August 27, 2004 HOME

The inboard aileron bracket for the left wing got riveted today.  There is a pre-punched piece in the kit that doesn't match the piece it is supposed to mate to.  Van's sent a replacement.  Guess what, it doesn't match either.  Now, I am waiting for another replacement.

I made a template of the wingtip cutout.  I will use it to place the lighting.  That's the landing light, nav lights and strobe.  I am using leds for the position lights.

Here's a pic of my first and second try at making holes for the leds.  The rivet is for size comparison.  This is a 1 watt Lexeon led.

 

   

Here is the test lighting of the leds.  They were much brighter than I expected.  This is a really simple do-it-yourself project and the lighting is brighter than the standard position lights while drawing much less current.  I bought a power adapter for the leds rather than using resistors or trying to build my own.

Here is the first line of leds.  At this point, I don't really know what the arrangement will look like.  These leds have a 140 degree spread and are very uniform.  Even so, I'm using two sets.  One on the outboard facing plane and one on the forward facing plane.  I will also us a reflective backplane to maximize the light distribution and brightness.  Below is a pic of the test strip wired together.  For now, it looks like this is going to work just fine.

 

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