Whelen Nav light LED replacements

[Ryan ORL]

Red nav light on my 84 J is burned out and needs replacement.  Appears like from a cost point of view, it's nearly the same cost to just go to LEDs.

Based on the parts catalog, I think I need the Whelen W1250 compatible ones like these:

https://www.knots2u.net/whelen-led-position-light-whelen-71379-series/

Does anybody have any experience with these?

I've seem many people go with the 'full' replacement that also takes care of the strobes, but that seems much more involved (not to mention much more costly), and as I fly often at night, I don't really want to wait for the downtime.

Would it be foolish to try and just do the LED nav lights only?

Edited February 9, 2021 by Ryan ORL

[MisfitSELF]

Sorry, I'm not answering your question but the blue sky in the background of you photos is calling out to me to go flying...and makes me sad that I have to spend my day at work...

[PT20J]

The landing gear annunciator dimming circuit relies on incandescent bulbs having low filament resistance when off. Perhaps others have figured out a way around this.

Skip

[Ryan ORL]

I guess there are also these: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/elpages/whelenchromaled.php

Those seem to replace the W1290-14 bulbs... however no idea about the gear indicator issue mentioned above.

I've seen lots of threads about people who have put LEDs on their Mooneys... I would think this must be a solved issue?

[Bolter]

32 minutes ago, Ryan ORL said:

I guess there are also these: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/elpages/whelenchromaled.php

Those seem to replace the W1290-14 bulbs... however no idea about the gear indicator issue mentioned above.

I've seen lots of threads about people who have put LEDs on their Mooneys... I would think this must be a solved issue?

I swapped in these on my J, and have not regretted it.  Now I leave them on all the time, like the landing light.  I have not paid attention to dimmer circuit.  I will need to do that on next night flight.  It is possible that as approved drop in replacements, they put a little resistance?

-dan

[Ryan ORL]

21 minutes ago, Bolter said:

I swapped in these on my J, and have not regretted it.  Now I leave them on all the time, like the landing light.  I have not paid attention to dimmer circuit.  I will need to do that on next night flight.  It is possible that as approved drop in replacements, they put a little resistance?

-dan

Thanks for the PIREP!  After some more reading, I think these are the thing to do.

[PT20J]

I only know about the issue with the gear annunciator because I looked up the schematic when someone posted about their gear light being dim after replacing the nav lights with LEDs, and someone else mentioned that their LED nav lights glowed dimly when turned off.  I recall someone saying that they fixed it by adding a relay, but I don't know the details. Maybe someone has a more elegant solution. Or, possibly folks just put up with the gear light being permanently dim.

Skip

[ZuluZulu]

5 minutes ago, PT20J said:

I only know about the issue with the gear annunciator because I looked up the schematic when someone posted about their gear light being dim after replacing the nav lights with LEDs, and someone else mentioned that their LED nav lights glowed dimly when turned off.  I recall someone saying that they fixed it by adding a relay, but I don't know the details. Maybe someone has a more elegant solution. Or, possibly folks just put up with the gear light being permanently dim.

Skip

I don't have LED nav lights (yet) but I do have LED landing and taxi lights.  My gear annunciator light is also very dim, so I'm interested in any solutions as well.

@OSUAV8TER can help with LED questions.  My guess is you want the Chromas for a NAV-light only replacement.

[TerryDubYa]

I'm also interested in a remedy for the dim gear annunciator light after replacing all exterior lights with LEDs.  

 

[ArtVandelay]

I'm also interested in a remedy for the dim gear annunciator light after replacing all exterior lights with LEDs.  
 

There are 4 wires going to the nav light switch, 1 for the tail, 2 for the left/right position lights...disconnect the 4th wire.

[201Steve]

There is a Whelen dealer here. I forget the name. Maybe the mayor @carusoam can tag them. 

[PT20J]

44 minutes ago, ArtVandelay said:

There are 4 wires going to the nav light switch, 1 for the tail, 2 for the left/right position lights...disconnect the 4th wire.

If the service manual is correct, you would have to remove the wire to the annunciator from the nav light switch and ground it. Then the gear warning light would be bright all the time -- no dimming. I think the purpose of the relay is to preserve the original functionality.

Skip

 

 

[Hank]

1 hour ago, 201Steve said:

There is a Whelen dealer here. I forget the name. Maybe the mayor @carusoam can tag them. 

@ZuluZulu already tagged @OSUAV8TERabove. He has an ongoing thread in the second For Sale section.

[Ryan ORL]

1 hour ago, ArtVandelay said:

There are 4 wires going to the nav light switch, 1 for the tail, 2 for the left/right position lights...disconnect the 4th wire.

So based on this, if I leave the tail light as-is, I assume I won’t have any of the annunciator issues?

[EricJ]

I replaced my nav and tail lights with some of the more plebian, generic, much less expensive LEDs and never had a problem with them or with the gear annunciator brightness.   I've since replaced the assemblies with Orion 600s rather than wait until the strobe power supplies failed.

