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Help me understand LED's

pa38112

Well Known Member
Can someone knowable in LED's help me understand why LED landing light bulbs are $250 - $500 ? I can get an inconstant bulb for $15. I really like the thought of lowering the power consumption and getting a whiter light, but $500 to $1,000 for both wings ???
 
I have several years on my $25 flashlights in my wings that will fry your eyeballs... Not sure where these "aviation" vendors can justify the prices.

I guess as long as people keep buying them, they will stay at the price point.
 
I have several years on my $25 flashlights in my wings that will fry your eyeballs... Not sure where these "aviation" vendors can justify the prices.

I guess as long as people keep buying them, they will stay at the price point.
Yes, but you have to go out to the end of the wing to turn them on - you are paying the aviation vendors for the convenience of staying in the cockpit on final...
 
Yes, I did have to run a power wire to the flashlight head to turn it on. It took some fabrication, but nowhere near $950 worth.
 
You can get very bright LED's with little to no EMI/RF filtering for under $20. But they will make your radios, GPS, EFIS or other sensitive electronics in your airplane useless when you turn them on. Testing and certifying that they don't cause problems costs more than the LEDs themseves.

Oh, and then there is this:

I guess as long as people keep buying them, they will stay at the price point.

:cool:
 
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Whelen Par 36/46

LED bulbs for emergency vehicles are considerably less and work well, check Am..... and E.......----- I can vouch they work well.

Ron
 
It depends on whether you want to use lights that were:

A; designed to go on your lawn mower or tractor and be sold at the cheapest possible price, with unknown components and with wildly optimistic and variable specifications.
B; designed from the outset to throw as much light as far as possible so that you can see the runway as early as possible, with zero radio noise, using brand name LEDs sourced from Mouser, and always at full power whether they are operated in the Arizona desert heat or in the middle of winter.
C; as Mike said, designed to fit into the certified market, which by necessity comes with more heat management challenges, hefty certification costs and continuing overheads.
(Having just written that I sometimes scratch my head at the prices and specs shown here too...)

We can help you with Option B!
 
led lites

The noise is coming back through the supply line. Use a toroid and take several loops on the supply line close to the led. It should get rid of the noise. It comes through on AM radios. If you look at the expensive lights, they will have noise suppressors.
 
Like all things LED prices have come down and their power has increased. However with Aviation if it's a certified product they can charge exorbitant prices due to the certification process I suppose.

As far as flashlights I got some great LED flashlights with rechargeable batteries, including the batteries and the charger for very little money and they're awesome. I've had them for at least five years. I see similar flashlights for hundreds of dollars and I have to laugh.

PS if you put the word tactical or Black Ops in the title the flashlight price doubles.
 
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Can someone knowable in LED's help me understand why LED landing light bulbs are $250 - $500 ? I can get an inconstant bulb for $15. I really like the thought of lowering the power consumption and getting a whiter light, but $500 to $1,000 for both wings ???

So Paul (above) will sell you a direct replacement to the standard Vans landing light for $50. White light, a fraction of the current draw, twice as bright. DC, no choppers, no RF interference.
 
To get best energy efficiency, most packaged lights use a "switching" voltage/current converter which can create electrical noise without careful filtering.

On the other hand, for an experimental, I'd buy a 10 watt led and a voltage dropping resistor for about $15. No noise. Slightly less efficient, but 1 amp or less shouldn't cause a problem - very reliable and cheap. It needs to be screwed to aluminum for heat-sinking. Might need a focus lens for a landing light.

You can buy them in red / green / white. Do reg/green nav lights need to be TSO'd ?

https://www.amazon.com/6000K-6500K-...words=10+watt+led+chip&qid=1616444721&sr=8-16
 
You can buy them in red / green / white. Do red/green nav lights need to be TSO'd ?

The FARs say they have to be "approved". The current FAA interpretation seems to be, for EAB aircraft, that that means that they meet the "performance standards", e.g. brightness, angular coverage, correct color. The FAA also seems to be willing to take a simple statement from the manufacturer to that effect. If you roll your own, you're supposed to do the tests.
 
To get best energy efficiency, most packaged lights use a "switching" voltage/current converter which can create electrical noise without careful filtering.

On the other hand, for an experimental, I'd buy a 10 watt led and a voltage dropping resistor for about $15. No noise. Slightly less efficient, but 1 amp or less shouldn't cause a problem - very reliable and cheap. It needs to be screwed to aluminum for heat-sinking. Might need a focus lens for a landing light.

You can buy them in red / green / white. Do reg/green nav lights need to be TSO'd ?

https://www.amazon.com/6000K-6500K-...words=10+watt+led+chip&qid=1616444721&sr=8-16


You're correct about the switch noise.

But a dropping resistor doesn't cut it high power leds. Voltage has a too much a range to figure out the correct resistor.

You need a current regulator that doesn't use switching technology. Essentially a linear current regulator (i.e. a lm317 set up in current regulation mode) that dumps the excess as heat.
 
A lot of technological know how to deal with the heat- not all the current going into a LED comes out as photons on the other side. We are paying for the reliability of high power density devices- a small market must defray that development cost, plus pay the guys who have families and hobbies like everyone else. The technology bar is constantly rising, so it's a never ending short cycle that needs to be replenished on a steady basis. It's a bargain. :)
 
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...dropping resistor doesn't cut it high power leds. Voltage has a too much a range to figure out the correct resistor....

I don't know - the 10 watt units I've used run about 9-11 volts depending how much current you want. With the alternator charging at say - 14.2 volts, it could be set to run about 8 watts depending upon how conservative you want to run it, and on just the battery (12.5 volts), it might run half of the normal wattage. Might be a good thing to cut back the load when just on battery. I think I used a 3.3 or 4.7 ohm, 10 watt "ballast" resistor.

For strobes, you might need several LEDS depending on what azimuths needed, but with the low duty cycle of the flash you could run them pretty bright and still keep them cool. I'm thinking a tail strobe might not work for an RV with the cockpits' rear exposure...

A 10 watt LED is about as bright as a 40 watt incandescent.
 
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