Night lighting strategies

[Carlyle Harper]

It seems that everyone wants to do the navigation lighting scheme (red, green, strobe tail) to model full scale lighting and then attempt to fly this by RC. I've seen lots of videos of this and for me this would seem awkward trying to keep up with orientation and bank angles in turns. It was suggested to me to use only white high power leds such as luxeons to flood the whole plane with light, like the logo lights on a jetliner do. The guys said by doing this you would illuminate the whole plane and be able to see the actual plane fly through the air instead of just an outline of the wing or individual leds placed here and there.

What do you guys think?

[anatoly]

I like the "light the whole plane" approach best, although I used the "light the circumference" approach on my UFO using LEDs in drinking straws. I definitely wouldn't recommend just putting nav lights on the wings and tail. That may work if you're actually inside the plane, but this is one time when going "scale" could get you into trouble. Your eyes can play tricks on you at night. Heck, even with the full-plane lighting like I have in the GloStik, I still managed to disorient myself a couple of times at distance. Good thing I had enough altitude to recover.

IMHO, light as much of the plane as you can. More LEDs are better, and high power LEDs are not necessary; mine are all 20mA draw and hook up to rx power. I don't notice any effect on flight times because I don't run my planes to LVC.

[edge5foamy]

This is what I did on my Axilon. I am only using 4 LEDs, and it lights up the whole plane\!

[AleG]

The last two planes I´ve built have some sort of night flying system. One is a micro, stick&tissue model so I simply made a tiny cluster of diminute, white SMD LEDs on the tip of a wire, I connect it to the battery and let it hang on the middle of the fuselage lighting up the plane like a chinese lantern. Nice :)

The other is a bigger park flyer foam plane, I put lights on the tip of the wings, two red and green nav lights and two white lights pointing to the fuselage, so they light up the plane.Works quite well but I should add another pair of white LEDs on the top surface of the wing, pointing to the fin to light up that area better.
I think that is the best solution, LED´s on the wing tips (also on the elevator tips would be good) pointing at the fuselage.

[Carlyle Harper]

Yeah, after flying the lighted tiger moth at night, it seems to work very well. White leds on the wingtip lighting up the fuselage. I've got plans to make an electristar a night flyer soon. Then once I master flying that plane at night (using it as a guinea pig) onto a senior telemaster.

[Darth_Elevator]

More surfaces lit up is better for me. I tried a four light system about a year ago and had a very difficult time maintaining orientation. I could do it when I had time to think about it. But, as we all know, needing time to think is a bad idea. This past winter, I've been flying three planes which are easy to fly at night because they're so well lit. I have Slow Stick with 24 LED's, a glostik similar to anatoly's, and a 30x40" UFO. All three planes are easy to fly at night because you can determine orientation instantly just as you would by glancing at a plane in the daylight (unless you get too far away, of course). I recently tried a four-light system on a flying wing, just for the heck of it, to see if my nightflying skills had increased with all the practice. I did much better than I did a year ago, and it was manageable as long as I concentrated on orientation. I never lost track, but it just wasn't any fun. So, IMHO, the four-light system is fun for a challenge but for the pure enjoyment of nightflying, light up as much of the plane as you can.

There are a lot of pictures of various nightflying setups posted on this thread: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=784724.

[SSG Scott]

Carbon Falcon By day but at night- Its the Night Falcon!

Here are some pictures of my Night Falcon. Its a standard carbon falcon with a flourescent wing that has been outfitted with UV LEDs. Total power consumption of all the lighting is 120- 150 mah.

I was able to keep the power consumption so low by running the plane on a 3 cell lipo battery pack. It has the standard servos, a Spektrum AR6100 receiver, Phoenix 10 ESC and a AXI 2204/54 brushless motor turing a GWS 7035 prop (7x3.5).

Run time on a 3 cell 1320 Mah battery pack is routinely about 45 minutes of aggressive flying, or an hour of normal flying and if you really manage your power you can stay up for about 75 minutes. The lighting system installed shortens the run time on an hour flight by about 8 or 9 minutes.

The low power consumption of all the lighting is accomplished by putting the LEDs in sets of three. (3 LEDs in series with a single current limiting resistor). This allows you to light 3 LEDs for no more power than a normal circuit would take to light one. All Up Weight for this setup is 10.2 OZ

If there are people wanting more info just let me know.

LEDs- got them from Ebay 20 UV leds can be had for about $8 with shipping.


Update info see post 486 at this link: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272229&page=33&highlight=carbon+falcon+winner

-Scott

[jiggiba]

I've lit up the whole plane but from the inside. It's a Multiplex Acromaster. It's hollow molded EPP.

[foam and tape]

I fly at night on one red LED :) :eek: the key place to put it is directly on top of the horizontal stabilizer :cool: I see the light at all angles of flight. I usually fly around 12 in the moring so its toatally dark :D try it....... mine is on my pico tigermoth

[paintz2007]

the first is my buddies... 40 leds plug right into lipo

second is mine 3 led strips from autozone.. again ran off the lipo... although i need a 4th on the top

[g4led]

Sir,

We have been night flying the Mugi Evo since the Millenium. It uses a simple LED system from a centrally located block and the whole airframe (being translucent polypropylene) shows up clearly with little disorientation problem. Point sources of light are notoriously difficult to discern from the ground and at varying craft attitudes. We start with the usual port and starboard colours but normally add a third highlighting the front to assist directional acquisition. Then we use morphing LEDs, non-standard schemes and switching in flight to enhance the experience! For inspiration visit the website http://www.mugi.co.uk where there is an LED lighting section and build assistance.

g4led

[alpea 41]

Wow some of these systems are really ingenious. And cool looking. I night flew 1st time at Western States Electric Fly last Sat. I had a profile flat foamy SR-71. I put a large white led on the front of each engine tube ( like a landing light ) but was visable from the side. A single red led on each verticle stab (tail lights) LOL. And a single green led on bottom of nose. I had an assistant walk out front 30 yards with it and orientation was perfect.Despite some doubters behind me (I heard the phrase "WAtch this crash" I never lost orientation and felt like I had flown in the dark my whole life.Even did a few rolls and a loop. Only flew for 3 min. didn't want to push my luck.

[c130proflyer]

hey is there a way to make the l.e.d lights run on a diffrent power source like a 9v battery or somthing i have a c-130 hurcules and i dont fly good during the day but it is gray so its hard to see it at night i just dont want to run the lights on the same batts that runs my 4 motors and the servos

[c130proflyer]

the first is my buddies... 40 leds plug right into lipo

second is mine 3 led strips from autozone.. again ran off the lipo... although i need a 4th on the tophey can you get a better pic of the plane at a diffrent angle

[Heli Hacker]

hey is there a way to make the l.e.d lights run on a diffrent power source like a 9v battery or somthing i have a c-130 hurcules and i dont fly good during the day but it is gray so its hard to see it at night i just dont want to run the lights on the same batts that runs my 4 motors and the servos

Use this to figure what resistors you need for 9v:
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

[paintz2007]

hey can you get a better pic of the plane at a diffrent angle



here ya go ...

i just hooked it up to a brushed esc and can control the intensity from my tx