nice, didnt know about these, hopefully wont affect battery time lol... when i fly at night ive been attaching a 100W led bar and ive been using it as flash on night videos.
Solo LED Head Light and Tail Light
- Thread starter Chuck
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Seems like folks are wanting one of two things from their aftermarket light:
1 - a very bright, red-white directionally assistive beacon.
2 - a bright as all get out headlight. Or spotlight. Or whatever!
I just finished scrounging up parts for my own stab at this little endeavor. Hopefully results and pics are coming your way soon (film at 11!). I'm away from home right now so can't post a pic, but a description should work ok.
Envision a little 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 inch rectangular street sign. You know those yaller fog lights on off-road cars and such? Shaped kinda like a little yard-sale sign? Well, that's about right - the lens is almost exactly the shape of a playing card but smaller, and... umm...
You know saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"? Hell's Bells, they ain't no way my words is makin any sense at all! Descriptive? Hah! Even I'm confused about the bloody thing now and I'm making it!
Ok. My "Directionally Universal Multiangle Beacon" - heretoafter referred to as DUMB - works as follows:
The LED itself is from an absolutely criminally bright bike light, quite a bit brighter than a car headlight and that costs a staggering $199. The light, not just the bulb. Luckily my son owns the bike shop so there were four of these sitting around in various states of high impact destruction. Who cares, right, long as I can pry out that LED (and as long as it's, ahem, free)!
I've crafted and put small rectangular Fresnel lenses both in front and behind the LED. Each lens is composed of two separate halves, front and back :
A clear piece, and:
A clear red piece.
Ok now, so when the thing is on, and Solo in flight, if it is coming towards or facing you it's a very bright white. If going away, a very bright red. You will be able to set it to blink or not, pick yer poison.
Aaargh! I can't stand it - I gotta get a picture! Such a simple little gadget and I just can't describe it right! I'd rather have a nice clear photo of my DUMB than one of Carrie Underwood steppin' out of the sauna without any - well, maybe not, I think I'd keep that one, thank you very much - but I reckon you get my drift.
Ignore everything written above. I'm starting over. I'm, shall we say, dumbing things down.
Hey guys! I'm making a new light for Solo. It's gonna be small, you can mount it either on top or bottom with foam sticky tape, it's hella bright, blinks if you want it to, and looks white coming atcha and red leavin' ya.
I'll try getting a pic for posting tonight, either in flight or just sittin' there bein DUMB.
1 - a very bright, red-white directionally assistive beacon.
2 - a bright as all get out headlight. Or spotlight. Or whatever!
I just finished scrounging up parts for my own stab at this little endeavor. Hopefully results and pics are coming your way soon (film at 11!). I'm away from home right now so can't post a pic, but a description should work ok.
Envision a little 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 inch rectangular street sign. You know those yaller fog lights on off-road cars and such? Shaped kinda like a little yard-sale sign? Well, that's about right - the lens is almost exactly the shape of a playing card but smaller, and... umm...
You know saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"? Hell's Bells, they ain't no way my words is makin any sense at all! Descriptive? Hah! Even I'm confused about the bloody thing now and I'm making it!
Ok. My "Directionally Universal Multiangle Beacon" - heretoafter referred to as DUMB - works as follows:
The LED itself is from an absolutely criminally bright bike light, quite a bit brighter than a car headlight and that costs a staggering $199. The light, not just the bulb. Luckily my son owns the bike shop so there were four of these sitting around in various states of high impact destruction. Who cares, right, long as I can pry out that LED (and as long as it's, ahem, free)!
I've crafted and put small rectangular Fresnel lenses both in front and behind the LED. Each lens is composed of two separate halves, front and back :
A clear piece, and:
A clear red piece.
Ok now, so when the thing is on, and Solo in flight, if it is coming towards or facing you it's a very bright white. If going away, a very bright red. You will be able to set it to blink or not, pick yer poison.
Aaargh! I can't stand it - I gotta get a picture! Such a simple little gadget and I just can't describe it right! I'd rather have a nice clear photo of my DUMB than one of Carrie Underwood steppin' out of the sauna without any - well, maybe not, I think I'd keep that one, thank you very much - but I reckon you get my drift.
Ignore everything written above. I'm starting over. I'm, shall we say, dumbing things down.
Hey guys! I'm making a new light for Solo. It's gonna be small, you can mount it either on top or bottom with foam sticky tape, it's hella bright, blinks if you want it to, and looks white coming atcha and red leavin' ya.
I'll try getting a pic for posting tonight, either in flight or just sittin' there bein DUMB.
