Land/Taxi & Nav lights?

[Paul Tye]

I may be asking a question that has been asked many times before so please bear with me!

Now the weather is less than perfect, often cloudy after work I sometimes have trouble distinguishing what part of the plane I'm looking at on approach, and thought that a set of nav lights on the wings plus a land taxi lamp on the front would make life easier! I have been looking at using LED's for the job and was wondering what others had used in doing this?

Would be grateful for any suggestions as to design and weight saving!

Thanks
Paul

[z-matrix]

hi,

you can use an icm7555 in soic to drive a blinking led if you need that.

i whould put 1-1 red 5mm led at the end of the wings, and a blinking blue at the nose, and for night flying you could add a white under the plane, or white at the nose, and bliking blue under the plane.

i could think of this.

3-4 leds are not much payload.

[Malc C]

If you have access to a PIC programmer (cheap to build or from $12 ready build commercially) then you can program a simple 8 pin PIC to produce a realistic strobe sequence, and even have it switchable from your transmitter. You can download the HEX file (and suggested layout) from the electronics page on my web site ( www.micro-heli.co.uk ). Or for £5 I can program one and post it to you. There is also a video of the sequence using LEDs fitted to my old Voyager E on the downloads page so you can see how it could look

[Matt Edwards]

if it just a flashing LED you want, have a look at the LM3909. It runs of a single cell and lasts months. they are as cheap as chips.

[Malc C]

If you are not bothered about any sequence and just want random flashing then simply use 5v flashing 3mm or 5mm LEDs. These are normal LEDs with built in flasher unit

[Acetronics]

Hi,Paul

I committed that some times ago : http://www.mes-avions-rc.net/video/lighttest1.wmv

Keep cool : just electronics aboard !!!

It fits into an ol' 16C84 ... interested ???

Alain

[Twin-Jet-Crash]

I built landing lights, flashing strobe lights, rotating beacon and nav lights for my Twin Star II.
I used a PIC 12C508A (big thanks to Mr. RC-CAM's website for the hex-file) and a 555 for the rotating becaons (doesn't really rotate :p ). I really like the way they came out.

This is how the plane look with all lights on:
http://home.no.net/janovsa/vitser.html/Modellfly/TwinStar_lys/TwinStar-lys%20004.jpg
Landing lights are 24 000mcd white LEDs and with 30° viewing angle they work great for that.

http://home.no.net/janovsa/vitser.html/Modellfly/TwinStar_lys/TwinStar-lys%20003.jpg
Sanded the red and green LEDs to get a wider viewing angle.

Now, the "important" stuff.

Here is the wiring diagram
http://home.no.net/janovsa/vitser.html/Bilder/koblingsskjema.PNG
As said, hex-file for the PIC came from RC-CAM's (http://www.rc-cam.com/) webpage. Direct link to the nav-lights can be found here (http://www.rc-cam.com/navlight.htm).

http://home.no.net/janovsa/vitser.html/Modellfly/TwinStar/DSCN0203.JPG
This is how the circuit is installed. :D

Edit: forgot to mention, all the LEDs was ordered form LS-diodes.com (http://www.lsdiodes.com/). For landing lights, white THC3-leds are the best.

[plane_spotter]

Philip Sun's website may be of interest for you. I have built a few of his circuits. He shares the source codes to play with. His user name on the forum is ILUFA.

http://www.geocities.com/ilufa/index_eng.htm


Good luck

Ash

[Paul Tye]

Philip Sun's website may be of interest for you. I have built a few of his circuits. He shares the source codes to play with. His user name on the forum is ILUFA.

http://www.geocities.com/ilufa/index_eng.htm


Good luck

Ash

A fellow north wales fellow!

Whereabouts are you at?

Got a few radio problems at the moment so nav lights on hold for the time being but keep the suggestions coming!

Thanks!
Paul

[Thayer]

Here is an interesting switching option.

http://www.mikrodesigns.com/ss.htm

Thayer

[Tom in Cincy]

You can program a simple 8 pin PIC to produce a realistic strobe sequence, and even have it switchable from your transmitter. Hi Malc C, I built your circuit with a 12F629 PIC and I love it. The strobe sequence is just what I had been looking for.
Thanks again
T.P.

[Motions]

It is very refreshing to see people actually building their own lighting circuits in this hobby rather than buying a a pre-built system for 8 times the cost.

[Malc C]

Hi Malc C, I built your circuit with a 12F629 PIC and I love it. The strobe sequence is just what I had been looking for.
Thanks again
T.P.

Your welcome Tom, glad you like it.

It is very refreshing to see people actually building their own lighting circuits in this hobby rather than buying a a pre-built system for 8 times the cost.

Quite agree !

[Paul Tye]

I have just bought a set of anderson strobe lights, they are a proper strobe setup with controller. Will these interefere with the radio signal at all?

Thanks
Paul