2 Landing Lights in Each Wing - How to wire it?

[dustin_96]

I will be having 2 landing lights in each wing. How should this be wired? Should each light be on its own circuit back to the switch or can one circuit be used for each wing? Is the wire provided in the harness (I believe it is 16 ga.) sufficient to carry both loads? It looks like the current draw for the lights I'm using is 3.2a+4.0a=7.2a in each wing.

Thanks!

[Avanza]

It´s night and it´s raining. You turn on the ONE landing landing light switch
and the circuit breaker pops. Then you have no landing light.
I would go for TWO separate switches and TWO separate circuit breakers.
Then you have at least one working landing light.

Good luck

[Ralph Inkster]

Split them for Landing and Taxiing. Kill the Landing lights while Taxiing.

[BobTurner]

The answer is, …. It depends.
If you have a tailwheel, you will want one or two of the lights aimed down, so they are useful for taxiing (IMHO taxi lights are much more important than landing lights, for typical GA night use). You may want to have taxi lights on a different circuit from landing lights, so you can turn off the landing lights on the ground, where they’ll be useless. You may want to install a wig-wag on some or all of your lights. Again, this choice will affect your wiring. Think first about what functions, if any, beyond on/off you want, and go from there.

[dmattmul]

Originally Posted by dustin_96

I will be having 2 landing lights in each wing. How should this be wired? Should each light be on its own circuit back to the switch or can one circuit be used for each wing? Is the wire provided in the harness (I believe it is 16 ga.) sufficient to carry both loads? It looks like the current draw for the lights I'm using is 3.2a+4.0a=7.2a in each wing.

Thanks!

Are you using WH-00125 fuselage wiring bundle and associated wing bundles ?

[dmattmul]

2 landing or landing and taxi in each wing ?

[dustin_96]

I am attempting to use the factory wiring harnesses. It is for 2 landing lights in each wing. The more I look into it, the more I am convinced to just build my own harnesses.

[PhatRV]

I've seen an RV7 that has a separate circuit breaker for every light, every switch and every device. The panel looks like a business jet with a wall size breaker panel

I also see a plane with a handful of circuit breakers on the opposite spectrum of simplicity

With the modern LED lights, you may want to measure the current draw before choosing the wiring gauge. I am surprise how little current it takes to light up these new LED light. Smaller gauge size makes for a lighter wiring loom

[Desert Rat]

On my 7 I have the FLY LED setup with landing and taxi on both wings. I wired them so that all the landing lights are on one switch & fuse and all the taxi are on a separate switch & fuse.

Note that I put landing lights in the "nice to have but not essential" category. My wire scheme just ended up that way because it's convenient. It's not the end of the world if you have to land without Landing lights. They aren't even required equipment until you get to commercial operations

[dmattmul]

Originally Posted by dustin_96

I am attempting to use the factory wiring harnesses. It is for 2 landing lights in each wing. The more I look into it, the more I am convinced to just build my own harnesses.

The Vans harnesses are 95% ok. If you cost them out adding your labor at even $20 an hour break-even. They are easy to make modifications. Add wires as needed. WH-00125 comes with 14 awg. for landing lights, I believe so use these as your higher amp landing lights most likely. Add 18 or 20 awg. for taxi lights. Use a switch for each, not rocket science. For pitot heat recommend twisted pair shielded all the way from instrument to firewall, 14 awg. Use the supplied pitot heat wire as a future wiring need.

It's easy to knock Van's harnesses but they are very close and adding wire is not difficult. Wiring harnesses require a lot of work and it's one less thing to do if you can use it.