My goal today was to get my first landing light behind me.  Today, involved another building first for me as I have never worked with plexiglass before and wasn't sure what to expect.  The first thing I did was make a "square" outline of how I wanted to trim the lens.  It is plenty big when it comes out of the box.  I made the lens 1" bigger than the light hole opening on all sides.

I then taped up one side of the plexiglass lens with masking tape.  I didn't want to put any scratches in the lens while I was doing all of my cutting.

I was able to cut the lens with the bandsaw.  I trimmed the lens to within 1/8" of my markings.  To take the lens to final dimension, I got out the belt sander and used a 160 grit belt.  That made quick work of removing the 1/8" of plexiglass.  During this stage, I wore a 3M respirator as there was a lot of plastic dust being generated.

Once, I had the "square" I wanted in the plexiglass, I just radiused the corners with the belt sander.  I drew the radius I wanted on the lens using the paper template I used to cut out the landing light in the leading edge.

To finish the edges, I used some 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper and then followed that with some 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper.  This darn near left a polished edge on the plexiglass.

The picture below is after I got Tami to hold the "tape handles" to hold the lens up against the inside of the leading edge so I could drill the mounting holes.  You first drill the holes to #40 then remove and clean out the plexiglass shavings.  Then reinstall (use your tape handles to hold again), and drill the holes out to #30.  Remove and debur, but you still are not done drilling plexiglass.

The Duck's instructions then have you drill out the plexiglass holes to 5/32" and then countersink so that the leading edge skin will sit up against the plexiglass.  This sort of worked.  I think on the left wing, I am going to first countersink the hole to depth and then final dril to 5/32".  The reason for this change is that when the hole has been drilled to 5/32", the pilot is not guided by the plexiglass and it results in the countersink cutters chattering.  I thought I was going to crack the plexiglass.

Below, I am ready to install the plexiglass lens in the picture below.  The one thing I needed to do that was not in the Duck's instruction was to put a slight twist (bend) in the ends of the retaining strips.  Since the lens has a curve to it, the retaining strips were hitting the plexiglass lens right on the corners of the retaining strips.  After putting the slight twist in the retaining strips, the retaining strip could be tightened up against the lens without creating a single point of pressure on the plexiglass.

To position the plexiglass and hold it in position while starting the mounting screws, I had use the tape handle again.  The adhesive foam tape used to hold the retainer strips in place doesn't hold real well when trying to get your screws started.  It did work, but I thought the retainer was going to fall off before I got the first screw started.

One point worth mentioning here is that the instructions state to dimple the skin holes with a size #30, but experiment with a larger dimple die on a piece of scrap in order to get a better fit.  Well, dimpling with a #30 results in the 6-32 screws not sitting flush with the skin.  Dimpling with a #6 screw dimple die (CAT# DIE509-6) resulted in the screw head sitting flush to the skin like it should.  I am not sure why the Duck's instructions stated to dimple with a #30.

Okay, the picture below is where I decided to mount the ballast/igniter (The XenDrive) for the HID lamp.  This is the outside of the outboard leading edge rib.  The Duck's instructions state that you can mount this to the lamp mounting plate and that is where I intended to put it.  However, it will not fit there.  Physical dimension wise, yeah you could mount it there, but you would not be able to plug in the two wiring harnesses to the igniter.  Before I settled on this location, I looked at the fiberglass tips to ensure that there was nothing in there that would interfere with the igniter placement when I installed the wingtips.

I had to mount the igniter at a slight angle so that I could hit flat portions of the rib.  The Duck gives you two plate nuts, but you will need to use all three mounting holes in order to mount it securely (my opinion).  That means you will be short one K1000-3 plate nut and a stainless steel mounting screw (no big deal as Duckworks gives you the wrong length screws anyway).

Here is the next challenge with the igniter installation.  In the kit, you are given 10-32 x 3/8" stainless steel panhead philips screws.  What I don't like about this, is that the screws are not long enough to protrude out the back side of the plate nut.  When installing them, I didn't feel any resistance to the screw like I should while screwing to a plate nut.  This lack of resistance leads me to believe that these are to short to get proper grip in the plate nut.  Additionally, I would like to see at least two threads protruding from the back of the plate nut.

How hard do you think it is to find stainless steel screws???  Don't go to Home Desperate and think you will find them.  Wicks>> NOPE, Aircraft Spruce>>  NOPE, Microfastener.com>> NOPE not to size 10-32...

I actually found stainless steel screws of 10-32 in varying lengths at boltdepot.com.  I would have never guessed that those screws would have been that hard to find.  Their prices are reasonable, but they zing you on shipping if you are only buying a couple of fasteners.  YES, they will sell you one screw if that is all you want.

I put the leading edge back on the wing for the time being.  Here you can see the top side of the landing light and the location of the igniter module.

A picture of the bottom side of the leading edge.  The light installation looks pretty good from here.

I had heard that some builders were not real happy with the fit of these lenses.  I think this is probably what they are referring to.  This is a real closeup picture so it looks like there is a HUGE gap here.  There isn't, I am just really close with the camera...  When Tami and I were drilling for this lens, we really had some force on the lens with our "tape handles" so I know this is as close as you are probably going to get it to your skin.  The kit gives you some foam tape to put in here as a weather seal.  I checked it and I have compression of this foam tape all the way around the lens so hopefully I won't get to much water in here.

Next light, I am thinking of heating the lens plexiglass up so that it is more flexible.  Maybe doing that with the same tape handle technique, we can pull it in tighter.  I doubt it, but I will probably try it anyway.

Overall, the light kit installation isn't to difficult.  I was a nervous cutting into the wing skin and working with the plexiglass.  I think the key here is to work slowly and methodically.  Being in a hurry may end up costing you time in re-work.

Today was my day off and at 8:30 AM, the UPS man was ringing my doorbell making my large delivery of 16 10-32 pan head philips screws I ordered for securing my "XenDrive" igniter for the HID lamp.  If you need a bolt (non aircraft grade), this place will probably have it.  They got my order out and it was delivered very quickly.

When I opened the package, I was suprised to see that they shipped some M&M's for free.  Well not really, they charged me $9 for shipping.  Anyway, this was a unexpected nice gesture.  I would order from this place again if I needed to (not because they sent me free M&M's).

I ate the M&M's and installed the stainless steel screws to mount the HID igniter/ballast.  I ended up using 10-32 stainless steel phillips pan head screw 1/2" in length.  As you can see in the picture below, I have at least two threads past the end of the plate nut.  Just what I wanted.

I torqued the mounting screws to 25 in-Ibs and applied some torque seal.  The torque seal wasn't really necessary, but it won't hurt anything either.  Now all I have left to do is route the wires to the lamp.