Well, I finally got around to testing my LED Nav/Strobe combination, and the results are alright, but not quite as impressive as I was hoping.
I'm using 6 LuxeonStar LED's per light and another 6 for each strobe, intermixed, so there's 3 Nav/3 Strobe in each cutout. The Green and Strobe's are being driven by 5 Ohm resistor's in strings of 3, with the Red LED's in a string of 6 through a 2 Ohm resistor.
The brains of the strobe circuit is a Picaxe-08M chip and a pair of NPN transistors. The Picaxe can do a bunch of stuff from controlling RC servo's to infrared transmission, GPS position fixing and more, but I'm simply using it as a timer and means of switching the transistors. The chip itself costs around $5, a little more for the transistors and prototype board and around $250 for all the LED's.
Here's a dodgy video of the bench-testing of the strobes. I haven't got them running independently as yet, so was simply completing the circuit myself, but that's on the agenda for tonight. And
HERE'S a new video showing the package in its' current state before it gets all prettied up and installed when I get back from work.
EDIT 1: Well, it's now tonight, and I've finally managed to assemble the Nav/Strobe package enough to functionally test it on the bench(aka. the dining-room table). The flash rate is too fast for my liking at the moment, but because the rate is set by the Picaxe chip, it is
infinitely variable, using just a few lines of computer code, written in Notepad and sent to the PIC. Takes all of 60 seconds to change it from triple flash, to double, to triple and a pause, to whatever you want.
EDIT 2: Well, it's now
tomorrow and I've tweaked the code a little more, and corrected the strobe video linked above. The strobes now have a more defined pause between the left and right strobe pulses and a 1 second pause before repeating the cycle. Slowed the flash rate down a little as well and made the flash duration a smidge (techincal term
) longer. I'm fairly happy with where things are at, although I'd be happier still if the strobes were a little brighter, but the numbers say they "should" meet the requirements nonetheless.
Here's the code that I've used to regulate the flashing. Write it up, export it to the Picaxe chip via a USB cable, plug in your transistors and off you go. It's
almost idiot-proof, which makes it perfect for me.
Code:
main:
high B.1 ; switch on output B.1
pause 100
low b.1
pause 100
high B.1 ; switch on output B.1
pause 100
low b.1
pause 100
high B.1 ; switch on output B.1
pause 100
low b.1
pause 1000
high B.2 ; switch on output B.2
pause 100 ; wait 0.5 seconds
low B.2 ; switch off output B.2
pause 100
high B.2 ; switch on output B.2
pause 100 ; wait 0.5 seconds
low B.2 ; switch off output B.2
pause 100
high B.2 ; switch on output B.2
pause 100 ; wait 0.5 seconds
low B.2 ; switch off output B.2
pause 1000
goto main ; loop back to start
And some still images...
Just the Nav lights
And Nav lights with the strobes lit