Thorp Air Command - T18.net

Some facts...

-The EDO-AIRE never had a VOR antenna so only the comm side worked.
-The a/c has a David Clarke panel mounted intercom (I would like to keep it)
-There is a speaker on the rear turtle deck.
-The headset plugs are on the turtle deck.
-Both sticks have a PTT switch.
-The EDO-AIRE was a POS from the get-go...I'm glad its gone

I removed an EDO-AIRE RT533 Nav/Comm from the T-18 and was looking forward to a relatively painless swap to a new Icom A210, unfortunately it doesn't appear to be simply a matter of moving some wires to the molex connector since the language used to describe some wires is different enough to make me unsure of what to do... I'll try to explain....

The plug for the EDO-AIRE id numbered 1 through 16

I found a pin out table online for the 533 and have the manual for the A210...

posting pics... questions to follow...

I am struggling matching the existing wires with the pin-out diagram of the A210...I see in the instructions that I am to use two power (battery) ground wires at 6 and F as well as S and 15....

Then jump M to 11 and P to 13and 2 13.8 V power (+) wires at R and 14.

Am I right so far?

another Q... the instructions indicate there is a SUPPLIED POLARIZING key between J-K and 8-9... I dont see that; what do they mean?

I feel your pain. I just went through these same issues. I gave up and called stein air. I told them what equipment I had in my plane and how I wanted each piece of avionics inter-connected to one another. They made me the appropriate harnesses and sent me a wiring diagram of my whole panel to use so that I could connect everything. I feel like I saved a lot of time and head scratching.

IMHO ALWAYS go prewired , plug and play with equipment that is matched together . The extra cost buying the ready made harness will save hours of bum scratching and fault tracing ! Some folks think of bum scratching and head scratching as the same ?

RB

Here is a quick & dirty view. The ICOM has a built in intercom, which you will not use if you keep the ISCOM. The ISOCOM uses airframe ground for all the audio grounds so ICOM pin 8 goes to ground. So other than power & ground connections, you will only need to connect
Headphone signal (ISCOM 'B' to ICOM 'H')
Mic signal (ISOCOM 'F' to ICOM 'J') (wants to be shielded wire)
Push to Talk (ISOCOM '7' to ICOM '9')
and speaker + (from ICOM 'E')
The polarizing key is a little widget that prevents the connector from being installed upside down.

You guys must have more $$ than I do. Cant see paying someone to make a set of wires for me.

_________________
Lee Walton
Houston, TX
N51863,N118LW
KEFD

That one wire on the wrong pin and a 1/10th of a second puff of smoke ! I did use the Stein Air color coded wire bundle for the Tru Trak Auto pilot . It was not connected to the sub D connectors , but it made it error proof with the color coded wire the same as on the TT schematic ! You still have to buy the wire for any install, why not use the color coded stuff to match your diagram ? BATA BING , BATA BOOM ! BTW...my " Micro Air " Package came with a pre wired harness and it was worth it to just plug and play the radio , transponder , intercom , and alt. encoder ! All I had to do was hook up power, grd. and the phone jacks ! OH MY !

RB

To each his own RB, one wire at a time. Save $$$ in my opinion pre made harnesses are for RV folks.

_________________
Lee Walton
Houston, TX
N51863,N118LW
KEFD

27 years ago I saw a set of plans for a take home AC that would save you $$$ ! I like to plan for the future and I like to save $$$ ! That AC has been at home for many years and I figure I have saved close to $15,000 in hangar fees . Pre wired harness...buy it ! Avgas $10.00/gal buy it ! , Hotel $200/nite no problem . My point is I was able to plan far enough ahead to allow me to purchase what I wanted for the AC .

I have made a few harnesses for the AC and my soldering skills have moved up from Novice to Expert...IMHO ! It is a learned trait and I have seen some soldering jobs on T-18's that would make you "Ship Your Pants ! " Wrong gauge wire , too much solder , no shrink tubing ! You will never know what is behind that panel ! BOOM , SPARKS , SMOKE !

I guess my bottom line is , if you are going to make your own harness at least use a colored wire so you can enter the code in a wire key book . Next best option is shrink tubing with numbers to enter in the key book .

RB