Night flying kit for Blade 450x?

[brettofthejungle]

Hey everyone,


You know the feeling....it's dark out.....you're bored.....you want to fly, but you can't see!

Can anyone recommend a good option for lighting for a Blade 450x?

Furthermore, what should I know? Does it drain the battery faster? How much can it cost? Does it change flight characteristics? Any other important considerations?

Much appreciated guys and girls. Take er easy!

Brett

[kavic5150]

Night blades are a must. Seeing the rotor disk makes all the difference when it comes to flying at dusk or in the dark. Check out the night flying section including the stickies, there is plenty of good info there.

DIY night blades when done right barely affect the flight characteristics. You might lose 20 seconds of flight time with the extra weight.

As for lighting the body of the heli, the more lights the better. El wire is neat, but its not very bright and only good for close in flying at night. It easily gets lost with street lights in the background.

Led light strings are the way to go. You can wire them directly to the balance port of a 3s lipo or the better option is to use a small 2s or 3s pack, around 350mah. Use several short lengths of at least 2 different colors.

Check out what hobbyking.com and hobbypartz.com have to offer. Hobbypartz has the better looking (IMHO) white PCB led strips while hobbyking has the copper finish PCB led strips.

[B.Ewing]

Custom job

450 size blades are available for purchase or you can use a helifreak member i have used to make you some custom ones...ask if your curious.

with a 450 you can use a align glow rope stuff for an easy option, but the current trend is led strips of your choice taped along the canopy and boom and wired to a separate 2s or 3s battery, or running off of the flight pack balance plug. For a 450 running on 3s id say just use the flight pack to power the lights.

[Jherison]

This is how I did mine...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/k79LyFqWWrQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Jherison]

Setup pictures are at the end of the video.

[Pappy1]

5307thBP,you mind fixing that link?I cant get to your video.Thanks

[Jherison]

I'll try tonight, it works on my phone, didn't try on the pc.

You can search YouTube if you want, user mtmartian1

Blade 450 3d Night Flight #1

Blade 450 3d Night Flight #1 (2 min 17 sec)

[brianbb17]

I used hobbykings MS-20325Li on my blade 450x. This is a good start, they are bright. The bottom and top sides are both green.