This took a completely unacceptable time to finish. 🙁 I tore down the original panel probably close to three years ago. Life and other projects conspired to push work on the F-15C to the background. Yesterday (9/19/20) I got out of bed with my task for the day to get this panel knocked out. I didn’t get it done in a single day, but damn near. 🙂
I disassembled the APG-70(V) radar panel and stripped down all the switches of the original wiring and carefully de-pinned the Cannon connector. I worked out the connection positions on the switches and got new leads attached. When I originally started this rebuild, I got as far as a single switch and then SQUIRREL!…
Here’s what the panel components look like prior to final assembly:
And after installing & pinning the interface connector:
The channel selector is kind of a neat switch. It consists of two 8 position rotary switches. The first is labeled “A” through “H” and the second is “1” through “8”. The switches are BCD – Binary Coded Decimal. There’s a common wire on each and then three terminas, “1”, “2”, and “4”. Those three wires in combination can represent 8 different switch positions.
Now the back plate gets mounted. In rewiring the panel, it uses 52 pins on the original Cannon connector:
Now it’s ready for the edge-lit panel and knobs to be installed. Maintainers may spot a problem in this view. 🙂
This particular APG-70(V) radar happens to be serial number 0009…
With the knobs back on…
Finally, here it is with the rear shell cover back on:
Here’s a pile of the extra bits that I didn’t need…
The next thing I need to do is craft the wiring harness that connects the APG-70(V) panel to the main bulkhead Cannon plug. I’m going to look into either building or buying some kind of automated wire measuring/cutting tool. There’s 52 wires for this panel – it makes for a very tedious work session when most of your time is consumed by measuring and cutting wire…
BTW, if anyone knows how to force WordPress to stop imposing 1:1 aspect ratios on images, please let me know in the comments.
Comments
Leave a Reply
Santiago on 09.24.2021
Wow.
Just want to say THANKS, thanks for this website, i started a cockpit 3 years ago and this is helping me a lot.
Keep up the good work.
admin on 09.25.2021
You’re welcome! Good luck with your project. Hopefully it won’t take you as long as it’s taking me. 😀
John on 12.12.2021
Hello Gene. I’ve been looking for information on the APG-70 radar and stumbled on your wonderful site. If you know, could you tell me what year was it adopted? Most sources say it’s early 80s but don’t specify. Either that or what year was yours made? Thanks.
admin on 12.13.2021
John, I looked on the panel and there’s no manufacture date listed. Here’s the data plate on the chassis if that helps: https://i.imgur.com/5VzqcXn.jpg