Noob to night lighting question

[SKYQUEST]

I have my 600e all set up to fly in the dark.
I have a led bar on the belly, align cold light string driver, UV light for kbdd tail blades and that's it for the lipo I'm using (2 cell, thunderpower.)
I have a front spot light on the front w/ seperate battery supply (has a class 4 led...like a flood light really)
the main rotors are MS composit's.

I noticed the align cold string driver makes one of the 2 strings a little brighter when u unplug one. The driver says max volts is 8 volts...BUT, I've heard of guys using 3cell lipos (11v) to power their set-ups...what can I do to get more voltage to the string driver? Will over 8volts kill this thing?

[kavic5150]

I've heard that a higher driving frequency makes el wire brighter as well as the max allowable voltage. Also you have a 600 sized heli. Maybe use 2 el wire drivers? I'm really not sure if you should push beyond 8.4v.

You have probably heard how bright LED strings are on 3s, but if you go that route, your el wire will get lost in the brightness. Also if those are MS composit night blades, good move.

Can you give any more details about that landing light? It looks really bright.

[SKYQUEST]

Originally Posted by kavic5150

I've heard that a higher driving frequency makes el wire brighter as well as the max allowable voltage. Also you have a 600 sized heli. Maybe use 2 el wire drivers? I'm really not sure if you should push beyond 8.4v.

You have probably heard how bright LED strings are on 3s, but if you go that route, your el wire will get lost in the brightness. Also if those are MS composit night blades, good move.

Can you give any more details about that landing light? It looks really bright.

Yep, MS composits are installed on my ship. I may eventually go the led bar route instead of strings...not sure yet.
I'm an auto tech. So, at one point got a 'headlight' off of one of the tool guys. It's a streamlight compamy light. It just sits there in my toolbox, never getting used. It cost me $60 off of the tooltruck so, I figured that may be a good idea for the front...it IS an AWESOME idea! The led in there produces 62 lumens (SUPER bright) for about 6-9hrs. It has a lower setting that should last a so-called 30hrs that isnt as bright, but still pretty bright (16 lumens.) I use the lower setting because the high setting is just too bright! lol
It has it's own 4oz worth of lithium batteries however...but overall, it truly is lightweight. I dont notice any negative flight.


here it is in the streamlight site:
http://www.streamlight.com/product/p...px?pid=55#tabs
I just removed the fabric straps and attacked it fairly easily to the front landing strut. It's cool too because I can tilt it 90 degrees and have it pointing straight down. It 'ratchets' into it's positions and stays there (doesnt move in flight...no bouncing or anything except light!)

[flyinfool]

As you noticed, the greater the length of EL wire that is plugged into a driver the less light you will get. There is no way around that other than to add another driver.

I would NOT try to run the align 8V driver on 3S. There are many different drivers out on the market, some are rated for the higher voltage input, some are not.

Besides if you have 2 drivers and one fails in flight, then you only loose half of the wire so it will be easier to bring back safely.

[SKYQUEST]

Originally Posted by flyinfool

As you noticed, the greater the length of EL wire that is plugged into a driver the less light you will get. There is no way around that other than to add another driver.

I would NOT try to run the align 8V driver on 3S. There are many different drivers out on the market, some are rated for the higher voltage input, some are not.

Besides if you have 2 drivers and one fails in flight, then you only loose half of the wire so it will be easier to bring back safely.

Never even thought of that. It would make it brighter and be a type of redundancy as well. Good thinkin!

[kaos]

I have used 3S with the align driver. It is quite bright. but you have to plug both wire in. (I think it says so in the manual). I fried my align driver with only one wire plugged in. literally smoked.

[SKYQUEST]

Originally Posted by kaos

I have used 3S with the align driver. It is quite bright. but you have to plug both wire in. (I think it says so in the manual). I fried my align driver with only one wire plugged in. literally smoked.

So, IS it ok to put 3S worth of lipo voltage on this driver then??
How long have you been flying w/ the 3S lipo driving the strings?

[flyinfool]

Originally Posted by kaos

I have used 3S with the align driver. It is quite bright. but you have to plug both wire in. (I think it says so in the manual). I fried my align driver with only one wire plugged in. literally smoked.

That is possible also.
There is a minimum and maximum length of wire that a driver can handle. To long and the light is very weak to non existent, to short and the inverter cooks because there is not enough wire to absorb the power that is being generated.
I do not know what the Min or Max for the Align driver is.

Did you fry it while on 3S with only one wire or at 8V with only one wire?

[kaos]

Originally Posted by SKYQUEST

So, IS it ok to put 3S worth of lipo voltage on this driver then??
How long have you been flying w/ the 3S lipo driving the strings?

the 2nd question is easy to answer: 0 flying time, because I decided not to use cool wire on my heli.

The 1st question is harder to answer. Any time you run an electronics out of spec (8V vs 12v), you are running a risk of burning the piece or shorten the life. I can't answer that question because I did not run them long enough to tell you. But at least during the time I was testing them, at least 30 min, they work fine. And I have done that in several occasions until I forgot about both wire need to be plugged in when the driver burned out.
here is some pic I took when I was trying to figure out how the cool wire is going to match the led lights (to me they are overwhelm by the led on my heli depends on how and where you are going to put them. I end up putting all leds on my heli.

