firewall about mid height. This is where all of the wires run to and get terminated in either of two 32 pin connectors or they go to the ignition relay and power sources.
I am planning to run all of the wires through some sort of protective sheath so that the heat from the headers is not a problem. I have to get to work on terminating the wires at the computer and get the power supply worked out.
I have been working with Ed Hollestelle Jr. in an effort to modify the cowl on my RV-10 so that it will fit over the Geared Drives PSRU.
The whole process of coming up with a new profile on the lower cowl was hugely daunting for me. I would much rather work on aluminum than the fiberglass. I would sit there on my little wheelie chair and stare at the gaping hole in the lower cowl that I had to cut into it to get the lower cowl to fit up around the engine and gearbox. I didn’t have a clue where to start.
I heard about Ed from his father who is a member of the local RAA chapter. Ed works at the Diamond Aircraft factory here in London Ontario and was happy to come over and have a look at my project.
The amazing thing for me was that he had a plan put together in about 5 minutes. I showed him the pieces I had left over from my efforts previous and he incorporated them into what would be the final design.
Basically, I took the upper cowl and made a cut along the feature line that mates to the spinner on the inboard edge of the cheek inlets and sort of moves rearward and converges a few inches from the windshield and cut it out. I did this because I had some interference with the injector fuel rail ends.
The PSRU manufacturer chose to deal with this in his firewall forward kit by using blisters. These fiberglass items can be purchased from Aircraft Spruce and look like they belong on some radial engine cowl. Totally inappropriate for the upper cowl on an RV-10.
With this piece cut out, I basically took a couple of rulers and placed them across the opening. I set the cut out piece on top of the rulers. This gave me the extra room necessary to clear the injector fuel rails. I then foamed the gaps and glassed the unit back together.
The lower cow was a whole different matter. I had to incorporate the new air box I fabricated into the lower cowl design. This air box is mounted to stand offs that are welded to the oil pan. The air box was fabricated to the width of the oil pan and is quite a bit wider than the air scoop that I had removed from the lower cowl.
We decided to reattach the lower ram air scoop and to get it to fit around the new air box we had to cut it down the middle and widen it by 4 inches. This looks great and gives the airplane a much more aggressive look.
I will post a picture here and talk more on this tomorrow.
We have made significant progress to date in the development of the cell switches.
I am happy to announce that the prototype unit is going to be submitted for product safety testing next week. This process will take from 4 to 6 weeks and will end with the issuance of a cTUVus rating. This process will give customers the assurance that this electrical appliance has been properly tested to meet IEEE standards and is ready for the market place.
I am happy to be offering this fully certified product to a market that has seen other offerings that look very similar. None of the other products that I have come across in my research have been put through the same level of testing and none of my competitors can give you the assurance of safety that I can.
We will be offering our cellular remote switch/alarm for US$ 349.00 and look forward to speaking with the many pilots out there who would like to open their hangar and jump into a toasty plane that is ready to take off. This device will save you money every time you use it. You can count on less engine wear upon start up, less fuel burnt waiting for temps to get into the green and even a warmer cabin where winter check list items can be focused on instead of rushed through.
Thanks for your patience. It will be well worth it. I will be posting some comments from my beta testers in an upcoming post.
I was parusing the wonderful Van’s Airforce site run by my friend Doug Reeves the other day and I came across a post by Bob Axsom. He is always looking to reduce drag on his airplane and came up with an interesting cover for the NACA intake on the side of his plane.
Using a piece of aluminum cut out to the shape of the NACA air intake opening he rivited another piece of aluminum to the wider end (aft) so that it would go in behind the skin of the aircraft. On the narrowend he dirlled and dimpled a hole for a flush screw. The screw extends through the plastic duct to a fastener behind.
Now, Bob did this for drag reduction reasons and I think that he has something going there. Where it really shines though is for us guys in the higher latitudes. We have the best of both worlds up here. Hot summers and freezing cold winters. To be able to completely shut off the vent at its source is way better, in my opinion than trying to put some sort of valve in line with the SCAT tubing.
Now, when you do your conversion to winter operations which is usually done at annual time you simply have to put these covers in place and install 2 screws. What could be easier.
