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New (October 2013) LED wingtip landings light discovered

As an FYI, AeroLEDs will be delivering a brand new wingtip light that is specifically designed for the RV in late January to a number of early customers who will install them. The light will draw 75 Watts of power in landing mode, and 25 Watts in taxi mode, and deliver over 7500 raw lumens, which equates to about 5000 beam lumens (after taking into account lens losses). More information will be available on this light in the near future, and we will encourage the early adopters to post photos of their installations on VAF.

A complete installation kit with all necessary hardware and templates will be available.

Dean Wilkinson
CTO, AeroLEDs LLC
 
AeroLED

I was going to post this in the review section, but since Dean commented here, I figured this is the place.

Taking the opportunity while visiting kids and grandkids in the Boise area, I dropped in unannounced at the AeroLED office yesterday. I was given a tour by Dean of the assembly area and shown all of the options for lighting my 9A.

I was impressed with the quality of their lights. They do not look like some of the imported LED's that I ordered on the auction site to "check out". There is quite a difference. There is a big difference in price too and I was skeptical on the value of their lights before my visit. After seeing them powered up and examining them, they are very nice - bright lights. There are cheaper ways to make your plane more visible or see the runway but if you like quality, these lights are what to get.

I would like to thank Dean for showing me his products and educating me on the differences between different LED's.
 
I'll concede that there is a HUGE disparity in quality between the Chinese flashlights and the stuff produced for aircraft, but the fact of the matter is LED technology is evolving rapidly and the price point is only going to come down further. There will always be some of our group that is willing to pay $400 bucks for ?aircraft quality? LED?s, but I suspect that is going to be an ever shrinking market in the face of $25 flashlights that will melt your eyeballs at 100 yards.

Light is light after all, and if you can clearly see the runway from a half mile final then it doesn?t really matter if it is from an approved ?aircraft? part or a flashlight head from China, right?

I know a guy who uses an $8 LED 1156 bulb and an automotive socket ($2) inside his wingtip lens as a position light. The shape of the lens provides to appropriate FAA approved masking (pattern), and I can tell you first hand that he is as conspicuous as any PMA?d part. I bought a set of bulbs and am making the switch myself.

LED position light for $10 bucks? Times, they are a changing!
 
I know a guy who uses an $8 LED 1156 bulb and an automotive socket ($2) inside his wingtip lens as a position light. The shape of the lens provides to appropriate FAA approved masking (pattern), and I can tell you first hand that he is as conspicuous as any PMA?d part. I bought a set of bulbs and am making the switch myself.

LED position light for $10 bucks? Times, they are a changing!

Could not agree more, with the exception that you may have been overcharged extra by $2 or $3 :D

I swapped my position lights with one of those, bought an extra set just in case they burnt out since they were so inexpensive yet they have been functioning great since they were installed about two years ago. They look really nice, draw very little amp age and put out at least as much light (judging it visually)

So, while I agree I want some really high quality/aircraft grade equipment in my aircraft, if the cost is significantly lower for non-critical items, I am willing to go that route specially that they are changing and improving every six months or year.

I have swapped out my halogen lights for a set of HID and now looking into replacing them with LEDs.
 
There is a huge difference in the design and materials costs of a part that is made to survive the DO-160 environmental test requirements and something that was made in China. Even if the LEDs were free, the cost of the product is much higher due to the need to be able to pass the aircraft level environmental tests that are spelled out in RTCA DO-160, which is the standard accepted by the FAA and industry for testing airborne equipment.

Anybody offering an LED position light for $10 has not done the DO-160 testing, and I really doubt it would pass DO-160 testing.


I'll concede that there is a HUGE disparity in quality between the Chinese flashlights and the stuff produced for aircraft, but the fact of the matter is LED technology is evolving rapidly and the price point is only going to come down further. There will always be some of our group that is willing to pay $400 bucks for ?aircraft quality? LED?s, but I suspect that is going to be an ever shrinking market in the face of $25 flashlights that will melt your eyeballs at 100 yards.

