Experience with lighting systems?

[Rjtw]

I’m thinking about adding a lighting system of some kind to enhance visibility of a third scale Arcus when at high altitude. I’m mostly interested in relatively high intensity lighting (aka “ACL” type lighting) visible from below, of course, but will give extra weight to anything that is scale-appropriate and can be added on to a finished model. Kicking myself for not ordering the built-in tip and fin lights when the model was built! I’m really only familiar with the Innoflyer products, which are nice but not really aimed at gliders it seems. The best I could do there would be to mount a blister-type light in a convenient location such as under the fuselage or at the wingtips. Innoflyer does have a small 1” blister that has two lights that might be cool: a position light (red or green for l/r) and a white ACL light. Having said that,I’m not even sure where the full size Arcus has lights.

Any experiences, good or bad? What system and lights have you tried and where were the lights placed?

[Rjtw]

Btw I did find this re: full scale Arcus. Apparently there are “add-on” ACL solutions even here! (Wingtip or fuselage light blisters and a canopy-mounted forward facing ACL): https://shop.sotecc.de/

[Steve P]

Herein is $0.02.

The model will have an added cool factor. At altitude (high altitude), you will not get any discernable benefit from strobes/lighting on an RC sailplane. Anti-collision between airborne full scale sailplanes is one thing, at the size and distance from pilot's eyes we fly not so much. Maybe catch a glint in a dire emergency, but that's hollow insurance. The new HModel JS 1:2 scale has a very nice fuselage/wing strobe system, but watching one fly recently it really didn't show on a nice day. Looked great lower down and on approach and landing.

My 5.33 meter EMS Arcus has the uniLIGHT Model Black.4 system. Very nice system and modes can be chosen via the transmitter. Can't see any of it beyond 3/4 tow height.

Check out uniLIGHT (several of the jet vendors sell these). https://www.unilight.at/

A source for general bright RC strobes (but again at normal RC flying purpose, not 1800'+ up) http://www.electrodynam.com/store/SunVis.html

[Rjtw]

Cool, thanks Steve! Well, I pulled the trigger on an Innoflyer 5.0 system so we'll see how that goes. It's also controllable via the transmitter and has a nice PC-based software package that allows you to program exactly what the lights do. Expectations are now properly set for high altitude.

Where did you place your lights? I'm considering bottom of fuselage behind the retract, and left/right sides of the fin (everything contained in the fuselage this way).

Cheers!
Rick

[Steve P]

My Arcus has top of fuse behind the canopy, bottom of fuse behind the retract and leading edge of the vertical fin toward the top.

[Rjtw]

Cheers!
Rick

[Parallax]

There are inexpensive strobe lighting systems for automotive geeks that are definitely(!) powerful enough to see at the kind of altitude you might encounter. Significantly(!) better than any aftermarket LED. Given the idea is to re-establish visual connection with your aircraft, LEDs that are constantly active are a far cry from a strobe.

My first use of strobes was during trials for FAI F3B absolute velocity record attempts. I built a set into the LE of a composite wing so that after thermaling to altitude - I could actually(!) see the aircraft when it was diving straight down prior to 200M course entry to satisfy the rules. With such an almost 8% airfoil and the meager frontal area (RNR Nova fuselages), the aircraft simply disappeared.

With the strobes, I had pitch and roll control...no matter how high I elected to commence the dive...

[Rjtw]

Well, a little bit of feedback. In short, Innoflyer was kind of a useless toy with awful support, but I discovered Unilight from Steve's feedback and it looks amazing!!

First of all, Innoflyer was a total waste of time... the LED emitters are miniscule (only about 1mm2) and Innoflyer provides no power or lumen specifications on their lights, which I suspect is because their output is quite low. My best guess is that their white strobe lights (all appear to have the same identical emitter) might be producing 500-700 lumens tops. The controller is limited to 2A max and goes down as the light warms up. My biggest issue was that the software, without which the controller won't work, does not run properly on Windows which is supposed to be supported. And, after spending hours and hours trying to get the lights and controller to work on multiple Windows machines without success and running into a variety of problems, I emailed their support line and was met with a defensive and angry support person (actually, as far as I can tell, the developer of the product himself) whose entire response to my problems was... "RTFM!!!!" Even after several back-and-forths, the developer could not resolve my problems and basically told me he was giving up and didn't care. WOW! Well, just goes to show you the value of actually caring about your customers - had I encountered someone who actually wanted the product to work for me, I may have kept the product. Maybe.

Thanks for making my choice easy -- I returned everything for a full refund from Hacker Motor Shop, including shipping. I'm glad I ordered from Hacker (not from Innoflyer), and Hacker made the return process super painless.

So... yeah... AVOID INNOFLYER like the plague!

However, I took a hint from Steve above and checked out Unilight.

UNILIGHT HAS SOME TRULY AWESOME products, and they've apparently added an entire line of high-output Sailplane lights to their repertoire over the last few years. I ended up purchasing wingtip lights with four huge emitters, each emitter measuring about 5mm x 5mm (24W, 3000 lumens total each wingtip), a top-of-fuselage beacon with numerous emitters pointed in all different directions (40W, 2500 lumens and available in red too which is what I went with) and finally a really beautiful strip light that emits from both sides that is designed for e.g. the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer (a WHOPPING 60W and 7000 lumens!!!!!!) There are many more lights to choose from, as well. I went with the 8-channel controller for full configurability even though the 1-or 2-channel controller would work fine. I am confident this will be easily visible as far as I can see the airplane on the brightest day (more to come).

What's more, I've been in touch via e-mail with Ulrich, the proprietor, who has been EXTREMELY helpful in guiding me through the very extensive product lineup and answering ALL my numerous questions. I am so glad I switched!

Oh, one more thing. The Innoflyer (bad) lights are somewhat deceptively depicted on their website with no wires attached, which suggests that they can either be flat mounted or at most that only a small hole need be drilled in your beautiful carbon. In actual fact, the wires are rather awkwardly attached directly on the bottom/flat underside of the lights, along with big globs of silicone to seal them. That means that for the approx. 25mm long wingtip lights I purchased, you'd need to cut slots or openings almost as long and wide as the lights themselves... ugh. Not an elegant solution at all.

On the other hand, Unilight has totally solved this problem with, for example, its 14mm profile lights. The light has a flat metal base that can be easily glued onto any surface. The two wires are soldered on the top of the base (leaving the bottom flat and undisturbed), and exit at the very rear of the teardrop lens. That means that you only need drill a hole just big enough for two small wires... 1/8" tops. I love it!! Unilight even sells these really cool "floating" connectors that are designed for wing-to-fuselage connections (servos, lights, anything) and are meant to handle any wiggle or flex in those joints. The connectors come in a huge variety of sizes. I got the smallest type and will be building in four pairs of them... wing-to-fuselage at the root and also for each removable outer wing section of the Arcus.

I'll update further either here or on my Arcus thread on rcgroups when I get everything installed. Cheers!

[Steve P]

Glad Unilight became a solution for you. With their (newer than my Arcus) 9 LED flat discs (neat idea to install one in each servo cover) the bottom of the wing will indeed be quite visible.

Good luck.