Avionics connectors progress

I ran that last remaining ground wire (the 14ga pitot heat ground) through the existing bundle, then connected the defrost fan power/ground crossing above the GTN, to be secured above it in some way (probably a Clickbond?) later along with the G5 GPS cable:

Cooling/defrost fans connected (wire over GTN to be secured later)

For the door sensors, I had previously attached Molex SL connectors to them, not realizing that the 18AWG I had ran for it per plans does not fit in the SL series :( so I swapped those for Molex CP series which can do 18AWG and are still fairly small:

Molex SL series (bottom, black) vs CP series (top, green) attached to door sensors

I ran the wire between the sensors on each side, but I'm still waiting to do the side connectors before I trim the other wires:

Molex CP series connector attached to door sensor

To prevent any chafing of wires coming out of the LRUs against the subpanel edge, I paranoidly added some grommet edging to that:

SL1 edge grommet on subpanel edge to prevent chafing

It was then time to finally work on the side connectors - the plan is to replace most DB connectors with a single CPC, and leave only the roll servo connector as is (so I can plug the CAN terminator to it). I started by trimming all wires to roughly the same length, re-pinning them (the TE series 2 CPCs use M39029/63-368 sockets just like the the DB connectors, so for all wires that were on the shortest bundle, no rework was needed), and adding labels which were missing:

Labels for right-side CPC breakout connector

Right-side breakout wires (including longer GTS power pin)

For the few 18AWG wires (the GTR20 and GTS800 power wires), those pins are too small. Stein's install had the GTR wires spliced onto a 20AWG wire just to go through the connector (and I left that in place since it was already the final length), but they had used a large separate Molex connector for the GTS power and ground - instead of doing that, I used the special 18AWG pin/sockets (FC6018D2 / MC6018D), which are a tradeoff - they require no splice, but they extend outside the connector housing and require heatshrink around the extension, plus they're not removable (the way to remove them is to cut them off since there's no way to get the removal tool around the bulkier part of it). I figured that if I ever do need to remove them, I can then add the splice and use a regular pin.

I then finally installed the CPC - the shell was a tight fit but I didn't need to go to the large-size shell as I had feared:

Right-side breakout connector fully pinned and ready to close

Right-side CPC and roll AP connectors closed up

Right-side CPC and roll AP connectors

Next I'll do the same to make the left-side breakout connector (which is much simpler since that's the power connector, but also much more critical as it'll carry power to the EFII system and feed the essential bus).

Time lapse:


Total avionics rivets: 161
Total avionics time: 242.7h

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