Combining my LED hobby with my RC airplane hobby!

I just thought you guys might get a kick out of this

What do you think of my night flying setup? As per FAA standards, I have red lights on the left, green on the right. I don't know if this is regulation or not but I put one white LED in the fuselage to make it sort of glow through the styrofoam, and another white LED running at higher current on the front underside, as a sort of a landing light, to light up the runway ahead and below.

Here we see the plane with the normal running lights on. As you can see, the light shines through the foam pretty good!
http://jerry.cleedo.com/nightcub1.jpg
http://jerry.cleedo.com/nightcub2.jpg

I like the view from the side, the white LED inside the fuse shines out through the foam, really lighting up the letters on the side:
http://jerry.cleedo.com/nightcub3.jpg

Now, if you thought that was bright, here come the big guns!
I have a switch on the Tx that will turn on the "landing light". This LED is running at about 500 mA. This is a Cree XR-E P4 bin.
http://jerry.cleedo.com/nightcub4.jpg

http://jerry.cleedo.com/nightcub5.jpg

In this shot I'm holding the plane about 5 feet off the ground so you can see how it lights up the ground below. I might put an optic on there but so far I kind of like the floody pattern for this purpose.
http://jerry.cleedo.com/nightcub6.jpg

It remains to be seen if this is going to be bright enough to be seen from a distance while flying, and to be able to stay oriented. I haven't flown at night before so I don't really know how much light you need. I would be really surprised though if this doesn't do it; it seems like plenty of light.

Pretty cool huh?



Oversized images replaced with links

Unforgiven

Very cool. :thumbsup: I've been wanting to put LEDs on my stunt kites for years but just never get around to it.

-LT

That looks great. i bet there will be UFO reports comming from your neighborhood soon!

Thanks! I took it outside to see if it looked bright enough. It does! I tried the landing light. Pointing the plane around is like shining around a flashlight! It's frickin awesome. I should post the first ever AIRPLANE beamshots on CPF The local airplane guys are NOT going to believe how much light thing thing puts out! I don't think they have even heard of Luxeon, much less Cree! I can't wait to bring this plane in for a landing approach, then flip on the switch, illuminating the landing strip below in a blaze of light! Another nice thing is, since this will be flying around, there will be wind constantly blowing over the LED, helping keep the LED cool so I can run at high current

Hellbore said:

Pretty cool huh?

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Totally cool.

I'll bet that is a blast to fly at night!! Very cool!

Very nice. Let us know what it's like to fly at night.

I'm hoping to test it tonight (Saturday night) at the local public RC airplane field. I'll try to get video

Hellbore said:

I'm hoping to test it tonight (Saturday night) at the local public RC airplane field. I'll try to get video

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What you're going to need is video of the faces of the guys that watch this landing the first time. :laughing:

-LT

Thats awesome!!! :goodjob:

Hellbore, nice! That'll be plenty enough light. My friend and I have been flying various electric planes at night...it's fun! I'm always surprised at how little light is required. We've flown with glowsticks taped to the wing, cheap $2 strings of LED Christmas lights, keychain lights taped on, and various other "hacked" apart lights. I think yours will be more than enough! Can't wait to hear what the other guys think. :laughing:

I second the prediction of UFOs being seen. No doubt they were UFOs, they were making turns our planes can't do. They have obviously been watching us for a long time, they even have the nav light locations correct.

smokinbasser said:

I second the prediction of UFOs being seen. No doubt they were UFOs, they were making turns our planes can't do. They have obviously been watching us for a long time, they even have the nav light locations correct.

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HAHA! That's awesome... Actually it's too bad I didn't put lights on my Typhoon, that plane is an aerobatic / 3D plane, made for doing extreme maneuvers.

I should do that plane next, only NOT use standard colors... Use crazy colors like UV LED's with fluorescent paint job, or amber and blue LED's, or something really crazy lookin so people will think it's a UFO, then fly it at night and do insane tricks

Totally cool Hellbore!!! I can't wait to see the video!

Post a video please!!!!!

edit.. never mind 2 posts later yousaid you would!

Hellbore said:

Thanks! I took it outside to see if it looked bright enough. It does! I tried the landing light. Pointing the plane around is like shining around a flashlight! It's frickin awesome. I should post the first ever AIRPLANE beamshots on CPF The local airplane guys are NOT going to believe how much light thing thing puts out! I don't think they have even heard of Luxeon, much less Cree! I can't wait to bring this plane in for a landing approach, then flip on the switch, illuminating the landing strip below in a blaze of light! Another nice thing is, since this will be flying around, there will be wind constantly blowing over the LED, helping keep the LED cool so I can run at high current

Click to expand...

Oh my, I can see lots of fun with this. Lots of UFO reports

Lunal_Tic said:

Very cool. :thumbsup: I've been wanting to put LEDs on my stunt kites for years but just never get around to it.

-LT

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Thanks for the idea

LOL... I am actually considering flying the plane tonight in a park by my friend's house, I'm pretty sure they haven't seen anything like this in that neighborhood, I wouldn't be surprised if someone did think it was a UFO

Got an alien mask? Maybe you could help them along a bit.

You could do lots of neat things...

Also, EL Wire might actually be really cool on a model plane.

You could make a pattern on the wings or even have some stiff steel wire and wrap EL sheel all over the place.


And some blinking Cree's would be cool too.