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Baggage Light Control?

CharlieWaffles

CharlieWaffles

Well Known Member
For those of you that put a light in the baggage area, do you have a switch back there to control it? I'm trying to decide if it's handy to be able to walk up to the plane, open the baggage door and turn the light on. I can see issues with forgetting it's on and draining the battery as well as it accidently getting switched on during flight.

The other option is to control it from the front panel area, and that would take opening the main doors, and turning on the light. But whether it's connected to the master switch is another issue.

Just wondering what others have thought about here.
 
Yep....

LED's on a battery. The switch is a toggle on the crossbar support for the rear seat backs. The LED lights are mounted there too and shine into the baggage compartment.

If I leave it on accidentally, it's no big deal. But with LED's it should give you power from annual to annual, so just replace the battery during your condition inspection.

Phil
 
baggage light

Ever consider one of those small portable lights that operate with a battery. That would solve the problem and worry about leaving a switch on. So what if you kill a couple AA batteries.
 
So local battery, not ships battery? Which LEDs did you use? I assume there has to be something that fit those lightening holes (ha - a purpose and a pun!)
 
Ever consider one of those small portable lights that operate with a battery. That would solve the problem and worry about leaving a switch on. So what if you kill a couple AA batteries.
Click to expand...

You mean other than a flashlight?
 
Door closure switch

You could use a microswitch to detect baggage door closure. If the door is open, the light is on. If the door is closed, the light is off. Nothing to forget. Just like the typical trunk of a car.

Or if you need greater control, you could also add a 3-position toggle switch for on/off/open, where "open" behaves as I described above, and "on" and "off" are unconditional on and off. Just like the typical dome light of a car.
 
That's a good idea. I had thought about doing a door sensor switch, but rather than wiring it to the EFIS, I could just have a light connected.

Anyone ever mount a sensor like this to the baggage door and have something to show?
 
CharlieWaffles said:
That's a good idea. I had thought about doing a door sensor switch, but rather than wiring it to the EFIS, I could just have a light connected.
Click to expand...

Yep, double benefit there. Personally, I'd use the door closure switch both for the baggage light and a "door open" warning annunciator in the cockpit (or a virtual warning annunciator via the EFIS).
 
I went with a 6-led light like this one with a switch on the baggage wall.

I was originally going to do a magnetic reed switch so the light would come on with door opening, but I thought to myself how rare it would be that I would need the baggage area light on so I decided it would be better to not have it coming on all the time if I left the baggage door open during the day. I put the switch just inside and above the baggage door on the baggage wall. I think if you had it come on with the door opening you would want a way to turn it off manually, too.
 
I thought this was an interesting application, so I did some searching around to see if anyone sells a product that does exactly what you'd need to add a time delay to a a set of RV baggage lights. Several cups of coffee later, I found plenty of expensive and/or heavy automotive dome light controller products, but not many that are both affordable and lightweight enough for an aircraft application. But these two look like possible contenders:

1. PAC TR7 (link to datasheet) (link to Amazon to purchase) This one is cheap and looks like it would do the job, but I couldn't find any information about how much current it draws when its outputs are off. But it's so inexpensive that you might be able to just get one to experiment with.

2. Wolstentech TDR (link to information) A little more expensive but it does quote a standby current, which is 3 mA. That would still drain your battery eventually, even with the lamps off, but it would take a pretty long time to do it.

Of course if somebody was handy with electronics they could probably put together a PCB to accomplish the same task, maybe even better-suited for our airplane applications, but it would likely not cost any less than what either of these two items sells for.

Now I kind of wish I had a baggage door in my airplane so I could give this a try. :)

mcb
 
I'm not up on my physical switch terms (SPDT, DPDT, etc..) But I imagine there is a switch configuration that would accomplish this. You could wire the door sensor the EFIS and a physical switch. The switch would have two positions - On and OFF.

Position On would force the light on when the door sensor was tripped.
Position Off would prevent the light from coming on when the door was opened.
 
I used four of the lights that Phil referenced hooked up to a switch on the left side of the panel so that they can be turned on and off outside the plane.

Bob
 
Baggage Light

We mounted a guarded switch just in front of the baggage bulkhead. It's on the right side when you poke your head into the baggage area. It is powered by the hot battery bus. We seldom use it while loading or unloading. Its primary use is when working on components such as the battery or servos behind the bulkhead.
 
All of my interior lights are on a toggle switch and four of the cheap Van's dimmers. To turn on the bag compartment lights, I flip on the switch and crank up the dimmer. I have two of the cheap 4 LED dome lights Van's sells. They work great back there.

The toggle and the dimmer are on the panel. At shutdown all toggles on my panel get switched down so the risk of leaving them on is not great for me.
 
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I got lucky. I had some small LED lights I had sitting around I was initially going to use as wing inspection lights but they weren't bright enough. Turns out they are an EXACT fit for the lightening holes in baggage cross member area! Batch drill the screw holes, add a few nutplates and whammo! I added one on both sides and then added a simple switch on the cross member as well so I can open the baggage door and Turn it on and off as needed.

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I have two 24" LED strips bonded to baggage area cabin top running fore-aft. I have a toggle switch up high just above corrugated bulkhead within easy reach of the door opening. They are powered from my aux pc680 battery always hot fuse block in the back. The toggle can also be reached by passengers and is high enough to be out of the way of a normal baggage load(Osh load...not sure). I would not have it any other way. Same with cabin lights except they are on panel mounted dimmers.

If you plan on taking family trips with full baggage...lights mounted on crossbrace will be blocked and you will need a flashlight to start with.
 
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