I know that this question is about a model airplane, but it DOES involve some circuitry. My dad is building a BIG model airplane (1/64 scale) and he wants to put 3mm LED lights in the wingtips and on top of the rudder, like a real airplane. On the wingtips, there would need to be a white strobe and a green or red LED dependant on the side, also a white strobe on the back rudder. What I was wondering is if I could use one channel of this controller to control all three of the white LEDs, and how I should power the two other LED's (red and green). It does need to be battery powered, so that he can mount it on the stand. I know that this is a very elementary question, but my dad wants this done pretty quick, and you guys are GREAT resources. Thanks prix0r
Welcome to the boards! It's a wild guess, but it looks like a 2-transistor astable oscillator circuit a bit like this one. If it is, you'll need to use both channels, but you can put 1 white led on one, 2 in series on the other and tweak the pots to get them flashing the same. Or it may work better (more equal brightness) with 2 leds on each channel, you can always hide one. For the red & green most economical way is maybe to run them in series, along with a 47R resistor, from a 4.5v cell. If you want to use a smaller 9v battery, use a 470R series resistor.
Thank you much for the welcome cpemma . I do have one more question though. When I was making a VU meter...schematics off this site , it said that you had to use a 2.2 uF Tantalum if the wires running to the LED's were more than 9" (?), but does this apply to this also? I am going to go with the 9V battery I believe, so what kind of run time can i expect w/ the flashers and two LED lights? I have one question about the VU meter that I made, and I cannot find the forum link for this, so this is why I am asking. It seems that the first LED on both channels isnt as bright as the other LED's in the series. Is this something that I did wrong or something that happens with everyones meter? If I did something wrong, could you please help me out with what it may be? Thanks again, prix0r **Schematics off of www.gideontech.com, inspired by this site. Sorry about that. Also, will this work as the resistor, or what would you reccomend?
The gideon link is dead, but if it's an LM391x circuit all leds should be the same brightness AFAIK. Capacitors are most useful on logic circuits to avoid false switching from noise/interference picked up by long leads, shouldn't need anything with your kit.
I don't know how much help this is, but you can buy flashing versions of LEDs, where the flashing circuitry is built in to the LED itself. You just wire it up, like a normal LED, and it flashes. Obviously, you can't control the rate, and they are a bit more expensive. I'm also not sure whether anyone's ever made ultrabrights (or brighter) in flashing versions. The useful thing about these (at least, the ones we used to get in SA) is that if you connect one flashing LED in series with some normal LEDs, they'll all flash (at the same time), as the flashing LED basically conducts or doesn't conduct alternately. You could just hide the flashing LED (which will be one of the basic red or green ones) internally somewhere.
True, but you're limited on voltage - with a 9v battery and 5v flashing led, you've only enough spare voltage for a single 3.5-3.7v white, or a couple in parallel on reduced current. Ideal circuit would be a 555 astable oscillator with the on-off times set to whatever real planes do... Example here with a component calculator.
Hmm Planes are pretty big things you know - imagine just a small cesna (sp?) and now think how big a 1/4 scale model would be - like 4 foot long. Now think of a Jumbo jet or bigger and think of 1/64 scale - more like it
mm, good point. I'd throw my vote for the 555 option, since it's super-simple, but loads of versatility. Low current consumption, too
One problem I see, I have a remote control car so I know a bit about the radios. Okay here goes..... Ok the radio system is totally proportional which means that there has to be some means of governing this with just a singal line. The servos use 3 lines, one control, one power and one ground. So anyways it does the proportional stuff by putting out a square sine wave at a very fast rate. Some thing like on for 1.5 millisecs and off for 5, it repeats. Now, it does proportionalness by varying the ON part from something like 1 millisecs to 2 millisecs. So my point is that there will always be a on and off part which means that getting a clean Totally on signal is hard. THis could be used to your advantage or you might be able to use a capacitor, diodes and other such peices.
