Jim Weir
Jim Weir is the chief avioniker at RST Engineering. He answers avionics questions in the Internet newsgroup www.pilotsofamerica.com–Maintenance. His technical advisor, Cyndi Weir, got her Masters degree in English and Journalism and keeps Jim on the straight and narrow. Check out their web site at www.rst-engr.com/kitplanes for previous articles and supplements.
A Soldering We Shall Go (Part 2)
When last we left our discussion of soldering, we touched briefly on each of the basic topics concerning joining electronic parts together using a...
Holler, Holler, Let’s All Solder (Part 1)
OK, I’ll admit it. Back in the fifth grade my parents gave me a wood-burning set for Christmas. Now, they pretty much knew they...
Ernie, Can You Hear Me?
Every now and again, you get to do something that just feels good inside. Especially as an engineer and electronic designer, those times come...
Lighting up the Tail Feathers
For a couple of months now, we’ve been laying the groundwork for an overhaul of how we might do night lighting on our homebuilts....
Prelude to NextGen LEDs
Just in this last few months (from June 2022), there has been a true revolution in the state of the art for power LEDs....
Fourier Strikes Again
Ah, the email call for April 15, 2022, just arrived. Michael Zwijacz wrote to me: “Hello Jim, I’ve been following you in KITPLANES® for many...
Shining a Light on History
Back in 2008, George W. Bush was president and 100LL was $2.50 a gallon. Production of 80/87 had stopped the previous year, and this...
Power, Scotty, I Gotta Have More Power
“I canna give ye more, Cap’n. The dilithium crystals are already overloaded.”
—Star Trek This month’s article is more of a simple tutorial instead of a...
Round…and Around…We Go
Stay with me here. This is going to be a very interesting and somewhat difficult project. But worth the read, I guarantee. No matter how...
What a Darling(ton) Noisemaker
Mostly we’d like our airplanes to be quiet. Somehow, “airplane” and “quiet” don’t belong in the same sentence. We’ve got roughly 5000 explosions per...
In Case You Missed it
An Aussie Take on Throttle-Body Fuel Injection
Rotec has a new throttle-body injection system that's worth looking at.
