I used the Ohmmeter to verify that the switches were indeed working and then I was trying to see if they could work in the dedicated mounting position by placing them there. That worked fine and showed it should allow for a lot of freedom in placement.
When I put them there again with the cushioned clamp wrapped around them that impression changed completely!
After a lot of trial and error, I decided to follow Van's advise to grind down the steel tube holding the magnet in the pin by 1/8" and try again. Still no luck. I modified the clamp like I had seen on VAF by removing some of the rubber, by bending it to reposition the switch in respect to the spar pin but, again, to no avail.
It worked fine without the clamp but as soon as the clamp was wrapped around the switch it appeared to be deaf and blind to magnetic fields around it.
Hm, no wonder! The clamp is made from steel. Stainless, I suppose, but still it evidently had a great effect on the switch.
I didn't want to drill a hole in the arm rest like others did to allow the switch to get closer to the magnet. I decided to make my own clamp. I had some silicone tubing lying around that could act as cushion and so I used some scrap material from the wing ribs to make a clamp from aluminum.
I fiddled with the screws in this awkward spot a bit but I got it in place.
This was my first attempt before testing the sensitivity so the switch only triggers when the pin is engaged and correctly positioned in the hole. This position is a bit too sensitive to meet this requirement.
But for then I was happy that it was switching at all, so I went on and made another clamp for the right side.
And it definitely worked. I checked this one very thoroughly as the right side has the ring terminal to ground on it and required some removal of the diligently applied primer and paint to allow for electrical contact to the fuselage.
Then I thought I quickly run the wires and do the fine adjustment. How long could it take to run 3 little wires through a hole, huh?
Well, WRONG! The routing of these wires is insanely inaccessible (at least on the left side) and it cost me a serious amount of time to get the job done and even more time to calm down and just not get a big hammer to solve the problem.
That piece of safety wire in the picture is not there by accident. It saved the day actually. I used it as a guide like a string in more accessible places and helped the first wire through the aft hole by taping it to it. You can't do all two as the hole is too small to allow for the tape and the wires to go through.
The second wire I ran by using the first wire as a guide. Push it all the way back to the front again and tape the second wire to it and guide it through the aft hole by carefully pulling and supporting it from the front.
The picture shows the problematic aft hole.
Finally I could work on the fine adjustment to tone down the sensitivity a bit and make the switch trigger only when the spar pins are in the right positions. The deflection on both switches is about the same to accomplish the goal. Unfortunately, my camera refused to give me a good shot of the switches but you can still see the angle, so they are somewhat helpful if you go that route.
This was the left side.
And this is the blurry right.
Eventually I was back at routing wires. Much more enjoyable compared to fiddling with reed switches! Here you see the optional harness routed.
Again I used a few pieces of blue tape for holding the harness together while routing it through the snap bushings. It just makes things so much easier.
Then the servo bus got installed, running from the panel base to the pitch servo where it gets connected to this servo as well as the bus getting extended to run all the way to the aft of the forward fuselage to get hooked up to the roll servo.
Crimping the spade connectors on is a simple job of matching the same colors together. Just watch out that you use the right connector gender before crimping them in. Then all that was left to do was to actually connected the bus to the pitch servo.
What I have yet to figure out is how to tie down this bunch of cables so that it looks good and doesn't chafe on anything. Tony Tessitore did an incredible job on his whole plane. Looks like it rolled out a German luxury car plant inside and out. I think I check on his photo bucket to see how he did it ....
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