How about these lights?

[CygnusX1]

http://www.directron.com/caraccessories.html

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/directron/lds24bl2.jpg

Seems like a good deal to lay down under the wings of my Easy Glider or along the sides of the fuse.

They should work off of my 8-cell NiMh.

They are basically a bunch of SMD's molded into a strip of clear silicone rubber with one flat side for mounting to a surface.

I ordered a 24" Red and a 24" Green. Also got a 6 foot length of EL wire Aqua color to wrap the rear sides of the fuse lengthwise.

Opinions?

Thanks,
Dave

[Darth_Elevator]

They look pretty bright. You may want to run lights along both the fuse and the wings to avoid losing orientation at certain low angles when you just have the wings lit. I wonder how much they weigh.

[CygnusX1]

As far as I know, SMD lighting is extremely small and light for it's intensity. I will post the weights when I get them.

Here is a similar item:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5242

[CygnusX1]

The strip lights weight 0.9 oz each with about 16" of heavy wire tails which can be replaced with lighter gauge. They are VERY bright!!!

[Maineiac63]

Gee, you folks don't know how lucky you are with all of the goodys available today compared to what we did years ago. Everything has come so far so fast!!

[CygnusX1]

Not only are they bright, they have a D shaped cross section with 3M adhesive on the flat side. They would make EXCELLENT leading edges for wings. The strips are roughly 1/4" wide. I test powered them with an 8cell NiMh. You could probably get their weights down to 1/2 oz. each

[Darth_Elevator]

These look like a great option. I'd love to see a flight video. Any plans to shoot some video of your night time maiden?

[CygnusX1]

I first need the lake to freeze over so that I have flying field. Then I need to find someone willing to come out on the ice at night with me to run the video camera. I might be able to use a tripod and use a long exposure on my still camera or setup the video camera similarly. The lake was almost frozen over but now it's approaching 50 degrees so everything is melting again.

The strip lights are so bright that my wife could not look directly at them in the living room with the lights on!

Tonight I am going to try to integrate them cleanly into my EGE. I want to put in a connector harness in between the battery and ESC so I can tap into it to plug in the lighting.

[Diggs]

Do these require and inverter box, or can you just tap into a battery directly?


Diggs

[CygnusX1]

Directly connected to my 8 cell NiMh. No inverter.

[Diggs]

Directly connected to my 8 cell NiMh. No inverter.

That is nice... Helps keep them lite. I will probably snag a few. Thanks a lot for the heads up on these. They look very promising.


Diggs

[CygnusX1]

Well, I thought about where to mount the light strips for the wings. I wanted lights on the top and bottom of the wing. I decided to fold the strips in half and poke a hole in the wing to pass the strip through. This way half of the strip is on top then it passes through the wing and folded over across the bottom. I also cut a trench in the Elapor Foam of the EGE so that the strips would sit fairly flush to the wing surfaces. Here is the right wing (green). I put a slit in the bottom of the wing and tucked the wires into it. The wires come out of the wing where the servo wires come out. The wire leads are covered with a very heavy rubber jacket because they are automotive grade. I stripped the jacket off the wires to reveal telephone gauge wire. Very light.

I need to run some lighting to the tail also. I am thinking either glow-wire or a couple of LED's in the fuse tail.

[CygnusX1]

Here is a video with the wing lights on. No maiden yet but getting close. I need to put something on the tail.

[Diggs]

Cyg,

Where did you get your lights from? I see you posted 2 links above, curious which ones you have. Also, did you just connect both sets into the same pack in Parallel? It looks very good. I might do my LE of my SSX with these prior to covering.

Thanks for the info!!

Diggs

[CygnusX1]

Diggs, the lights in the video are from the very first link up top. Both strips are connected, in parallel, to one 8cell NiMh that powers the motor and servos. It's A LOT of light for 1.2oz.

I think the leading edge idea might work. You would need to carefully match the radius if the wing to the light strips but I think the effect would be amazing.

[CygnusX1]

Pictures will tell the story.



http://dcerutti.smugmug.com/photos/247587500-M.jpg
http://dcerutti.smugmug.com/photos/247587722-M.jpg
http://dcerutti.smugmug.com/photos/247587819-M.jpg

Wing lights, no tail light, no crashes on my perfect night maiden on ice.

[Diggs]

Nice pics. Those things appear to be very bright. I am considering these for my 6' telemaster electro!

Diggs

[CygnusX1]

VERY bright and made no detectable impact on battery life!

[CygnusX1]

http://dcerutti.smugmug.com/photos/247587819-L.jpg

You can see as I fly towards the camera, I hit the spoileron switch. Notice the glide angle change.

[easilyled]

Brilliant photos! Good job. :)

[AC5FF]

Cygnus;

What camera/settings did you use for these pics? I've been trying to get similar ones and coming up with junk...

[CygnusX1]

You need to set your camera to "bulb" so that the shutter stays open for the duration of the shot. You often need an external trigger for the shutter to do this. Definitely a tripod.

If you go here (http://dcerutti.smugmug.com/gallery/3508085_94rhf#P-3-16) to see my photos, you can hover the mouse over each one and then a window will pop-up with an "INFO" button. You can get all my settings that way.

[Darth_Elevator]

I agree, external trigger on tripod is the best. Then you don't get vibrations from pushing the button. I have a cable trigger and an infrared trigger, but I also set the camera to start the picture three seconds after I activate the shutter button, just in case I accidentally bump the tripod or something.

Alternatively, if you don't have an external trigger or bulb setting, check to see if your camera has a long exposure setting, like 30 seconds or a minute, which still let you get some light trails. Not as good has manually controlling the exposure yourself, but at least you can get something that way.