Panel lights and other questions/observations.
Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 10:45 am
Hi all,
New owner of a '46 Cessna 140 here. I'm loving the airplane, but being that it's new-to-me I have several projects to fix/improve as well as "make it my own".
One small change is I really dislike the bubbly instrument panel overlays on early Cessna's. I removed this one to expose the flat aluminum and plan to refinish that. However I ran into a question...
I found three plastic rear mounted light bulbs that had been covered by the overlay (middle one circled in green). What are they for?
I expected at least one to be a generator warning light, but found they all light up all the time and are wired to each other.
Perhaps some intent to serve as instrument spill lighting, but not at all effective if that's the idea.
Also, while I intend to pull that panel and refinish it, I might get a new panel cut in the future. I think there are plenty of CAD-based online fabrication shops that will cut and ship a blank to my specs easy enough, but wondering if anybody has specific sources they can recommend?
Finally, the ammeter is on the load side at all times, so that even if the generator is running it's showing the total load on the system via discharge reading. This seems odd to me but is it normal in these airplanes?
I do have a cigarette lighter USB charger with a digital voltage readout, so I can see when the generator kicks in thanks to the voltage spike, but I'm thinking I want to rewire the ammeter in line with the battery so I can see if it's being discharged or charged.
New owner of a '46 Cessna 140 here. I'm loving the airplane, but being that it's new-to-me I have several projects to fix/improve as well as "make it my own".
One small change is I really dislike the bubbly instrument panel overlays on early Cessna's. I removed this one to expose the flat aluminum and plan to refinish that. However I ran into a question...
I found three plastic rear mounted light bulbs that had been covered by the overlay (middle one circled in green). What are they for?
I expected at least one to be a generator warning light, but found they all light up all the time and are wired to each other.
Perhaps some intent to serve as instrument spill lighting, but not at all effective if that's the idea.
Also, while I intend to pull that panel and refinish it, I might get a new panel cut in the future. I think there are plenty of CAD-based online fabrication shops that will cut and ship a blank to my specs easy enough, but wondering if anybody has specific sources they can recommend?
Finally, the ammeter is on the load side at all times, so that even if the generator is running it's showing the total load on the system via discharge reading. This seems odd to me but is it normal in these airplanes?
I do have a cigarette lighter USB charger with a digital voltage readout, so I can see when the generator kicks in thanks to the voltage spike, but I'm thinking I want to rewire the ammeter in line with the battery so I can see if it's being discharged or charged.