You get one of these with the full TKS installation, as the “ice light” which lights up the LH wing leading edge.
It is a crappy lamp which gets massively hot and puts out little light. But more to the point the fitting is of rubbish quality, worse than anything from the village chinese hardware shop. It is intermittent and a knock makes it go on and off.
I can’t find an LED replacement for this lamp. Could anyone suggest how to make one? Some of the CREE LEDs are really powerful. I don’t need much power, and I don’t want to build a custom PCB with a switching power supply… so it needs to have a 28V input.
The above pic is actually a blown 12V version
What sort of fitting does the bulb sit in? Is there a reflector besides the bulb?
If there is a reasonable reflector, it appears to use a standard automotive fitting for the bulb base, and you could throw an LED replacement bulb in:
You can also find directed 28v bulbs with a 40w equivalent output, but those are usually spots directed along the axis of the bayonet, rather than perpendicular to it.
If you wanted to totally skip the existing bayonet fitting that would obviously open more solutions up.
However, I can’t offhand find a drop in replacement for that specific p/n.
Those are spectacular finds, redrover – many thanks. The key is the BA15S socket, but the Aeroled one even says it replaces the 7079 which is what mine is. I will try to buy one, possibly via the USA if they don’t ship outside.
https://www.pilotlights.net/led-bulb-ra7512-ra-7512-w1290-nav-bulb-replacement-28w-12v-24v-bay15s
what about this for you Peter
That is another good find but I suspect (looking at the LEDs) the power would be too low.
So I will try to get the Aeroleds one mentioned above
The other good thing about an LED lamp is that the present one runs really hot and the whole lamp assembly heats up to something mad. It draws 1.5A at 28V, so this is not surprising.
I’ll probably do the same on mine – this ice-lights are terrible.
The above lamp, @AdamFrisch, is $135 plus shipping. Is anyone interested in buying these so we can buy several and share it out with paypal?
In particular, as is common, the firm won’t ship outside the US except by a courier (they are not aware the US has a postal service ) which is another $200 or so, so it would be great to find someone in the US who would put one in a cheap ($10) airmail package.
Is there any interest in getting some of these?
No interest so I am buying a couple so will have a spare, possibly for sale. Alphabeam, unusually for a US firm, will ship by airmail, which saves a load on the usual $200 cost.