L-1011 Trainer Installation: Initial Light Plate Power-Up

L-1011 Light Plate Power-Up

I finally got my hands on a nice and compact 5VDC 120A power supply for the instrument panel light plates. Almost every panel in the Lockheed L-1011 cockpit has a backlit light plate that illuminates the legend on the plate. The power for the Light plates is 5VDC. Due to the fact that there are so many of them and that they use incandescent bulbs we needed a supply that can output a lot of Amps for the 5V required. Today we tested the power supply with 4 panels on the overhead panel: We powers up the Captains Windshield Wiper panel, the Exterior Lights panel on the eyebrow and the Interior Light panel also located on the eyebrow. Some of the light plates need some of the bulbs replaced, but, that's to be expected when dealing with 40 year old flight hardware.

The plan is to have all over the overhead and center console light plates powered up over the coming weekend.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: AC an DC Standby Power from Battery

L-1011 Trainer: AC and DC STBY Power from Battery

Finished the L-1011 AC Standby (STBY) and DC STBY power fail-over to the on-board Battery yesterday evening. On the actual aircraft, once transferred to Battery power, the standby buses are alive for about 30 minutes before the Battery is depleted.

Normally, the DC STBY bus receives powered from the DC Essential bus and the AC STBY bus is powered by the AC Essential bus. The AC and DC STBY bus are the last resort to keep the aircraft operational in case of a complete loss of primary electrical systems. If the respective Essential power busses fail, the STBY busses are switched to the on-board Battery. AC power is created form the on-board Battery via a DC to 115V/400Hz Inverter. Watch the short demonstration video below and you will see the system in action.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Battery and Standby DC Power Transfer

L-1011 Trainer - Battery ON Indicator

The Lockheed L-1011 power system has a very high degree of redundancy and fail over capabilities. Looking at the L-1011 schematics and talking to people who flew and worked on the L-1011 all say that it was really hard loosing power on the L-1011 due to the very well designed AC and DC power distribution systems on-board.

First thing we did today was to connect the Battery ON/OFF switch on the S/O Console as well as the associated annunciator. Here is an excerpt from Delta's L-1011 Pilot Reference Manual explaining the Battery switch as well as the associated annunciator:

from: Delta Airlines L-1011 Pilot's Reference Manual p.Electrical.20

L-1011 Trainer - Battery Flow Indicator

There are also a number of Standby and Essential Bus Fault indicators. While we did not complete the build out for this system fully, we have as of today implemented the DC power fail over systems. Below is a short video illustrating how the DC fail over systems work:

from Delta Airline L-1011 Pilot's Reference Manual page.Electrical-16

L-1011 Trainer - BUS 3 Failure and Essential AC Failure

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Simulator Power Controls

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Power  Controls

The last few days we have been working on some of the less exciting, yet very important, components such as the simulator power control. You can see the primary power elements in the image above. The power controls from left to right are:

1. Main Power - this controls power to the flight simulator. The rocker switch is not only an ON-OFF switch but also a breaker that will drip at 15A. 
2. Computer/Visual - this switch controls the power ON-OFF state for the computers and video projects that are part of the L-1011 simulator. 
3. External Power - simulates external power being supplied to the aircraft. This external power would be either power supplied from a source at the gate or from a start cart. External power to the aircraft would be supplied via a ground connected cable. Switching this rocker switch to ON will illuminate the green AVAIL light on the Second Officer's console. 
4. Cooling System - activates the cooling system for the flight simulator. 

Below is an image of the entire control unit that houses the power controls and the computers.

L-1011 Trainer - Power Control and Computer Rack

L-1011 Trainer Installation: AC/DC Power System Complete

L-1011 Trainer - AC/DC Power Control Relays

The AC/DC Power System buildout is finally finished!! A short moment to celebrate :) Getting the power systems right certainly took a lot more than I personally had anticipated. In order to make the power distribution look and feel as close as possible to the real thing we, in essence, built a miniature version of the actual power distribution system with all the AC and DC busses present in the L-1011. This made this a lot more complicated, but also a lot more rewarding. All in all, a good 60 hours went into building the power system.

