Until I went to FliteFest East '17, I had no idea night flying existed. Our first day there, I was astounded that people were flying in complete darkness... The planes with LEDs lit up the sky, and some of them (such as the flying Pac-Man or flying pig) were quite creative. At the event, I bought a meter of LEDs and some connectors from a vendor, and soldered and installed them on my simple cub. It worked beautifully! After I was done flying, all I could think about was making some more at home, because it is almost a completely new hobby! I was addicted. Below, I describe how I made these. If you don't have a soldering iron, or would just rather buy them already made, I have made some pre-soldered plug and play versions available on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-light-strip-1-METER-w-attached-JST-XH-connectors-multiple-colors-avialable-/302402860338?var=&hash=item46689d7532:m:mLgT4cTFiF__rVvwKJzk4Eg
Anyway, when I got home, we ordered a couple meters of led tape strips to mess around with. I installed them on my FT-22 Raptor, and it looked awesome. Then I had the idea of putting connectors on the led strips so that I could easily connect them and adjust the lengths I wanted on my plane. I subsequently ordered 25 meters of LED tape strips in various colors as well as a bunch of JST-XH 4 pin connectors (Normal 3s balance plugs), cut the LED strips into 1 meter segments, and soldered male/female balance plugs on each side as shown below. This allowed me to plug one end into the 3s balance plug, then connect many strips of LEDs together, but still allowing me to customize the length based on the plane. I have seen many other uses for this LED tape, such as lighting up TinyWhoop gates, RC Helicopters, Multirotors, etc. The same technique can be used for all of these applications as long as you have a power source to power the LEDs at their specified voltage. The LEDs that I got have a voltage range of 9 to 15 volts, so that is why I chose to use a 3s battery connector.
In order to do this, you will need:
- LED tape strips of desired lengths
- Male/Female JST-XH 4 pin plugs (3s balance connectors)
- A soldering iron
- Some spare wire (may come with balance plugs)
- A 3s LiPo
- A wire stripper
Usually when you receive the LEDs, they will be on a spool. You will have to cut the LEDs into the desired lengths and remove the LEDs from the spool. Make sure, to only cut in between the solder pads, as to not break the circuit. You can then tin the solder pads on the LED strip at each end.
The connectors will come with 4 pins, and 4 wires/solder points sticking out the back. For this project, you will not need the middle two wires, so you can pull them out. After you have tinned both the LED strip and the wires on the connector, you can solder the wire to the LED strip. Make sure to keep all of the connectors the same polarity (keeping one wire of the connector the same polarity +/-) throughout the project. You will want to decide one side of all of the LED strips to be for the male connector, then the other to be for the female as to avoid confusion. In other words, there are many ways to set up the connectors, just make sure that when you connect two led strips, the positive side goes to the positive side and the negative side goes to the negative side.
Once you have figured out which way you want to do the connectors, and have soldered the connectors on to each side (male on one side female on the other), you can connect the led strips to your 3s battery. I would strongly suggest going back and checking all of your wiring to make sure the positive and negative sides do not cross. Shorting out one connection on the led length will short out all of the LEDs plugged in at that time. Once you have checked your wiring and have tested each meter, you can connect many LED strips together with the connectors to form a longer strip if needed, shown below (the manufacturer of the LEDs I purchased said not to connect more than 5 meters of LEDs together).
If you want to, you can also add some heat shrink to give it that polished, professional look.
At this point, all that is left is to install the LED strips on your plane, then go flying! The LED strips I ordered have a adhesive backing, however I used the adhesive backing along with some clear packing tape to secure it to the plane. The LEDs can either go on the inside or outside of the plane, so while you are building a plane, for example, you could put the LEDs in the wing. Below are some pictures of my planes with LEDs on them and other pictures from the project.
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