A standard configuration for an air compressor has a regulator, a water separator, and a quick connect for hoses and tools. Most water separators are smaller than a soda can. Their role is to let any condensation fall out of air before it gets to your tools. It’s critical when the job is painting. (The paint booth has its own separator and micron filter.)

I’ve worked my compressor rather hard the past few weekends doing mechanical tasks on the truck – mostly an impact wrench. The shop has been comfortable most of the time – not too warm and not overly humid.

Today was / is “clean the shop day” (still not done in case you were wondering).

I decided I’d drain the large air tank on the shop compressor. The picture says it all. Those are QUART yogurt containers.

This should really be titled, “So far out of your comfort zone, you'll need a road trip to get back”!

Four years ago, I wrote about installing spacers to run the Dually with single rear wheels. It's now four years later and I wanted to convert the truck back and sell it. Given the very low mileage, someone would get a good truck – 2005 diesel with only 42,000 miles.

Well, it turned out those aluminum spacers were a bad idea … a very bad idea. Four years of galvanic corrosion from the aluminum spacer being compressed to the iron steel hubs had made then a single, inseparable part. I received lots of “seasoned recommendations” but nothing – not even cutting the pieces apart – would solve my dilemma.

After three weekends of frustrating effort, I caved and ordered new hubs. It turns out hubs for the F350 DRW are hard to find because they never fail so no one needs them.

I also discovered along the way that I needed a couple specialized tools, new seals, and metric impact wrench sockets. … the project cost was really adding up.

All tolled it took me about 3 hours to remove the flare fenders, reinstall the wide rear fenders, and add back the extra lights. It then took me three weekends to replace the first hub and one hour forty-five minutes to replace the second. Knowing what you're doing, having the right tools, and having the parts at hand make things how much smoother!

I’ve had it with those all-in-one printer/copier/scanners!

I print very little but I try to scan papers and documents to avoid losing them and having to store folders and boxes of papers. The problem is that my “oh so wonderful” HP 7780 networked printer / copier / fax machine is always breaking down. I don’t print enough so the heads get clogged, the color cartridges dry up or become defective, or it simply won’t start without being unplugged first.

I’ve taken to using my iPhone to photograph documents. It has worked “just OK”. The problem has been lighting and holding the camera steady and perpendicular to the document. Today I solved those problems.

If you click on the image from this post it will open a much larger copy.

I cut a small hole in one of two boards. I then cut stand-offs to separate the boards. When my iPhone peers down through the hole in the upper platform, it has a perfect view of an 8.5″x11″ paper on the lower platform. I added two 12″ fluorescent lights.

I can either use the standard Apple Camera app or one of the camera apps designed for document copying such as Genius Scan or TurboScanner. the latter is shown in the included photo

UPDATE: I discovered the “legs” I cut were a bit too short. The ideal length is at least 12″ to work well with 8.5″x11″ pages.

MGL Avionics is a cutting edge company serving the amateur home built aircraft market. They are a South Africa company with offices in a number of countries.

One of their advances is the development of their CAN bus.

The CAN bus is a two wire high/low signal protocol communicating at 250K baud.

Each of the MGL components – their mini EFIS, engine monitor, RDAC, AHRS, compass, and autopilot servos – are designed to communicate using the CAN bus. This means it just takes two wires to send and receive all the information needed from each unit.

Compare the MGL wiring of an autopilot servo to one of the popular industry leaders. MGL uses two wires and the competition uses five or six wires depending on if its the roll vs. pitch servo.

Now, to be fair, you still need power and ground wires and MGL recommends grounding back as the main power bus that serves the EFIS or other instruments.

So here is a trick to simplify using the various MGL components …

If you buy pre-made harnesses from MGL for any of their CAN bus connected electronics, they use the MSD 2-pin connector. That still leaves you finding a solution for the power and ground.

Consider building your own, using a four pin connector like a MOLEX Mini-Fit Jr or regular MOLEX.

In the picture, there is a DB9 connector which is common to many of the MGL modules (specifically the RDAC, servos, AHRS, and compass). My suggestion is to build all of them the same – a DB9 connector with both the male and female MOLEX four pin connectors. Interconnect each module with "extension cords" made of a shielded twisted pair plus red and black 20AWG wires for power and ground.

