Lighting Up a Plane

Share your ideas on finishing, painting, markings and making your plane look its best!

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midair02
Posts: 495
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 11:05 am
Location: USA

Lighting Up a Plane

Post by midair02 »

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I got the lights from here:

http://www.theledlight.com/led-specs.html

They have a nice tutorial on LED's that I found to be very useful.

I thought they had a wider viewing angle. But I checked the package and they are only 30 degrees.

The 3mm were on the wings and were running on 4.8V 150mah battery each side from radical. They were wired 2 in series with a total of 4 sets running parallel. Could run them all parallel on a 2 cell pack if you wanted to.

The 3mm were also in the horizontal stab running on same type of battery and 2 in series. Also had a blinking LED on top of the fin, running on same battery.

If you look at the specs, the Red and Yellow have the same operating voltage, that's why i used them, a convenient 4.8v battery worked just fine for them.

The Blue and Green have a higher voltage 3.2V. A 3.6v NiMh battery might work running all of them in parallel. Haven't tried it yet. Or a A123 3.3V 1100 mAh single cell from Radical might work even better. Again, haven't tried it yet.
midair02
Posts: 495
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 11:05 am
Location: USA

Post by midair02 »

Some part numbers for some LEDs that I bought from Digi-Key. I went with the 5mm so it would be easier to solder. It was definitely worth it.

Red C503B-RCS-CW0Z0AA1-ND
Amber C503B-ACN-CW0Y0251-ND
Green C503B-GCS-CY0C0791-ND
Blue C503B-BCS-CV0Z0461-ND
White C513A-WSN-CV0Y0151-ND

Red and Amber are spec'd at 2.1 Volts. Green, Blue and White are at 3.2 Volts.
I finally got around to wiring some up today. Did a Amber/Red and a Blue/Green.
I did 5 LEDs of each color on a side spanning 24 inches. I ran them all in parallel this time around.

First I carefully split the servo wire with an exacto. Then I burned the insulation off with a soldering iron and pre-tinned the wire with some solder.

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Then I used some "helping hands" to hold the LED while I soldered it to the wire. Amazingly no burnt fingers.

Image

I plan on using some liquid electrical “tapeâ€
midair02
Posts: 495
Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 11:05 am
Location: USA

Post by midair02 »

Just got back from doing a little night flying and testing out some new "streamers". We found out at the last WingNut meet that glow sticks don't show up real well when your plane has LED's lighting it up.

Found some cheap LED stuff at Extremeglow.com. Only thing with them is you have to buy $25 worth of stuff.

Tested out these tonight.

Image

Red is the dimmest and it shows up good, even when I flew out as far as I dared.

http://www.extremeglow.com/Merchant4/me ... e=LEDBRACE

A close up of one. It has a slot that a rubber band is in that you can tie the string around.

Image
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boiler
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Post by boiler »

I guess you plan on kicking our backsides day and night now.[;)]
Hat Trick
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Post by Hat Trick »

A guy in our club had a bunch of LED's than are in a little metal housing. When you screw the housing together it turns on the LED's. I bought some that are plain colors some that strobe and some that alternate colors. He had them for use on kite tails. They also have magnets that they use to atach them to kite tails. Probably not stong enough for our use but you can tie them onto a string easily. Not tested yet but might work good for streamers. I think he has had them for a long time but they were really cheap. I'll see if I can find out where he got them.
midair02
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Joined: Sun Mar 02, 2003 11:05 am
Location: USA

Post by midair02 »

Mike, I bought some those too. Didn't get a chance to try them out due to the rain that decided to ruin my fun. The finger beams are $1.30 for a 4-pack. The ones like you have are called body lights on that site and run for $0.72 each.

I wonder if the magnets would be strong enough to hold on to a regular streamer or flagging tape? Getting string in the motor really sucks.
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