Aero Navigation Lights

As the weather seems to upset plans regarding flying and some of my ongoing jobs (albeit I did get the Long EZ started up on Sunday) I have not been wasting my time but going back to a time decades ago when I indulged in electronics. Since then components have got microscopic, my eyesight failing, which makes it hard to identify bits but at least it is warm and dry in my study, continuous supplies of coffee and the hours fly by!

What you see on the bench is a microprocessor which can be programmed in "C+". This little device is running a program which when your TX is switched on, the navigation lights on your plane come on. If you select gear down it is capable of sequencing the gear doors down followed by your gear and at the same time switches on landing lights.

I don't need a lot of the programs features so will edit it for my requirements. another small board will need to be made up with some small power MosFets to handle current which takes the signals from the processor.

Whether I'll achieve my goal is still uncertain but........... :lol:

Of course since my days of playing with electrons there is a whole new language sprung up to describe nearly everyfink......

PS: Paint matching is another pastime I am giving up! :lol:

Interesting Phil. I have dabbled with arduino's and other litlle micrto-controllers and have a fair knowledge of C++ if you get stuck. Good luck.

JRI wrote: Interesting Phil. I have dabbled with arduino's and other litlle micrto-controllers and have a fair knowledge of C++ if you get stuck. Good luck.

Might just take you up on that John Me thinks I am a bit over the hill for all this malarky but it whiles away the hours.

Okay, so far I have knocked up a test board (aka JIG) and programmed an AtMega328 for strobe, wing lamps and imitation revolving beacon (the latter needs a little more work to create the effect better) Using a 2 cell Lipo which keeps everything happy as would be onboard a model. The strobes are very slightly timed differently so to appear more scale/full size.

Next "play" will be to detect the pulse signal from flap switch (say 1400) to put landing lights on or by an used switch on the TX.

PS: I have put some landing lights on the Otter in advance..... :lol:

After bu**ing around for what seemed like hours, gallons of coffee (and in the warm ) with coding adjustments I am very happy with the outcome. Next job is to use a "Darlington Array" triggered by the microprocessor to switch the heavier loads of Leds and power chip landing lights. In the video I am using the prototyping board and then upload the code to the mini processor which gets installed in the plane.

Phil, Peter Willis needs a talking mushy meter in his Tx for when his model is

looking mushy in a turn

maybe not talking, perhaps just some sort of warning light or buzzing sound would do the trick, could you make that your next project please?

What's the SI unit for mush?

DavidTappin wrote: Phil, Peter Willis needs a talking mushy meter in his Tx for when his model is

looking mushy in a turn

maybe not talking, perhaps just some sort of warning light or buzzing sound would do the trick, could you make that your next project please?

Strangely enough I was looking through various projects that would be possibly helpful to RC fixed wing flyers and uncovered a project using digital pressure sensor for air speed (with temperature compensation), barometric altitude sensor. linked to a GPS sensor module and get the microprocessor to monitor yaw and pitch from a gyro and the data collected will show that the object was flying to slow, poor turning was causing a wing stall, angle of attack is wrong. All these modules and coding are around. :whistle: Then transmit this data to a ground station, maybe to a smart phone in your top pocket. However, each piece of data has to have a digitally recorded voice linked into the code.

I was thinking of a Jeremy Paxman type voice. So when the object appears to be flying "mushy" the system will alert the knob head on the sticks that he is near a stall, mushy or whatever.

Of course a system this good would ultimately say" Warning - mushy! Warning - mushy" and then take over control and regain a preset height and heading.

Or a cheaper version is to just flash a strobe on the aircraft when all is not well.

Images below are
1. pressure sensor 2. gps module (optional) 3. accelerometer/gyro module. 4. text to speech module

I thought for a moment that you were taking me seriously Phil. Until you mentioned a cheaper version with Jeremy Paxman flashing. Quite a surreal thought.

Seriously? Of course not David. But what you were suggesting is possible for under £100 :lol: Plus hours and hours of coding. Well within Pete's means.

Cold weather keeps me indoors and wimping off to going out. So this next post is not really Aero Nav Lights but could be an idea for future project, building banks leds into the leading edge of something. Purchased a ready made pcb and modified some of the components and tracks. The chip is a PIC controller to trigger the logical MosFets, although any microprocessor could do it with a trigger voltage of 3.3 to 5v. The 5050 leds are so bright the camera could not handle the 6500mcd. All cobbled together for a test.

I''ll be glad to get out and do RC Aero on stuff in the cold hangar.