This morning's mission: Make a home for the strobe power supply. Van's now has a mounting kit that's all nice and prepunched, but it's designed to fit on the fuselage sidewall behind the baggage bay bulkhead. This would probably be find for an -A model RV, but since the RV-7 taildragger likes to have weight up front instead of in the tail, I decided to make my own bracket so I could position the heavy strobe power supply further forward.
I started by fabricating the basic bracket, using material from my scrap pile:
…which looks like this when riveted together. The rivets are all flush on the other side:
Then I drilled a 5/8" hole through F-705 and put a snap bushing in it. I'd previously checked with Van's to make sure an extra hole in this location would be okay. It avoids the rear spar reinforcing bars and all the rest of that structural stuff, and it has acres of edge distance.
The bracket is blind riveted between two of the baggage floor ribs, adjacent to the center tunnel on the right side of the airplane. It's as far forward as practical so it won't move the CG too far aft – at least two feet forward of where Van's mounting kit would have put it.
Behold, the strobe power supply is mounted. I used the CreativAir Avi-Pak, which is a drop-in replacement for the more expensive and heavier Whelen power supply. The blue tape is to prevent drill chips from getting onto the power supply's circuit board through the gap in the case around the connectors.
It's a straight shot from the snap bushing to the connectors. I love it when a plan comes together.
