Model plane lighting system

[Joe Yap]

I'm building a blown-up version of Fred Reese designed Electric Buttercup and intending to turn it into a flying lantern. My initial intention is to use LEDs for wing and fin tips, and halogen bulbs in the cabin and engine cowl nose light. Entire airplane will be covered in transparent film. Does anyone out there has any past experience and better suggestions? Thanx.

[Mr.RC-CAM]

halogen bulbs in the cabin and engine cowl nose light. For a lower current burden, use the high lumen (super bright) white LED's in these area.

Regards,
Mr. RC-CAM
www.rc-cam.com

[Tony Oliver]

You may find that with clear covering that all you see is lights! I'm not sure what would give the effect, but take a tip from the Mugi slopers - the Correx is translucent, and lights make the whole thing glow. I only have two high intensity leds each side, but the effect in total darkness is startling.

If you follow the link at www.mugi.co.uk you can download some movie of the night flying/led lit models.

Tony

[Joe Yap]

Originally posted by Mr.RC-CAM
For a lower current burden, use the high lumen (super bright) white LED's in these area.[/url]

Yes! So those super bright LEDs used on mini flashlights are called high lumen. It'll definitely be my first choice. Thanx for the enlightment.

The entire construction will be balsa trusses and I guess Correx is impractical. However, I believe some less opaque iron-on film can give the same effect. Has anyone tried it? Is opaque Monokote, Solarkote suitable? Thanx again.

[rcgreaves]

I've experimented with a variety of lighting set-ups. My favorite, and worth a second look is RC Neon @ www.rcneon.com. Two sets of contrasting color for top and bottom of wing or whatever will set you back $50. There is a power inverter box about 2'' square but the results when powered off a 9v transistor radio battery are very impressive. I fly my E Zagi right down to the deck as in daylight. Other methods were cheaper, this has been the most fun.

[Duke58]

The leds have a lens and the light is focused in one direction , I took a fine sponge sanding tool to mine and the light was diffused and lit the area better. Somewhere here is a photo of my Avertura II that had lights in the wing panels ( I'm on the Ole Lady's Computer now, no RC crap allowed). The effect is great for nite flight , on the lake you'll get bass going for yer plane.

Try lighting the stab the way the airlines do , two leds shining up from the horizonal stab illuminating the vertical stab, this helps orientation , and watch out for barn owls!

Save Torrey Pines
Earl

[Joe Yap]

Does anyone know what's the voltage and current draw for high lumen LEDs? I'm thinking of putting some in the cabin and inside the wings to turn the model into a flying lantern. Green LED will be placed on the left wingtip, Red for right and if I can find, a blinking LED on the fin tip. Not quite sure about RC Neon as I can't even access to the website.

[Mr.RC-CAM]

Does anyone know what's the voltage and current draw for high lumen LEDs?Unlike traditional LED's, the "Vf" voltage of the high brightness types are higher (usually range from 2 to 4 VDC at 20mA). You will need to look at the LED's data sheet to get the actual value.

The good news is that with the proper currently limiting resistor they will still operate from a standard 4-cell or higher pack. At 20mA per LED, the ESC's BEC output can be used if you do not get crazy with lamp count.

Also, the viewing angles can get rather narrow, so pick something that has at least 45 degrees for good visibility. A diffused lens is often the best choice too, but it all depends on what you are trying to illuminate.

Regards,
Mr. RC-CAM
www.rc-cam.com

[OH!Zone]

Do check out the Mugi site, lots of good info on what types and colors of leds work best.
On a diffrent note, I just recieved some luminous paint I'm excited about. It's inexpensive, water-based and can be mixed with transparent acrilic paints to provide colors.
I'm interested in mixing it with water-based quick drying urathane varnish, a new wonderstuff finish for use on foam. it can be colored with ordinary food coloring!
Here is a link: http://campscrafts.safeshopper.com/202/1683.htm?906

-Dave

[Moogee]

Joe, I think if you cover the plane in transparent film you'll suffer some of the problems I got on the early Mugi.