Here is some pics I took when I was testing it. you can see the 2nd, 3rd pic the 3S lipo sitting there, but in the last pic I unplugged one wire when the driver burned out. I don't remember how long before it happened. Did not use a stop watch.

I also noticed one thing that prompted me to give up on the cool wire. when I wrap around the tail boom , it created a RF interference with my RX and the servo started to twitch. This may have something to do running with 3S and with the coil effect on the boom is causing that. any time I have more than 5 turns on the boom the RF interference occurs. this may only apply to my Rx / set up. RF interference is a funny thing. Every piece of electronics generate certain RF. when it happens to interfere with each other then something needs to be done to isolate that. The way those wire were sloppily wrapped around the boom in the pic, the RF did not happen. It happened after I wrap the wire neatly around the tail boom to look nice, and boom the twitch started. More than 5 turns, it happens predictably on my heli set up.

PS: the driver did not burn out during the photo session. It was in a later session.

[kaos]

Originally Posted by flyinfool

That is possible also.
There is a minimum and maximum length of wire that a driver can handle. To long and the light is very weak to non existent, to short and the inverter cooks because there is not enough wire to absorb the power that is being generated.
I do not know what the Min or Max for the Align driver is.

Did you fry it while on 3S with only one wire or at 8V with only one wire?

I was using 3S with one wire. Because I saw the 3S worked. playing with it then forgot about the 2 wire thing, unplugged one and try. I think it actually lasted for a while until one time I was doing it for quite a while when I saw the smoke.

[kaos]

Skyquest:
If you want most reliable 3S cool wire on your heli, check this place out. they can make any color, length or combination at 12V for you :
http://www.thatscoolwire.com/store/i...lo%2DEmer%2DRL

[SKYQUEST]

Huh. Wrapped around the boom caused RF interference...makes sense sort of. It becomes like the copper coiled around a nail in an elementary school science class experiment sounds like (like a solenoid really) That is good to know as I (naturally) wrapped it around the boom all neatly...and far more than 5 times.
Weird.
I'm getting leary about using the strings now...they have both broken already each once. I re-soldered them...what a pain in the butt.

The LED setup is way more visable.
I've been experimenting w/ that DIY thread someone pointed me towards where you run LED's off of a broken servo.
Its sort of hard to get the resistors correct being its my first time. And, radio shack is sort of limited.

[SKYQUEST]

Originally Posted by kaos

Skyquest:
If you want most reliable 3S cool wire on your heli, check this place out. they can make any color, length or combination at 12V for you :
http://www.thatscoolwire.com/store/i...lo%2DEmer%2DRL

That is an awesome site man! Looks real good for whatever I can think of...
Thanx

[kaos]

Originally Posted by SKYQUEST

That is an awesome site man! Looks real good for whatever I can think of...
Thanx

glad it is useful. have fun.

[kaos]

Just found the pic showing I was testing Align cool wire driver with 3S and only one wire was plugged in. It did work, for quite some time. It finally burned out. If I remember correctly, it burned out with a single orange wire, not this green one.
and when the wire was wrapped like that when the RF interference started.

[SKYQUEST]

You're obviously using a 2.4ghz radio, right? What symptoms of RF interferience do you experience? (Just so I know what to look for.)

The LED's blow away the light strings in ur pics by the way. Very nice.

[kaos]

Yes, I am using 2.4GHz radio (Turnigy 9x).
the sign is the servos started twitching for no reason, some times more severe, some times less. In a fly it would create a bumble bee effect I think.

Here is what I end up with , all leds.
https://www.helifreak.com/showthread...=243791&page=5
that pair of DIY night blade was my 1st try , pretty rough. Not like that any more.

[SKYQUEST]

Originally Posted by kaos

Yes, I am using 2.4GHz radio (Turnigy 9x).
the sign is the servos started twitching for no reason, some times more severe, some times less. In a fly it would create a bumble bee effect I think.

Here is what I end up with , all leds.
https://www.helifreak.com/showthread...=243791&page=5
that pair of DIY night blade was my 1st try , pretty rough. Not like that any more.

Dude! That is as bright as the freaking sun! It looks so cool too!

Even though the DIY blades were ur 1st try, they are exceptional being you didn't ever do it before...pretty good looking if u ask me

[SKYQUEST]

huh...no jittering or any signs of RF interference on this heli. I have it wrapped all around the boom and all. Guess I got lucky.
Maybe its the castle creations bec pro...it has the power wires going through a donut magnet before the plugs (2). Dont know why they do this other than RF interference.

[kaos]

RF /signal is kind of funky. sometimes i t occur when everthing is just 'right'. like i said , it may be only happen to mine, that particular set up.
I have one heli that has an interence from tail servo to the gyro. i have to put a ferrite ring between tail servo and gyro to stop it . But i have other heli with the same gyro and servo without any problem.