I'm working of a variant of this programmable LED flasher that will plug into the power port on the bottom of Solo.
Already have a prototype mounted on Solo for testing and the LED's are visible at 200' altitude, 500 ' away in bright sun.
Pics & video to follow as soon as I can get my video camera to focus on Solo far away.
Someone posted this in the "Flashing lights" thread so I decided to modify it. Stay tuned!
Already have a prototype mounted on Solo for testing and the LED's are visible at 200' altitude, 500 ' away in bright sun.
Pics & video to follow as soon as I can get my video camera to focus on Solo far away.
Someone posted this in the "Flashing lights" thread so I decided to modify it. Stay tuned!
Maddog,
I don't see any pics in post 45, just 5 dead links. At least that's what I'm getting on my iPad.
Jerry
Loud and clear. Looks like a lot of work, Man. Could you cave them stay lit as well as having them as beacon lights? I tried some automotive LEDs and they were bright as the sun but they ran on 12v and took less than 10 minutes to run the two small 12v batteries down.
Jerry
These LED's are 10 watts and use about .86 amp at 12 volts. I think they would shorten your flight time if you left them on continuously.
Also they get HOT if left on for long. I did a test and let them flash for 15 minutes. (A typical flight). I used a laser temp. gun and they reached 125 deg.F. Not hot enough to damage anything but that surprised me as they are only on for 1/10th sec when they flash.
Leave them on continuously and they will quickly hit 180 deg.F.
Also they get HOT if left on for long. I did a test and let them flash for 15 minutes. (A typical flight). I used a laser temp. gun and they reached 125 deg.F. Not hot enough to damage anything but that surprised me as they are only on for 1/10th sec when they flash.
Leave them on continuously and they will quickly hit 180 deg.F.
Regardless to what you have been told, the aluminum backing plate is not the heat sink for your LEDs. It does conduct heat, but is the LED's interface to an actual heat sink and for mounting. Whatever it contacts will end up being the heat sink, plastic shell or otherwise.
At a minimum, standoff the LED by about 5mm from the plastic shell. Small heat sinks are available if you were to run continuous and would be effective since there would be a constant flow of air.
Thanks Rich- I wasn't aware of that. I'll see if I can find the correct heatsink.
As an example only, there are VGA heat sink sets available that have a thermal adhesive. Peel and stick convenience and will work better than nothing.
Again just an example for both product and vendor...Aluminum HS can be had offering the same.abilities.
Enzotech Forged Copper VGA Memory Heatsink Multipack - ATI & nVidia - 14mm x 14mm x 14mm (BMR-C1) - FrozenCPU.com
Again just an example for both product and vendor...Aluminum HS can be had offering the same.abilities.
Enzotech Forged Copper VGA Memory Heatsink Multipack - ATI & nVidia - 14mm x 14mm x 14mm (BMR-C1) - FrozenCPU.com
My Polar Pro LEDs didn't work and I was sent a new pair - they also didn't work so I tore down the Solo and found that the soldering looked a bit rough.
View media item 222Ideas on testing?
View media item 222Ideas on testing?
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View media item 169View media item 168
I've really enjoyed mine; put them on a couple of months ago.
They do come loose after a while; I've twice had it land with one or the other light hanging. I used black gaff tape to secure the wiring, and then used a dollop of hotglue to keep them in place. They are very visible in morning or evening hours, but flying midday in sunlight, they're no better than the stock LEDs.
For the price, they are well worth the cost.
I spoke with PolarPro about why they don't have a diffuser; their point was that the brighest light was the most desirable feature and a diffuser would likely cause the light to blend into the sky.
I've really enjoyed mine; put them on a couple of months ago.
They do come loose after a while; I've twice had it land with one or the other light hanging. I used black gaff tape to secure the wiring, and then used a dollop of hotglue to keep them in place. They are very visible in morning or evening hours, but flying midday in sunlight, they're no better than the stock LEDs.
For the price, they are well worth the cost.
I spoke with PolarPro about why they don't have a diffuser; their point was that the brighest light was the most desirable feature and a diffuser would likely cause the light to blend into the sky.
Tore mine down too, found 4 leads that had broken off (due to my wi-fi card mod) so re-soldered and they work fine now.
POLAR PRO LEDS no visible wires. Screwed both ends so wont fall in-flight. The SOLO with red LED (no white LED in front) with movable legs slider will fit in the 3DR backpack. The SOLO with white and red LEDs need some foam MOD on the gimbal end of the back pack to fit.
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Very cool indeed. Side note; you do know that without a 333 and a 7711 specifying approval, drones are prohibited from night flight, right?
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