Light is light after all, and if you can clearly see the runway from a half mile final then it doesn?t really matter if it is from an approved ?aircraft? part or a flashlight head from China, right?

I know a guy who uses an $8 LED 1156 bulb and an automotive socket ($2) inside his wingtip lens as a position light. The shape of the lens provides to appropriate FAA approved masking (pattern), and I can tell you first hand that he is as conspicuous as any PMA?d part. I bought a set of bulbs and am making the switch myself.

LED position light for $10 bucks? Times, they are a changing!
 
There is a huge difference in the design and materials costs of a part that is made to survive the DO-160 environmental test requirements and something that was made in China...

Dean,

My day job involves pricing out manufacturing costs for a major aircraft OEM. I am VERY familiar with the underlying costs in manufacturing compliant parts and am not disparaging your product in any way. I believe you produce quality parts at a good value.

But that is not my point. My point is that not everybody needs or cares about a DO-160 compliant product - especially when that product (Landing lights in this case) is not even required to be installed on our aircraft.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of people who just want to see/be seen and for them DO-160 certification is of zero value if a Chinese flashlight does the job.
 
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I agree with Michael. I think we are talking about apples and oranges here.
The high quality products from the AeroLEDs and Aveo are great. But the beauty of the experimental world is that we don't have to use DO-160 certified parts, we can use any part that fits the function.
For example there are a lot of high quality parts from the automotive industry, they are not "aircraft certified" but they work great on our airplanes.
I ran a Honda starter and alternator on my Long-EZ for 10 years, they never had a problem and they were half the weight of the aircraft parts and 1/10 the cost.
As for landing lights, there are nice aircraft certified LED lights out there, but they are expensive. If you think about how much actual night flying you actually do in a year, it is not very cost effective to spend $2000 on lights for the plane when you hardly ever use them.
Back when I built my EZ, there were no options, everyone put on the old GE 100 watt bulb. Cost about $10 bucks and worked ok. Then some guys found some halogens lights and started experimenting with them. I'm sure a bunch of guys are now using some kind of LED. That is the great thing about the experimental world, you can try different stuff and see what works for you.

I ended up buying this light meter from Amazon for $15.

http://www.amazon.com/Light-Meter-L...F8&qid=1389252088&sr=8-2&keywords=light+meter

When I get it, I will compare with the Android app. Then we can have a common way to measure different lights.
 
adding wig-wag to Baja Designs LED

If one were to go with the Baja Designs LED lights at the start of this thread; how would they do the wig-wag ?? Anything special ?? How about for someone that doesn't get along with electrons (I have no desire to build circuits) ??
 
If one were to go with the Baja Designs LED lights at the start of this thread; how would they do the wig-wag ?? Anything special ?? How about for someone that doesn't get along with electrons (I have no desire to build circuits) ??

Hi Larry,

I used the Triton EL13A2 electronic flasher available at B&C or Amazon (B&C SSF-1 wig wag controller www.bandc.biz/solidstatewig-wagflasher.aspx, Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Tridon-EL13A2-Electronic-Flasher/dp/B001QF16BU/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_6) . It was fairly easy to wire. The one thing this wig-wag controller needs is a resistor to be put in parallel with the LED lights. This schematic shows you how to wire it up (http://www.bandc.biz/pdfs/SSF-1_Information_LED.pdf). Although the documentation shows 75 Ohm resistors, I found I needed a 50 Ohm 10 watt resistors (available at Radio Shack - p/n 271-133, http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062292). I have this exact setup wired up to my Baja Designs LED's and they work GREAT! I get compliments all of the time of how visible I am with this setup.

I suppose this isn't the easiest thing in the world to wire up, but it will cost you under $20!
 
I got my LUX meter and I measured the Trustfire flashlight.
At 5ft it was 9500 LUX, at 10ft 2000.
I compared it to the 60 watt halogen head light in my car.
car light at 5ft was 2600 LUX, and 10ft -700LUX.

