LED lighting Poll

[Bartman]

There are two current threads on LED lights and it seems to be a hot subject. Trust me, I get the position from the AP and IA guys. I'm a Doc and worry about risk to ourselves and others too. However, I also see lots of airplanes including Mooney with LED lights and not all are certified products.

Seems like a good idea for an anonymous poll, but feel free to comment. 

[Hank]

I only see Questions #1 & #3.

Whelen LED Landing Light (Parmetheus) and Belly Strobe (red & white). My other lights still work, and will remain as long as LED prices remain stupid high. $500 for one wingtip light? YGBSM . . . .

[MIm20c]

I have the older Whelen light as well. I leave it on all the time which is nice but I find the output and night very marginal. Came close to buying an aeroled sunspot at S&F but the unit I want (4580) is 28 v only.  I hope they make a 14v version of that light soon.

I don’t mind paying the long price for an aviation unit but I’m never buying a low output unit again. 

[bradp]

Looks There is an absurdly high output Whelen offering in the latest catalog.  

[ShuRugal]

8 minutes ago, bradp said:

Looks There is an absurdly high output Whelen offering in the latest catalog.  

Got a link?  All I can find on their website is the Parmetheus + PAR46.  I called their sales guy a few months ago to ask if they had anything brighter, and he said there would be one released "soon".  If this is that, I'd like to see one.

[bradp]

Whelen 2018 aviation catalog.  Seems 50-ish percent more CP than the plus.  I’m sure the price will reflect it and that they will try to get them out prior to Oshkosh 

[JohnB]

I had the original Parmetheus LED lights, and yes they are brighter than the incandescent replacements, but the main advantage for Whelan is that their energy drain was MUCH less, nearly  negligible compared to the incandescent. (I can barely see the needle move when I turned on the Whelan lights, but was a  noticeable drain turning on the incadescents). Oh if anyone wants these, (I have 4 Whelan Prometheus, two taxi two landing PAR 46-24v) I can give them to you for cheap!

I upgraded to the sunspots (24v) at last Oshkosh as the light output was just miles beyond the Whelans, but the power drain was only slightly less than that of the incandescents. So its a trade-off. They had a Parmetheus plus at last Oshkosh which they claim was up to 50% brighter than their original, but still no where near the sunspots (From my eye, sunspots were 200-300% brighter). The comment i got from their rep is "of course if we put more energy into it, it will be brighter, but we still have the lowest energy drain of LEDs on the market". So I guess the question for use would one prefer a brighter light or lower energy drain in deciding between the Whelan and the Sunspots.

 

John

[jlunseth]

I have both. I have LED nav and tailight and they are STCd or PMAd, I don’t remember which.  I have an LED landing light and as I recall that was just a drop in replacement signed off by the A&P. No one has ever said boo about either of them.

Edited May 6, 2018 by jlunseth

[MyNameIsNobody]

On 5/5/2018 at 3:30 PM, Hank said:

I only see Questions #1 & #3.

Whelen LED Landing Light (Parmetheus) and Belly Strobe (red & white). My other lights still work, and will remain as long as LED prices remain stupid high. $500 for one wingtip light? YGBSM . . . .

+1 Except I have an XEVision Landing light (HID) and wingtip strobes.  I refuse to pay the prices for the rotating beacon and position lights.  CB says NOPE as mine are functional and the strobes and HID provide good “I’m here” collision avoidance.

[M016576]

On 5/5/2018 at 1:30 PM, Hank said:

I only see Questions #1 & #3.

Whelen LED Landing Light (Parmetheus) and Belly Strobe (red & white). My other lights still work, and will remain as long as LED prices remain stupid high. $500 for one wingtip light? YGBSM . . . .

Particularly sad, because an equivalent bulb for a car is about $7.00

 

 

[Steve W]

I really wish I had a ton of money and I could afford all these LED landing lights and do a shoot-out as one is never sure how 'candlepower' or for that matter 'lumens' are measured.  The Sunspot 36 45xx from Aeroleds show about double the candlepower but at about 4x the power draw(which I already bought a pair since they're still well below 50% of the existing light power draw), but who knows how anyone is measuring it. And then the Whelens show double the candlepower at the same power draw in the PAR-46 vs the PAR-36.

