I called Lightspeed and talked to a tech there. They said they have kits available that can turn their 3G series headsets into "panel powered," but that's not available for the old XL series headsets. I kept asking him, "So there's NO WAY that I can convert these into a panel powered setup?" Finally I told him I'm a homebuilder and that I can do all my own wiring, and he opened up like a flower in springtime. "Oh, well I can tell you exactly what all the wires are..." You bet..gimme, gimme.
Here's what I was told, and it refers to the wire bundle going from the battery pod up to the headset. I don't intend for this to be a reference, but I may as well share what I was told...I can't vouch for the accuracy of this information.
| Color | Function |
|---|---|
| White | Right Audio |
| Yellow | Left Audio |
| Red | +12 volts |
| Green | -12 volts |
| Blue | Auto Shutoff |
| Orange | Mic Hot |
| Black | Mic Ground |
| Shield | Common Audio Ground |
I figure at some point I'll wire power back and up to the headset jacks, which are at the top of F-706 (baggage bulkhead). We'll see. Since it would require me to remove all sorts of cover panels to get that wiring done, I think I'll wait until my condition inspection when I gotta take all that crap off anyway. It's a pretty major ordeal.
Tonight at sunset I went up and flew for a while. My intention was to log sensor data for the Dynon. I had hoped that the D10 would "misbehave" on this flight, so I could catch it in the act while recording data. Well, it couldn't have cooperated any more than it did -- the thing was all over the place. Right after levelling off at 2500' under the class C veil above, the D10 started leaning to one side (I forget which side, it hasn't been consistent, put it that way). I was just getting to the outskirts of the Ontario class C, so I gave a sharp pitch-up and "marked" the data at that point. Doug at Dynon had asked that I do this, marking the data with an abrupt attitude change, so that he and his engineers could tell where I was seeing the faulty behavior. I climbed up and flew around for a while and tried different things, and nothing I tried specifically triggered the issue, but it sure kept doing bad things here and there -- always leaning to one side or the other erroneously. At some points, the compass reading wagged noticeably. The deviation was never more than a few degrees, but it was always enough to notice. Each time, I sharply pulled the nose up and marked the data.
After the flight I zipped and emailed the huge data log file to Doug. Keep clicking through if you want to read about the trials and tribulations...