727 Rebuild: Day 12

[Boeing Skunk Works]

Well what a PITA today was. I did get to fly it though.

Can't get the AP working. FS is randomly assigning switch functions when I try and program it through FSUIPC. And I, like an idiot did not write down the commands I used to get this damned thing to work correctly the first time, so it's back to trial and error.

I had much better luck with the throttle quadrant. Everything is working except the SB that I forgot to wire up in my enthusiasm of finally getting something to work again. I practically forgot how to do this after an 18 month break.

The throttle travel needs to be stretched out some. I'm able to move the levers only about half way and I'm already at 2.10 EPR on all engines. THis is just a proportioning problem I need to work out when I remember how I fixed it the first time.

About the only no-brainer today was the radios heads and the yoke, and the Newcastle Brown Ale I bought. The yoke was immediately recognized and still calibrated. AP release was re-wired to the AP though 24VDC, and the trim switches were working as advertised.

I took a quick trip around London, set it down on 27L and shut it down for today. I'll get back to the AP tomorrow.

One thing I've always liked about my sim is that if you get stuck or bored on something, there's always something else to work on. Run out of building materials, go wire something up for awhile. Tired of everything? Then just fly it as-is until you feel like more work.

[Boeing Skunk Works]

I found the problem with the AP. While I had the ground wires for each of the switches in a cabled bundle, I was trying to use a single ground wire for all of the functions like the old input card was able to take advantage of.

Not this card. I had to remove all of the ground wires from the ground buss I was using with a single wire, and extend all of the individual switch ground wires about two feet. Now each switch has a hot/cold for the new card. The only two switches I did not use the ground buss for was the Altitude Hold and Heading Select, which not surprisingly were the only two functioned that worked. The single ground used on the other switches was allowing all sorts of random functions to be programmed in addition to the selected function.

I haven't re-installed it or wired it to the card yet, but it shouldn't take too long once I get into it. The AP needed to be removed and the wiring mess cleaned up anyway. While the AP is out of the center control stand I can check the lightplate wiring for the radio selector panels and clean out the cobwebs.

I'd like to be able to afford to rebulb my AP lightplate while I'm working on it, but maybe some other time. It's pretty dim.

[andarlite]

Hey Mike, long time. Good to see that you now have the space to go full size. I guess that means you'll have to build another seat. What are you planning to do for visuals now?


Henry

[Boeing Skunk Works]

I don't think I'll build another. I'm going to hold out for some cheap seats in another year or so and buy a pair of them.

I'll leaning toward LCD TV's. Not on the scale that Scott has done, but probably in the 42-47" class of TV. Prices are getting cheaper every year on these.

I'll just have to move them closer to the shell windows to keep from seeing the monitor frames.

[jskibo]

Mike,

I went with the 60" like Scott, but Plasma.  The 50"s, at least in plasma, have been as low as $400 for 1080P at times.  Might want to watch Fatwallet.com for sales.

[AVIATor-Olav]

Hi Mike.

Any progress on your re-build?

Cheers
Tor