Since you asked....
My ground power (GP) setup is only designed for battery charging and/or
running the avionics, etc., with or without ship's battery while on the
ground -- 10A max -- not for jump starting. Like most of 254R's electrical
design, it started with a circuit by Bob Nuckolls.
The design criteria were, more-or-less:
1) commonly available connection hardware
2) usable while plane is locked up, cowl closed, etc., but in any case...
3) only when a panel-mounted toggle is ON (to preclude unintended or vandal
connections)
4) dedicated fusing, polarity and over voltage protection (OVP)
5) in-cockpit LED indicator ON when the toggle is ON and power cord is
connected outside -- for pre-taxi alert,
6) low voltage drop in the polarity, etc., control circuitry to maximize
efficient use of a solar panel source, and
7) relatively weatherproof, whether plugged in or not.
After the usual ridiculously excessive deliberation, for the external
connector I chose a Powerlet PTB-001 (
http://www.powerlet.com/product/luggage ... nector/286) which uses
the common 2-wire auto trailer light style connector. It is wired to the
battery bus through 1) a fuse, then 2) a polarity-protecting, low voltage
drop Schottky diode, then through 3) a N.O. relay, which is controlled by a
panel-mounted cover-protected DPST toggle with an LED indicator off the
second pole of the switch. The relay coil is also controlled by 4) a
dedicated over voltage protection (OVP) circuit in series with the toggle.
Like all but two components in the entire plane (pitot heat and left wing
NAV LED's) the GP circuit components (relay, OVP, LED, etc.) have their own
dedicated wires to the common ground bus point, i.e., no grounding through
the airframe.
There are actually fuses at each end of the wire from the GP connector to
the battery bus. There is an arguably legitimate if not compelling reason
for that as I recall, but that's another story arising out of the sort of
overkill that can only come from incorrigible paranoia.
I'm happy with it, but if I were doing it again, I might use a custom
mounted Anderson Power-Pole connector instead of the Powerlet.
Ron
245R
On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 5:13 PM, Roland Kriening <kriening@rogers.com> wrote:
Thanks Ron, pics are very helpful. I understand what you mean by a cover or
bridge. I will do the same. Now you have me interested in the ground power
option. What type of plug did you use, and where is it wired to?
Roland
-----Original Message-----
From: mike.davis@dcsol.com [mailto:mike.davis@dcsol.com] On Behalf Of Ron
Shannon
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2011 7:50 PM
To: rebel-builders@dcsol.com
Subject: [Bulk] Re: [rebel-builders] Transponder Antenna
I also put my TED monopole on the floor just forward of the cage, pretty
far to the right side to accommodate other things in the area. Seems to
work fine, including for Mode S traffic. I put a curved, removable "bridge"
foot guard over the top of the coax connection inside, so passenger feet
won't bang on it. Some photos are at:
http://n254mr.com/node/1342
http://n254mr.com/node/1481
http://n254mr.com/node/1484
Don't seem to have a decent photo of the bridge cover within reach yet, but
will take and send or post one if you're interested.
Ron
-----------------------------------------------------------------
List archives located at: https://mail.dcsol.com/login
username "rebel" password "builder"
Unsubscribe: rebel-builders-unsubscribe@dcsol.com
List administrator: mike.davis@dcsol.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
