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Red led string

rvdave

Well Known Member
I?m looking to add a red led string under front edge of glare shield for night flying, anyone have any recommendations? Also concerned about not adding any noise issues into audio system.
 
Auto Zone, Advance Auto, O?Reilly, etc also has these LED strip lights in various colors, usually at a much cheaper price. They can also be trimmed - once every 3 lights if needed. I used these, and then took the trimmed off pieces and soldered wires on to the +/- tracks on the printed tape and used these pieces mounted on a small piece of aluminum and installed them under the side rail pointing down on my switch panel on the right, and throttle quadrant on the left. All of these LED strip (pieces) were controlled by one dimmer. (Former RV8).
 
RF Interference

The problem with these things is RF interference. You don't want to trash your radios and GPS by turning on the LED strips.
 
The problem with these things is RF interference. You don't want to trash your radios and GPS by turning on the LED strips.

Most of the noise issue comes from using a pulse width modulation circuit for a dimmer (typical for high power lights). Most under the glare shield LEDs are low power and, if used with a simple dropping resistor (pot), are noise free.
 
I thought there has been a lot of talk (on here as well) that white is now the preferred color, even while flying. I seem to recall someone even calling a flight surgeon friend of theirs that was somewhat of an expert.
 
Not sure of the science, but I use white. Just keep it very low brightness. With a big old EFIS in front of me, even at min brightness, I?m not sure how well the night vision is being preserved anyway. Not to mention all the other screens on the panel.
 
RGBW

It is a definite overkill, but I have RGBW LED strip in my aircraft. Each color is driven by a separate pot allowing red, green, blue and white to be selected and dimmed individually giving any color or combination of colors. All of my switch labels are backlit, under IP lighting, floor lighting and overhead use various lengths of LED strips controlled by a master color selector.

You can get any single color or RGBW combination 16 foot strip 12V from Ebay for under $10. They can be cut every 2 inches and connected directly to the 12V power source. For dimming use a 1K ohm pot on the (a switched pot eliminates the need for a separate switch) power supply or ground lead for diming. That will give you very dim to full bright output and no radio interference.
 
I went with dual (white and blue) LED strip (from ACS 5 yrs ago) in my plastic plane. I was going with white, but an airport know it all told me it should be blue. So, a rare violation of my KISS.

A toggle selects blue, white, or both. A separate pot controls brightness on the strip and three other lighting groups. I'd do it again- kind of cool.
 
Most of the noise issue comes from using a pulse width modulation circuit for a dimmer (typical for high power lights). Most under the glare shield LEDs are low power and, if used with a simple dropping resistor (pot), are noise free.

This is what I did. Simple inexpensive 12V LED string from ebay, run through a 10K pot with a large enough current rating. Be sure to buy the LED strings with the lower power LEDS. The more powerful ones are too strong to get the lumens low enough, even with a dimmer. I think they are the 3xxx series, not the 5xxx series LEDs.

Larry
 
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The military concluded that ~500 nm light (a green with with hint of blue) is the best for contrast in low light conditions and for things like reading a map. However, long term low light exposure is generally better with red, although for those of us that are color challenged" and have to get a special test just to keep our licenses (at least until BasicMed came around...thanks), low level white or light green is just fine. The goal is to not flood your retina with light.

YMMV.
 
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