Avanti Landing Lights

[mirion]

Yes, I did install a set of landing lights in the nosecone of my Avanti. It turned out pretty good, I cut a groove on both sides of the nosecone and then glued in some plastic tubing that I cut at an angle lengthwise. I then glued the lights into the tube. I mixed in a relay with the landing gear channel so they were turned on and off depending on the landing gear being up or down. Below are all of the components I used. The lights from Ebay actually came from China and are still available but the time to get here is a unknown these days but they only took about 3 weeks when I ordered them. Unfortunately that Avanti is no more and haven't reinstalled it in the new Avanti yet so I don't have any pics of it in flight.

[Planeclothes]

I have a Freewing Yellow Avanti and I wish to use the MotionRC landing light set https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...nt=19061166790 which includes the V3v light controller. Because I am using a 6 channel radio I will need to Y-cable the lights into the landing gear channel but I want the lights to go on on after the wheels are completely down to eliminate excessive current draw at once. Will the MotionRC landing gear sequencer https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...nt=19055091590 allow me to put in the desired delay? Or maybe there is a better way to accomplish this?

I know it's been a while but, did you manage to install the landing lights on the Avanti? Any pictures please?

[rpellicciotti]

For what it is worth, I pushed the power lead out of the throttle line coming from the BEC and I use a separate receiver battery (1100mah, 6.6v Life). They are inexpensive and I usually get two or three flights out of it.

[mirion]

Thanks for the info Alpha, after reading some posts regarding people who felt a brownout was the cause of their crash I have been gun shy. It sounds like you feel the BEC on the stock Avanti ESC is robust enough to handle the additional wattage. There are no other devices on my factory stock plane and all of my control surfaces are free, just wasn't sure how much power electric retracts actually draw.

[Alpha]

Hi Mirion,
Both of those sequencers energize the LED rail at the moment the gear begins to cycle. There isn't a delay built in to either of those sequencers to energize the LED rail only after the gear is fully down, nor would there be a significant enough draw from the LEDs during those ~2 seconds to brown out your receiver. These same sequencers have been used in dozens of our aircraft for several years, and if people were losing a large number of planes due to brown outs while their gear was deploying and the landing lights were turning on, I'm sure they would have quickly made us aware.

If you wanted to DIY an inline circuit that delayed the signal, that would be theoretically possible. You'd have to devise a timing circuit that held back the input voltage for a couple seconds before passing it the LED.

[mirion]

I have a Freewing Yellow Avanti and I wish to use the MotionRC landing light set https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...nt=19061166790 which includes the V3v light controller. Because I am using a 6 channel radio I will need to Y-cable the lights into the landing gear channel but I want the lights to go on on after the wheels are completely down to eliminate excessive current draw at once. Will the MotionRC landing gear sequencer https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...nt=19055091590 allow me to put in the desired delay? Or maybe there is a better way to accomplish this?