Edited May 7, 2018 by Steve W

[Hank]

2 hours ago, MyNameIsNobody said:

+1 Except I have an XEVision Landing light (HID) and wingtip strobes.  I refuse to pay the prices for the rotating beacon and position lights.  CB says NOPE as mine are functional and the strobes and HID provide good “I’m here” collision avoidance.

I replaced mine because the old belly strobe died . . .

Same with the Landing light, fine on preflight, dead landing 3 hours later (+1 hour time change) in WV. Wondered why I couldn't see the parallel ridgeline, turned base towards it and still nothing, realized the bulb was out. Made for an interesting landing over the trees.

Had the Parmetheus before my next night flight, have only turned it off once in 4 years since then.

Edited May 7, 2018 by Hank

[Igor_U]

I was looking at it but replacing all the lights with LEDs can add up to significant amount. I see some people did it but a lot with older vintage Mooneys still have incandescent lights as owners can’t justify expense on older airframes.

When I bought it, my 67F had two landing 100W lights as a result of oil cooler relocation and after a couple of failed landing lights I installed a pair of automotive H3 lights (100W each). I wonder if anyone has this installed on their plane? Is it still available?

I have this Stan Prodigal (sp?) STC installed for over 10 years now with no light bulb failure and I’m quite happy with it; however current draw is still the same as before hence my interest in LED landing light installation.

 

Regards,

 

[Seth]

I upgraded in stages.  Had an issue with the strobe on a wingtip and instead of putting bad money into an older system I switched to LED Nav/strobes a few years ago - did the tail at the same time - AveoEngineering.  The following year, after burning out many incandescent landing bulbs, I replaced my two with the AeroLEDs HX and LX landing and tax lights.  My taxi is a 3 way setup so it's on/off/pulse.  My landing light is on/off.  

At some point I'll run wig wag capable position lights forward on the wingtips as well, so they'll have blink/wigwag/on/off settings available.

I held off on the landing/taxi lights because the Whelens were originally just not bring enough/didn't throw light far enough in my opinion.  The AeroLEDs did and once they got the PMA I made the purchase.  I've been very happy.

 

Take care,

-Seth

[jan.eric.madsen]

Aero led is PMAd, Whelen is an STC. IA wasn't happy about me putting in my own Whelen in the log book. Keep in mind you will have to have the STC paperwork and pay your IA to log it.


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[Steve W]

And now I can give my update, although it's many months before my plane will be flying again I did get my new AeroLEDs SunSpot 36 4596 Landing Light and the SunSpot 36 4587 Taxi light installed finally. Replacing the existing pair of GE 4596 lights in one wing. I also cleaned up the cover considerably.

Subjectively the Landing light is brighter than the original with a larger pattern. The Taxi Light is slightly dimmer than the hot spot on the original but with a much larger pattern.

Once the plane is flying again I'll try this somewhere outside where the differences are easier to test.

 

Taxi

Landing

Edited June 10, 2018 by Steve W

[jaylw314]

On 5/19/2018 at 3:39 PM, jan.eric.madsen said:

Aero led is PMAd, Whelen is an STC. IA wasn't happy about me putting in my own Whelen in the log book. Keep in mind you will have to have the STC paperwork and pay your IA to log it.


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My IA didn't bat an eye with me installing the Whelen landing light, and I've at least one other IA friend who just told me to put the damn thing in.

@Hank if you ever do see trees with your landing light, that would be a bad night!

[Hank]

20 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

My IA didn't bat an eye with me installing the Whelen landing light, and I've at least one other IA friend who just told me to put the damn thing in.

@Hank if you ever do see trees with your landing light, that would be a bad night!

Going into KHTW, you want to see the trees, day and night. Although I heard that they were finally cut on the approach end to 26 earlier this year. Not sure about the other end, where they were high enough to cause a significant displaced threshold. 

[takair]

Field approved Aveo pre-TSO’d landing and beacon.

[Releew]

Has anyone offered LED wingtip recognition lights yet?  Something Plug and Fly.....at a reasonable price.....

Rick

[kortopates]

Has anyone offered LED wingtip recognition lights yet?  Something Plug and Fly.....at a reasonable price.....
Rick

No, but these are projector bulbs only about $10 each if you are willing to Dremel down/sand and solder a couple wires. Search Mooneyspace for bulb part number.


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