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HID conversion kit $25-35

Just ordered one of these. Since it is totally solid state, maybe it will work. It also has a few different flash speeds to pick from.

IMG_ETHFSS-SP.jpg
 
Dean_aeroleds said:
Each LED in the Sunspot 46 draws 8Amps at 32Watts of power per LED... flashlights use tiny 1W or 3W LEDs....
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your webpage says the
SunSpot 36HX puts out:
Power: 45 Watts
Voltage: 9-36 VDC
Lumens: 3,600

now i might just be a dumb country boy, but it looks like there are 16 LEDs in each sunspot. Thats about 225 lumen per led. I can find several 200-250 lumen flashlights for $100 or less, and for a little more money several flashlight with 800 lumens. i suppose the lumen measurement is different from a flashlight to a landing light? :rolleyes:
 
Promising

Well I warmed up the HID's for a few minutes. ( My God are they are bright!)
Flipped the switch on the flasher and they worked perfect.............:D
for about 15 seconds. They they went crazy (uneven flashes, one light out for a few seconds etc.) then they they worked fine for a few seconds they back to a crazy pattern. Very unreliable to say the least but promising. With the right flasher I think theses thing can wigwag. Can't wait to find out how Brian makes out with the flasher he ordered.
Another little test I tried was energizing a HID and a Quartz next to each other to see which reflector got hotter. Kind of hard to do with a Laser while the lights were on to get a steady temperature read although the HID appeared to run cooler.
Waited a few minutes after the bulbs were turned off and the Quartz reflector face was still in the 170 range while the HID was at 145.
Just thinking of my clear plastic leading edge lens.:eek:
 
Tom,

I bet your flasher produced those crazy flashes. Some of them are programmed to do all sorts of gyrations. For HID use in airplanes, we just want a basic wig-wag.

The flasher I ordered has 7 patterns to chose from. I looked here and found video's of each one. I suspect that I will want to use the RoadRunner mode.

I found this flasher as a result of this thread on a different forum (last post). Looks like this guy has had great results with it. He also posted a video of how it looks on his plane.

I contacted the maker of this flasher and they confirmed that it is totally solid state. They also confirmed that it works regardless of the load. In other words it just switches power on and off to the leads regardless of what load is connected to it so it should not care that it has HID ballast connected. Last night I used a switch to simulate what it will be doing to my HID's and they look like they will work fine together. The reason my NAPA alternating relay does not work is because it is load dependant. It is looking for a minimum load/low voltage drop across the load to work and the HID ballast does not fit its requirements. The NAPA relay contacts are also not protected so they will arc and burn out quickly. Wig-Wagging the HID's may reduce the bulb life by 20% but who cares? So what if we only get 2000hrs out of these $10 bulbs?
 
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Does any one know if these inexpensive HID are available in the MR16 type light? The cheapest I have found is around $200 and wondering if the light portion of it is expensive or the blast made different then these cheaper ones?

thoughts?

Regards
 
Right on the money

Brantel said:
Tom,

I bet your flasher produced those crazy flashes.
Brian after reading your last post I went back and rewired the HID to a single S/P switch and then warmed it up. Manually flashing the light using the switch worked fine. Looking forward to your report on the "Brantel Flasher" to go along with my "DonPro" lights.
Isn't this site great?:D
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If you can find a MR16 reflector that would accept one of the common HID retrofit lamps, it would be easy...

Bavafa said:
Does any one know if these inexpensive HID are available in the MR16 type light? The cheapest I have found is around $200 and wondering if the light portion of it is expensive or the blast made different then these cheaper ones?

thoughts?

Regards
Click to expand...
 
Danny7 said:
your webpage says the
SunSpot 36HX puts out:
Power: 45 Watts
Voltage: 9-36 VDC
Lumens: 3,600

now i might just be a dumb country boy, but it looks like there are 16 LEDs in each sunspot. Thats about 225 lumen per led. I can find several 200-250 lumen flashlights for $100 or less, and for a little more money several flashlight with 800 lumens. i suppose the lumen measurement is different from a flashlight to a landing light? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The Sunspot 46 and Sunspot 36 are different lights.

So you are saying that you don't see the difference between the Sunspot 36 that is designed to run on aircraft power ranging from 9VDC to 36VDC (14V or 28V electrical systems), is designed to pass all of the DO-160 electrical and environmental requirements for aircraft, and has an integrated wig-wag pulse controller, and a bunch of battery powered LED flashlights?

Please note that this light is also designed to fit in a PAR36 bulb mount as a replacement for aircraft lights such as the GE4509.

I'm not sure where to start...

