RV-7 lighting

Dear fellow rv-aviators.
Getting ready to purchase the nav/taxi lights for my RV-7. The price of the Aeroleds almost gave me a heart attack. Any good suggestion for reasonable LED lights would be appreciated.
Thanks
Walt

Ztron labs

Take look. That is what I plan to use. They will fit in a Duckworks enclosure.

Since LEDs are still up there in price for ones bright enough for Landing Lights, I went with the Duckworks rectangular landing light kits with an HID kit ordered from DDM Tuning.

$75 for each Duckworks kit. I got 2, one for each wing.
$40 for a pair of HIDs plus $15 shipping. Crazy!

Toss the Halogen bulbs, keep the reflectors, install & mount the HID's. Easy and inexpensive!

I have installed the ztron's landing lights and their strobe/nav lights and am happy with them, not flying yet though, but I think they are plenty bright. Probably not as bright as the top of the line aero LEDs but the price isn't as "bright" either!

Bird

Roll your own

I built my own LED Nav lights and then bought the Nova Strobes that many others have also done (use the search function). I bought the AGC current source from Turkey that many others have done and even have a couple spares if you (or someone) would like to buy them. There's a lot of documentation out there about LED Navs.


I, too, went with the Duckworks lights, as many people claimed better results with in-wing lights, rather than wing-tip lighting.

I have yet to fly behind any of this yet, so my opinion is barely worth what you paid for it.

David

bird said:

I think they are plenty bright.
Bird

Click to expand...

Remember that to fly at night most of us have operating limitations requiring us to use nav lights and anti-collision lights that meet FAA standards. Getting full required angular coverage can be hard for LEDs.

For those not flying yet with with the non-aviation HID systems, I would suggest that you test the HID ballasts for broadcast radio noise.

A handheld should do the job.

Mine broadcast enough to break squelch and make the radios essentially useless. I did finally fix the issue with faraday cage style shielding.

YMMV so test and fix on your own.

My broad spectrum noise is still there but it is just under the level I have set for squelch on my 430 and SL-40.

My lights are in the wingtips, the Duckworth mounts may provide shielding since they are internal to the wing. Don't know. It would be interesting to hear results.

Killacycle LEDs

I purchased LED position lights from Killacycle. He tested the amount of light generated vs the FAA requirement.