What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Interior Lights

R

Randy

Well Known Member
I am about to mount some of those little "eyeball" interior lights from Van's in my 7A tipup. I ran wires to the side posts above the spar thinking that location would work OK, but I would like to hear how they worked out for others first. Do they light the panel OK from that position and angle?

The other position I am thinking about is up high on the canopy frame on each side of the handle. Routing the wires up there is kind of messy but I would think the lights would work well from there. Any feedback appreciated.

Randy C.
 
my lights

I am putting the eyeballs in the side panel to light up my panel/switches (no panel lights). I also placed two eyeballs on the roll bar. They are cross aimed so that the one behind the right seat will light up the left seat map area. The roll bar lights have individual dimmers to turn them off to full bright.
I am not flying yet, but have set in the dark hangar with the lights hooked up and they look fine for reading maps and approach plates.

Kent
 
Interior lights

I saw a plane at Oshkosh that had a small portable light from Wal-Mart. It was a little smaller than a pager and had both white and red LED's. I am going to get one and put it on my Tip up roll bar. The thing put out lots of light. Also if velcro'd in it would become portable. Simple, effective and NO wiring.

Darwin N. Barrie
Chandler AZ
 
For Flex lights....

I wanted some flexible gooseneck map lights, but didn't want to spend a fortune. So I went by our discount electronics store, and bought two LED lights on flexible stalks that plug into the USB port on a notebook computer. Cut off the USB plug, picked out the wires, soldered on a dropping resistor to match the things up to 12 volts, and mounted them under the cockpit longerons (one forward, one aft) with some -4 Adel clamps. Lots of people think I realy spent some money on them...I got them for nine bucks each! I have lots of other lighting (overkill), but these can light up the panel in a pinch.

Paul
 
Try Something Else

Randy,

I installed three total of the eyeball lights in the sideposts of a -7, and flown them at night. I would not recommend them. They act too much as a spot light, very poor floods, so you get hot spots. In particular, the one on the passenger side reflects off the panel into your eyes, so I aimed it at the trim/fuel selector, just so it contributed something. One aimed into your lap for chart reading would be o.k., there isn't enough range of movement to point into your lap from the side. They are white incandescent grain-of-wheat bulbs. Next airplane will have glareshield electro-luminescents for superior dispersion. You might consider, with your tip-up, putting a flood into the roll bar. Some sort of lens will be needed for dispersing the light. I happen to know the guy who makes the eyeball lights. He's been thinking about installing a lens, so even he's aware of the design's limitation.

John Siebold
 
Yes!

I kept the flex stalks - they are probably 10 inches long,and stow out of the way under the arm rests. Easy to poutn them at the panel or kneeboard for extra lighting!

Paul
 
Pictures and part numbers?

Paul,

Your solution sounds very good. Could you post some pictures and list the Radio Shack part numbers?

Thanks!
 
Pics...

Imagine a shoe box with every picture you took during your build process, unsorted...kinda like what my photo file storage is right now...but I found these!

stalklights1mh.jpg


And here you can see where the Pilot's is installed - look just above the EXPERIMENTAL placard, and you'll see it curved up under there.

cockpitright6wd.jpg


I bought these at a local electronics place that has lots of surplus and overstocks...not Radio Shack. But you can find these at just about any computer store.... I think the dropping resistors are about 700 Ohms - it's not too critical. I guess you could put in a pot and make it variable!

Paul
 
Electroluminescent

I purchased a 45 inch long ? inch red (more like hot pink) luminescent strip with inverter for 12 volts on ebay, place the self stick strip under the sun shield, lights all the instruments with very little shadowing, works with my dimmer perfectly, and when turned to its brightest setting I can read charts with it. I had also planned on using the eye ball type but found they tend to make everything reflect in the canopy. My only concern was the electrical noise the inverter might make but found it almost undetectibale. Best of all the whole thing cost me >>> $8.95 <<<
I looked at the luminescent strips in the aircraft catalog at $75 - $150 , but thought they were a little pricy. Also in most cases the inverter was bought separately for another +$20.

John
 
Wow

:cool: Paul?.that?s an absolutely awesome cockpit. The whole interior looks fantastic.

Donald Prater
RV-8 Empennage
N284DP (Reserved)
 
Thanks !

Thanks Don - it actually turned out better than I hoped. I am very particular about cockpit design (and admit that it is a very personal thing), because that is where I become a part of the airplane...

Oh, and I also give my full vote to the electroluminescent lighting mentioned above - I have a strip of the light green/blue under my glareshield as my primary panel light, and it is amazing!

Paul
 
USB sockets

I found some panel mount USB sockets on the web with cables, I wonder if they might be a good way to make these lights removable and easily replaceable?

Also Paul - who made your seats? They look great.

Pete
 
Why didn't I think of that!

What a great idea Pete! Put in the sockets, and plug the lights in wherever you want them. That way, you don't have to mess with the pre-fab'ed and potted wires/plugs in the end of the light stalks - just put your dropping resistor in the socket wiring instead.

My seats were done by D.J. at Cleveland (up in Iowa). I had some special embroidery done, and they were really easy to work with makign that happen. Everything fits perfectly, and the seats are very comfortable.