The two images below show the finished DC and AC systems prior to us dressing up the cables and making it all look a lot cleaner.

L-1011 Trainer - DC System (Pre-Cleanup)

L-1011 Trainer - AC System (Pre-Cleanup)

All this crazy cabling stuff in the two images above is controlled by the neat and easy to read "Electric System" panel on the lower F/E station (image below). However, all the magic behind the panel is implemented with 72 control and sense relays.

L-1011 Finished Electrical System Panel

The image above shows the L-1011 as would be typical at the gate powered by External Power. The three engine generators are off and the FIELD and GENERATOR breakers show "OPEN". The External Power is switched onto the AC Tie Bus and the Tie Bus Breakers (white flow bars) are closed to power the AC Bus 1, 2 and 3. 

L-1011 CPT Installation: DC System Buildout - Integral Instrument Lighting FE/SO Station

L-1011 Trainer - Integral Instrument Lighting Buildout

Continuing with the Instrument Lighting build-out on the lower FE/SO Station. We now have almost the entire instrument cluster on the FE/SO Station connected to the FE/SO Lower Right instrument light bus. The only three instruments that are remaining are the %N2 Tachometers at the very top of the instrument cluster. (Currently only 2 of the 3 are real flight hardware, I am trying to get the 3rd one but I keep getting outbid on eBay).

Below is an image that better illustrates the instrument illumination work for the FE/SO Station Instrument Cluster.

L-1011 Trainer - Integral Instrument Lighting Buildout

All instrument integral illumination on the lower FE/SO Station is powered via two Circuit Breaker by a Lambda 5V 20A power supply. The incandescent lamps in the instruments consume a total of about 16A when fully built out. An identical 5V 20A power supply will drive the upper FE/SO Station integral instrument lights.

L-1011 Trainer - Integral Instrument Lighting Buildout

Light Plate illumination is going to be next and will require a 5V 40A power source to drive the light plates on the S/O station. Once the integral instrument lighting on the FE/SO Station is done we will move on to the Captain's and F/Os instrument lighting. 

L-1011 CPT Installation: DC Buildout - Instrument Lighting Bus

L-1011 Trainer - Instrument Lighting Bus

Most of the L-1011 instrument panels have both backlit light plates that illuminate the panel legend as well as integral lighted instruments. Since the panel background and the instrument can be brightness controlled independently there are a number of lighting buses for various sections of the L-1011 cockpit. Building out the lighting buses for both the instruments as well as the light plates is part of the AC/DC system build out that we are currently doing at the museum.

The image below shows the 5V instrument lighting bus for the F/O console. The other images on the page show a number of instruments connected to the bus for testing purposes.

L-1011 Trainer - Instrument Lighting Bus 

On the actual L-1011 all instrument lighting is done with 5VAC circuits, however, for the simulator I will be using 5VDC. Below is an image of the three engine fuel quantity used indicators that I sowed you a few postings ago. The indicators are now installed into the cockpit and illuminated.

L-1011 Trainer - Instrument Lighting Bus

L-1011 CPT Installation: DC System Buildout

L-1011 Electrical System - DC Volts

Today I started the integration of the power systems with the Electrical System panel of the L-1011. The Electrical System panel is located on the lower Flight Engineer's console (see picture below). The Transformer Rectifier (T/R) units, and the Battery Simulator are now connected to the electrical panel. The image above shows the 24V DC output from T/R number 2. The DC voltage on the actual L-1011 is actually 28V DC, however, 24V DC work just fine all instruments that we have tested so far. 24V DC is a lot easier to obtain.

L-1011 Electrical System Panel - DC Meters

Below is a short video showing the operation of the DC Volts meter from different sources. The video shows an under-voltage on T/R 2 and no power on the ESS DC T/R, the Batter and the Standby DC Bus.