By building common harnesses and the extension cords, it is easy to add modules to the CAN bus in the future. Connect the standard harness to the new module; temporarily pull out the extension cord, cut it in two and add the corresponding four pin connectors; install the two shorter cords with the new module in the middle. Alternately, if you know you will add a module sometime in the future, just build the two shorter extension cords now and plug them together until the time comes to add the new module.

At the time I was building my CAN bus harnesses for the Mini EFIS, RDAC (engine monitor module), AHRS, and magnetometer, I was expecting to also install the MGL servos for its autopilot. Thus, the long run from the panel to the tail cone – where the magnetometer is traditionally installed – is actually three segments: from the panel to just below the pilot seat (where a roll server would go), then just past the aft baggage compartment floor (where a pitch server would go), and then up to the shelf where the magnetometer is installed. The junctions are just one CAN harness plugged into the next. The idea being that I could just disconnect the two harness runs and plug in the servo pigtail into each end. Since that was a "down the road" plan, I secured the connection between the harnesses by covering them in heat shrink.

Of course, all of the above pre-planning was moot when I decided to stay with TruTrak for the autopilot.

Over the course of the panel project I had to work with sheet metal off and on. The project is now done but I wanted to do a little more fit-n-finish. This gave me another sheet metal task. It’s obvious my work is improving with each new piece. This one is a cover.

As with other parts, I start with card stock. I first do a rough cut to get and idea of the layout then I create an accurate paper part with all the necessary cuts and lines to indicate bends.

I transfer the cuts to metal and use the bandsaw to cut the part. After de-burring the edges, I transfer all of the marks for the various bends.

The trick to bending with a box brake is choosing the right order so bends do not conflict with subsequent bends. In this case, it was relatively easy.

Once all the bends were completed, I clamped and drilled for assembly. I used solid shop head rivets for this part. (Since the purpose of the part of to protect the RDAC from weather, I also sealed the top joints with fire caulk.)

I finished up by drilling the side flanges and installing the new cover.

The total time was about 2.5 hours

With the new “modern VFR panel” comes many new electronic sensors. These need to be mounted in various places. The backup battery needed a retention bracket to keep it from shifting in the battery compartment. The AHRS is mounted to a bracket on the back side of the panel. The magnetic compass sensor needs to be mounted far from any ferrous material – this typically means somewhere in the tail cone.

The process is pretty much the same. To save on mistakes with the pricy 2024 aluminum, I use heavy card stock. I measure the face of the bracket the. Start adding for the sides and for the bends. I cut this from the card stock. Next I draw out the bends.

Knowing where the bends to is pretty easy. The trick is the order the bends are made. I’m sure people who do this for a living know from past experience how to achieve different bends.

A common bend is a 90 degree bend of 1/2″ material along an edge. This creates a stiffener. Almost instantly, a flimsy piece of 0.025 or even 0.016″ metal becomes rigid.

A box break is my tool of choice for bending metal. The box break differs from a standard metal bending brake in the fact that in place of a single long bending edge, it has a series of metal fingers which are movable. When all of the fingers are install side by side, it is the same as a bending break. This works fine for bending a single edge. However, when attempting to bend the adjacent sides, the prior bend is in the way. A box break lets you creat gaps which allow the prior bends to fit between the fingers.

As you can imagine, transforming a flat piece of metal I to a three dimensional object can become a brain teaser – just think of those SAT test questions for spacial reasoning !

In the picture you can see the final bracket. It has tapered ends to fit the rails in the tail of the aircraft. Each end forms a sort of “T” with a vertical stem, a doubled over top edge and continuing a ross to the other side. The sequence of bends started with the 90 degree “stem”. The the material is flipped over to allow the formation of the doubled over segment. Them the other end is bent in the same order. Next, there needed to be cuts formed in the ends to remove the excess material that will need to accommodate the side bends. These bends act as stiffeners.

When finished, the bracket resembles a box – in this case a trapezoid.