[HELI-MECH]

Hey guys, quick question, I'm putting lights in my cub, but I don't need any flashing lights (beacons or strobes) so I would like to wire them into the aileron servos for power with a y harness and not use the led light controller at all. I would have two landing lights and a position light on one wing and a position light on the other wing. I want to avoid having a controller in the fuselage and using extensions. Is the voltage the same or is it stepped down by the controller. I'm using a universal 8 led light kit from GT?? Cheers

[Cougar429]

If you hit the LED's with full battery power they will not last even a second. It is not only the voltage that will kill them, but the current flow. You can limit what each LED sees with a simple resistor or diode arrangement, but that is rather unsophisticated and inefficient.

What the controller does is to cut voltage and current, likely by pulsing the LED to allow full light output without overdriving them.

[HELI-MECH]

Awesome, thanks for the info, I should get two controllers, one for each wing... Not putting a tail light on this bird.

[Cougar429]

Even HobbyKing has inexpensive multi-light controllers that can drive a pair of LED's from each output. You can select if you want pulsing or solid lights depending on which output you plug them into. In many cases they will have the normal nav and beacon light setups already arranged. Only the units with switchable landing lights seem to be the hard one to find.

[HELI-MECH]

That sounds like the unit I have already, I was hoping to keep all the position and landing light wiring in the wing, less wing connections on wing removal.

[Cougar429]

If the wing is one piece then try and mount the controller on or within the center section. All it would then require is a servo extension to feed both power and landing light switching signals if applicable. Plugged into one of the receiver channels or a Y-connector if none available will give you all the power you need.

p.s. Thunderbolt RC sells some multi-plug arrangements and I just set one up for my Harvard wing. This way I only need to plug in one module when installing the wing to feed flaps, retracts, ailerons and landing lights. Much easier than trying to work with multiple numbers of even color coded servo leads.

If this is a bit confusing give me a PM with your Email addy and we can try and post some pics or longer descriptions.

[scaleguy]

Here is some usefull info on LEDs.

http://electronicsclub.info/leds.htm

[HELI-MECH]

Awesome info, thanks guys, might wire up some home made extensions and put controller in fuselage.