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Electroluminescent panels for avionics

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Star Keeper

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I'm down the rabbit hole of avionics panel lighting. I'm considering Electroluminescent panels. Anyone worked with these before? My concern is the reliability of it long term and the DC/AC inverter required to run it.

Thoughts?
 
Time to come up from the hole. Assuming you are going with a standard glass panel install I suggest there is little need for panel lights. Many options if you are just looking for lights to read switch labels and such. Here is one option, but have them on a dimmer. I’m mounting two on the cabin top support bracket bolts, and one on each side of the tunnel for passengers to get in when it is dark or the few times I want to read a piece of paper at night.

Carl
 

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I used UMA EL tape under the glare shield and Inverters (2 - 1 for each section of tape) on my last RV. Ultimately, I didn't care for the light wavelength or the hassle of mounting the two inverters. Over time, the EL tape developed a black "stain" of some kind between the film and substrate.

LED tape (outdoor rated/sealed) wired into the EFIS (Garmin GAD 27) was just easy.
 
I only turn my panel lights on once per year, when I leave for OSH before sunup. Electroluminescent lighting would most likely be the most complicated,time sucking and expensive way to light a simple RV panel. If you do it please post photos.
 
Star Keeper said:
I'm down the rabbit hole of avionics panel lighting. I'm considering Electroluminescent panels. Anyone worked with these before? My concern is the reliability of it long term and the DC/AC inverter required to run it.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
I sold tens of thousands. Your concerns are warranted. Don’t.
 
1976 182 had EL panels. Looked nice when they worked. But when we bought it in 1986 the inverter failed, some panels failed, very hard to work on (glued behind plastic panels), etc. My opinion is ‘pass’.
 
i wanted to emulate the look of the C172 G1000 cockpit I've been renting that has EL backlit panels. I purchased several different consumer-grade EL panels but none of them were bright enough behind the black on white acrylic etched panels I got from Stryker. And I was worred about the cheap EL power supplies, most of which emitted audible noise (I didn't get far enough to check for avionics or radio interference). One advantage of the EL panels is there aren't any constraints on the graphics since the entire panel is potentially backlit. Instead, I went with LED strips which turned out well I thought. Plenty bright enough (in fact I derated the 5V panels to 3.3V max) but you're limited to just placing graphics on rows unless you want to make your own PC boards with tons of LEDs on them.
This post describes the way I did it.
https://vansairforce.net/threads/show-us-your-rv-10-panel.18921/page-11#post-1765049


-Bob
 
I guess there is a reason I'm not seeing much of it out there in avionics panels. So I guess I need to determine what direction I'm looking for. I like the clean metal toggles. Rummaging through the RV-10 panel thread this is probably the closest I've found so far.

Show us your RV-10 Panel

Midnight oil Well, I've been burning the candle at both ends lately and hopefully I'm almost done. I finally got power on the new panel upgrade I've been working on for our own RV-10, and I am really pleased with it. Here's a before and after picture, and here are the highlights: removed the...
vansairforce.net

I'm not sure if NovaBandit is still active here or not but that seems like a great way to go. Laser cut outlines for the switch and lighting area. I just need to understand what was used for the overlay that was transparent for the lettering but blocked the rest of the light. Matte finished polycarbonate?
 
Electroluminescent had a significant but short run in the commercial lighting industry due primarily to very steep lumen depreciation. It doesn’t take long for them to significantly degrade. They also suffered from poor quality power supplies and infancy failures.
LED pretty much killed EL.
(Sorry, not helpful. I was typing as you were posting.)
 
Star Keeper said:
I guess there is a reason I'm not seeing much of it out there in avionics panels. So I guess I need to determine what direction I'm looking for. I like the clean metal toggles. Rummaging through the RV-10 panel thread this is probably the closest I've found so far.

