Lighting Control Unit

I'm still playing catch up and trying to get the blog updated. I'm also still on the subject of interior lighting. After finishing running the wires I needed to buckle down and build the lighting control unit (LCU). This little red box looks important but really isn't. It controls the interior lighting system. Ed Kranz and I worked on designing the electrical schematic that went into the entire system and mainly in the box. Ultimately our plans differed just enough that we had to create our own schematics. I didn't have any fancy program to create my schematic so I "old schooled" it and starting drawing by hand. The LCU provides power distribution and signals for when doors open and provides a time out and shuts the power off to the lights if you leave them open.....basically it makes the interior lights of the plane like your car.

Here is  my hand drawn schematic. This worked great for me and allowed some kind of documentation as to what was done. ...Don't worry the rest of my avionics has a professional schematic drawn out : )  

I got a fancy little box to put the relays and circuitry in. I glued some standoffs in place and started soldering. 

I cut a hole for a D-Sub connector that provides all of the needed connection points. I'm pretty happy with my little "LCU" it looks like a legit piece of equipment.