On Mar 12, 5:52 pm, "EridanMan" wrote:
My Cherokee has the old panel, complete with the cosmetic plastic
overlay that goes on top. I could get a couple Dozen LED's and a
12-14vdc dimmer switch to control them for relatively cheap online.
It strikes me that it would be a relatively easy deal to then take the
plastic panel off, shave back the instrument holes a bit, and then
secure LED's behind the plastic so that they would illuminate the
gauges... I could do all of this and then just hook up the input power
to a standard cigarette lighter plug... Bingo - cheap, modern,
dimmable panel lighting.

Is this legal?

You just said it's cheap and modern - obviously it's not legal.

The general rule of thumb that I've heard is that if it screws down,
its not an accessory, and yes, the plastic cover does screw onto the
main panel... I could always change that to secure it with Velcro if
need-be (although I would prefer not too).

No you can't. That would be an alteration.

It seems like such a trivial mod, would I really need to go through a
337 hassle with it?

If you want to be legal, it's even worse that that. You would need a
field approval. And you can't get one. They're not issuing them
anymore.

Ten years ago, when I started working on my A&P, this would have been
easy. There was a field approval granted to a Pacer for basically the
same thing you want to do, except wired in rather than plugged in, and
you could have gotten a 337 approved based on the prior field approval
in a similar aircraft. Those days are gone.

So now you're not going to get modern, cheap, and legal. But that's
really not the issue. You can't comply with all the regulations
anyway - the question is what can you get away with.

Realistically, you have four options.

Option 1 - semi-legal. We could decide that this is a minor
alteration involving the installation of an owner-produced part. As
the regs are actually written, it's even true. Jim Weir has made a
business of this. If you can find an A&P who will sign off on this,
you're fine - unless your IA is a pain in the ass who says it's not
legal, and maybe even calls the FSDO for "clarification" - and believe
me, when an IA calls the FSDO for clarification, unless he really,
really pushes hard for the answer to be "it's legal" it always comes
back otherwise.

As an A&P, I wouldn't sign it unless I knew the IA who was going to do
the annual for the forseeable future and was verbally assured by him
that he was cool with it.

Option 2 - marginally legal. Do it, don't tell anyone, remove it
before annual, reinstall it after (should take 20 minutes). Chances
of being busted - essentially nil. If you are busted, claim
ignorance. After all, the stuff YOU added is not permanently
installed - just tape and/or velcro - and you only removed and
reinstalled the cosmetic panel cover (which you are allowed to do) to
get to where you needed to put the lights. Worst you get is a slap on
the wrist.

Option 3 - live with what you have.

Option 4 - pay through the nose for a certified system.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Michael