Retrofitting Lighting

[jump4way]

I'm wondering if anyone is able to steer me in the right direction regarding lighting options.

I bit of background. I'm new to the RV world and looking to buy my first flying RV-4. I have found one that I have my heart set on but am disappointed to find out that it is day VFR only. I have no prior building experience and find myself a bit intimidated by the idea of installing a lighting kit myself. Before I completely decide that I can't do it, I'm trying to gather all of the information to see what is involved. I'm hoping someone can help.

The RV4 apparently has conduit running through the wings so wiring should not be too terribly difficult. The power is a 35 amp alternator. The builder tells me that the wing tips are easy to remove. In fact he called them easy off wing tips whatever that means. There is no panel lighting for the instruments so that would need to be installed as well. Something semi temporary would work there as I am planning on overhauling the panel and installing an EFIS unit of some type down the road.

All of the options available for lighting on the van's website has left me somewhat confused. I'm hoping you could tell me what the easiest setup might be to install. I don't plan on flying at night all of the time. I just don't want to limit myself by not having the option. It seems the most popular landing and taxi light setup is an HID type setup on the leading edge from what I've read. I see the kits are sold by duckworks and are in the neighborhood of $500 for 2 lights. For the position/nav/strobe lights it seems there is an option that locates all of them including the strobe on the wingtip. I have no idea what the install would be like there though. Does it require rivoting or fiberglass work or a simple cut and bolt on type of thing?

Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.

[ignacio]

there are several options to pick from depending on your cash flow. its a simple installation for the duck works but of course i did it while building but you can do it, with the wing on. just use plenty of duct tape or some sort of protection to keep from scratching the ribs. its just a matter of measuring and cutting the landing light fixture and the leading edge on one or both wings. then just blind/pop rivet. as for the nav and strobe go with a simple set up. one strobe and the navs about $500. the wing tips can be cut for flush set up behind a clear lense or just installed on the outside. the lense does cost and extra $100 or so for two of them. put the strobe on the vertical stab. i chose this set up for my -4 and chose on landing light on the left wing. no hid to expensive for my taste. good luck

[ignacio]

forgot, there is minimal fiberglass work in the strobe depending on how slick you want it to look other than that its pretty easy.

[Dave Cole]

You can install navigation lights, strobe lights, landing/taxi lights, and panel lights easily enough in a completed airplane, but you need to be sure that your alternator has enough capacity to power them along with the existing electrical loads.

To answer this question, you will need to do an electrical load analysis. This requires adding up all of the amperes requried by the installed equipment. Subtract that total from 35 amps, and you will know how many amps are available for lights.

A 35 amp alternator may not be enough do the job, depending on what other loads it has to supply. If you find that you need to limit lighting loads, you could consider some of the newer LED lighting packages.

[Ironflight]

Panel lighting is incredibly easy these days - buy an LED or Electroluminescent light strip, and glue it under the glare shield, and you're done. Well, go to the Outdoor store, and but a Petzl Zipca headlamp, and throw that in your bag as well - now you'll have light anywhere you look. And while you're at it drop by Home Depot (Aviation Supply company) and buy a couple of aluminum body LED AA flashlights as spares. All in all, for $200 or less, you have more than enough light in the cockpit to fly all night long!

Paul

[Canadian_JOY]

Just to give some perspective here... A while ago I embarked on the same project in a different aircraft type. It had not one single lightbulb in it when I purchased it and now is fully night-VFR capable.

1) Nav/strobe - I went with integrated units called Skybrights from Rollison aircraft. They've had their fair share of LED failures in the past but seem to be over that now. Red/green LED position lights, plus white aft-facing position lights, all in a single clear plastic housing along with a strobe between the respective forward and aft-mounted clusters of position light LEDs. Conventional zenon strobe tubes driven by a single power supply that I've mounted under the pax seat. Total power consumption of strobes and position lights = 2.5amps

2) Landing light - homemade LED landing lights installed in the engine cowling. They are fabricated using some 18-volt rated LED bulbs (3 x 3W LEDs in each of two bulbs) that were aimed at the halogen track lighting retrofit market. Total cost was $80, and they draw an amp. They won't light up the entire 4000' runway, but they give more than adequate lighting to judge the flair and ensure you don't taxi over any skunks.

