Light woes

tmbg · Post by **tmbg** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:42 am

I'm at a point now where I need to make some decisions on my lighting.

I want LED position lights, and either LED or HID landing lights. I really wanted something like the creativair setup, but they seem to be long gone. Friends are urging me to just go buy a set of aveos, but they're SO FREAKIN EXPENSIVE!

If I were to get aveos, should I get the three way ones and put them on the outside of the tip? Or should I do two ways and put them in the cutout, and do a tail posistrobe? The latter would cost a fair bit more, and I feel like they'd look goofy inside the tip.

Does anyone have any guidance about HIDs, from what lights to get to how to mount them?

I'd love to see pictures of peoples' setups! Brantel, weren't you diving pretty deep into this lighting stuff a few years ago?

Brantel · Post by **Brantel** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:05 pm

I have homemade Nav lights, police car strobes, led tail and strobe and just dumped my 35w HID's for two SunSpot 36LX's.

The homemade Nav lights are copies of Jeff Bordelons design but with a good CC regulator/filter.

The Strobes are Strobes N' More Pro System-4 kit. Work great and are cheap and so far the tubes are going strong.

Happy as a clam with the lights!
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tmbg · Post by **tmbg** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:18 pm

What made you decide to dump the hids?

Brantel · Post by **Brantel** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 7:43 pm

Had one of the so called digital ballast cooked itself inside my wing.

I had the cheap import HID units. Not sure how to tell the quality difference between these units on the market. Some that are being sold at high prices are the same cheap crap being imported and sold for $35 a pair.

I did not like the idea of one of these catching fire inside my wing so I got rid of em.

tmbg · Post by **tmbg** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 10:12 am

At this point I'm leaning toward buying the cheap Aveos, the Powerburst set, which is 2 pc, 3 way kit that I can put on the outside of the wingtips and no tail light.

Aveo officially won't recommend it for anything but LSA/ultralight, but an RV is smaller than a lot of LSAs!

Bob Barrett · Post by **Bob Barrett** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 7:41 pm

I pout the the three way standard Whelan's on my wing tips and they worked great. LED's werent available then. Go with the two piece three way wing tips

tmbg · Post by **tmbg** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 9:46 am

I ended up getting the Aveo powerbursts and mounting them on the outside of the wingtip.

I made a faired platform for them to mount to on the tip:

I was hoping that with the white position light on the back side of these lights, I wouldn't need a tail light, but I think the outward sweep of the wingtip means I really ought to have a tail light. I went ahead and bought the posistrobe XP to go with them, but I haven't installed it yet.

tmbg · Post by **tmbg** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 9:52 am

Now I'm working on landing lights. I've pretty much decided on LEDs. I'm using flashlight modder parts from dx.com.

Right now I have these two SST P7 leds in reflectors. They're 900lumen apiece. These two together have about the same pattern as the wingtip lights on my cherokee, but they're considerably brighter and whiter.

I have some more LEDs coming from DX, some Cree XM-Ls, which are rated the same lumen but folks say they are perceived brighter than the P7s. I ordered different reflectors too, but they're all backorder. Right now reflectors are my sticking spot... I want something under 2", that focuses a fairly tight beam. Some 6 degree reflectors for landing lights would be ideal, and wider for taxi lights.

I plan to put two in each wingtip... one aimed for landing, one for taxi. I did some work on the tip cutouts last weekend: