I started my LED nav lights last night. The first thing I did was plug 'em in to a battery, and lets me tells ya...these things are BLINDINGLY BRIGHT!!! The pic doesn't show how bright they are, but I was seeing the pattern for a good 15 minutes after I shut them off.
These were designed for the older style -7 wingtips, so I have some extra area to cover with aluminum, so I started working on that first.
I hope to have both of these ready to install by the end of the weekend. I'm going to hold of mounting them until I have the wingtip fitting work done to save from damaging them or the lenses.
cjensen wrote:I started my LED nav lights last night. The first thing I did was plug 'em in to a battery, and lets me tells ya...these things are BLINDINGLY BRIGHT!!! The pic doesn't show how bright they are, but I was seeing the pattern for a good 15 minutes after I shut them off.
Looks good Chad, but please, let's include protecting our eyes when we talk about safety. I'd suggest not looking at "blindingly bright" lights! Those red LEDs in particular are of a wavelength that can permanently damage your vision!
I work some with lasers so maybe I tend to err on the side of caution, but we manufacture an industrial gadget that uses a single bright red LED, and we screen them for intensity, rejecting those over a certain level due to eye safety concerns.
Those sure are a neat solution to the burnt out nav light issue. It seems every 4th or 5th time I rented a plane for use at night one of the nav lights was out. One of the landing or taxi lights always seemed to crap out during a night flight, but that's another issue, a little harder to solve with LED's at this point, but not too far off before it's available at a reasonable price.
I'm going to go all LED for my lighting. Has anyone stumbled across a good rear/white LED light arrangement? I saw a few bulb replacement LED's that looked like they may work. Wondering if anyone else has seen anything?
I'm hoping that LED headlights aren't too far off. I know some research and testing is being done.
Scott VanArtsdalen
Token Heretic
Nirvana Rodeo / Dudek Universal
S-6ES N612SV - GONE but not forgotten
RV-4 N311SV - SOLD
Chad: Keep us up to date each day, I'd like to make this one of the featured items in next week's Hotline. I'm beginning to wish I hadn't spent all the $$$ on the Whelen system.
svanarts wrote:I'm going to go all LED for my lighting. Has anyone stumbled across a good rear/white LED light arrangement? I saw a few bulb replacement LED's that looked like they may work. Wondering if anyone else has seen anything?
I'm hoping that LED headlights aren't too far off. I know some research and testing is being done.
Scott,
Thor sells the white LED with strobe package you are asking about!
CJ