[StevenL757]

@Ryan ORL, some good suggestions here, however, instead of replacing just the red and green NAV portion with the Chroma, I’d suggest the Orion OR650E, given you have the newer enclosed wingtip.

https://flywat.com/collections/aircraft-wingtip-horizontal-stabilizer-lights/products/or6501r

Whelen uses my aircraft for advertising...the before and after is here for comparison.  First two pictures in the second row:

https://flywat.com/collections/mooney-products

Several reasons to go this route:  You’ll remove the strobes, their power supplies, and save a nice bit of weight in addition to the dramatically-reduced power draw.  The OR500 in the tail will round out your LED anti-collision and NAV installation nicely and be a complete system that will last you practically the life of the airplane.  I can tell you that Whelen’s stuff is worth their weight in gold.  Their products have never let me down...I hope you’ll find the same.  Let me know if you have questions, as I’ve installed several sets for various people here in the Northeast.

Steve

[PT20J]

39 minutes ago, StevenL757 said:

@Ryan ORL, some good suggestions here, however, instead of replacing just the red and green NAV portion with the Chroma, I’d suggest the Orion OR650E, given you have the newer enclosed wingtip.

https://flywat.com/collections/aircraft-wingtip-horizontal-stabilizer-lights/products/or6501r

Whelen uses my aircraft for advertising...the before and after is here for comparison.  First two pictures in the second row:

https://flywat.com/collections/mooney-products

Several reasons to go this route:  You’ll remove the strobes, their power supplies, and save a nice bit of weight in addition to the dramatically-reduced power draw.  The OR500 in the tail will round out your LED anti-collision and NAV installation nicely and be a complete system that will last you practically the life of the airplane.  I can tell you that Whelen’s stuff is worth their weight in gold.  Their products have never let me down...I hope you’ll find the same.  Let me know if you have questions, as I’ve installed several sets for various people here in the Northeast.

Steve

I don't see a white position light for the wingtips. Is there a replacement for that? That's the little sucker that gets hot.

How much rewiring did you have to do?

Skip

[PT20J]

52 minutes ago, Ryan ORL said:

So based on this, if I leave the tail light as-is, I assume I won’t have any of the annunciator issues?

Probably that would work. I think @larrynimmo is the one with details on the relay installation. If I were doing it, I would put in whatever lights I really want and see what happens. Then if there were issues I'd put in a relay so everything works like it should. Should be easily signed off as a minor modification.

Skip

 

[carusoam]

3 hours ago, 201Steve said:

There is a Whelen dealer here. I forget the name. Maybe the mayor @carusoam can tag them. 

@OSUAV8TER is our LED source of great info...

 

As far as the dim gear down light on the annunciator goes... remember back to the pre-LED days...

If you run the nav lights to be seen in daylight... you have opted to forgo a decent gear down light... as it gets auto-dimmed to uselessness...

I still have the old incandescent lights, and too dim gear down light...  

Best regards,

-a-

[Ross Statham]

5 hours ago, Ryan ORL said:

Thanks for the PIREP!  After some more reading, I think these are the thing to do.

Last year I installed combination LED position and “strobe” (very bright white LEDs) in my J for a little under one standard aviation unit (a thousand bucks) and I LOVE them.   One of my strobes had failed, it only made sense.  My A&P and I took out the voltage converter for the strobes in each wing, wired the circuit to the lights, and haven’t had any issue with the dimming described above.  90 minute swap out.

Here’s where it matters:  The first evening that I went out north of the field to practice our NAV approaches with a safety pilot, I had two other pilots remark that they could see my wingtip LEDs 10 miles out, beyond the initial approach fix.  That’s what I wanted to hear.  Mine isn’t the Wheelan brand, I’d have to pull my logbooks and look them up.  But you should get similar results.

My advice?  Do it.

[Steve W]

Basically you want a relay wired up so when the lights are off then the dimmer line is grounded and when the lights are on it's connected to +V. (This is not aviation advice, it's a talking point for you to discuss with a qualified A&P or similar)

[larrynimmo]

5 hours ago, Steve W said:

Basically you want a relay wired up so when the lights are off then the dimmer line is grounded and when the lights are on it's connected to +V. (This is not aviation advice, it's a talking point for you to discuss with a qualified A&P or similar)

While this will work...as you get that necessary grounding for full brightness, you do not need the switch power to go to the “gear down” annunciator.  
 

With the annunciator wire  grounded, full bright, when not grounded, dim.

[tmo]

Stupid question, but would replacing the gear annunciation lamp with a dimmable LED bulb solve the issue?

[larrynimmo]

3 minutes ago, tmo said:

Stupid question, but would replacing the gear annunciation lamp with a dimmable LED bulb solve the issue?

Installation of the relay is quite easy...once you have identified the wires it takes about 10 minutes

it takes longer to do your “game plan” than it does to execute.

[ArtVandelay]

Stupid question, but would replacing the gear annunciation lamp with a dimmable LED bulb solve the issue?

I did this, but I pulled the annunciator:

 

 

G5s eliminated the vacuum system, so no vacuum low/high warnings.

JPI 900 eliminated the low fuel and battery low/high warnings.

I pulled the ram air so that eliminated that annunciation.

Was left with only gear down/unsafe.