Not a scientific test but it shows this LED light is about 3 times brighter than my car headlights.
 
Hello Dean, Saw your wattage draw of 75 watts for the landing lights. My wiring (16 awg) can not take more than 60 watts for the run from tip to switch. I would have to replace the wiring with 12 or14 awg and thats not something I would do. I suspect if you had a lower draw on the landing light I might look into buying them. Sounds like a great product!

Ron in Oregon.
 
Aveo lights can be bought in the northwest (Seattle and a veteran ) dealer Kestrel-air.com .Appears the the prices are a still a little high for me but there are two different models of landing lights to pick from now.
 
Ron,

18 AWG is adequate for a 75Watt light, and is what we recommend.

At 75Watts the current will be 5.35A. 18AWG can handle an absolute maximum current draw of 16 Amps. The wire resistance is 0.006 ohms per foot, so the voltage drop on a 20 foot wire run at 5.35A is only 0.64VDC which is not significant (the input voltage to the light will be 13.4VDC).

Dean

Hello Dean, Saw your wattage draw of 75 watts for the landing lights. My wiring (16 awg) can not take more than 60 watts for the run from tip to switch. I would have to replace the wiring with 12 or14 awg and thats not something I would do. I suspect if you had a lower draw on the landing light I might look into buying them. Sounds like a great product!

Ron in Oregon.
 
I got my LUX meter and I measured the Trustfire flashlight...

Any comment about the relative beam "spread/width/etc" between the headlight and flashlight? I've heard LED's can throw a lot of energy at one particular spot, but fall off rapidly just a little bit off axis.

Ever out at the airport? I'm about 5 minutes away (flying)... I'd like to see this thing in person.
 
Any comment about the relative beam "spread/width/etc" between the headlight and flashlight? I've heard LED's can throw a lot of energy at one particular spot, but fall off rapidly just a little bit off axis.

Mike the light spread/beam is ideal for a landing light. Most of it is concentrated properly but enough light is spilled to work well for taxi.

55BC had the Duckworks PAR 36 reflectors, after upgrading it was a night/day difference (pun intended).
 
Bob, I give your testimony a great deal of credit (and almost bought on that alone), but I was wondering how the light meter reacted to the each type of lamp. The output reported seems to be a huge difference - so I'm wondering if each lamp was measured in their respective "sweet spot".
 
I need to do a better test. I did measure at the center of the beam and I moved the meter around a little to see where I got the highest number. Measuring the car headlight was just a quick test to compare numbers, i had no problem telling the flashlight was brighter. Plus the car headlight has to project through a crappy plastic lens cover.
As for the beam, i think it would work great as landing light, it is not a tight focused spot and has plenty of spill on the sides. But yet it still has good beam distance. I have a driveway that is over 100ft long. There are no lights in my area and with just this light I could light up the driveway very nice. So with one on each wingtip I think there would be no problem. I will see if I can get a representative picture this weekend.
I want to go down to the airport one night and see how it looks on the runway or taxiway.

toobuilder - I work on Mojave airport. If you want to get together for lunch or after work some day, let me know.
 
Well, I think going two per wingtip as Bob has done makes a bunch of sense. In that case, I'm sure the 3 light model is a good value. You can still do a whole shipset for $100 bucks.

Hard to tell from the pictures you poster earlier, but it would seem that the whole light head can be mounted to a plate, therby solving the heatsink issue.
 
Who has a scale conversion from Lumins to Candellas? Seems some advertisments are one or the other.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lumens+to+candela&oq=lumens+to+candela&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.10284j0j7&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

But, to quote a movie title, 'it's complicated'. Suggest further googling; there are lots of sites with good explanations.

I just got one of these (auction) for ~$30. I'm not concerned about adapting it to 12V (electronics career in a previous life). I'll report on how it works when it arrives.

Charlie
 
My recently purchased plane had no lights, and I need it to be night capable. Not having the time to figure out what the 'best' setup is for me (I suspect it is some sort of wingtip enclosure), I opted to go ugly early: bought some ztron position / strobes and slapped them on the wingtips externally (carved a teak wedge to get them in the proper orientation). Then saw this thread and decided the Trustfire would do just about right for a landing light.

Amazon delivered it last Friday. I fashioned a hard point out of some scrap aluminum angle. A previous autopilot servo installation left four screws filling holes in the skin just inboard of the right main, so I put the mount on two of them with a backing plate and used another to route a wire through a grommet. Assembled the 'short' version of the flashlight, removed the switch and filled the void with a teflon plug center drilled to accommodate the power wire, which runs up to a bayonet fitting that I crimped directly to the center spring contact (appropriately reshaped). I had drilled and tapped the flashlight at two fairly stout locations so that I could mount it to the hard point with 10-32 screws. Got it all assembled tonight, opened the hangar door and powered it up off the battery: Bright as all get out! Lit up the treeline across the way (some 50 yards) very nicely. It will certainly be suitable for taxi purposes, and I suspect adequate for landing (which for me is just fine, as I have more landings at night without a light than I do with one).

For those interested, the five modes are High, medium, low, quick flash, slow flash. Quite easy to use the panel switch to change from one to another, and it does remember which mode you were in at power off, so as long as you don't flick the switch, a five mode light is not a problem.

I know, useless without pics [edit: go see Post #83], but I am in a rush as we are headed out for a family four day weekend. I will integrate pictures next week if the thread has not drifted away too much. Just wanted to provide some feedback.
 
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Who has a scale conversion from Lumins to Candellas? Seems some advertisments are one or the other.

The problem with reporting output in lumens or candella is that doesn't tell you anything about how useful the light will be for your situation.
Lumen and candella are a measure of the TOTAL light output of a bulb or LED. You need to know how that light is focused.

Think of it this way, your average incandescent light bulb radiates light in all directions. A landing light is focused to put all it's light in one direction. So you could have a landing light rated at 2000 lumens and an incandescent bulb rated at 4000 lumens, but even though the bulb would be twice as many lumens it would be useless as a landing light.
The only way you could compare lights for use as a landing light would be to know the beam angle that the reflector and optics focus that light. that is why they came up with a standard way to report light output of flashlights. But unfortunately not everyone uses it. All the lights coming from China just make crazy claims like 5000 lumen output.

LUX is a measurement of how much light is hitting the sensor you are using. So with a LUX meter, we can have a simple way to compare lights.
You just measure at the same distance from the source and compare the numbers. You can get an idea of how the light is focused by taking a measurement at a fixed distance from the center-line of the beam.
 
Got it all assembled tonight, opened the hangar door and powered it up off the battery: Bright as all get out! Lit up the treeline across the way (some 50 yards) very nicely. It will certainly be suitable for taxi purposes, and I suspect adequate for landing ....
.

would like to see pics of how you installed them
thanks
 
OK, I now own two of the trustfire lights and believe there is a drop dead simple, elegant way to mount them. The battery tube/body unscrews from the light head leaving just the head/heat sink. So to mount, simply unscrew the lens cover, machine the appropriate sized hole in a piece of .040 aluminum sheet and screw the lens cover back on with the aluminum trapped between the lens cover and light head. This aluminum plate will of course match whatever is bolted to the wing for a light mount. Easy, clean mounting, and still retain the heat sink. Electrical connection can be by crimp connector on the two springs, but I will give the lathe a workout and machine an end plug so I can retain the O ring seals of the flashlight. In any case, I'll be shocked if it takes me longer than 30 minutes get these mounted (the end cap/electrical connection will take a bit more work).

I've powered the light head with a 12 volt battery, and yep, it's incredibly bright, as reported. Planning on mounting the two on one side of the Rocket this weekend and leaving the standard 100 watt halogen GE aircraft bulb in the other side as a basis for comparison. There will be pictures. I'm going to order two more of these lights in anticipation of a successful test and subsequent retrofit to the other wing.
 
