Left Elevator Trim Servo


After completing the right elevator, it was on to the left elevator. This is the elevator that Van's warns you about stating that this is where most of the mistakes are made. I can tell you that this was true for me. Take everything I learned to this point, flush it, and start over. Not really, but it sure felt like it.
First thing I attempted to figure out is the mounting configuration of the trim servo. Van's has a note stating that you may remove as much of the interference as you need from the reinforcement plate. Aaahaa, I might need to do something here. I need to run the trim servo all the way out to see how or if it interferes with the trim servo cutouts. So I dug out the Goldwing battery and started connecting wires with some jumpers with alligator clips I bought from Radio Shack. The trim servo runs like a champ. One thing that I found that I don't like about this setup is that it uses 26 AWG wires. Those are extremely small and difficult to properly splice. It states that you can crimp or solder and run heat shrink tubing over the splice. I don't know if you can get butt splices for wire that small and I have never had very good luck when I just solder a splice. I guess I will figure that out when the time comes.
I was surfing and found this solution to connecting the small trim servo wires. I like it a lot better than just sliding heat shrink over a soldered splice. It looks to be a very durable installation.
http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/macservo/macservo.html
If you also go to http://www.aeroelectric.com, Bob Nukolls has a ton of information on aircraft wiring and techniques to do it.
This is the connection drawing figures in the literature that comes with the trim servo.

I feel like I am playing with one of those electrical science project kits you used to be able to buy from Radio Shack.

Below, is the LED display for trim tab position. It doesn't look very bright in the picture, but it was plenty bright when sitting on the table in a well lit garage.

After I got this far, I decided that this was all the work I was going to get done on Christmas day.