Video of my T-Rex Nav / Landing / Strobe Lights /LiPo kit!

[PilotSmith]

A few months back I was looking for a LiPo monitor for my BCP as it did not have any LVC on the ESC. I found a neat LiPo monitor that was also a light kit. Basically when voltage starts to get low the strobe lights go solid. I didn't really need a LiPo monitor for the T-Rex as the ESC does the job. But I liked the idea of having lights on the T-Rex with a landing light I could turn on and off. Plus the LiPo monitor could not hurt either to give me an early warning that voltage is starting to get low. The red and green nav lights are always on. The light on the tail, top of canopy, and belly strobe. The landing light I control with the gyro mode switch on the radio. (I'm sharing the channel with the gyro as I only have a 6 ch radio so I can't dedicate a channel to the light switch.) Just finished installing it and shot this short video of it sitting on the piano to show the lights. (4MB): www.smithland.com/RC/Lights.wmv
I'll shoot some flying video later. :D

[PilotSmith]

Well, the wind kicked up so I didn't fly much but got a little bit of video as the wife and kids freaked out that I would crash because it was windy. I also had tinkered with my gyro settings in the radio and had too much gain so the tail was wagging a lot. Here is the video (8mb). Time to adjust the gyro now...

www.smithland.com/RC/lights2.wmv

[kama1]

thats pretty cool.
gives it a scale kinda look

[PilotSmith]

I was looking at a scale body but ended up deciding it would end up costing more than I wanted to put into it and there would be a good chance I'd destroy it on a crash. The light kit was inexpensive and looks cool up in the air. Seems to be quite an attention grabber too by the reactions I've noticed the few times I've flown it after putting on the lights.

"Excuse me. Excuse me! Where can I buy one of those? Are they expensive? How hard is it to fly?..." :roll: Land heli. Answer questions. Fly again. Repeat.

[PilotSmith]

Ok, it is hard to fly at night! I think I need to point the landing light at the rotor blades to better see what I am doing. Wanted mainly just to see what it looked like at night. I think you could fool someone that there was a heli flying over their house with the sound of the T-Rex. Don't plan to do much night flying. Have plently still to improve on my day flying! Here is night time video. My digital camera is not the best for night video but here goes:
www.smithland.com/RC/nightrex.wmv
About 4mb file.

[MicroMan]

Looking good Ive been thinking about getting a set of those lights for my T-rex.

[R1Time]

very nice,where do you get those lights?

[PilotSmith]

very nice,where do you get those lights?

I got them from Thanh, a regular contributor at another forum. He developed the kit on the forum and now has a web site for the kit. The web page is:

http://www.tjtrc.com/LiPoV2.html

I got the "V2" light kit. Only thing I modified was that I used 600 sandpaper on the LEDs to diffuse more light to the sides. I did not sand the "landing light" as it is super bright and I wanted that one to put most of the light out of the front.

[WillJames]

Looks cool in the day!!

[Hitch]

I got the "V2" light kit. Only thing I modified was that I used 600 sandpaper on the LEDs to diffuse more light to the sides. I did not sand the "landing light" as it is super bright and I wanted that one to put most of the light out of the front.

Does your kit have an audio alert also? I was looking at his site and looks like the "V2.5" kit has a landing light, an alarm, but not the strobes.

[PilotSmith]

Hello Hitch. No, no buzzer on my kit. I preferred having more lights in V2 versus having a buzzer in the other kit. I figured that with the radio timer, the ESC LVC cuttoff, and the strobe lights I should get the message when it is about time to land without needing a buzzer. You may want to email Thanh and ask about buzzer options. If you don't care to use the "landing light" in the V2 kit you might be able to rig up that wire to a buzzer. Not sure but Thanh is pretty resourceful in figuring all that kind of stuff out.

[shovell68]

Thanh is a pleasure to deal with and the price is very reasonable IMHO. I had a V1 on my CP2 and will probably order another for my Trex. I'd like to see close-ups of how you mounted your LEDs, it looks very clean.
Mark.

[PilotSmith]

Sure, I'll snap some close up photos for you. Maybe later tonight after the family goes to sleep as I'm putting on a longer boom tonight and swapping out my belt which already has some missing cogs. Wife getting jealous of the time I'm spending with my heli so I get my T-Rex romance in later at night. :wink:

[PilotSmith]

Ok, here they are. For the tail I used some double sided "carpet tape" to hold down a piece of white shrink tubing that hold the LED in place against the tail. Probably lots of ways to attach it other than tape. I also used thin black shrink tubing around the tail LED wires all the way into the frame to protect the wire. I did not shrink the tubing. The tubing is secured by going under the fin mount and with a couple zip ties.