Show us your RV-10 Panel

Midnight oil Well, I've been burning the candle at both ends lately and hopefully I'm almost done. I finally got power on the new panel upgrade I've been working on for our own RV-10, and I am really pleased with it. Here's a before and after picture, and here are the highlights: removed the...
vansairforce.net

I'm not sure if NovaBandit is still active here or not but that seems like a great way to go. Laser cut outlines for the switch and lighting area. I just need to understand what was used for the overlay that was transparent for the lettering but blocked the rest of the light. Matte finished polycarbonate?
Click to expand...
It is a very nice look, but complicated.
I had a very basic red LED spot light with a wide lens. The white labeling on a dark panel lit up like they were back lit.
The LED strip under the glare shield on a dimmer really does a nice job and the execution is simple. Perhaps some folks can show how it looks in the dark.
 
I've flown behind a lot of EL panels. They are awesome, but not awesome enough that I wanted to go to that route in my RV. Expensive, complicated, and if you scratch them you can end up with light where you don't want it.

I ended up installing a couple of strips of LED tape under the glare shield (white and blue, on separate dimmers) and called it good.
 
I have EL in my panel also, but with the advancement of time I'd probably do something else. I went with EL panels and inverters from Ellumiglow, some blue gel film from eBay that gives it a nice light blue / turquoise hue, and reverse-engraved panel pieces from engravers.net. Each lit piece is a separate aluminum sub-panel that is screwed from behind into the main panel. The inverters are certainly noisy, although the two I have I really don't hear unless I fully turn up the brightness... and ask me the last time I did night flight. What became the real pain for me in installing and maintaining them was the way I had to trim some panels to fit the space, without cutting the anode in a way that the panel would no longer light. Between that, and then somehow sealing the holes that I cut into the middle of the EL light panel for the breakers and switches to stick through. Otherwise, I got a literal buzzing shock when I touched switches or the whole panel overall. In the end, it's neat... the LED light strips weren't nearly as good at diffuse overall lighting (especially from behind a reverse-engraved label) 10+ years ago as they are today, and probably not something I'd do again.

I am keenly interested in the LED panels that fl-mike is talking about, and Watzlavick did in his -10 panel, as replacement alternatives the next time I'm doing any major panel work to replace scratched stuff, etc.

IMAG1076.jpgIMAG1079.jpgIMAG1081.jpg
 
Desert Rat said:
I've flown behind a lot of EL panels. They are awesome, but not awesome enough that I wanted to go to that route in my RV. Expensive, complicated, and if you scratch them you can end up with light where you don't want it.

I ended up installing a couple of strips of LED tape under the glare shield (white and blue, on separate dimmers) and called it good.
Click to expand...
Which LED strips did you buy? I'm sure there's a lot of junk out there I want to avoid.
 
I bought two LED strips and dimmers from Stein. One red. One white. The are stuck to the underside of the glare shield.
 
My "panel light" is a small Manker light with the headband. It has three levels of moonlight mode, at lower intensity than the lowest setting of an iphone light. Makes it easy to see colors of toggle switches since this isn't a red light (those are no longer recommended for preserving night vision).

mankerlight.com

E02 III AAA / 10440 Flashlight

Mankerlight manufactures innovative LED flashlight and EDC gear for outdoor enthusiasts etc. Manker are doing something different! Click for more details.
mankerlight.com mankerlight.com
(NICHIA high CRI version).
 
I used self adhesive red LED strip lights under glareshield. I ended up using a home made Pulse Width Modulation driver (plenty of examples on internet). Cheap and good enough....maybe a little work due to driver.
1771385009216.jpeg
 
I spent a number of years working at a Cessna dealership. Some of the higher end singles had EL panels and when they acted up it was an ordeal and expensive to repair. Based on that I would never install on my build, but this was 35 years ago and they tech must be improved by now. $.02

Don Broussard
RV 9 Rebuild in progress
57 Pacer
 
I don't know if you'd call what I have an EL panel or not, but I've got oval cutouts above the switches and breakers which have backlit labels in them. It works reliably, although my mechanic damaged the center one and wasn't able to fix it, so I've got that on my to-do list now...

IMG_1426.jpeg
 
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