It's not clear from the drawings how to bring wires to the tail to power the tail light and strobe. This is how I did it. I drilled a tiny hole just outboard of the vertical tail's spar. Then I installed a rubber grommet. That bundle of four wires (I like separate ground wires) then runs through the provided cable holes in the bulkheads, through snap bushings. Eventually it goes through the tunnel between the seats, then through the snap bushings in the spar, then to the panel and ground bus.

I decided early on -- against the advice of a few builders -- that I wanted a center console to hold switches. Don't ask me why. I experimented with a few cardboard mockups before settling on this design. The big driver is to allow my right knee to move inboard as required to provide stick clearance. That required that I move the console either far forward or far aft. I chose forward. I decide my console would start at the fuel valve plate, if nothing else because it allows me to use the stock fuel valve, plumbing, and plate.

So the first step was to install two uprights. They go from the floor stiffeners to a pair of struts I installed from the panel frame to the subpanel. By the way, I bought an Affordable Panels modular kit. This is all made harder by the desire to remove this whole thing for maintenance...everyone tells me that I need to be able to get behind the panel. So more nutplates!

To see how this turns out in the end, read this

Cutting to the chase, this is what it looks like. It's in three planes: the vertical part between the uprights (holds most switches), the horizontal fuel valve plate, and a slanted panel between the two that will hold the fuel gauges, fuel pressure gauge, and fuel pump switch.

This is what I decided to do with my fuse blocks. There are three: Essential Bus, Hot Battery Bus, and Main Bus. They're mounted on two hinged panels. I'm sure that with the appropriate contortions (and working autopilot), I could swap a fuse in flight. Yes, I read "The AeroElectric Connection." Yes, I know one shouldn't do that. In fact, Bob Nuckoll's example of why not to troubleshoot in flight uses ME as an example!

Spare yourself an email: the blue masking tape is just to hold the wire in place so I can cut it to length. I'll use various Adel clamps, etc.

I suppose the title of this page should've been "Polishing the Turd." This is one of my area lights, which, of course, I designed and made from scratch, because merely building the airplane is just not hard enough. To see the end result, go here.

They hold 5 white LEDs and 5 red LEDs. There's one under each armrest, one in each footwell, and two in the baggage compartment. They're the bubble canopy equivalent of "dome lights." They'll also come in handy when I drop a pencil or whatever at night...in the typical Piper, that means I have to live without it until I land. They'll be powered by the Hot Battery Bus, so that I can turn the lights on before I get in. Now, these little LEDs are not powered by 12 V. That, too, would've been much too simple. I ordered some cheap DC-DC converters from DigiKey to provide them with 2 or 3 V. Yes, a resistor would've done the trick, but the whole point of using LEDs is that they consume much less power than light bulgs. So why burn a lot of power in a resistor? After all, I have a degree in EE to exercise! Just wait until I try to exercise my physics degree...I'll power the thing with a matter/antimatter warp drive!