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AeroLed Nav/Position/Strobe Light Failure

J

jet

Member
I noticed today that the R/H light has failed. Aircraft has 40 hrs. The strobe is not working at all and there is only very slight illumination (hardly noticeable) on the position and nav light. Power and grd from the wing to the unit are okay. Unable to find anything on this subject in Search so wondering if others might have experienced something similiar.

John s/n 317
 
John,

One of my lights did not work at first. I found that it was a poor connection at the wing root causing the problem. I removed the wing, bent the little contacts out a bit, and reinstalled. Worked fine. Low level of light suggests low voltage. The first thing I would do is put a voltmeter between the hot wire and the ground wire right out at the wingtip. Turn on the light and check the voltage UNDER LOAD. Very important to check it under load. You may have just a high resistance contact somewhere.

John
 
I had a similar problem,

I had a right side assembly that blew the breaker every time I turned the switch on. I work for a commercial aricraft repair center and I took it in to our electrical shop and one of the technicians helped me find the problem. Something inside the unit was grounded to the case and every time the case contacted a ground (the wing structure) it blew the fuse.

I contactacted Aeroleds directly and they were very helpful. They wanted the old unit back to make sure they knew what was wrong and sent me a new one right away.

Contact Susan Calvin at Aeroleds.com
 
jet said:
I noticed today that the R/H light has failed. Aircraft has 40 hrs. The strobe is not working at all and there is only very slight illumination (hardly noticeable) on the position and nav light. Power and grd from the wing to the unit are okay. Unable to find anything on this subject in Search so wondering if others might have experienced something similiar.

John s/n 317
Click to expand...

My right hand strobe/nav light stopped working and I bent the tab out a bit and it started working again. After a few more hours on the hobbs, it stopped working again. This time I looked over the contact area really well and found that there was a small amount of flex in the way the wing mounted nylon contact plate is mounted. There are only two rivets holding the nylon plate to the bracket. A third rivet can easily be installed to make the assembly more rigid. Here is a picture:
1146174998_huWdi-M.jpg

The strobe/nav contact is the one down in the lower left corner where the additional rivet will stabilize it.
This may not solve your issue but can't hurt and is an easy fix.

Tony
 
Hi John,

I was the one who spoke to you today. From the other posts, it appears that there is a possibility of a wing root connection issue, which is what I thought might be the problem. This is why I suggested you bench test the light to make sure that the light isn't the problem. If you can isolate the problem to either the connector or the light, you will know what you need to do to resolve it. If it turns out there is an issue with the light, we want it back to figure out what happened to it and will get you a replacement right away.

Dean Wilkinson
CTO, AeroLEDs LLC
 
Thanks all for the replies. Even though I had a solid 12V indicated at the wing tip it would not fire the lights. The Nav/Strobe/Position lights worked perfectly from a 12V battery as suggested by Dean of Aeroled. When reinstalled and doing some slight banging on the fuselage the lights would intermittently work. The tabs will be re-bent during wing removal for painting. Susan from AeroLed even called and offered an immediate replacement if there was actually a failure. A nice level of customer support.

John s/n 317
 
John,

From the first time that I attached the wings, I had trouble with the lights. Came to the conclusion that the screw heads on the wing root were not making sufficient contact with the tabs on the fuse. Pulled the wings just enough to reach the tabs and bent them out a little. Worked for a while and then quit working again. Finally placed some small pieces of dense foam material behind the tabs and the lights have worked since then. As I will not be removing the wings very often I have considered hard wiring the wing root screws to the fuse tabs. Tony's idea would also help.
 
Terminal brackets

I've found that the contact brackets on the wing can get bent so that they are leaning slightly fwd or aft causing misalignment with the contacts on the fuselage. I measured distance from the fwd stub spar to the center of a contact and then compared the distance from stub spar opening in fuse to the center of the corresponding contact. Adjusted the wing bracket 'lean' and all was fine after that.
 
Just one more example of the power of Vans Air Force!
I really feel for the folks out there who are building anything else and don't have this kind of support network.
 
Stole Tony's idea for the third rivet in the contact bracket to solve my intermittent stall warning problem. See today's log for more.

Thanks one more time Tony!
 
Hard Wired

After the second time and busting a DAR inspection of the light kit I hard wired the lights and the stall horn with quick connects at the wing root. 30 hours later still no problems with the lights and stall horn. I highly recomend it especially if you fly at night.

Gary
 
Gary, could you point me to what you've used? Maybe a link to Avery, Cleveland or Aircraft Spruce?
 
Yes, Joe

The trailer lights plug will work just fine and is soooooo much more dependable than the 'flimsy lugs'. When you wire leave room to attach the plugs...and ten minutes after the DAR departs you can make a 30 minute change and life will be much better.

It's your airplane...

Jay Sluiter
N124CS...250+ hours...great lights!''
Albany, OR (S12)
 
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