3) Interior lights. I opted for four adjustable eyeball LED spotlights from Spruce. Can't find the catalog reference right now but they're a single LED (I opted for red ones) in a black plastic swivel eyeball mount, and they cost less than $20 apiece. I've opted for four of them mounted in my headliner to give complete coverage over the entire instrument panel, and have two dimmer rheostats so I can independantly dim the pilot and copilot side of the panel. This works great because I can point one of htem downward as a decent map light as well. I first saw these same lights mounted in the cockpit sidewall of a -8, one on each side, giving sufficient illumination for the entire panel. Total power consumption = 4 watts max, or 1/3amp

[flyboeing]

If you are planning on doing much night flying go with the HID lights. Especially since you only have a 35amp alternator. If you go with 1 100w Halogen in your leading edge, that will take 25% of the power you have. You can go with a single HID for 35 or 50w, get more light for 1/3 the power draw. A 50w in the 4" duckworks kit will light up a 4000' runway like it was daylight. If you are planning on 2 lights, go with the 35w, they are more efficiant.

We will be at copperstate sat. if anybody would like to see our lights.

Steve
www.planelights.com

[jump4way]

just wanted to follow up and see if you were still happy with the Skybrights combination lights CanadianJoy?

I'm also interested in any other combination nav/strobe options out there besides what van's offer. Anyone have any suggestions?

[Dan Blumel]

Originally Posted by flyboeing

If you are planning on doing much night flying go with the HID lights. Especially since you only have a 35amp alternator. If you go with 1 100w Halogen in your leading edge, that will take 25% of the power you have. You can go with a single HID for 35 or 50w, get more light for 1/3 the power draw. A 50w in the 4" duckworks kit will light up a 4000' runway like it was daylight. If you are planning on 2 lights, go with the 35w, they are more efficiant.

Steve,

I am not sure if you mean output efficiency or distribution efficiency. 2 lights can perform better than 1 for even distribution if 1 light is located on each side or if 1 is aimed for taxi and the other for landing.

If you mean 35 watt vs. 50 watt system efficiency, I have to politely disagree, our XeVision 50 watt HID efficiency is more than 106 lumens per watt going to the bulb (106-110 lumens per watt) XeVision 50 watt system using 4200K (color temp.) high quality bulbs.
Averaging the above lumens per watt, we offer 5400 lumens with a 50 watt system. We output 50 watts from our ballasts + 1 watt.

Our 35 watt HID (35 watt the industry std.) produces ~3200 lumens or 91 lumens per watt to the bulb, using a high quality 4200K (color temp.) HID bulb.

Both our 35 and 50 watt ballasts are better than 90% efficient as well (about 91% for 12/14 VDC ballasts), both 35 and 50 watt have almost identical ballast efficiency.

The 50 watt HID from XeVision produces 67% more light requiring only 44% more power. That makes the XeVision 50 watt system more efficient than any 35 watt HID system (including our own). At 13 VDC we draw almost 3 amps for 35 watt (total <39 watts) and about 4.3 amps for 50 watt systems at 13 VDC (total < 56 watts).

Note: Total watts power draw stays the same (VERY slight variation) as buss voltage varies within the range of say 11VDC to 15 VDC

Note: Most (if not all) aftermarket (Asian made) HID ballasts which claim 50 or 55 watts are measuring input wattage to the ballast not output wattage to the bulb. The industry std is to rate ballasts on output wattage not input. These 50 and 55 watt rated ballasts actually ouput typically 42-45 watts not 50 or 55 watts. Most of these ballasts are between 80 and 85 percent efficient. This is all marketing "magic" to play the numbers game.
Also stick with name brand HID bulbs, with the brand names of GE (General Electric), Philips or Osram (Sylvania). These HID bulbs should be one of 2 configurations ONLY. Either D1S or D2S or if using a rare ballast for Mercury free version HID bulbs (Hg free) then D3S or D4S. These are high quality HID bulbs with a color temp in the range of 4200-4300 Kelvin. These listed name brand Premium quality HID bulbs will maintain their lumens output much better over their lives compared to ANY aftermarket (Asian) HID bulbs.
Aftermarket (Asian) HID bulbs typically loose 1/2 of their output (lumens) within 500-1000 hours of use. In contrast, quality (OEM) name brand HID bulbs still produce typically better than 75% of the original (new) rated output after more than 1500 hours of total use. Additionally, avoid bulbs named (labeled) D2C or D1C these are MUCH lower quality aftermarket HID bulbs compared to GE, Philips or Osram.

I cannot speak for Steves systems but I do know our technical specs well. Just wanted to be sure that the correct technical impressions about XeVision HID were being presented. All HID systems are NOT the same. www.xevision.com

Dan