Trex 450 UV-LED Night Flyer

[SantaMonica]

Trex 450 UV-LED Night Flyer


Here is my version of a night flyer lighting scheme:











I always thought that having a backlit canopy would give a fuller outline of the heli at night, thus making it easier to follow (compared to a light string attached to the canopy, which seemed hollow). Also, like my day flier, having different colors on top and bottom really helps in figuring out orientation. You can't easily do different colors with a light string method, since the same wire is wrapped around top to bottom, especially on the boom. So my thought was to use super lightweight LED strips on the boom, with a different color on the bottom than the top. And, my day flier's blades are painted orange on the top, and it usually saves my *** at lease once a day, so I'm glad the Align night blades have different colors too.

The funny thing about building a UV-Backlit canopy is that it would be so easy for a manufacturer to make one (I'd easily spend $200 on one), since everything would just be molded right in. But making one is a bit of a task. This was my second one, and even knowing what I wanted, it still took me about 10 hours to make this one. Now the flipside is that my first attempt went through 10 bad nightime crashes, and did not get a scratch. Thus I was confident that the time put into this new one would not be wasted in the event of another crash. Also, UV LED's require no power transformer like a light string does. And the LED's themselves are lightweight like paper.

Although the canopy is complex, the boom is another matter. It's easy to stick the adhesive-backing on; you only have to work around where the tail support rods connect to the horizontal fin. I really like the ribbon LED strips that I used; they are micro light, and so bright that they have to be dimmed with a resistor or else you'll be blinded and won't even be able to see the canopy.

Since the canopy and boom have almost no added weight from the LED's, I went the ultra-light route with the skids too. The EL (electro luminescent, i.e. light string) wire is as thin as fishing line, and the button-transformer is the size of a dime, and about the same weight.

So overall I'm happy: Super bright, super lightweight, and bi-color (blue on top, green on bottom. I originally was inspired to go the UV route by this canopy that I read about a few years ago:




OK, here are the details of my build. WARNING: Never turn on UV LED's without wearing UV-blocking glasses or goggles. Wear the glasses while testing the LED's, and of course while flying. The LED's don't seem bright, but that's because most of the light is in invisible UV spectrum. Here are the ones I use:

http://www.safetyglassesusa.com/smitwesmincl.html



First, here is everything you need, except the wire:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliParts.jpg

For wire, just get some very thin stuff at Radio Shack; the thinnest wire you can find will work the best, since there is almost no power at all going through these wires, and it will be the easiest to glue in place. Thin wire is also good because the wires are on the inside of the canopy, and you don't want shadows of thick wires you can see from the outside. With the thin wires I used, I don't notice the wire shadows at all.


Canopy:

You start with a basic clear canopy; I used the Align one:

http://www.readyheli.com/HS1068_TREX...y_p/hs1068.htm

Get some UV paint in the colors you want on top and bottom. I was matching the Align night blades which are blue on top, so I wanted a blue canopy top (a blue top looks REALLY cool inverted in the night sky.) For the bottom, I chose orange to match my orange day flier (the green on the boom is enough to match the green on the blades.) Note that the brighter canopy colors like orange, yellow, white, etc, put out far more light than darkers colors like blue, green, red, etc., so you need a lot more area of darker colors to balance out. My first attempt used the regular canopy outline of the pilot's windscreen as blue, and the rest as orange. Well, in the air all you could see was orange. That's why the current design has so much more blue:




Now you might think that there is too much blue, but in the air, once it gets above 20 feet or so, you STILL see mostly orange. So my next version will be even more blue, and just orange on the bottom panel facing down. Any way, paint the canopy on the outside, which will leave the inside nice and smooth for the hot melting of the wires. Here is the circuit for the wires/LEDs/resistors:




And here are the LED's:

http://theledlight.com/ultraviolet.html

You solder them together, then hot-melt them into the inside of the canopy. In this first canopy pic, you can see all 9 LEDs that are shown in the circuit above. The white arrows are the direction that the light comes out of each LED.:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliWire2.jpg



Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliWire1.jpg


Don't put anything to the rear of the mounting grommet, because it will snag on the post when you put the canopy on:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliWire3.jpg


Same here. And use extra hot-melt near the grommet in case you slip while putting the canopy on:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliWire4.jpg


This is looking down from the top of the canopy; note that the wires running between the two LED's goes on the outside, so they won't rub on the bottom plate:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliWire5.jpg


This is looking at the nose of the canopy from the inside; all three LED's are pointed backwards. This is the hardest area to glue, and it helps if you have already made the cutout for the battery cable on the right:




The hot-melting is the hardest part. What I did was assemble one circuit at a time (a circuit is three LEDs and a resistor), using wires at each end that were extra long. When building the circuit, I'd look inside the canopy and visualize where each LED would go, then cut and solder wire of the proper length for this to work. A little extra wire does not hurt (just looks bad), but too short of a wire will screw up your LED placement. Then I'd hot-melt the three LEDs and resistor in place, one at a time, taking care to keep my finger on the LED as the hot-melt cooled, so I could keep it pointed in the proper direction. Sometimes I'd have to re-heat the glue and move the aim of the LED to get it right. After all three LED's in that circuit were glued, I'd tack the wire down in a few spots. Then repeat with the other two circuits. After all three circuits are glued, take all the extra wire lengths and cut and solder them per the diagram above, then add your connector, and you are done. The connector sticks out to the side like this:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliPigtail.jpg


