Flashing Lights?

Cristobal · Nov 25, 2015

I used an arduino pro mini - but it's an overkill for its purpose - It works great and really bright - it doesn't get hot or warm at all- when I have time I'll wire it up and take a pic for you.

Maddog · Nov 25, 2015

Cristobal said:
I used an arduino pro mini - but it's an overkill for its purpose - It works great and really bright - it doesn't get hot or warm at all- when I have time I'll wire it up and take a pic for you.

Sounds good- thanks!

Maddog · Nov 30, 2015

I'm still waiting for parts to build this LED flasher using the digispark board but in the meantime, I tried to modify the "blink" sketch. I'm trying to get the LED to give two quick flashes followed by a pause, repeat. Would somebody please look at the photo of the code I wrote and let me know if I got it right?
This is my first stab at writing code, so I'm shooting from the hip!

PdxSteve · Dec 1, 2015

I'd lower all the numbers. You're taking 2.5 seconds to flash 2x. I think that's a bit longer than you want. I'm thinking you'd want it to blink fast 2x and then a longer pause in between for a total of 1 second.

150 high
200 low
150 high
500 low

PdxSteve · Dec 1, 2015

When you get your arduino, you can just use the onboard led (pin 13 is default to trigger it) to test your code and tweak it before even touching the external LED's.

Maddog · Dec 1, 2015

PdxSteve said:
I'd lower all the numbers. You're taking 2.5 seconds to flash 2x. I think that's a bit longer than you want. I'm thinking you'd want it to blink fast 2x and then a longer pause in between for a total of 1 second.

150 high
200 low
150 high
500 low

Yes, your right- math isn't my strong suit!
I presume the rest is OK since you didn't comment on that?!
Thanks!

PdxSteve · Dec 1, 2015

Yep, looks good.

Maddog · Dec 1, 2015

PdxSteve said:
Yep, looks good.

Thanks!

PdxSteve · Dec 1, 2015

I played with the timings a bit after seeing it work. Here's what it would look like with the following settings:
void loop() {
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(100);
digitalWrite(led, LOW);
delay(150);
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(100);
digitalWrite(led, LOW);
delay(650);
}

I think it looks pretty good...maybe make the very last delay last a bit longer. Right now the entire cycle lasts 1 second (1000 milliseconds = 1 second)

Maddog · Dec 1, 2015

PdxSteve said:
I played with the timings a bit after seeing it work. Here's what it would look like with the following settings:
void loop() {
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(100);
digitalWrite(led, LOW);
delay(150);
digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
delay(100);
digitalWrite(led, LOW);
delay(650);
}

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I think it looks pretty good...maybe make the very last delay last a bit longer. Right now the entire cycle lasts 1 second (1000 milliseconds = 1 second)

Yep- that's it exactly! Thanks for working on that. I'll post up after I get my parts and, hopefully, get it working.

Acroduster · Dec 1, 2015

I'd reduce the 150 to 100 or less. If you look at real aircraft lights, the flash is a good bit quicker...

PdxSteve · Dec 1, 2015

The problem is you need to allow enough time for the LEDs to come up to full brightness. These aren't strobes. If you alter between off/on to quickly it won't have enough time to light up all the way and will be more dull.

BlackHawk · Dec 1, 2015

How about a dive beacon? http://www.amazon.com/diveX-Divemas...qid=1449018299&sr=8-16&keywords=safety+strobe

Maddog · Dec 1, 2015

BlackHawk said:
How about a dive beacon? http://www.amazon.com/diveX-Divemas...qid=1449018299&sr=8-16&keywords=safety+strobe

That's very interesting- wish I had know about it before!
I will definitely keep this in mind.

timzee · Dec 1, 2015

Killboy said:
I'm all for companies offering new products, but these seem too weak to add any visibility in daylight. You can see in the video they're not much brighter than the stock lights, and they don't show much footage of it flying in daylight.

Exactly! Given they only show a few seconds of daytime flight in the whole video that's a pretty good indicator that they're not very proud of how it operates in daylight.

For that matter, most ALL of these 3rd party manufacturers have demos of their units at night. Shoot-- at night one can see the stock lights just fine and there's no need for anything else! Pretty lame if you ask me.

Hopefully the more creative do-it-yourself types here will come up with better solutions.

Maddog · Dec 1, 2015

timzee said:
Exactly! Given they only show a few seconds of daytime flight in the whole video that's a pretty good indicator that they're not very proud of how it operates in daylight.

For that matter, most ALL of these 3rd party manufacturers have demos of their units at night. Shoot-- at night one can see the stock lights just fine and there's no need for anything else! Pretty lame if you ask me.

Hopefully the more creative do-it-yourself types here will come up with better solutions.

Totally agree!
If these 10W Led's work well in daytime, I'm going to look into attaching them to the plug in the bottom of Solo for power. It would be one unit, possibly encapsulated, with no exposed wires.

jump23 · Dec 13, 2015

Maddog said:
Thanks John. I've seen strips of LED's on eBay and at helipal.com but I don't know how visible they are during daylight.

I did find a white strobe for drones but it's $90.00 US.
DS-3--1 Side Wire Drone Strobe

I have two of the DS 3-1 Side Wire Drone Strobes. They are VERY bright. I haven't flown them in daylight yet, but I have flown, one of them, at night, 1200 feet away with an altitude of about 100 feet. The strobe was highly visible.
I will make a video soon.

Maddog · Dec 16, 2015

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 working. Stay tuned!