LED panel lights
 

I?m curious about the adhesive backed LED strips that some folks have attached to the bottom of the glareshield ?brow? to serve as panel lighting. If you?ve done this:

1. Are you satisfied with the lighting when flying at night?

2. How did you run the wires to the strip? (notch in edge of panel, down from glareshield?)

Thanks!
David

I put some on towards the end of the build. Just stuck them under the glare shield with the adhesive that they came with. They were pretty bright and would need a dimmer for sure. I just ran the wire through a little gap that is between the instrument panel and a longeron gusset where they meet. Didn't matter at all in the end as the adhesive wasn't any good and they fell off. I removed the wires and never used them. The lights in my EFIS and the internal lighting in the rest of the avionics are plenty when flying at night. I don't carry paper charts so I have no reason to be able to see those. Heck, I don't even use the fancy little swivel light I put in for anything. Keep a flashlight handy in case you drop something and need to see it and don't worry about any extra light in my opinion......Unless you want it to look cool. That's a different concern.:D

I did this and it has stuck great 100% for the past year and 120 hrs of flying. The wire is glued to the bottom surface of the glairshield straight to the panel a couple inches then goes behind the panel through a very small hole. Not visible when sitting in the seats. I don't have a picture at the moment but could get one if need be.

I don't use this light while flying. It is very useful before taxi and after end of flight to flood the cockpit, foot well and baggage area.

I have a recessed switch panel with the same LED strip. It is dimmable and is always on for night ops. Works 100% other than one small section doesn't work anymore probably because I damaged it but the missing lumens are hardly noticeable.

Keep in mind that when using dimming LED strip lights, they don't dim at the same rate as an incandescent bulb so don't mix incandesents (post lights and instrument lighting) on the same dimmer circuit as the LEDs. Steinair sold me a nice little dimming package with two circuits for this purpose.

Bevan

Here is how I connected the LED strip to the sub panel.



Just used a small plug/jack to make the canopy removable.

The strip is on a dimmer switch and at its dimmest it is still pretty bright. Plenty of lumens for night flying. I also have a small LED under the panel to light up the footwell area, and also a baggage light in the back.

Mine are blue. Still glued on okay.
I ran the wires straight forward from under the glare shield to the panel, near the right edge; then thru a small hole/grommet in the panel (can't be seen unless you look).
Yes, you need to dim these. I built a simple dimmer, works fine.
I use them to illuminate a row of toggle switches on the bottom of the panel, and the volume knobs on my audio panel. Plus they look cool at night.

Honestly curious about the utility of these light strips.

The night time flying I have done so far (more in the last year than in my whole prior carreer) has mostly involved getting RID of too much light.
Most recently, I finally conquered the 430W by playing with the 3 different dimming settings until I really understood how to use them (and why my previous dimming attempts were unsucessful). Night time illumination levels are pretty much not NOT visible during daylight or sometimes even closed hangar lighting. The screens will look black. Anything higher will be annoyingly bright in use at night.

So, with that in mind, please think about what critical flight information these LED light strips will provide to the pilot.

On first thought, a flood light should be illuminating items that are not internally lit such as switch logos. Think about where those will be on the panel (mine are along the bottom) and how to illuminate ( I use two red LED eyeballs, one on each 705? bulkhead column pointed at the bottom edge of the panel.

LED Strips
 

Yes to both questions. I have an RV-7 slider, and I just put a small notch in the top of the instrument panel for the wire to pass through. Lights have now been through 3 Alabama summers and 220 flight hours and are holding up just fine.

Mine are on a dimmer, and I find them mostly useful for lighting up the panel switches, fuel tank selector, etc. My panel is all glass so there is no need for them to light up instruments.

11 months and 95 hours on mine, they have stayed put. The light is great and the price was right.

BTW, I was at Advance auto parts today and they have these LED strip lights like the ones I bought from Stein for my RV8. Big difference is the price - $15.99 for two 24" strips. You an cut them to length with a pair of scissors, marked on the strip, and come in red, blue, green, yellow, and purple. They also have 8" size - two 8" strips - for less, I think about $8. These lights just look cool. Not sure how necessary they are for cockpit lighting, but I liked mine.

I installed a blue electroluminescent strip and inverter from Glowhut below the glareshield in my 6A slider and am very happy with it. Very even light. Though not visible in the picture below, the power cable is small. It comes off the end of the strip on the right and plugs into a small receptacle snaked above the right canopy rail longeron passthrough. In case you are interested, the panel markings are reverse engraved on a piece of lexan. Also not visible in this picture are the regular LED lights I installed in the footwells and baggage area. Very convenient for locating dropped pens, screws and tools.