Troubleshooting tail position light

[Andy95W]

31 minutes ago, wombat said:

I'm only barely complaining.   I want folks to understand that there is unlikely to be a 5 minute fix for anything.  Even a simple ground wire takes a bunch of time.

I understand Wombat isn’t complaining, so I’m definitely not singling him out.  His post highlights one of the problems with general aviation.

I’ve worked in shops and done jobs exactly like he described.  The work takes 90 minutes, but that seems excessive so the shop only charges the owner for 1 hour.  The owner complains and says it’s only a 4” wire, that should only take 15 minutes!  In order to keep a paying customer, the shop knocks it down to 1/2 hour labor.  The shop is now out a full hours’ worth of work, and the jerk owner tells all of his buddies that the shop is a complete ripoff, and he had to talk them down to a reasonable price to do the work.  (BTW, that same owner will gladly take his BMW to the dealership and just stroke a check for service.)

Meanwhile, the shop owner gets offered $30/hour starting salary to work for the airlines, and he takes it so he doesn’t have to work for cheap bastard owners and he won’t have to pay $15,000 a year in liability insurance.  Then, when he closes up shop, everyone complains that another greedy mechanic is leaving to work for the airlines and he’s the reason that General Aviation is dying.

I don’t work on other people’s airplanes anymore.

[wombat]

In the particular case I was talking about, the ground wire was only part of the work to be done.  We were actually installing the uAvionix wingtip ADS-B.      So there was a bunch of other stuff to be done; mostly paperwork.  But actually physically mounting the unit and getting the power and ground hooked up was also included.  I think I paid for 8 hours of labor to install a 'plug and go' unit.     And I expect the A&P spent that much time on it.    Really minor stuff like reading up on if the strobe portion of the wingtip unit is required by the STC to be connected or not. (It's not) and if any additional placards are required, like "NAV lights must be on during flight for ADS-B" which dozens of people have told me is mandatory, but it turns out is not. The placard is not mandatory, having the nav lights on is mandatory.

If I'd done a dozen of these before, I could probably make the physical labor part of the install as low as 15 minutes.   Walk out with a pop rivet, scotch brite, wire, crimper, ends, spray can of corrosion X, screwdriver and new wingtip light...  But these folks are not doing 10 ADS-B installs a day.   They are doing something different every day, every month, every year.  So you have to pay for the research time.

[Aerodon]

On 12/9/2023 at 9:29 AM, Kerrville said:

I’m having a hard time with my tail nav light. The old one showed no continuity. I ordered a new one shows 2.3 ohms. I have 12.8 volts at the socket. Thing still won’t work. I tried putting the leads straight to the light and it doesn’t work. This is the same as the part I removed ge 1777. Is there something I am missing. 

Put some more information in your profile, helps to know what year and model your airplane is.  Get yourself a the wiring diagram for your airplane, print it out as large as you can.  

In my 252, Mooney uses a shielded twisted pair for all the lights and strobes.  The ground runs all the way back to the cockpit.  Great for no RF noise, especially when installing a magnetometer int he tail or wing.  But they also have numerous CPC and knife splice connectors, any one could become a high resistance or broken joint.

The wiring in the rudder itself is likely to be in poor condition.  Fuselage much better.  I needed to get rid of my wingtip aft nav lights and install a new strobe / aft nav LED.  So I installed new wires (nav, strobe, ground) all the way to behind the avionics tray behind the wing.  There is a good grounding block at the avionics tray, so I used that.  And spliced the Nav and Strobe wires to the black and white wires.    White is Nav power, found the black wire at the panel and connected to Strobe power.

Good for the next 40 years.

 

Aerodon

 

 

[PT20J]

33 minutes ago, Aerodon said:

print it out as large as you can.

I put the pdf file on a thumb drive and took it to a print shop and had it printed out D size. 

[Pinecone]

13 hours ago, PT20J said:

I put the pdf file on a thumb drive and took it to a print shop and had it printed out D size. 

Any good source for Mooney wiring diagrams?

[Pinecone]

For the best and most waterproof wiring splice, go the boating world.

There is one that the covering is heat shrink, plus it is lined with a coat of hot melt glue.  So once you crimp it, you heat is, and the covering shrinks and the hot melt glue seals it.

[N201MKTurbo]

7 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

For the best and most waterproof wiring splice, go the boating world.

There is one that the covering is heat shrink, plus it is lined with a coat of hot melt glue.  So once you crimp it, you heat is, and the covering shrinks and the hot melt glue seals it.

You can get them at Walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Heat-Shrink-Solder-Sleeve-Crimpless-Butt-Connectors-22-20-AWG-Red-25-Pack/121948453?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=1794

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

Any good source for Mooney wiring diagrams?

I got mine from Frank Crawford at Mooney. 

[cliffy]

On 12/11/2023 at 1:38 PM, Andy95W said:

I don’t work on other people’s airplanes anymore.

I agree 100%

[Aerodon]

14 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

You can get them at Walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Heat-Shrink-Solder-Sleeve-Crimpless-Butt-Connectors-22-20-AWG-Red-25-Pack/121948453?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=1794

Oh please don't go here.  Solder sleeves are fine for the ends of shielded wire, but are not a good way of joining wire.  And why use non aviation quality stuff - you have no idea how long the 'plastic' will last.  And when a qualified maintenance person starts looking around at what the hangar fairies have done....

AMP, TE connectivity and others make fine products that have stood the test of time.  Once you have used them, you will toss out the automotive brands.  And if you are price sensitive, find proper part numbers and you'll be amazed at the deals you can find on eBay.  Plenty of guys liquidating stock.

While you are at it, get the proper crimpers.

Aerodon

[Guest]

Found a pair of handshake connectors behind the one inspection panel that I didn’t remove. Just tugged on them and voila. The light works!  Thanks for the input y’all. 

[EricJ]

40 minutes ago, Kerrville said:

Found a pair of handshake connectors behind the one inspection panel that I didn’t remove. Just tugged on them and voila. The light works!  Thanks for the input y’all. 

You can put a zip tie or something around them to keep them from coming loose again if you want.

[A64Pilot]

On 12/12/2023 at 9:10 AM, Pinecone said:

For the best and most waterproof wiring splice, go the boating world.

There is one that the covering is heat shrink, plus it is lined with a coat of hot melt glue.  So once you crimp it, you heat is, and the covering shrinks and the hot melt glue seals it.

Look for Ancor brand, there are many copies but none as good.

You can get them believe it or not at Walmart, Home Depot or Amazon as well as of course West Marine, but West Marine is going to be twice as much most likely.