Dean Wilkinson
CTO, AeroLEDs LLC
 
i was confused between the 36x and the 46, around your second post you were mentioning the 36HX and that is what stuck in my mind, its the dumb country boy thing...

anyhow, you mentioned flashlights use 1 or 3w LEDS. I know of several flashlights that use this: SST-90-W
Features
* High Output ? 1000 lumens (6500K at high efficiency) and up to 2250 lumens (6500K at high output)
so you know, i don't know how to figure out how many watts this one uses, and its the most extreme i could find on short order, the actual flashlight that i was thinking of uses the same led but its rated at 800lumen for run time i think

oops, figured it out, its called a 30W LED. In a flashlight. There, i'm not Below Average Intelligence Quotient.

my question before, probably poorly worded or asking trade secrets, was simply: what LEDs are used in the 36HX or 46?

i can find a bunch of specs on flashlight LEDs (higher quality and output than the 1-3w you mention) i just wanted to compare. You don't want to say, thats fine, just don't think im thinking of a led flashlight you get for free at HF.
 
Do you ever make it over to the Boise/Nampa Idaho area from Oregon? If so, let me know and I'll show you are products in person so you can see what goes into making them. Or, if you make it to Oshkosh, stop by our booth and I can show you there. Flashlights, even ones with higher power LEDs in them, are not purpose built for use as aircraft landing lights. That is what I am trying to tell you.
 
Bavafa said:
Does any one know if these inexpensive HID are available in the MR16 type light? The cheapest I have found is around $200 and wondering if the light portion of it is expensive or the blast made different then these cheaper ones?

thoughts?

Regards
Click to expand...

I got a set of these reflectors and with about 30 minutes of lathe work last night made them work quite nicely with a set of H3 HID bulbs purchased on ebay.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/52-8mm...ith-copper-base-for-ssc-p7-led-emitters-13803

The problem, and this is a general problem with HID conversions, is the bulbs are long and the light-producing center is in the wrong place to be at the correct focal point for a narrow beam. So for right now I'm going to mount them and go with what I have but they are a really wide flood beam. All I need to do to fix this is turn a new brass piece to set the bulb in the right position.
 
rocketbob said:
I got a set of these reflectors and with about 30 minutes of lathe work last night made them work quite nicely with a set of H3 HID bulbs purchased on ebay.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/52-8mm...ith-copper-base-for-ssc-p7-led-emitters-13803

The problem, and this is a general problem with HID conversions, is the bulbs are long and the light-producing center is in the wrong place to be at the correct focal point for a narrow beam. So for right now I'm going to mount them and go with what I have but they are a really wide flood beam. All I need to do to fix this is turn a new brass piece to set the bulb in the right position.
Click to expand...

You're probably right about bulb length, but don't forget that an MR16 reflector can have any focus angle between around 10 & 40 degrees; I don't see any angle specified in your link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multifaceted_reflector

Charlie
 
Where to order

Brian, where did you order your "Soundoff Signal" flasher?. I went to the website and it doesn't look like you can order direct.
 
I used the single three position switch from Bob Knuckles inexpensive wig-wag circuit but it is wired different of course with this flasher.

Off/ON/Wig-Wag

With the flasher I used, you could just about use any of the common switch setups for it.
 
Brantel said:
I used the single three position switch from Bob Knuckles inexpensive wig-wag circuit but it is wired different of course with this flasher.

Off/ON/Wig-Wag

With the flasher I used, you could just about use any of the common switch setups for it.
Click to expand...

Awesome, I'm thinking about redoing our switch panel and looks like the first thing will be to buy a 3 pos switch.. :)
 
Well, I picked up an HID setup with the intentions of using the current housing setup that is in our plane and the more I looked at it, the more I thought about changing.. However, I had already purchased the HID's with an H3 bulb, so I was somewhat committed to that..

Last night while in the aviation department at Wal-Mart I spotted some driving lights that had H3 bulbs.. $18.97.. Hmmm...

I figured I'd take them home, pull them out of the box and see what I could do with them..

I haven't been able to do much as I'm studying for a checkride I've got later this month, but I did find enough time to rough out my idea for mounting them..

These are the lights I found..

DSC_0423.jpg


.. and this is what you find if you start taking it apart.. I was looking for the simplest way of mounting them and kept removing parts until I got this far.

DSC_0425.jpg


DSC_0428.jpg


Cut out a quick and dirty mount from the template I made from our current setup.. I like the look..

DSC_0430.jpg


If you look on the edges of the lights, there are bent tabs that the lights will mount to the plastic housing with. I thought I'd see if I could bend these tabs out to be able to use them as a mounting surface..

I'm thinking about just riveting two brackets onto the mounting plate and calling it a day.. To service, the whole unit just pops out and you have direct access to the bulbs.

Obviously this is just a cardboard cutout to see if "what was in my head made sense."

DSC_0432.jpg


Just thought I'd see what the wiser than me guys thought..

Anyone have any comments?
 
All I can say is that Don & Brantel owe me nearly $300 for starting this HID thread and got me into changing my perfectly working three-candle-light-power halogen which was bright enough just to see that they are turned On. I have been working on installing a new set of fancy HID projector light which should be done soon and ever so excited to see the difference.
As I tell my wife its only money, none of it is allowed to be taken with us to the grave.
 
Shielded wire?

I'm installing the setup, but just wondering should I run shielded cable through the wing? Also should I ground at the wing rib
 
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