The high brightness LEDs have a relatively narrow viewing angle but will diffuse very well under a translucent material such as correx. I'm not sure how film will compare as the cellular structure of correx seems to refract and internally distribute the light. I'm not up on coverings, but I suspect a textured type might work better than the smooth films.

The narrow viewing angle may cause problems if you have transparent as at certain angles you may find yourself looking directly down the 'lens'. This will dazzle you and you'll probably get a halo effect in your vision - effectively making the rest of the plane vanish from the sky, especially those parts illuminated by LEDs pointing the opposite direction.

The best LEDs I have found are green and blue ultra brightness. The green quotes up to 10000mcd as their output - though I tend to use the 4400mcd versions which increase viewing (spread) angle from 15 deg to 30 deg.
Those I buy are manufactured by Nichia and run to £3 per LED here in the UK. Your local supplier should have some of a similar spec. Fortunately, there are also some orange LEDs that give out a good amount of light for only £0.80 each. These are Toshiba.

The Mugi site should have the specs and links to Maplin if you want to compare the ID's etc. to your local place.

The white LEDs are amazingly bright but I should warn you that it all my experiments they did not diffuse as well as the colours.
In fact, in order to fill a Mugi with as much uniform light coverage as one green and one blue, I needed six white LEDs!
They just do not like to diffuse.

Hope that's helpful.

By the way, OH!Zone - over here, one of our main paint mfrs. Dulux has a glow in the dark paint that's actually sold in big tins - I think up to 500ml for about £8 which compares pretty favourably. I haven't seen it in action but I suspect it's not bad and may be worth a shot.
Also, regular emulsion or vinyl paint seem to be the only thing that sticks to correx.

Links:

Green Nichia LED (brightest and best diffuser) (http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/Module.asp?CartID=0208200955511446592&moduleno=19475)
Blue Nichia LED (http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/Module.asp?CartID=0208200955511446592&moduleno=19454)
Toshiba Extreme Brightness - orange makes a great red (http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/Module.asp?CartID=0208200955511446592&moduleno=21327)

Cheers

Morgan

[Joe Yap]

Thank you guys for your valuable suggestions. I'm still yet to decide the system to use. A friend of mine agreed to sell me his RC Model lighting system cheap which is similar to the RCNEON. However, I was told that this system is quite delicate. My model is huge (68" span) and the fuselage is volumuos. I reckon that it can easily carry a separate 4-cell 600mah pack w/o much weight penalty. It seems that it'll need quite a number of LEDs to have sufficient brightness or I could get away with a halogen bulb or 2 with enough duration for about 2-3 , 10mins flights. I've yet to find out the cost of LEDs and halogen bulbs. If LEDs only direct light in certain directions, what is the best possible LEDs placement and configuration in the fuselage to get optimum effect?

[Steven Horney]

Look at: http://www.glowire.com/ They offer luminescent wire and LED'S for all kinds of applications. We've used them with very good success on R/C airplanes (they originally were aiming for the R/C airplane market, but it was so small they've branched out to other areas).

Steve

[William A]

Or if you don't want to mess with wires.....

Found these at K-mart, 2.27$ for a pack of 2, .5g a piece.

[simingx]

Hmm, would it be possible to use spare servo outputs from the receiver to drive a buffer transistor which is in turn connected to the LEDs? The servo output *is* a PWM signal, right? Only thing is you wouldn't be able to switch the lights completely off, but it would be cool to have adjustable intensity lighting :)

[Mr.RC-CAM]

would it be possible to use spare servo outputs from the receiver to drive a buffer transistor which is in turn connected to the LEDs? The duty cycle of the servo's signal is too low to allow for satisfactory performance. But, you could always buy a cheap low current ESC for use as a lamp dimmer.

