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-   -   LED lighting (https://vansairforce.net/community/showthread.php?t=37018)

petehowell 12-21-2008 02:40 PM

Hey Cliff!
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by striplic (Post 282870)
Question: How does the cyan led with 3.9 forward voltage work when you only have a 12 V (14.4 V) supply? The total for 4 leds adds up to 15.6 volts. I don't doubt they light up as you have demonstrated, but why/how? I understand very little about electronics (perhaps only enough to get me into trouble) and can use the help in understanding. I want to use leds in my wingtips also. :) Thanks! Cliff

This has been questioned before - and rightly so. I'm not sure what to say except that it works and it really works well. The LEDs are current driven vs voltage driven - that might have something to do with it.

Maybe one of our EE's on the boards can answer this.

Flying Scotsman 12-21-2008 09:55 PM

What are you using for your power supply?

petehowell 12-21-2008 10:07 PM

Ship's Power
 
Hi Steve,

The circuit above is hooked directly to ship's power (14.4V) with a switch. The resistor acts as a crude current limiter. It is cheap, simple, passive, and it works (at the expense of effciency). The PWM power supplies are more effcient, but until recently, they had some issues with RF noise and are more expensive.

Not sure if that answered your question - let me know if I missed.

petehowell 01-03-2009 06:08 PM

More Pics
 
I've had a few requests for more pics, so here are some images Peter F captured today in his basement as we worked up what we are calling the Photon Bazooka(tm) for his -7.

This puppy will have two(waggable) 50 watt HID per tip and 4 Luxeon III stars for position. Several LED strobe candidates are currently being auditioned.

Here is the back of the LEDs with wiring



Peter metered on the LED die to keep the lights from blowing out the pic here. These are being driven at less than 200ma - 1/4 of full current. See the nice edge glow.....



Glamour pic of yours truly holding the power wires....hide this from your wives.:D You get a sense of how obnoxiously bright these things are even running at a fraction of capacity.



Fun little project!

Flying Scotsman 01-25-2009 10:26 PM

Hey, Pete...just ordered all the goodies to start making up these nav lights...yours looks like one of the best solutions I've seen, so we're gonna give it a whirl. One question...probably a dumb one...did you stand the plexi off from the fiberglas, and if so, how far/what'd you use? Or was it a function of the landing light fixture?

petehowell 01-25-2009 11:00 PM

Giddy Up!
 
Hi Steve,

The aluminium backing plate rides on the fiberglass and the plexi rides on little spacers and the luxeon stars. The holes in the plexi locate the stars on the aluminium backing plate.

Post some pics when you are done!

Flying Scotsman 01-26-2009 12:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by petehowell (Post 293083)
Hi Steve,

The aluminium backing plate rides on the plexi and the plexi rides on little spacer and the luxeon stars. The holes in the plexi locate the stars on the aluminium backing plate.

Post some pics when you are done!

I think I understand...did you mean the aluminum plate rides on the *fiberglass*, and then the plexi rides on the aluminum w/ spacers and the luxeons between them?

Seems straightforward...will post some pics when I get it done (which might be quite a while...the Luxeon site says there's several weeks backorder on one or the other of the colors of stars :( ).

petehowell 01-26-2009 05:35 AM

Sorry
 
Steve - yes, that is exactly what I meant - I corrected the post above.

Flying Scotsman 01-28-2009 10:10 PM

With regards to strobes...Aveo has the nice tail position/strobe LED light, that looks good. But for wingtip strobes, I'm just wondering...has anybody tried using an automotive solution? Just for example, what about something like this:

http://www.hyper-lights.com/product_...roducts_id=462

I don't know what the specs are for strobe lights per the FARs, but it seems to me there should be some solutions extant in the emergency vehicle supplier realm that would work for us...

rleffler 01-29-2009 04:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flying Scotsman (Post 294073)
With regards to strobes...Aveo has the nice tail position/strobe LED light, that looks good. But for wingtip strobes, I'm just wondering...has anybody tried using an automotive solution? Just for example, what about something like this:

http://www.hyper-lights.com/product_...roducts_id=462

I don't know what the specs are for strobe lights per the FARs, but it seems to me there should be some solutions extant in the emergency vehicle supplier realm that would work for us...


This is the Nova product being resold. These are very noisy from a RF perspective. CreativAir attempted to sell them, but just took them off the market.


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