Can i join my glow wire?

[Eyon]

Hello,

Just got myself a Align Glow Driver with 3 colours. it can apparently handle 8 meters fine, so i really wanna make the most of it. I have 2 lenghts of 1m and a length of 1.5m.

Bearing in mind it only has 2 outputs, can i join 2 peices of glow wire together to make a real long bit?

also whats best to run it on, 2s or 3s? i will be using a FP EvoLite 350 pack:thumbup:

[Finless]

Yes you can but it aint that easy... Inside the glow wire is a TINY wire in the center and on the outside is a thin metal foil. THose are the 2 conductors. If your careful you can join them.

The driver's spec is up to 2 cell lipo but I know many that run it off 3S and havent had it burn out. These things draw so little current you can just run them off the balance tap of your flight pack and not worry about putting your cells out of balance....

Bob

[mudbogger2]

You can also splice the power wires together in parallel. Much easier than trying to wire 2 pieces of the glowire together. Either way as long as your driver will handle it you should be fine.

Just remember. The longer the wire the dimmer the lights get.

[Eyon]

thanks for the help guys, unfortunatly 2 of my 3 wires have failed, oh the joys of Align (in my experience). Is this not un commen?

I will work out a way to get some more light strings on there, 2.5m isnt enough!

Ian

[Blackrat]

try these guys , ive bought the xtra bright wire, and it is very bright

http://www.surelight.co.uk/ecom/Super_Bright_.asp

[johndoe25]

You also might want to check your local computer mod shop/place. The EL wiring for computers is the same.

[Rogan]

thanks for the help guys, unfortunatly 2 of my 3 wires have failed, oh the joys of Align (in my experience). Is this not un commen?

I will work out a way to get some more light strings on there, 2.5m isnt enough!

Ian

They are probably fine. The core and foil need to touch at the end. Give the end a sqeeze and it will probably light up.

[comeflywithme]

Those guys at Surelight also do splitters for glow wires from 1 into 2 to 1 into 4 (See link). Looks like they are the right connectors too.

http://www.surelight.co.uk/ecom/Multi_Output_Splitters.asp

By the way, I'm running my glow driver off the ballance tap just as Bob described and it works great - less weight and easier to convert from night flying to day by simply mounting the driver inside the canopy (on a mini titan). All that needs to be done is to connect to ballance tap and connect the second glow wire -done. I made up the connector by buying a spare Flightpower ballance lead and soldering the outermost red and black wires on the ballance plug to the same coloured wires on a male connector to fit the driver (Cost about £3). This setup would give 3s power so it will use all three cells.

[PG 378]

We run 3 string all the time. We tried 4 but it overheated the driver. We spliced 2 together at the connector end. Here is a link to my IRCHA night fly. The heli is pretty lit up.

http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/rrTV-Photo/funflies/IRCHA2007/rrIRCHA07-Sat-Night-01.wmv

Sorry about the otheRR site, but they filmed it.

[Trex mad1]

Can anyone confirm that the adapters by surelight definately work on the align driver? I want to run 4 colours on my 450, so dont really want to have the weight of two drivers. They will only be 4 short lengths and it says it can handle upto 5m:confused:

[jaywhy]

I've wondered about just using a second driver. 4 strings at (normal) full power. I picked up a tiny lipo for my driver before I knew about running it off the balance tap, so I've got my tap open and waiting. They don't weight much at all - why not?