Progress has been frustratingly slow lately, due to time on the road, Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, other chores to catch up on, and a bit of laziness on my part. Yesterday and today I managed to get the first decent work sessions in several weeks. It felt good to make some progress that you can see.

I spent a while sitting in the cockpit in the dark, with a goose neck lamp powered with jumper cords. I figured out where I should mount it, and where to put the dimmer knob that controls it. Then I spent quite some time puzzling over how to make the various holes, before finally biting the bullet and grabbing the drill and Unibit. Of course I needed a 0.95" hole, and the Unibit only went to 0.875". So I had to finish off by carving it bigger with a Dremel tool. I drilled the holes for the dimmer, drilled and countersunk the platenut holes, primed the bare metal in the holes, then stopped for the day.

Today I installed the platenuts that hold the light mount, then did a test fit of everything. I mounted the dimmer transistor and heat sink on the back wall of the forward luggage compartment. I need to come up with some sort of clip to hold the end of the goose neck when it is not being used, and I have to run the wires.

The goose neck light will serve as a map light and a back up/supplementary instrument panel light. It lights up the whole panel very nicely if I bend it so it sits just ahead of my chest, facing forward.

I need to shorten the dimmer shaft, as it sticks out way too far from the bulkhead. The lamp can be removed by pushing on the tab above the mount, so perhaps I'll remove it and store it in a side pocket for daytime flights.