Some words of advice: Get three canopies, and enough parts to build three of them. You most certainly will screw up or melt one canopy, and once you get the next one working, you'll figure out how to do it better and you'll want to build a third. Also, get a hot-melt gun with a hi-low temperature switch, and use the "low" so you don't melt the canopy. Also, when planning your wire routing and LED placement, take into account where the heli frame will be rubbing the canopy. Lastly, make the cutout for the battery cable before you start gluing the LED's, so you can use the hole to reach the inside:





Boom:

The boom is much much easier. It's two circuits: Top of boom, and bottom:




And here are the LED strips:

http://www.oznium.com/led-ribbon

I used a 220 ohm resistor, but you might want to try some different values (100, 220, 470) and look at it from a distance in the dark before soldering. The LED strips are very easy to attach; just peel and stick. The only hard area is the bottom where the boom supports connect; I cut the LED strip here at that point, and used wires to jump over the horizontal fin mount:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliBoomBottom.jpg


The button transformers have a peel-and-stick backing, so I just attached it to the side frames on each side:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliELbutton.jpg


On the top strip, I covered up the adhesive so that the boom would be able to be adjusted forward and backwards without getting stuck to the strip:


Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/heli/HeliBoomTop.jpg


I did not put any lights on the tail fin, simply because the boom was so bright and easy to see that I didn't need to. But if you wanted to, you could just use some additional LED strip on the fin, and connect it with wire to the boom strips (you can connect them end-to-end as long as you want.)



Skids:

These are also much easier than the canopy. Here's the diagram:




Here's the button transformer:

http://www.m2lighting.com/store/item...3v%2D25%2D50cm

Here's the EL wire:

http://www.m2lighting.com/store/item...D1262F%2809%29

And here's the soldered connector at the end:

http://www.m2lighting.com/store/item...NN%2DREP%2DELW

Now, you don't really need the connector itself, but you do need the copper wire that they attach to the EL wire. It's almost impossible to solder it yourself, so just let them do it. When you get it, you can cut the connector off and just the the copper wire. For power, I just plugged the button transformers into channel 7 of my Spektrum. The button transformers are 3V, so the glow brightly on the the 5V coming out of the receiver.

The whole setup is very redundant; You can lose the top of the boom, the bottom of the boom, left skid, right skid, or one of the three canopy ciruits, and everything else will still work as normal. The only thing which could cause a total blackout would be if the battery deans connecter became disconnected :O

Anyways, hope to see some of your versions of this in the night sky!

[jared_of_atlanta]

NICE! I definitly need to get into night flying. Thanks for sharing.

[Ace Dude]

Me too. I've been thinking of night flying for a while now, but haven't done much yet. I need to get 'er done.

[WillJames]

WOW SantaMonica!! Thank you for posting such a complete and awesome thread!!

Bravo!!

[SantaMonica]

Glad you like it. Hopefully it will save you the trouble of ordering ten different kinds of strips, EL wires, and UV LEDs in order to figure out which one will work

[nitrohog]

That is one of the coolest setups I have ever seen. MUCH better canopy than the light string setup.

[SantaMonica]

Some asked me if you "wear UV sunglasses at night to fly". Yes, but they are not sunglasses; they are clear, and you don't even know you have them on. Take a look at the link for them above.

[Finless]

NICE JOB!

Bob

[rdlohr]

Awesome thread! If you want, I'll send you a set of my night fins to go with this. NIce build!

Rick

[ghettotige]

great post thanks!
rdlohr , which fins do you do?

Also has anyone come across a clear canopy for the trex 500? as I would love to have ago at a UV 500

[rdlohr]

Originally Posted by ghettotige

great post thanks!
rdlohr , which fins do you do?

Also has anyone come across a clear canopy for the trex 500? as I would love to have ago at a UV 500

Check my products link. I burnish the clear fins so they catch the light.
Also, they are featured in Bob's vid:
https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=68635


Rick

[SantaMonica]

Are the fins illuminated?

[rdlohr]

Originally Posted by SantaMonica

Are the fins illuminated?

No, you wrap the edges with glow wire and they disperse the light.


https://www.helifreak.com/attachment...1&d=1225582775

[jackheli]

How long does the UV paint last? I was wondering if it would be possible to use to paint the skids and fins, lighting them up with a UV Led. This would be used as a backup in case of lighting failure, instead of tying glow sticks.

[SantaMonica]

I see Rick. I'd need a light string and driver. Will have to wait until I get those. I originally went with led's because they require no driver.

Jack, the paint seems to last forever. No fading. Yes you could paint other things, but shining a light on them is a pain. Easier to just have several lighting circuits like mine. The canopy is one, the top of boom (blue) is another, the bottom of boom (green) is another, the left skid another, right skid another, and of course blades. They all connect direct to the battery, so if one goes out (i.e., I lost the bottom of the boom last night), all the others remain.

[Zextraterrestrial]

I started setting up night glow wires until the align driver I had broke
so I changed it to leds (port and starboard colors set for inverted flight ....eventually it will be upside down more ;> )
leds are much brighter around dusk and good in the daytime too!

68 X 700 mcd leds + 1 the one weak UV tail light for a total of 105 mA

2500 mah main pack
flying weight w/ lights = 1 lb 15 OZ (450 sev2 CF - what is the stock weight??)


Thanks to all for great ideas !!!!

Psychedelic nights rock!

[SantaMonica]

Wow that's cool. Looks like you got a similar peel-n-stick led strip.

[dwesnor]

Mad cool!

[DesertClimber]

Originally Posted by SantaMonica

WARNING: Never turn on UV LED's without wearing UV-blocking glasses or goggles. Wear the glasses while testing the LED's, and of course while flying.

Does your entire audience need to wear them for watching the night flight?

[SantaMonica]

I don't think so; the UV power drops off quickly as you get farther away.