Night blades with split top/bottom leds

[4cyclic]

Diy night blades with 3 leds on top of one blade and 3 on bottom of OTHER blade. So only 6 led, but does same effect as 12 leds, 6 on each blade. Would also simplify led alignment and less draw on lipo.

Any comments as this seems a good technique.

[Timtreo]

He he, just posted a response to this on one of the other sites but here goes for HF. In my blog (blog button at the top of the page ^) I added a video link and you can see in the first couple flying clips (LEDS top and bottom of each blade) and the later flying clips (just top or bottom of blade) they are the same brightness. The last clips are before dusk even and still pretty bright. And yep with the same 100mAh lipos on both ways of doing 325mm night blades I got about 20 minutes more battery time just doing the top or bottom (and tip on both).

[kavic5150]

You might want to have leds top and bottom on each blade but have them in different places. If one blade goes out in flight and its the one with the blades facing downwards you only have the canopy/tail lights to maintain orientation and land.

[Timtreo]

True... unless you have one on each tip that's visible from the top and bottom .

[4cyclic]

All good points. Don't know how durable it would be to install a tip led. Wouldn't that be easy to knock off or hard to put vertical when the tip is pointy ?

[kavic5150]

Installing leds on the tips is only slightly more awkward than along the blade span, but not too bad. Just watch your fingers when you solder. Using a smaller size led will help since the smaller ones are not as wide as they are long. 1208s or a bit smaller will work great.

As for knocking one off the tip, yep its a bit easier to do. An extra drop or two of CA will help.

Also save your brain cells and be sure to work in a very well ventilated area, like the great outdoors.

[Timtreo]

I solder the LED and resistor in an "L" shape and then run some solder right up the trace from about 1/2" back on both sides which gives a nice place to set up some CA on the sides so 2 thin layers of medium CA and the 0805s are even then just sand a little and and it's all flush and round. That's on 325s too bigger blades are even easier with those tiny 0805s. Should mention for CF blades I stretch a small piece of electrical tape thin over the blade tip first then do the LED and restitor and then cut the tape off around them and then the CA .

[4cyclic]

I'll have to try it.

[HankAz]

Timtreo, I'm glad this came up I'm doing my first set of 325s and I wanted to put one on the end. I soldered all the LED and Diodes than I started thinking about bending the end one into a V or just taking it apart and resoldering it in a V. I think I will take it apart and redo it.

[Timtreo]

Just be careful when you peel the copper tape back from the tip, it breaks real easy if you bend it to far or it gets folded while working on it. Happened to me once and I ended up replacing the whole strip because I was having a hard time getting a tiny filler piece of copper tape soldered to the tip where it broke off.

[flyinfool]

FWIW
I do not use a chip led on the blade tip. I use a T1 size leaded led and it very simple to just slide one lead on each side of the blade and solder. The potential bare carbon of the blade seam is against the plastic LED case. I then smooth in a filet of epoxy around the base of the LED for support.

+1 for having some LEDs on the top and bottom of each blade. That way a failure of one will not cause a total loss of one side of the disc. I always put the resistor on the side of the blade opposite of the led to insure that there is less possibility of an aerodynamic imbalance between the blades.