The Difference is Night and Day

[donkaye]

For quite some time I have not been happy with the light provided by the standard glare shield lighting.  I finally decided to do something about it.  Mark, from Top Gun, ordered the new LED strip lights and did the installation in a few  hours.  I left the glare shield with him and came back a couple of days later to have him reinstall the glare shield with the new lighting.  The LEDS are dimmable, but I have them on high in the picture.  The pictures below show the panel with the lights off and on.  What a difference!

[jaylw314]

23 minutes ago, donkaye said:

For quite some time I have not been happy with the light provided by the standard glare shield lighting.  I finally decided to do something about it.  Mark, from Top Gun, ordered the  new LED strip lights and did the installation in a few  hours.  I left the glare shield with him and came back a couple of days later go have him reinstall the glare shield with the new lighting.  The LEDS are dimmable, but I have them on high in the picture.  The pictures below show the panel with the lights off and on.  What a difference!

 

 

Oooh, pretty!   Can you change their color?  I'd probably go for low white lighting at night

[Steve Dawson]

Who manufactures the LED's Don?

 

[donkaye]

27 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Oooh, pretty!   Can you change their color?  I'd probably go for low white lighting at night

I had my choice.  I could have gone white, but thought the blue was more comfortable.  If it turns out I don't like it over time, they easily come out and can be replaced with a different color.  It is not as overwhelmingly blue as indicated in the picture.  This set has only one color and the dimming works well.

[donkaye]

6 minutes ago, Steve Dawson said:

Who manufactures the LED's Don?

 

I'll have to find out from Mark.

[PT20J]

Very nice Don. Of course, everyone is different. I tend more like Ernie Gann: "It was a brilliant night and I had turned the cockpit lights far down so that the luster of the moon would permeate the cockpit and for a little time, at least, relieve the hypnotic sensation of being stared at by the instruments."

Skip

[donkaye]

1 hour ago, PT20J said:

Very nice Don. Of course, everyone is different. I tend more like Ernie Gann: "It was a brilliant night and I had turned the cockpit lights far down so that the luster of the moon would permeate the cockpit and for a little time, at least, relieve the hypnotic sensation of being stared at by the instruments."

Skip

Well said.  I will usually keep the lights low enroute, then turn them up on approach.  However, even with the old lights turned up, some of the switches were not readable.  With the new ones that will not be the case.

[tmo]

Don, the light strip is basically along the whole bottom front of the glare shield, recessed a little towards the instrument panel, correct? You got me wanting some LEDs while mine is out...

[donkaye]

5 hours ago, tmo said:

Don, the light strip is basically along the whole bottom front of the glare shield, recessed a little towards the instrument panel, correct? You got me wanting some LEDs while mine is out...

Yes.   Mark just took out the bulbs from the original recessed lighting, then glued the strip in as far out as possible in the recessed area under the glare shield so the most light would shine on the panel.  It looks like it was meant to be there and looks quite professional.  He said if I didn't like the new strip I could just put the old lights back in, disconnect the blue strip and return to the way it was before without any other changes.

[PT20J]

48 minutes ago, donkaye said:

Yes.   Mark just took out the bulbs from the original recessed lighting, then glued the strip in as far out as possible in the recessed area under the glare shield so the most light would shine on the panel.  It looks like it was meant to be there and looks quite professional.  He said if I didn't like the new strip I could just put the old lights back in, disconnect the blue strip and return to the way it was before without any other changes.

Don, sound like he kept the stock dimmer control. Is that right?  Does it dim well? I know some LEDs don’t dim fully with analog dimmers. 

[donkaye]

It did use the stock dimmer.  It seems to dim well until the very end when it goes out, but that is very low level.

[EricJ]

29 minutes ago, donkaye said:

It did use the stock dimmer.  It seems to dim well until the very end when it goes out, but that is very low level.

I'd be interested what strip he used as well.  

 

[jaylw314]

LED's can often be dimmed with a rheostat dimmer adequately.  It's just hard to predict if it will work well unless you know the resistance profile of the LED's, you'll just get a rheostat that does nothing until the end, then brightens really fast.  The fancy ones, of course, have a PWM controller

One idea if the LED strip shines into your eyes because of its placement is to paint the strip surface that faces you with one of those metallic ink pens and/or use black tape to block out the view of the LED elements.  I put some in our old club cherokee, and the way the glareshield was shaped, you couldn't really place the strip where the LED's wouldn't be in direct view

Edited December 4, 2021 by jaylw314

[Marauder]

You ain’t LEDing unless you is pimping your ride. This is with them set to the max setting.



I have a set of whites as well. Whites come in a variety of K values ranging from 4000K to 6500K. They are cheap enough that if you don’t like the ambiance you can pick up a different set.

For older Mooney’s, I found a PWM controller does a great job of giving a wide range of dimming.

Where some of these installations go astray is if they are powered on one end and run is long enough, they will be brighter on one side than the other. You can split them in two and wire each leg.


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[ArtVandelay]

I just replaced existing incandescent bulbs with red LEDs, but left a couple on the left side figuring I might need to read a chart or something. I’ve never needed to do that and will swap out all the incandescent bulbs next time I remove the glare shield.

[rbp]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:24 PM, donkaye said:

I'll have to find out from Mark.

did you ever find out? are they PMA?

[jetdriven]

1 hour ago, rbp said:

did you ever find out? are they PMA?

Of course they are !  “Put on Mooney Airplane”

[mike_elliott]

On 12/5/2021 at 1:02 AM, Marauder said:

You ain’t LEDing unless you is pimping your ride. This is with them set to the max setting.



I have a set of whites as well. Whites come in a variety of K values ranging from 4000K to 6500K. They are cheap enough that if you don’t like the ambiance you can pick up a different set.

For older Mooney’s, I found a PWM controller does a great job of giving a wide range of dimming.

Where some of these installations go astray is if they are powered on one end and run is long enough, they will be brighter on one side than the other. You can split them in two and wire each leg.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

That looks like your trying to raise prices for an evening with the harem, Chris

[rbp]

Which OEM's sell PMA'd led lights?

and PMA'd PWM dimmers?

 

[donkaye]

5 hours ago, rbp said:

did you ever find out? are they PMA?

I just called Top Gun and they purchased them from Aircraft Spruce.  They were about $38.