Brantel

Brantel

Well Known Member
I am planning to roll my own Nav lights and right now this is what I have planed.
6 ea of the Luxeon K2 stars connected in two parrallel rows of 3 ea in series. I plan on driving them with a BuckPuck 1000mA DC driver and in this configuration they should be driven at 500mA each.
I will plan on using the Pro Series 606 package from Strobes N' More for the strobes.
Now what do I do for the tail light. I really want all LED's so how does one roll their own combo back there?
 
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Brian - I also am going the LED route (have Lux III's pus the pucks), but haven't figured the tail either. I tried to get cheaply a Grimes tail light housing/lens without success to see if I can fit a strobe and LED (don't think so).
I also looked at glassing a second fairing vs extending the current fairing into a more oblong shape on the rudder bottom glass piece and placing a second lens. Lastly, I even considered moving my strobes out on the wingtips in a glassed fairing so that the FAR's are satisfied so that I can use the current rudder bottom fairing as a base for an LED position light. I may cave in and just get the Whalen combo light, but will wait until I need to wire the fuse before deciding.
 
What you need to understand with LED's

I sell commercial lighting products that utilize Luxeon leds as well as several others. Keep in mind that these are not products in themselves, but components to be used in application specific products.
That said, LED's are VERY sensitive to degradation and failure due to heat. A proper (massive) heat sink must be used to dissipate that heat to control the junction temperature of the LED's. Luxeon pucks have a neat feature that, if overheated, they will gradually reduce the power to the device to try to save itself. However, heat, over time, will destroy these devices.
LED's lumen output also depreciates significantly over time, although probably not a factor in aircraft applications.
It is also commonly misunderstood that LED's are significantly more efficient. This is not necessarily the case.
The key advantage of LED's are long life, if you can control the heat, and vibration tolerance.
There are quite a few off the shelf LED products for aircraft now. Some of them might even work. Some might even work for a long time. I would not be jumping into designing my own, and frankly, I know what I am doing in that field.

Me, I chose standard Whelen products that have been in use for years, and meet the FAR's. Every once in a long while, you have to change out a bulb.
 
I was on the ramp in Georgetown Texas on Tuesday and got to see the Eclipse 500 for the first time in person. The nav lights are all LEDs, very nice. I wonder what type of LED they use?
 
K2

I got my K2 stars today from LED supply (fast 3 days!) will be using 4 per side. Test Fired them ** looking great.
I will be replacing ones from creative air don't like the pc board look.
 
JonJay said:
Me, I chose standard Whelen products that have been in use for years, and meet the FAR's. Every once in a long while, you have to change out a bulb.
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I appreciate and understand your opinion but I also know that several people have already proven that these new LED products can and have been successfully used in our application.

Long life is but one advantage of LED's that I intend to take advantage of. Low cost is another along with a nice looking install that takes advantage of the way Vans now makes the wingtips. All this coupled with low current draw on my systems and superior visibility over the 50 year old design, makes it in my opinion the way to go.

I can build these in a few hours for less than half the cost of the Whelen units. The K2 can run at 105deg C for 50,000 hours and still maintain 70% of their original rating. I doubt my airplane will last that long.
 
Brantel said:
The K2 can run at 105deg C for 50,000 hours and still maintain 70% of their original rating. I doubt my airplane will last that long.
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It is experimental avaition, so have at it. However, again, this is not a product, only a component to be designed into a product. 105deg C is junction temperature, not device operating temperature. Without proper heat sinking, the junction temperature could easily exceed 105deg. C in an aircraft application at room temperature operating at full output. Most of the aviation products I have seen are PC board mounting with no heat sink but I would suspect are operating them at far less than max power. I also suspect that they will not reach anywhere near full life, but who cares....1000 hours, 10,000 hours, that still is a lot.....

Read up on the Far's, and although the LED's appear brighter, they are very directional, casting thier beam in a relatively narrow pattern. So, in one direction they are bright, and unless you are pointing them in all others too, you wont meet the visibility requirements, not that you have too. So take care in your layout and with your beam patterns if you want to be seen at all of the angles called out in the regs.

Anyway, not trying to be argumentive, just trying to help people understand what the technology really is. If you are going to "roll your own" you have a lot of engineering to do. I do not disagree with your interest in doing so however.

Let me know how I can help as you develop your design further. Again, I do this for a living and might have a bit of a clue. ;)
 
Keep us posted

I am one of those folks looking for full LED lighting package. I wont need it for another year, but keep us posted. There dont seem to be any complete packages... and i am hoping in the next year someone comes out with a good one that meets the regs and is a safe/effective package. The new LED's just look so much better than the old tried and true, it hard to not want something new and different.
I am not really interested in rolling my own, but have not found a package that works. Entrepreneurs out there...Creative, jeffs rv, whelan, etc...someone will make a pile when they put it all together for us not electric guys. Let us know your progress.
 