In addition to connecting the DC Volts and DC Amps meters to the T/R units I also installed the simulated T/R Remote Circuit Breakers. The remote circuit breakers are controlled with "R" labeled breakers on the CB3 Circuit Breaker panel. To be exact the circuit breakers are CB3E16, CB3E17 and CB3E18. For the simulator, the circuit breakers control three 24V relays that switch the T/R1, T/R2 and T/R 3 units on.

L-1011 T/R Remote Circuit Breaker Simulation

The image below shows the T/R1, T/R2, T/R3 and BATT units powered on. This would be case with either all three engine generators producing power, or, with the AC Tie Bus powered by either the APU or EXT Power.

L-1011 Trainer - Transformer Rectifier Units

L-1011 CPT Installation - DC Hot Battery Bus

L-1011 Trainer - AC/DC Power Buildout

The last few weeks there had not been overly much to blog about. We continue work on the AC/DC power subsystems for the trainer. In the image above you can see 24V T/R units that will simulate the 3  transformer rectifiers (T/R) that are powered by the aircraft engines as well as the BATTERY simulator. There is only one more T/R unit that is missing and that will be for the DC Essential (ESS) bus.

All the power supplies are convection cooled and the video clip below is a short clip of the fan monsters coming alive.

The hot Battery bus is used for a lot of things on the L-1011; like APU start up and some very basic instrumentation. One good example for the use of the hot battery bus are the clocks in the cockpit. In order to not loose time, these clocks are powered by the hot battery bus on the actual aircraft. To stay as close to the original as possible, we are simulating the aircraft's battery with the 24V 20A power supply pictured below.

L1011 Trainer - Battery System Simulator

This supply forms the battery as well as the hot battery bus and is now driving the Haydon clocks installed in the Simulator. Below is a short video of the clocks running of the central universal time base as well as the 24V Hot Battery bus.

L-1011 Trainer - Clocks on Hot Battery Bus

L-1011 CPT Installation - AC and DC Power Buildout

AC/DC Power Buildout - L1011 Trainer

The AC and DC Power System buildout is ongoing. Today Jim and I installed a number of components into our Power and Digital I/O system rack. This rack will hold the AC and DC power switching relays as well as the Analog and Digital I/O for the two Simulator Control Computers. All of the power sources used on our L-1011 Trainer are made by German company Phoenix Contact, except for the 120V 60Hz power conditioners and the 115V 400Hz Inverter. In the image below you can see Jim getting busy on preparing the rack for the installation of additional power components.

AC/DC Power Buildout - L1011 Trainer

It's a good size rack that will hold most of the power and the digital I/O as well as the primary control computers. The 24V DC Power supplies (see the following two images) will simulate the actual T/R units on the L-1011. There are 3 engine generator driven T/Rs (we installed them today) as well as an Essential T/R (ESS T/R) and a 24V DC Power Supply that will simulate the aircraft's battery.

AC/DC Power Buildout - L1011 Trainer

Each of the Phoenix Contact Quint Power supplies has an output of 24VDC at 10A. The power supplies have no cooling built into the supply and require external convection cooling. In the image below you can see the fan bank that we installed directly below the power supplies. This fan bank will move air through the supplies and will cool them while they are under load.

AC/DC Power Buildout - L1011 Trainer

L-1011 CPT Installation - AC and DC Power Buildout

115V 400Hz Power Inverter for the L-1011 Simulator

The work on the AC and DC power sources and the distribution systems is ongoing. Today Jim and I worked mostly on placing an 120VAC Power conditioner and a huge 115V 400Hz Inverter into a rack. These two units will become the main power sources for the L-1011 Trainer at the National Museum of Commercial Aviation. The image above shows the 400Hz inverter ... aka. The Beast. Below is an image of the 120VAC power conditioner.

