19-12-2014, 12:51 PM
The first thing I noticed about flying quads is that they are not easy to orientate. A conventional fixed wing model is sometimes hard enough to orientate and it's got a clearly defined front and back but the SK450 is a symmetrical X with no front or back and it looks just the same coming or going.
Even tho' the forward facing arms are different colours to the rearward facing ones it still isn't as much help with orientation as you'd think.
What does help is some very bright LEDs mounted on the ends of the arms. Blue at the front and red at the back works well for me.
These ones are from HK and they are around $2 each. As they are they won't run directly off the standard 5V used for powering the RX but if you put two of them in series they will do the job happily straight off a spare BEC from one of the 4 ECS's. I found the best results were to be had by putting one blue and one red in series. Because they have different forward voltages two reds in series will draw more current than two blues and the reds will be much brighter putting one red and one blue in series interestingly enough seemed to make them both equally as bright. There are other colours available as well and they all seem to have different forward voltages the specs are available in the files tab on HK's product pages they are simply called "super bright LEDs"
How do they work?? EXCELLENT!! even in bright daylight!! the difference in orientability (if that's a word) is very apparent once you start flying it. It makes things a hell of a lot easier and it's well worth the effort of putting them on.
Here's what they look like out of the box
A quick trim with the side cutters, It's not mounted on a board it's actually a heatsink and it's real easy to trim a bi off it. The way I'm using it it doesn't get hot as all.
I just drilled a 5.5mm hole in the leg and zapped it on to hold it while I gave it a good dolop of five min epoxy to take up the gap
The hole is only the size of the lens of the LED not the body if I made it that big it would probably weaken the leg substantially and with my quad flying skills it probably wouldn't last very long
here they are fired up on a half dead 4S NiCad pack and they are still pretty bright!!
Even tho' the forward facing arms are different colours to the rearward facing ones it still isn't as much help with orientation as you'd think.
What does help is some very bright LEDs mounted on the ends of the arms. Blue at the front and red at the back works well for me.
These ones are from HK and they are around $2 each. As they are they won't run directly off the standard 5V used for powering the RX but if you put two of them in series they will do the job happily straight off a spare BEC from one of the 4 ECS's. I found the best results were to be had by putting one blue and one red in series. Because they have different forward voltages two reds in series will draw more current than two blues and the reds will be much brighter putting one red and one blue in series interestingly enough seemed to make them both equally as bright. There are other colours available as well and they all seem to have different forward voltages the specs are available in the files tab on HK's product pages they are simply called "super bright LEDs"
How do they work?? EXCELLENT!! even in bright daylight!! the difference in orientability (if that's a word) is very apparent once you start flying it. It makes things a hell of a lot easier and it's well worth the effort of putting them on.
Here's what they look like out of the box
A quick trim with the side cutters, It's not mounted on a board it's actually a heatsink and it's real easy to trim a bi off it. The way I'm using it it doesn't get hot as all.
I just drilled a 5.5mm hole in the leg and zapped it on to hold it while I gave it a good dolop of five min epoxy to take up the gap
The hole is only the size of the lens of the LED not the body if I made it that big it would probably weaken the leg substantially and with my quad flying skills it probably wouldn't last very long
here they are fired up on a half dead 4S NiCad pack and they are still pretty bright!!
“The knack of flying is learning how to throw your machine at the ground and miss.”
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your thoughts turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." ~Leonardo Da Vinci