I built my 12 as an EAB with no autopilot. Can anyone give me any information on what it would take to add the autopilot and would it be worth the effort? I'm using the Dynon D100 EFIS. I have 54 hours on the plane and it is all apart for painting at this time.
Well, that is totally up to you.
1. If you make a bad decision flying and fly into IMC, you can push a button and the autopilot will take over and make a 180? turn out of the soup.
2. If you want to take pictures, the autopilot can keep you right side up when you are fooling with the digital camera.
3. If you want to hold an exact altitude and course while X-country on flight following, the autopilot will do so while you watch for traffic, eat a sandwich and enjoy the scenery.
So...there are a lot of reasons, those are some of mine.
Installation is a bit difficult on the completed aircraft. If you already installed the servo brackets, less so. If you don't have the servo brackets in you will need a right angle drill adapter to drill out some rivets in the tailcone to mount the brackets for the roll servo.
You need to take off the left instrument panel to make the cutout for the AP-74.
I had about 30 hours in the autopilot install.
There are a series of pictures here that show most all of the aspects of the work required to install the autopilot.
Tony
Never eat with the autopilot engaged.
Joe Gores
Sounds pretty much like something I would do! Won't the Skyview wake me up hollering about low fuel or SOMETHING?
Yes, You can also set the timer in the D180 to sound. I guarantee you you will not sleep through that sound.
johns4689,
Van's Aircraft will probably sell you any wiring they have in stock. But their harness is made for the control board and the D-180. Assuming that you do not have Van's RV-12 Control Board, the plug and play harness will not help you much and will cost more than just buying the wire and making your own connections.
Seven wires run from the instrument panel to the servos. The colors of the short pig tail wires coming out of the servos are:
RED, BLK, GRN, BLU, YEL, WHT/GRN, WHT/BLU
A 2200?F capacitor is connected between the RED wire and ground at the servo under the seat. Steinair will be happy to sell you the colored wires with or without pins on the ends to match your D-100 and AP74.
The hardest part of the installation will be drilling out rivets and routing the new wires. A very small 90 degree drill is required to get at the rivets. The 90 degree adaptor that I bought at Home Depot was too big. A friend loaned me a smaller one that worked.
Joe Gores