RickWoodall said:
I am one of those folks looking for full LED lighting package. I wont need it for another year, but keep us posted. There dont seem to be any complete packages... and i am hoping in the next year someone comes out with a good one that meets the regs and is a safe/effective package. The new LED's just look so much better than the old tried and true, it hard to not want something new and different.
I am not really interested in rolling my own, but have not found a package that works. Entrepreneurs out there...Creative, jeffs rv, whelan, etc...someone will make a pile when they put it all together for us not electric guys. Let us know your progress.
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Someone will, but dont expect it to be cheap. The packages I have seen currently use lower power LED's, and dont meet regs. That does not mean they dont "work".
The high power stuff are just components. Luxeon is marketing to OEM fixture manufacturers on thier website. People think they can just buy the components and hook them up and they will work. Well, they will, just not in a usable way, at least not without some engineering and ingenuity. By the way, the group on these posts tend to have a lot of both, so I have hope.
I am sure we will see certified products that meet regs, and maybe even some experimental stuff, but there is no way they will be cheaper than the old whelen stuff, yet.
I like the look of the Whelen on the older square tips, like on my 6, but not so much on the newer tips where the LED's are a big improvement in looks. IMHO
So, hang in there. Maybe one of these guys experimenting will come up with a winner. The technology is there to do it, but it will take a phenominal effort in engineering to deal with the heat and make them visible through the range the regs call for.
Fun topic.
 
At least one has a complete package and claims they meet regs:
But some claim the strobes are not up to par
http://thorllc.net/LEDSTROBEa.htm

Jeff makes a nice package based on the Luxeon Star, and it does have a heat sink. This is similar to the way I intend to do mine. He does not sell a led rear light but does everything else with a traditional Whelen rear combo light. It is very hard argument that his package does not meet regs after seeing the results, I have never seen a Whelen light up the place like that. Also notice that even though the leds are all facing the same direction, there is a huge amount of the emitted light being reflected off of the doors of the hanger and the floor immediately above and below the wing.:

http://www.jeffsrv-7a.com/JimsRV-9ALEDNavLights.htm

Creative Air has some that seem to be based on the lower power LED's but they cram a bunch of them in all different kinds of angles to get dispersion.

http://www.creativair.com/combo-navigation-light-kits-p-88.html
 
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Brantel said:
I can build these in a few hours for less than half the cost of the Whelen units.
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If you spend half of what the Whelen units are, I'd be amazed. I spent about $50 on my nav lights ($15 for mirrored plexi, and about $30 for the lights). A buddy and I built our own wingtip nav lights using Luxeon emitters (4 per side) based on the great schematics from Pete Howell. We ran them up with a 14V power supply and they are BRIGHT!!

I was looking for the tail light housing to build, but couldn't find one. I just settled for the standard tail light from Vans for $130. It'll work just fine.

Now, not to get off topic, but if you guys can come up with an idea for a housing for K2's for landing lights, I'd be really happy.

Send me an e-mail if you'd like the LED schematic that Pete sent me.
 
Unauthorized Distribution of Schematics

Please note that any unauthorized person caught using my highly secret and very detailed LED schematics will force me to bring legal action. My cracker jack hired guns will sue for 2 beverages at the next fly in we attend together. This is over and above the one beverage non-transferable license fee I normally charge for the "secret" pdf file. :D

I have 225 flight hours on mine now with probably over 75 of them with the Luxeons on. They are still very bright.

Easy to build, look good, allow for wingtip landing lights, and don't seem to suck to much juice. They are different and get comments, too.

No idea if they meet all the regs, but they are obnoxiously bright.

Sonny - have your people call my people. We'll do lunch and set up a schematic distribution deal......hehehe
 
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I was looking over Luxeon's thermal design reference material today. Are any of you guys going the metal core pcb route? Or just using the luxeon stars?

I can't seem to find MCPCB material for sale, so I'm contemplating making my own. My plan is to laminate (epoxy?) a piece of scissor-cut pcb to a thin aluminum plate and route it to shape with my cnc gantry mill. I can then etch the PCB, solder down the K2's, and attach a milled piece of mirrored plexiglass.
 
Sounds Cool!

Hi Andy,

I had a band saw, a drill, and a soldering iron to work with, so I just used Luxeon III Stars. They are heat sinked to an Al plate and sandwiched between that and the mirrored plexi. It is low tech, but seems to work.

I'd love to see the milled homebrew metalcore and plexi.
 
Lionclaw said:
I can't seem to find MCPCB material for sale, so I'm contemplating making my own. My plan is to laminate (epoxy?) a piece of scissor-cut pcb to a thin aluminum plate and route it to shape with my cnc gantry mill. I can then etch the PCB, solder down the K2's, and attach a milled piece of mirrored plexiglass.
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Hi! My plans are to get MCPCB to and route pads for LEDs there. Depending on the design, bring wires to the top side through the PWB from multiple places or from one side... but why answer your message is that: I would say that manufactured MCPCBs will be superior in terms of thermal performance compared to DIY MCPCBs. The di-electric layer will be likely thinner and material which conducts heat better than in DIY versions. The chain is as good as it's weakest link...

What comes to find MCPCB: try Google 'metalcore PCB' instead of 'MCPCB'. I was able to find some sources from Finland where lives 5 million people so you should have some source there as well... Also many Chinese PCB manufacturer seems to advertise it. If you don't find "raw material" you might try to ask suitable sources from PCB manufacturing companies.
 
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