Night Blade Kits

[SSerrand]

To all you night flying guys out there who don't like the cost of night blades and not being able to use your favorite blade. Would you buy a kit that came with almost everything you need to turn any set of blades into night flying blades. If I can get enough feedback I will make sure I can get something going.

[sp00fman]

I don't understand why this part of the forum is so quiet and night flying not more popular. After 16:00 its to dark to fly here these days.

Oh well, about your kit: By spending $20 on ebay for SMD parts and a roll of copper tape you can do 5 sets of blades with ease. That would be kind of hard to compete with.

What i would like to see/might consider buying is some pre-work on the parts, so i can build them up faster. I have to cut a width off my tape and its a hassle. If you can pre-cut 1,0mm strips, or find a supplier that has a roll with the correct width that would help. Also nice would be to pre-solder a resistor directly to a led and a length of coppter tape on both ends. It would be super great to have the resistor and LED soldered to a small strip of that thin brown flexible PCB (kapton or something?) Makes mass producing easier and no stress on the SMD components.
You can pre-match the resistor value to the color for 1S lipo. i don't think anyone uses other voltages, nor needs to.

That way i would only have to do the layout on the blade, cut ends to size and solder up the overlap points. Building a set will make it a one hour affair instead of 3 evenings.

[SSerrand]

Thats a good idea and I do have a supplier for the copper foil. The only problem that comes in with having everything ready to go is everyone has their own preference on lights. I understand where your coming from with it but the idea of the kits is so that people can get what they would like without having to go and either find the needed supplies on their own or have to get the supplies in multiple boxes. As well as be able to order multiple kits and be able to make the blades how they would like to so they can use a set of blades that they like.

[perfectregulators]

These are kits ready to go with everything needed...

http://www.perfectregulators.com/ind...&product_id=87

[flyinfool]

Originally Posted by perfectregulators

These are kits ready to go with everything needed...

http://www.perfectregulators.com/ind...&product_id=87

Interesting, great idea and looks easy to apply.
Do you have any plans to introduce other colors?

[perfectregulators]

yes, as of now they are all made up with the red/yellow/red leds, but in the future there will also be white/blue/purple as well. this is only because the different colors require a different value resistor.

[GimpyGolden]

Just ordered a set plus the Night Stalker LED kit.
Any idea when Red/Green come back in stock?

[GimpyGolden]

Whats a good size 2 or 3S for the LED kit?
Looking to run as long as the 1S do for the blade kit before charging.

[perfectregulators]

scott,

its best to use a 3s for the led light strips, very bright. i use an 850mah 3s and also have an 1100mah 3s and they both work fine. you will end up having to charge your actual rx pack before having to charge the battery for the blades

[GimpyGolden]

Cool I have some 3S 850's from my T250
Was thinking smaller/lighter the better especially as they will be going on an Atom 500.

[perfectregulators]

cool, the 850mah 3s is perfect

[TheBum]

Originally Posted by GimpyGolden

Cool I have some 3S 850's from my T250
Was thinking smaller/lighter the better especially as they will be going on an Atom 500.

Why not just run them off the main flight pack? You can connect through the balance connector and split the load between the lower three and upper three cells. That's essentially what I do. It saves the weight of an extra battery and really doesn't reduce flight time that much unless you really go overboard on the LEDs.

[GimpyGolden]

Sounds like a good plan
So do 1 LED strip off cells 1,2&3 and the other strip off 4,5&6
I think this is the route I will go.
Thanks ya Bum

[TheBum]

I actually run mine on 2S, which I've found to be plenty bright for true night flying but probably not for dim-light flying, and run all 6 cells across three strips in series. The only issue with doing it this way is you need to make sure all your series-connected strips have the same number of LEDs and the same color of LEDs to guarantee 1/3 of the voltage across each, which I was able to do through careful design.

Definitely consider lighting up the struts. At least for me, doing so provided a much-needed orientation cue.

[GimpyGolden]

Ya I'll have to play around with what I like best 2 or 3 cell.
I have a 2S1000 kicking around somewhere that weighs next to nothing and is about the size of a Zippo lighter.

[desertstalker]

Originally Posted by TheBum

I actually run mine on 2S, which I've found to be plenty bright for true night flying but probably not for dim-light flying, and run all 6 cells across three strips in series. The only issue with doing it this way is you need to make sure all your series-connected strips have the same number of LEDs and the same color of LEDs to guarantee 1/3 of the voltage across each, which I was able to do through careful design.

Definitely consider lighting up the struts. At least for me, doing so provided a much-needed orientation cue.

The consumption of you LEDs over 5mins is likely to be so small as to no difference to the balance of your packs, especially if the only difference is colour. At worst it might add another minute or two to your charge.

Balance them across the cells but don't worry if you have a few more or less on some of the strips. Different colours draw broadly the same current (just waste different amounts of energy on the resistors) so that's not going to make much difference.