Regards,
Mr. RC-CAM

[Tony Oliver]

Sorry, but that is not quite right .

My pal used a system which we both now use where a servo amp. is used to switch high intensity LEDs. You take the amp out of the case from a poor centring servo and connect resistors between the centre tap of the pot lead and each end lead. Connect the leds to the motor leads and you're there. Plug into ta switched channel. The LEDS work as diodes so only light in one direction. It's that easy!

We fly Mugi and Zugini models with 4 LEDs. You can switch upto whatever the load a stalled servo would draw without burning out.

It works.

Ken Croft's the bloke who thought this one up, but it's probably not unique - someone else must have done a similar thing.

Cheers

Tony

[Mr.RC-CAM]

Tony,

The servo amp based on/off "switch" has been around since the late sixties (as far back as when the old four wire digital propo servos were used). It is a simple hack that works well.

However, I really like the proposed ESC method since you could dial in the desired LED intensity. I just prototyped it using a cheap ESC and it worked great. I had intensities that ranged from full on to full off, just like a household wall dimmer. I plugged it into the Gear channel and used the Tx's ATV's to set the level.

The RC-CAM published PanCam project also offers a switched on/off output that can be used to turn on nearly anything. For the full details please see http://www.rc-cam.com/projects.htm and click on the PanCam link.

Regards,
Mr. RC-CAM
www.rc-cam.com

[Tony Oliver]

That one, I really like!

My problem (or rather, one of them) is that I'm a modeller who can't get into another angle - like electronics, without some other aspect being pushed off the other end. As a result I try to go for the 'KISS' principle and only do what I either know I can deal with, or if really pushed, use something which basically fits my need but need not understand too deeply.

The best thing about modelling is the wide variation in ways to do what we do. The only consistent thing is that there are so many ways to be right - and it's that that puts us all above the 'watch others' types in this world.

Thanks.

Tony

[ChrisP]

I have been modelling for a zillion years but saw my first demonstration of night flying on Saturday.

A guy turned up at our field with a Twinstar which must have had about 200 - 300 diodes on it. Whilst flying, fields of colour pulsed from green to yellow and red and back again.

It was totally hypnotic and my best psychedelic experience since the 60's !

[Foamtoyz]

Just a note:
If your adding lights I would consider a ready wired system on lazertoyz.com has a system that you can control while flying using your transmitter and an aux output. You can turn your position lights on and off and your landing lights too. The strobe is great it has a 3 blink sequence ... very cool. It plugs into your reciever and uses that power and the signal from that channel to change modes.
link is http://www.ncweb.com/biz/dan/RCLights.html

[ghoti]

The brightest LED's I have used are made by Luxion.
http://www.luxeonstar.com/
I have pumped a full amp through them for short time periods and they are too bright to look at directly.

My info is about a year old. Bill

[FirstShirt]

The brightest LED's I have used are made by Luxion.
http://www.luxeonstar.com/
I have pumped a full amp through them for short time periods and they are too bright to look at directly.

My info is about a year old. Bill

Bill,

I was just looking at the Luxion web site. Very impressive. Have you used these for rc applications? If so, would you mind giving some of the details? Looks like there are a lot of choices on the lights, drivers, etc.

I'm electronically challenged, so anything would be helpful. I've been frustrated in trying to find a good lighting system since Curtek went belly up.

Thanks,
Pat

[ghoti]

Only once did I fly a Luxion white light. It pointed at the Slowstick wing underside and was so bright it I was dazzled and couldn't see the orientation of the plane. I brought it down in a hurry and haven't flown it since.

I found Luxion lamps not easily available and managed to get two samples from them because I was then a manufacturer.

They have new stuff since then and they are definately worth experimenting on RC planes. They take more current/power than normal LED's and are much brighter.

Luxeon does not sell publically traded stock. They are venture capital funded. I asked. They have a bright future. Hope they become more available. Bill

[FirstShirt]

Thanks, Bill. That's very helpful. Pat