120V AC Power Conditioner for the L-1011 Simulator 

Both power units will be remote controlled via the Electrical System panel in the L-1011 trainer. In order to reduce the amount of thermal output and fan noise in the sim room we are placing the power units outside the sim room in a 19" equipment rack. Here are a few images from the installation work/

120V AC Power Conditioner in Rack

Jim working on the Inverter Base

Jim Working Placing Railes for the 115VAC 400Hz Inverter

120VAC Power Conditioner and 115VAC 400Hz Inverter 

400Hz Inverter Power Feeds

The main power units feed a series of power distribution panels that will simulate the actual power busses found on the L-1011. the units had previously been used on a flight simulator and are currently in bits and pieces. In order to get them ready for installation in the simulator room we are refurbishing the units and testing them prior to reuse.

Power Control Panel Rework for the L-1011 Simulator

One of 3 Power Distribution Panels for the L-1011 Simulator

L-1011 CPT Installation - DC Power Buildout

L-1011 CPT - DC Power Distribution

Jim Blasco and I got a lot of good work done on the simulator today. What we are mainly working on for the next few weeks is the DC and AC power distribution for the simulator. Building a good power foundation is important but it's certainly not the most glorious part of sim building. To make the power distribution behavior "feel" as close to the original as possible we are actually reconstructing, on a very small scale, the power buses used with the actual Lockheed L-1011.

All of the DC buses for the simulator will be 24V buses. However, the LED lights that we are using for the cockpit flood lighting are 12V lights. Therefore, we need to DC-DC convert the 24V buses to 12V. Below is an image of a 12V 10A DC-DC converter installed into the power side side of the aft circuit breaker panel.

L-1011 CPT - DC Power Distribution - DC-DC Converter 24V to 12V

Here is Jim installing the DC-DC converter. Having worked as an aircraft mechanic for Eastern Airlines and others for most of his career, Jim really does neat work mounting components.

L-1011 CPT - DC Power Distribution

L-1011 CPT - DC Power Distribution

It wouldn't be an installation job without the appropriate tools! It sure seems that there is a different tool for just about every step along the way. As Richard Grigg would say .... "what a mess!"

L-1011 Retrofit

L-1011 - CPT - DC Power Planning - Part 2

Phoenix Contact 24VDC Power Supply

Some of the components for the first DC Power Bus have arrived. To re-create the DC and AC power systems of the Lockheed L-1011 I am going to use components made by Phoenix Contact. All the elements are made to mount on standard DIN Rails and are industrial grade. The DIN Rails can be installed in the simulator very easily and create a clean setup that is easy to service. Here is an example of a power distribution installed into the overhead panel of our MD-83 simulator.

Phoenix Contact Power Distribution installed in Simulator

Two postings ago I showed you a proposed layout for one of the DC buses the the Phoenix Contact elements shown in this posting will be used to implement it.

L-1011 DC Power Bus Simulation with Phoenix Contact Components

The 120VAC 60Hz to 24VDC 10A power supply is shown in the image at the top of this posting. Each of the DC power buses simulated will receive one of them.

The image below shows the Phoenix Contact 24VDC Relays. These relays are capable of directly interfacing with many of the switches on the L-1011 simulator panels. The relay can drive all the voltages used on the L-1011 simulator including the TTL interfaces to the computers.

Phoenix Contact 24VDC Relays

The relay modules are very thin (the fill one DIN Rail slot each) and the seven relays in the image above are just 1 1/3" (about 44mm) wide. The actual relays are very easily replaced (see image below) by simply popping them out and putting in a new one.

Phoenix Contact 24VDC Relay Module

The Diode module has 4 diodes in it. Enough to protect each of the DC power supplies from voltage coming in from the DC Tie Bus. You can see the module a bit closer up in the image below together with one of the standard terminal blocks used to connect other DC components and breakers to the DC bus.

Phoenix Contact Diode Module and Terminal Block