LED's for DIY blades

[Roger Fowler]

Somewhere in this forum I found a recommendation that the intensity of the LED's be no less than 400 mcd. So far I have not found any LED's that bright. Does anyone have an updated recommendation?

Any suggestions for current sources for LED's in small quantities? The most reasonable place I have found so far is West Florida Electronics. DigiKey probably has them, just with so many choices it is hard to find what you are looking for.

Thanks,
Roger

[kavic5150]

These guys have always been good for small quantity orders.

http://lighthouseleds.com/

Or you could always desolder some leds from a 3528 led strip and use those if you are careful. 3528s are also referred to as 1210 size if I'm not mistaken.

What size blades and what colors are you interested in using for night blades?

[Roger Fowler]

Thanks for the input.

I'll be modifying a set of 325 mm blades. Hopefully painted so I don't have to deal with the conductivity of carbon fiber. (FRP if I can find them.) I'm thinking to put a blue LED near the tip on top and bottom, a green LED on the bottom at about 50% radius and a red LED on top at about 2/3 R. I know that will require separate resistors.

Roger

[Skidpad]

I realize you may be intentionally fabricating a set of night blades from scratch, but if not, I just wanted you to be aware that Perfect Regulators sells an easy to use kit: http://www.perfectregulators.com/ind...&product_id=93

I'm not affiliated with them, I just bought one of their larger blade kits a year ago, and it was a slick solution without doing everything myself, or spending a lot more $

[Roger Fowler]

Yes, I looked at Perfect Regulators website. They have some very attractive products. But I just wanted to make my own. Also, I have never soldered a surface mount component, so this is a chance to do so.

I do appreciate the pointer. I'm sure many would go that route instead of DIY.

Roger

[Skidpad]

^^ Cool, please post pics, etc of your project!

[kavic5150]

Most of the blades I've encountered are only conductive along the trailing edges, including the edges of the tips and along the inner curve near the roots.

On my Revolution 430mm blades for example, the black carbon fiber section of the top and bottom have been covered with clearcoat and are not conductive. Use a multimeter ohms function on the beep setting to easily check whats conductive.

Good read on the topic here:

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=495423

I wonder whatever happened to Timtreo. That guy was really good at making night blades.

[AlarmedBread]

They don't need to be that bright...Can see the average LED (green/red/yellow/white) until the disc is a dot, and they still show up great flying under light towers at night. Other colors fade out sooner.

You can get everything from jameco along with switches

http://www.jameco.com/1/1/46465-rv-r...ce-switch.html

Amazon has some LED assortments pretty cheap too if you're ordering the copper tape from them.

I see you're local, if you want some night blades PM me I have all the materials.

[setishock]

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/
http://www.adafruit.com/category/37
https://www.superbrightleds.com/
https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/89