Help with Whelen lighting

I bought the Whelen lighting kit (system 6) from Van's over a year ago. I've heard that the power supplies are not designed to sit and not be used, so I hooked it up to my power supply to check it out.

For the first 30 seconds or so, the tail strobe and wing strobes alternate like they should. After about 30 seconds, the tail strobe also flashes when the wing strobes do (so it's flashing almost constantly). The tail strobe also gets extremely hot (I assume because it's flashing more than it should be).

Anyone else ever have a problem like this? Is it a problem with my tail strobe or the power supply?

PJ
RV-10
#40032

I did the same thing, only I never got the 30 seconds where it flashed "properly." Basically, the tail flashes twice as often as the wings. I didn't worry about it and figured the solution was in the jumpers somewhere.

Same Problem as PJ

I just found this thread and I have the same problem as PJ had where the tail strobe gets extremely hot after only about 5 minutes use. I was coming up on the one year use recomendation so I hooked them up on the bench. Wings were normal heatwise, but the tail was to hot to touch. Anyone else have this problem.
PJ, how did you resolve it Thanks Ron

I haven't resolved it. Whelen has never answered any of the emails that I've sent to their tech support address. I'm starting to wonder if it's normal since there seem to be several of us with the same problem.

PJ

I'm about to take a video of mine and send it back to Connecitcut along with the paperwork that said my unit bench-tested fine and just put a letter in it that says "are you SURE?"

Or I'll e-mail 'em the video.

I'll let you know what I find.

WHat kind of tail light?

Lights get hot when illuminated. This would be especially significant if your tail light is a combination strobe and white nav light. Lights generate heat and that should not surprise anyone. When I installed the lights in my plane I knew the tail light/strobe combination was an integral unit and an isolated entity in the installation. There are a lot of RV lower rudder caps with the strob/white nav light combinations installed on them. I firmly believe it is a no worry situation even though they are hot to the touch. I have flown mine at night and in low visibility situations with the lights on over the past two years and there has been no problem. The wing tips are another matter and care is required in the instalation to avoid aerodynamic covering lens deformation due to heat from the lights in close proximity to the lens. I have all my wingtip lights inside the RMS tip lens and there has been no problem. I talked to a man at RMS when I was designing my installation about this and he assured me that if I positioned the lights away from the lens as far as possible and still met the sideview rear angle requirement the lens would not be affected and that has been my experience. I read recently in this forum about a lens that was deformed from light heat while taxiing and there is no doubt in my mind that attention was paid to the 110 degree visibility requirement (20 degrees to the rear from the point of installation) but perhaps not enough to the thermal issues. I believe your tail light will be fine as is.

Bob Axsom

Whelen has this in the installation and service manual.

http://whelen.com/pb/aviation/11051.pdf

"WARNING: Strobe light power supplies are meant to be used, not to
remain in an inactive state. Use them at all times, this will improve their
proper functioning. Any strobe light power supply that has been out of
service for a long period of time is subject to failure because the electrolytic
condenser loses the polarity formation. A strobe light power
supply not having been used for one year or longer is vulnerable to
failure, applies to 1993 & older units.
If this is the case, it is recommended to start operating the system on
a voltage that is reduced by 25 percent for 10 to 15 minutes before putting
the power supply into normal service. This will prevent overheating
of the condenser while they reform. If the power supply, after a long
period of non use, is operated at full voltage immediately, there is an
excellent possibility that the condenser will become overheated."

It also has this:

"NOTE: Installing one new flash tube in any multi-head strobe light system,
will sometimes cause the remaining old flash tube to misfire or
skip. This signifies that the old flash tube is nearing the end of it?s service
life. However, to check the questionable flash tube, install it in a system
and apply a reduced voltage, approximately 20 percent, to the
input to the power supply. If the flash tube will operate at this reduced
level, it still has a great deal of service life in it."

It is interesting that the method for both is to run the system at reduced voltage.

Can you eliminate parts of the lights in the circuit to see if each runs OK by itself? Or is that not feasible?

I am going to use the same system but have not bought my power supply for this very reason. I will be interested to find out what you discover. Good luck.

YOu know, the funny thing about what is clearly written in the Whelen manual is the guy who manned the Whelen booth at Osh says it's not true. But I decided not to pay attention to him. I was first alerted to this by a similar notation in the Cleaveland catalog; that's when I decided to wait to order the unit. then I was at Osh in '03 and stopped by the boothe. "Nah, that's not hte case anymore," the guy said. So I bougght the System 6 only to see the warning very clearly in the instructions. So.... what can you do.


It is possible to hook up the system separately and see how it fires. IN fact, armed with your advice, I just pulled the system out of the box (and, for the record, I acutally HAVE been firing it every few months).....

...so call this weird but....

With all three strobes plugged into the unit....I got it to fire properly. Now, all I'm doing is hooking it up to the car battery. At one point, I shorted it and then restarted and all three fired together.

Took the two wing units off the circuit and the tail fired properly...waiting a beat for the wing strobes to fire.

Added one wing strobe back....and still got a proper firing.

Added the second wing strobe back and all three fired at once.

I'm kinda beginning to think once I have this thing properly installed and wired...it's gonna work.