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Led lighting (merged)

interesting. I wonder why did you choose Orions and not the Aveo Galactica? I’ve been comparing them with Whelen’s orion.
Aveo have more or less the same price and seems to be much brighter. I also like their pulsating strobe over whelen’s on/off strobe.

also a note on cs-stan.
If the airplane did not come with wing tip strobes in the type data sheet, there is a wingspan limitation in CS-STAN. If your wing span is longer than that limit ( ican’t remember what it was), the wing tip led strobes can only be installed as an alternation (minor?)

Last Edited by By9468840 at 19 Jan 08:09
Switzerland

Aveo Galactica. Interesting! Never knew they existed.

However they dont look like they replace the old Whelen units dimensionally.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter, and believe it or not, Aveo is headquartered at Příbram :-)

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

Had anyone actually installed the 100 Watt PAR36 Aeroled?

I have two of them installed last month. Too soon to give you feedback, except that they look fabulous

EBST, Belgium

Peter wrote:

Can you describe the exact procedure? Probably, lots of people would find it useful. It would be great to see a specimen document. The average Part M shop knows exactly nothing about CS-STAN.

Unfortunately, I can’t comment on EASA regs. But per FAA regs and the AeroLED web site, the AeroLED 45W LED LX/HX Series PAR36 light is a drop-in replacement for the OEM 100W GE 4509 that is used in so many GA SEP.

I have the LX/HX series landing/taxi lights in my aircraft and I’m very happy with them. It really is just plug-and-play that can be done by the pilot owner, with simply an owner-signed maintenance log entry. That applies only to the basic model though. The one with pulse requires additional wiring that needs more paperwork. I did mine in conjunction with wingtip mods that required an STC and this formed part of that. Perhaps it can be done alone just for taxi/land lights as a minor alteration though (C-STAN?).

I don’t which aircraft have the 250W GE PAR36 models, but the AeroLED web site indicates that their 100W PAR36 14V & 28V models, such as the 4596, are also drop-in replacement for the equivalent GE OEM light. The same caveat would apply here too with regard to pulse and wiring changes in general.

Last Edited by chflyer at 19 Jan 12:36
LSZK, Switzerland

The TB20GT upgrade to the WHELEN OR6002x LED wingtip lights went seamlessly.

Firstly it was established the sync wire did not have to be installed, which saved a lot of work. A suitable wire was already in place. This should be equally the case on the older TB aircraft, so long as they have the “3 in one” wingtip lamp (the Whelen A600). The resulting wiring was trivial

and was implemented with a T-section which was prewired at home

This is located where the strobe inverter was and interconnects the two cables previously running to the inverter (L and R) and the upper connector mates with the inverter’s old power input cable. The navigation lights were taken care of by picking up the wires going to the old Whelens, with no mods needed anywhere.

It’s not ideal to re-use 20 year old connectors, especially the crappy Molex ones, but the whole of GA uses them, and on the next Annual we can dive in and cut them off and make the wiring permanent.

The existing CB ratings appear appropriate. The nav lights draw 0.34A (at 28V) and with the strobes the total current peaks at about 4A, for less than a second. The old system drew considerably more, with peak current around 7A, which makes the 5A CB choice curious (but OK because these thermal CBs are really crap and are good only for wire protection).

The finished job. I will dig out the messy silicone and re-do it neatly when I get a chance, but we had to rush for reasons not related to the aircraft

I can’t show how bright they are with a photo but the nav lights are not comfortable to view close-up, whereas the old ones were fine to look at, and the strobes are even more objectionable to look at close-up than the old flash lamp strobes. The most obvious difference is that you get only one “flash” whereas the old ones did two flashes in rapid succession.

The lights mount in exactly the same holes and we re-used the Socata backing plate with the M3 rivet nuts in it. The new lamps need countersunk screws whereas the old ones used pan head, so you need to sort out stainless steel CSK screws, about 15mm+ long.

Socata used a heavy duty 3-core shielded cable for the flash circuit, which is the correct way to do it. Loads of planes have crappy strobe wiring and you can hear the inverter charging on the radio. For some reason the pilot doesn’t seem to notice, or care, or it is a rental plane. This also means you get the extra wire which can be used for the sync. But even if one had one wire less, one could run the ground return through the shield; I chose to not do that because of the outer jacket gets abraded anywhere and shorts to the airframe, it will all still work (because it is connected to the airframe anyway at the old inverter location) but the return current will be flowing partly through the airframe and thus create a loop which buggers up the compass. I posted this.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

This also means you get the extra wire which can be used for the sync. But even if one had one wire less, one could run the ground return through the shield; I chose to not do that because of the outer jacket gets abraded anywhere and shorts to the airframe, it will all still work (because it is connected to the airframe anyway at the old inverter location) but the return current will be flowing partly through the airframe and thus create a loop which buggers up the compass.

One could also skip the syncing of the strobes, especially that the tail strobe isn’t synced to the wingtip ones, right? Possibly a better idea than going through airframe ground? Agreed that running a proper wire is the best option; I will weigh mine when the time comes – with the original wiring being from 1980, it might make sense to use it as a guide to pull new ones.

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

I don’t have a tail strobe, or a tail light of any sort. AFAIK one doesn’t have that if one has the “3 in 1” wingtip lights like the above ones.

I reckon sync is needed because the timing on the strobes is so far off (they are obviously not using a quartz crystal; not even a 10p watch crystal) that after a minute they are totally out of sync and just look silly.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

And here I was thinking a tail light was required… You surely are right, the 3-in-1 is the key – this will come useful when I change mine.
As for sync, not looking silly is not a requirement per se, I don’t think ;)

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

tmo wrote:

And here I was thinking a tail light was required…

I think it is required to have lights that radiate light towards the rear, but they don’t have to be in the tail part of the plane. They can be on the wingtips, or any other place, as long as they radiate towards the rear without (too much) of a dead angle.

ELLX
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