Airplane LED Lighting problem... GLITCH!

[TeamTEOR]

Has anyone put lights on their planes and powered it from the RX radio? I put 2 white LEDs (1 under each side of the main wing) then 2 red and 2 green on the tips of the main wing. Pulling the voltage from the RX radio they did light up nicely, but there was a small problem.... After being on about 4 seconds, the two servos went to full throws! I shut the power to the lights (I put a switch inline of the futaba connector positive lead off of the RX radio output to the LEDs) super fast and they stopped tring to move, then a slight touch to the radio and the servos were corrected back to center throw.

I guess I have no choice but to use a external battery pack for the LEDs.
It is a GWS 4ch RX radio (the kind with the long antenna wire).

[jeffs555]

Need a lot more details for anyone to diagnose. What led's, what value resistors, and how are they connected to the receiver? Is it an electric plane? If so, what ESC and battery pack. If a gasser, what kind of Rx battery? It would be possible to power 6 led's without a separate battery pack, but it all depends on the led's and how they are connected.

[TeamTEOR]

I am not using resistors since they all said that they would be ok on 5v. The are all wired in parallel. It is a GWS Beaver, powered by a 3s Etec1200HP, the motor is a Park370-4100 geared D and the controller is a Hacker 25amp esc(made to run 1/18scale cars, but works fine in the plane), the servos are both GWS PICO. I was tring to avoid useing a extra battery pack since the Park370 never needs to go above 75% throttle, and I am not pulling the full 12-14 amps. Normal flight is about 33% throttle. Thanks.

Oh, the LEDs are all from radio shack. They are their better ones that they carry.

[jeffs555]

You always need resistors unless they are built into the led's. The people who say you don't need resistors, do not understand how led's work. Without the resistors, there will be nothing to limit the current pulled by the leds. The bec in the hacker is probably overheating and going into thermal shutdown, because the led's are pulling too much current. If you can give the exact RS numbers for all the led's I could tell you which resistors you need.

[TeamTEOR]

I will look them up. Thanks! I totally didn't think they would draw amps like that.

[TeamTEOR]

Well, the kid found the battery pack I had attached to check out things and turned it on while waiting for his oatmeal this morning. It looks like the red and green leds burned out. So I will just have to go replace them.

I looking at the Radio Shack website, they only have a 1100mcd white led listed at 3.6v, but I still recall the two thatwere bought being a 5V led.

If I have to start over I will just to be sure. I'll try to stop by RS today. Murphys law...

[Mr.RC-CAM]

If the LED's burned out then that is a sure sign that the proper current limiting resistors were not used. To determine the correct resistor value you can use this online tool: RC-Cam's LED Calculator (http://www.rc-cam.com/led_info.htm#Calculator).

RC-CAM

[Eric Brouwer]

Below is a picture of our night-flight setup. I make use of an extra 4.8V/1650mAh battery pack for the lights, and can get just more than an hour on the pack. I do not suggest using the rx to power the lights, as the white LED's needs about 50mA each to be bright enough. The white LED's have a forward voltage drop of about 3.2V each, so one can not connect them in series

The navigation lights are all 4.8V torch bulbs, and the landing lights are made up of three high-bright white LED's per wing. The navigation and landing lights are controlled vai channel 5 & 6 on my tx, so it can be switched on/off as required.

I have used red and yellow on the wings, and blue for the rudder. I did not use green, as the green and blue are very hard to see apart at night.

The control circuit was a quick home construction job, using a single PIC 12F675 and two darlington transistors, but there are a lot of circuits available on the net.

http://myweb.absa.co.za/eric.brouwer/images/spad2.jpg
SPAD #2 fitted with PIC light control circuit.

http://myweb.absa.co.za/eric.brouwer/images/pic3.jpg
SPAD #1 with lights on.

http://myweb.absa.co.za/eric.brouwer/images/pic4.jpg
SPAD #1 in full action.

[TeamTEOR]

I just placed a order for some new LEDS and almost everything that I would need. One thing that would be cool is if I could find a couple of those pic circuits. Can they be controlled by one channel? My RX radios are mainly 4 ch.

I am planing on makeing a voltage regulator as well for this project. The 3 subjects are going to be a GWS Beaver, J3-F, and a Losi Mini-T. Then I'll light up some of my other planes as I make the systems better. I was thinking of picking up small lipos or using some 2/3aa cells for a pack to power it. I guess I could test with a 2s Etec700 that I use to power my Lil' Rascal.

[Mr.RC-CAM]

One thing that would be cool is if I could find a couple of those pic circuits.
http://www.rc-cam.com/navlight.htm
http://www.rc-cam.com/ldtastic.htm

RC-CAM

[Eric Brouwer]

I have added my circuit as well. Have a look on my web. (http://myweb.absa.co.za/eric.brouwer/pic's.htm)