Paul
 
Another Lighting Option

I am still working on my lighting decision. Looking at the Affordable Panels web site I see Fabian is offering an Electo Lumenescent strip. It costs $40.00 for a 5 foot strip. There is a photo example on his site: http://www.affordablepanels.com/catalog_files/catalog2005.pdf

Since I have the same panel setup I will probably light my switches this way, IF.. I can use Vans dimmer kit to dim the light. Neither Fabian or Van's can tell me if the dimmer will work OK with this kind of lighting. Does anyone out there have experience with this?

I have the small dimmer kit that Van's has been selling for a long time. They make them in house but don't have much knowledge about it as the designer has passed on, (Bill Benedict I believe).

Thanks for all the great lighting ideas. I will use some of them in the rest of the cockpit I am sure.

randy C.
 
Randy said:
IF.. I can use Vans dimmer kit to dim the light. Neither Fabian or Van's can tell me if the dimmer will work OK with this kind of lighting. Does anyone out there have experience with this?

I have the small dimmer kit that Van's has been selling for a long time. They make them in house but don't have much knowledge about it as the designer has passed on, (Bill Benedict I believe).

Thanks for all the great lighting ideas. I will use some of them in the rest of the cockpit I am sure.

randy C.
Click to expand...

I have a blue/green electroluminescent strip from Steinair, about $90 IIRC. Hooked it up to the dimmer on my control vision exp bus annunciator panel (I think its just a regular dimmer pot) and it works like a treat, the strip works very well, and dims to the same brightness as the lights inside the Van's gauges. IMHO strip lighting is the way ahead, with a back up battery powered LED on your headset. I glued mine to the underside of the glareshield with clear RTV.

Pete
 
We routinely hook up the EL light strips we sell to the Van's Dimmers. That being said, although the Van's dimmers are ok, they are better ones available. We are going to stock the dimmers from Eric Jones at Perihilion pretty soon - those are some of my favorites, and if you want to spend a bit more money B&C / Nuckolls make some really nice ones as well.

Just a note, but you WILL want to dim the EL strips. When it's really dark outside and these thigns are on full bright, they are REALLY bright...which is good at some times, but other times it's nice to dime it down. Of course that's not universal and I can't compare other EL strips to mine, because as far as I know ours are 1" width, the others are 1/2" or smaller....along their with the inverters being almost 3 times larger - so I'm not sure how they compare in light output...could be more or less, but I just don't know. I know we tested the same inverter and light strip some time ago and settled on the ones we have because they seemed to be the best. I tried them all in my plane before we decided which ones to sell.

Anyway, no matter where you buy your EL stuff from, I can just about gaurantee you'll like it.

Along with EL lighting, I also have the swivel eyeballs in my RV6 installed semi-flush in the canopy deck rails on each side, but with the EL strip I rarely if ever turn on the little eyeballs.

Last but not least, there is a fellow who is going to manufature the LED flood lights similar to the ones Van's used to sell. Should be really nice and low current draw. They are probably a little while out but I don't want to say since it's not my ballgame. He's on this board so I'll let him give you the details....they should be worth the wait.

Just my 2 cents as usual!

Cheers,
Stein.
 
SteinAir said:
We routinely hook up the EL light strips we sell to the Van's Dimmers. That being said, although the Van's dimmers are ok, they are better ones available.

Just a note, but you WILL want to dim the EL strips. When it's really dark outside and these thigns are on full bright, they are REALLY bright...which is good at some times, but other times it's nice to dime it down.
Anyway, no matter where you buy your EL stuff from, I can just about gaurantee you'll like it

Along with EL lighting, I also have the swivel eyeballs in my RV6 installed semi-flush in the canopy deck rails on each side, but with the EL strip I rarely if ever turn on the little eyeballs.

Last but not least, there is a fellow who is going to manufature the LED flood lights similar to the ones Van's used to sell. Should be really nice and low current draw. They are probably a little while out but I don't want to say since it's not my ballgame. He's on this board so I'll let him give you the details....they should be worth the wait.

Stein.
Click to expand...

HI Stein,

I put the LC40 dimmer box in my 7. This is the 4 circuit unit that sells for about $109. I installed a 1" wide EL strip under the glare shield and it works perfectly in my dark hangar.
You are right on the dimming. This thing is bright!!! The dimmer works great although a couple of people said the dimmer may not work properly.

If I was to do it again, I'd put an EL rope light in the channel of the tip up roll bar for baggage area lighting. For the Slider guys you could put one in front or back of the roll bar.

I'm surprised more people don't use EL products, they are cheap, efficient, extremely light and easy to wire.

A search for EL lighting will give you about anything you could need. I was actually thinking that EL stuff could be used as position lights. May do some testing after I get this thing flying.

Darwin N. Barrie
Chandler AZ
 
panel Flood Lights

Hello,

Has anyone mounted a panel flood light in the rollbar of a slider? The light holder I have will come down from the roll bar about and inch. My question is will this be a distraction in the line of sight? Also, the mounting hole is 1/2". This would a 1/2" hole on one side and a slightly bigger one on the other side to allow access to the retaining nut. Will these holes significantly weaken the roll bar ?

 
You should sit in the cockpit, position the light temporarily, and turn it on. Make sure you don't get any glare off of the panel or instrument glass that would be distracting.

Can't answer about weakening the roll bar. You'll only need it if you land upside down. :) Maybe ask Vans about it.

Dave
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top