Lighting up your Bird

[Droider]

I know there are numerous topics on other forums about adding LED lighting to your Bird.

I simply have LED's around each motor so I know its orientation, these are wired to the battery connection so they are always on.

I would like to learn how to have other LED's to come on either via a swtiching channel OR how to get them to come on to indicate a certain mode, ie GSP HOLD, ALT HOLD ect.

Any experts here? or any one done it?

 

[Bartman]

which flight control board Dave? just got back from a few pints so i'll check back in the AM.

 

[Droider]

FC2.1 the black one.. Don't think you were over here yet... thought u lot drank out of bottles!

 

[Crash]

FC2.1 the black one.. Don't think you were over here yet... thought u lot drank out of bottles!

The ability of the MK FC to power (ground) LEDs is somewhat limited. How many LEDs are you talking about?

Do you have a distribution board with the LED transistor circuit pads on it?

 

[Bartman]

i haven't been there yet Dave, next Sunday the 27th in the Kensington-High Bridge area.

what voltage do the LED's operate on? 5?

 

[Droider]

The more I look into it the more I think its just a total faff and not worth the effort and possible damage to the FC. I think if I want to add more lights I'll just run um all the time from the power pack rather than have fancy switching via the TX..I just wanted to use all the TX channels to be honest but as I said seems a bit of a mare to make it work..

I have seen some basic lights that run from the RX but not sure I want to go there right now.. I think the most important bit is that your bird flies, the camera works and you can fly reliably.. Oh and thats another subject.. think I now know whats happening with the GPS hold but thats another thread I'll go to now!

 

[Crash]

The LEDs are nice as a low battery warning if nothing else. It's not that hard to wire but there are several options depending on the current flow necessary and whether one has a distribution board with the transistor circuit.

I don't have such a board so I soldered together a transistor circuit so it plugs into the LED output of the MK FC board. It powers 2 or 4 LED strips on 8 arms.

 

[Buzzed]

I saw this video and thought is was a pretty good and inexpensive way to add some LED control especially to a Quad or Octo that doesn't have the built in transistor circuit. Check it out for yourself.

 

[Droider]

Yep that seems ok.. I have a hexa with a FC2.1. I see he is plugging it into a FC2 board. Ill go and check out their website

Thanks

Dave

 

[MikroJ]

Great little board, Im using one at the moment easy to solder especially for someone with my skills........ way too small for me too solder to the PDR....... I have 36 LED's off one channel as you can see here = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4KQFlkTW8Y

but I may cut back some LED's or add another board , not too sure how to test what the LED's are actually drawing.... the wires do get slightly warm near the board. not sure if this is normal?

 

[Droider]

So Jim you got them working ok on your ADX3?

 

[MikroJ]

Yep but I am in the middle of adding one more board to handle the Front LED's so that each channel from FC will switch 4 outputs from the board not just two. Will post results / pictures when done.