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I guess you can see now why we think these lights will work as an in-expensive light option. look forward to your pictures.
 
back on original topic...

Just wanted to thank Mike for the find of the Baja Designs lights. I bought 2 of the Squadron units for my wing tips. I bought the white flush mount version and installed it in the Duckworks leading edge kit. I turned the mounting plate around so it is closer to the leading edge.

IMG_4901-M.jpg


Wired up and turned on.

IMG_4904-M.jpg


These are really nice and bright!
 
would like to see pics of how you installed them
thanks

New page, so new post.

The aluminum insert that holds in the switch assembly can be removed by using a set of small tipped needle nose pliers or ring clip pliers in the two holes represented by the two red dots. I inserted the machined and drilled teflon plug to fill the void, held it in place with the same aluminum insert, and ran the wire through it:

kGR8mx7l.jpg


IDWGrUcl.jpg


Ran the wire through the 'short' battery compartment, then pulled and straightened the center spring for power and directly crimped one side of a blade connection, the other going to the wire, then a little electrical tape:

RtS1tvfl.jpg


Sturdiest portions I found to drill and tap 10-32 holes are circled in red on this fuzzy picture:

WKZCDMnl.jpg


The scrap angle for the mount has a slot horizontally and several holes vertically for adjustment, as required, but the mounting position shown seems to work well for taxi light purposes:

HlDOOUzl.jpg


OQUGxEsl.jpg


The location is just slightly aft and inboard of the right main fairing.

Here's the taxiway next to the hangar. Note the level of lighting on the trees at the far end. Hard to see with just the far security light, but details evident with the landing light on (300 ft. away, according to Google Earth):

O4mmOpul.jpg


WyffzDrl.jpg
 
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I just installed a Baja Designs SII combo LED light in the cowl of my Evo Rocket. 2160 lumens. 5000k. 2"x3"x3" housing. One spot, one flood. Very bright. $159 on eBay.

EDIT: 2160 lumens
 
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I'd be interested in hearing how well the S II combo light does in actual night landing conditions. While being seen is a very important safety factor, so is being able to see down the runway at night! :)
 
Mike,
Have you check the RF noise and how much interference you are getting on your radio or avionics? Also, do you know how many amps it draws.

I am interested in updating my HID xenon lights with LED. I don?t have much complaint about the level of light but still picking up some RF noise despite putting a ferrite.
 
Mike,
Have you check the RF noise and how much interference you are getting on your radio or avionics? Also, do you know how many amps it draws.
Mehrdad,

So far no RF noise has been noticed (50+ hours flown with the Squadron LED's). During the day, I wig-wag these lights using the B&C SFF-1 (same as Tridon El13A2), and I haven't noticed any interference on my intercom, radio, NAV or GPS's.

Baja Designs claim their LED's draw 42 watts. So if you estimate your electrical bus is around 13.5V, the current draw would be 3.11 amps per light. I previously had 50W HID's in each wingtip, so I didn't do any measurements for how much these lights draw since my electrical system was sized for at least 50W per light. I am in the middle of my annual inspection now, so next time I am at the hangar, I will perform the winf inspection and measure the exact current and voltage.
 
Mehrdad,

So far no RF noise has been noticed (50+ hours flown with the Squadron LED's). During the day, I wig-wag these lights using the B&C SFF-1 (same as Tridon El13A2), and I haven't noticed any interference on my intercom, radio, NAV or GPS's. QUOTE]

Thanks, same question for Mike See's setup. I wonder if those flash light type lights create any RF.
 
...Thanks, same question for Mike See's setup. I wonder if those flash light type lights create any RF....

I have two of the flashlight heads mounted to my wing tip mount plate (pictures later), and fired them up off a car battery last night. They drove my stereo crazy from 5 feet away, so I'd say there is an RF issue with them. Looks like Bob's fix of several turns and ferrite rings will be needed.
 
