One mark looked on the right spot, but the other looked about another 10º retarded - the vid kind-of shows the 2 marks. Who seem to have cheapish ($5 US or so) tubes although shipping may be a killer. You may need to drive it from a power MOSFET to get the current you need though. The newer multi watt white leds I think use a phosfor to adjust the light output spectrum and thus may not turn off fast enough to do what you need (simulate the bright fast output of a strobe tube), but I think the standard 5mm type white leds that come directly from the die should probably work. Light output is linear with current (but at some current point the internal bonds may melt) and the short duty cycle keeps the heat (which is usually the real limiting factor) within bounds. If you are using standard white LEDs (I’d be tempted to start from a 5 or 9 led ebay type battery flashlight to get the leds a case and reflector to get a directed beam that may be bright enough) you should (note the weasel word ) be able to get more brightness by increasing the voltage driving the LEDs to source more than their rated current with a short on long off cycle. This one is cheap and only uses 11 easy to get parts, and if I can make it better I won’t worry about the Xenon strobe. But if you really need to know that it's going to turn on and stay on, you want to get hardware rated for industrial- not commercial or consumer- environmentals.I have a simple LED timing light working, but it has problems and is rather weak. For things which are not mission critical, that's fine. It's consumer hardware, made to sit on your desk at a balmy 20-22 degrees. I would caution against using a standard RPi. I just discovered the 4D Systems displays, they're what MGM Compro sells for aviation usage. This means you could install the microcontroller somewhere convenient for the sensors and actuators, and then have a trivially small wire which goes to the display. Since you want a display, I would think about using a microcontroller to aggregate all the sensor data, and then use a single wire to go to the display computer. Plus, if you want to pull the Arduino out you know that the basic requirements for night flight are unaffected. Nothing wrong with using the microcontroller, but it's a lot easier to have things you know you can rely on even when the firmware crashes. In comparison, thermocouples require some kind of extremely sensitive ADC or a good voltage amplifier.įor a flashing light placed on a distant wing or tail, unless you thought you would want to program an advanced light flashing behavior, I would forgo a microcontroller, and instead do this at the the LED with a driver and a timer circuit (555 is a popular and dirt cheap one). No specialized circuitry is required for a microcontroller (e.g. They are much cheaper to use, as they provide a temperature-sensitive resistance instead of a thermocouple's weak mV signal. In lieu of thermocouples, I would consider NTC thermistors. do you guys recommend/have experience with? Will the Arduino be able to translate the tach/voltage/amps into displays or does it need a separate sensor? Which Arduino board would work best for this application?ĭo I need to attach a strobe controller to the Arduino, or can I program them in? I need different strobe speeds for the tail beacon & wingtips, can I do this with one controller/board? I can fit a 3.5" or 4" screen on the panel, and it would be nice if I could power the whole thing on with the avionics master switch if possible.Īll that said, these are my main questions: I only need two EGT sensors, two CHTs, a fuel pressure sensor, & all the electrical protocols to read tach, voltage, & amps. The engine is a Rotax 503 DCDI (Provision 8, Ducati mags), & I'm using an EarthX 680C battery ( Here's the info from EarthX that says this is okay, just in case anyone was wondering). I can manage the coding I think, but I'm struggling to find all compatible parts for what I need & could use some help. Instead of running two controllers (one for the beacon, one for strobes), I'd like to solve two problems with one project by making an Arduino (or Raspberry Pi, if that's smarter) to control the lights as well as display engine sensors. These are pretty basic as I understand them An LED connects to a driver, which runs to a timing controller if needed, powered on & off with a switch. I'm going to build my own LED assemblies for the nav, strobes, and tail beacon on my Ridge Runner, as most of the commercial options are just too expensive or don't fit my project. I do have a basic understanding of most things, and I'll try to make as much sense as I can, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I'll start this post with a disclaimer: I am not an expert on electronics.
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