Jabiru J450 Constructors Manual
Post-Paint>Fuselage>Assemble instrument panel
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
212 of 343
The process is to put one wire on at a time, so
if you were to start with the wire from the
Avionics circuit breaker to the Avionics
switch you would strip 4mm of insulation off
one end of the wire and crimp a red female
spade connector to it then heat shrink a red
tag to the connector. Push that connector onto
the circuit breaker terminal and measure out
enough wire to reach the Avionics switch
while allowing a bit of height above the panel
as shown in the photo at right. Cut the wire,
strip 4mm of insulation off, slip another red
tag on and crimp another red female spade connector in place and heat shrink the tag on.
With that wire fitted in place you can then square off the wire by bending it and then fit the
next wire so that it would end up being the same height above the panel and then keep adding
one wire at a time until the panel is fully wired, then you can use zip ties to tidy up the wiring
into a loom as shown in the bottom photo on the previous page.
Note that there are 2 main wire sizes: 16 gauge, which is used for most of the wiring; and 10
gauge, which is used for the main battery wiring, all shown on the electrical wiring diagrams.
Some wires will be common, such as the power supply to the engine instruments. In these
cases the suggested approach is to loop from instrument to instrument by crimping 2 wires
into each blue connector. Do not crimp more than 2 wires into a single connector or you run
the risk of having some of the wires pull out of the connector, so stay with 2 wires maximum.
Quite a lot of wires will go to other parts of the aircraft, and these wires are terminated into
one of five multi-pin connectors for ease of installation and maintenance. If one end of a wire
will go to a multi-pin plug then you must label that end clearly (use masking tape for the
label) before going to the next wire. If you do
not
label it you risk having a real problem later.
Multi-pin connectors are supplied in 2, 4, 6 and 8 pin types depending on the instrumentation
options that you have ordered with your kit. In all cases the pins are standard male and female
spade connectors, just the same as the normal wiring connectors except without the insulation,
and each connector will be crimped on to the wire in the same manner. The connectors will
then be pushed into the respective half of a connector body until they click into place.
With the
male
spade connectors (that fit into
the
female
connector body) care must be taken
that the stripped end of the wire does
not
extend beyond the end of the crimp area of the
connector, otherwise the connector will not be
able to clip into place in the connector body.
The photo at right shows the wrong way and
the right way to crimp a wire into a male spade
connector. Note that in the “Wrong” example
the bare wire has been pushed too far into the
crimp area of the connector, as indicated by
the red arrow, while in the “Right” example
the wire stops at the end of the crimp area of
the connector, as indicated by the green arrow.
Right
Wrong