I have two of the flashlight heads mounted to my wing tip mount plate (pictures later), and fired them up off a car battery last night. They drove my stereo crazy from 5 feet away, so I'd say there is an RF issue with them. Looks like Bob's fix of several turns and ferrite rings will be needed.
Thanks for providing the feedback, I was just about to order a couple of these flashlights. They have them with various LM intensity reasonbly priced and the mounting would be very easy for my setup.

I will wait to see if the ferrite or other method of supperssing the noise can make these a workable landing light.
 
Most definitely. Will use the Rocket Bob method to try and eliminate the noise.

Look forward to see the results. I have done the same thing in my setup with the HID lights and has certainly suppressed a good amount of noise but not completely.

I am tracking my lOC/GS and turn on the lights, I will lose the signal for a sec or two. One example of seeing the effect of RF in my system.

Thanks for sharing your results
 
Wide cornering kit

Have you considered putting the "wide cornering kit" on one of the lights? It may help for taxiing. At $26 it might be worth trying. Thanks for your post. Did you notice what the amp output is?
 
Ok, I have one side done and can post some results.


23jvyw.jpg


24cup2a.jpg


2iwasz5.jpg


24c79qb.jpg


As you can see, I simply made a new mount plate out of .032 sheet and trapped the lens cover and body in between. I made life a bit harder on myself by retaining the o ring seals so I simply chucked the body in the lathe and back cut .032. This would not be required if you're not worried about the o ring seals.

For the power connector, I once again used the lathe to machine the "body" of the battery tube down to a manageable size, and then machined a nylon bushing to fit inside. I drilled the center of this bushing and inserted a #10 countersunk screw which contacts the center spring on the light head and provides a stud for the positive power lead. The side of this modified battery tube was drilled and tapped for the ground stud, and also holds the center bushing in place.

It should be noted that there are at least two different versions of this flashlight. Outwardly, they appear identical, but one has one additional cooling fin, no spring for the ground connection, and the threads that hold the whole mess together are different. I ordered the 4 I own in batches of two within days of each other, and I have two of each. Not a big deal except that the 5 functions are in a different sequence when you cycle through the modes. Also, the "extra cooling fin" version seems to throw a lot more RFI.

As for performance, they are simply blinding. And I didn't think the multiple modes would be of use, but the strobe and SOS functions will work fine for a wig wag. And for those wondering, full output for the pair of lights is measured at 1.6 amps. The lights are aimed in the flight position and as expected with the Rocket's tall gear, point well up with the tail on the ground. There is still enough spill over to see the runway/taxiway, however. That was a nice surprise. The last picture shows the comparison to the standard GE 100w aircraft landing light against my hangar. The beam pattern is better on the LED's as is the color, but I think there is not much difference in intensity when compared to the 100w if in its narrow "sweet spot".

I have yet to fly with them, but all in all, these $25 flashlights seem to be a real improvement.
 
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Mike it appears your lights are aimed pretty high. In the 3pt attitude mine are slightly above level.
 
Bob, Yes they are high but I still need to play with them. I think I'm looking more for recognition with these than for seeing as far down that taxiway as possible. So considering the high directionality of LED's, I'd rather bias the mounting to provide a level attitude in flight. We'll see how it plays out.
 
Well, shoot, can't get rid of the RFI. Tried a single Radio Shack Ferrite wrapped seven times, then two sandwiched in parallel with 14 wraps (7 each long side) and it didn't make a dent. Time to go get smart on RFI. Perhaps having the lamp 12 inches from the bent whip is the issue?
 
Well, shoot, can't get rid of the RFI. Tried a single Radio Shack Ferrite wrapped seven times, then two sandwiched in parallel with 14 wraps (7 each long side) and it didn't make a dent. Time to go get smart on RFI. Perhaps having the lamp 12 inches from the bent whip is the issue?

I think that would be the challenge.

Other suggestion would be to try the ferrite at different location, with my HID, the most effect was the location of the ferrite as oppose to the number of wraps.

Also, you could put twist on your positive and negative leads that goes to the light and as the last resort, try wrapping it in the aluminum foil. See if any of that yields better results.
 
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