The flood light is held in place with a little bit of hot glue and by skids pressing on the leads that are between the skid and frame.

I drilled a hole through the frame to hold the LED on the belly and put a dab of hot glue on the LED inside the frame to keep it in place. I was going to use a standard LED holder but they cover up too much of the LED.

I put a piece of black shrink tubing around the base of the navigation LED lights as I though it looked better that way - gives more of a finished look. Also protects the leads a bit too. I used hot glue to hold them in place but I recommend 5 minute epoxy. The hot glue does not hold that well.

For the light above the canopy I used some aluminum tape to fashion that I put around part of the frame. I put the LED in the center and stuck the piece of tape together so the LED and lead was sandwiched between the piece of tape. Then I folded the tape around to make it more rigid. After that I shrunk some shrink tubing around it to make sure it would not come apart.

I also sanded with 600 sandpaper all of the LEDs except the large landing light LED. The LEDs are quite bright but LEDS are rather directional and shoot most of the light out the top. By sanding them it diffuses the light so they are more visible from the sides.

I don't think there is standard on the color of the flashing anti-collision lights. The local police heli has a red strobe under the belly and white strobe on the tail so I did mine the same.

[shovell68]

Thanks for the pictures, thats a nice clean look. I use LEDs for backlights in all of my ham gear and I too sand the lenses to diffuse the light. Good job.
Mark.

[Raptor44]

That's really cool looking. I hope you don't mind but I used one pic as my wallpaper, that's how much I liked it.

I need to just get my heli built first. then I would like to do some of these mods.

nice job.........Steve

[PilotSmith]

Forgot to mention that I also added a small piece of tape around the fin and the white tubing as insurance that the tubing will not dislodge and get entangled in the tail. Did that after the photos were taken.

Steve, thanks for letting me know. Makes me feel good as I think I have the world's cheapest T-Rex kit, but I really like it. After learning basics with my Blade CP, my cheap T-Rex kit feels like a dream to fly. It doesn't have the cool metal and carbon bling items of the more expensive T-Rex kits so I'm trying to do the best with what I have. PM me if you want any particular photo in the original full size. What heli are you putting together?

Hey Mark. What grit do you use when you sand your LEDs? I used 600 and it significantly increased visibilty on the sides of the LED but not sure if that is the optimal grit to use.

[shovell68]

Hey Mark. What grit do you use when you sand your LEDs? I used 600 and it significantly increased visibilty on the sides of the LED but not sure if that is the optimal grit to use.


I just use whatever sandpaper is on hand whenever I need an LED. I bought 100 yellow and 100 white LEDS on E-bay for cheap so I'm all set for backlights for a while :-).

[Raptor44]

Im trying to put together a Raptor 50. But it's hard, and alot of stuff is going on that keeps me from working on it.

I swear if I ever get it built it will be a miracle. Steve

[leapfrog]

Cheap T-Rexes are fun... I have three SAs... and fly them daily.

Very nice looking bird, PilotSmith...

[Xwing Pilot]

Nice lights!

Just wanted to further compliment Thanh and his kits. I installed a Version 1 kit on my little Blade CX. Looks AWESOME and functions very well.

Thanh is terrific to do business with!

[PilotSmith]

I got the lights mainly just for looks not thinking I'd get much use out of the LiPo warning feature on the light kit. But I really like the light LiPo alarm feature now. Once I notice that the lights have stopped flashing I know my LVC on my ESC will kick in within about a minute so it gives me a warning when I mess up on the timer or decide to stretch the flight out a little longer. When the lights stop flashing I know I better bring her near to get ready to land. Nice backup warning.

[DEEP6PAK]

Looking forward to recieving my light kit, Tranh is hooking me up with custom color lights, and the V2 kit including the audible alarm. I will be installing it on my 450 SE with a Fusuno Airwolf Fuselage.

[tukkus]

Looking forward to recieving my light kit, Tranh is hooking me up with custom color lights, and the V2 kit including the audible alarm. I will be installing it on my 450 SE with a Fusuno Airwolf Fuselage.

what will it cost?

[VKGT]

That's awesome, I like the concept