Brief Description: Mounting Brackets For Kenwood - Part 1
While not overly complex, mounting the Kenwood LCD Entertainment system poised some challenges because of it unorthodox mounting scheme - at least by aircraft standards. The stock mount basically just hangs a frame off the front of the panel and holds the unit in with little tabs. Considering the unit weighs in at nearly 6 lbs (gulp!), that just didn't seem like a good way to mount the unit considering the high G-forces that would be stressing it.
I fabricated a couple of brackets to better support the unit on the sides and tied the load into the instrument panel with rivets. Again, it also ties in to the mounting screws for the right GRT HX display which strengthens the panel at the gap between to two instruments. There is also a mounting screw in the back of the Kenwood unit, so I added a plate in the back that ties the left and right sides together and allows for the rear screw to be utilized. The whole unit rests perfectly on the fuselage cross member and I plan to add an angle bracket with screws underneath to support the hanging weight. The whole thing took a lot longer than I intended, but I'm very pleased with the end result.
