Re: All About LED's
 

We have Light! I'll post up some pics in a bit. Gotta run some errands real quick.

Re: All About LED's
 

This is what I have so far. Gonna try real hard to put the lights in the front bumper. I have the Aluminum one from Ric. So I'll have 5 in there and then Gotta find some place to put the rest.
I really appreciate all the input and information that has been posted to this thread. I'm really happy with the way it's going so far. Once I readd everything it made me realize how simple it really is.
Special thanks to Nathan, (Espeefan). You've been a real big help. All the lights on my truck are gonna to be there because of you.
Thank You,
John


http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...003-800-13.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...002-800-15.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...001-800-17.jpg

Re: All About LED's
 

Looks good John! Nothing like some working lights to add to the realism of a model.

Re: All About LED's
 

And this morning I was able to hook up some LED's to the bumper.

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...002-800-16.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...003-800-14.jpg

Thanks for looking!
John

Re: All About LED's
 

Got my trailer wired up and finished as far as building. Now I just gotta figure out if I wanna paint it. Might ad some more lights later on but I wanna enjoy what I have for now. Thanks again Nathan!

http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...002-800-18.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...003-800-16.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...004-800-13.jpg
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/v...006-800-12.jpg

Thanks for looking!!
John Corbett out!

Re: All About LED's
 

Not sure if anyone else has used them, but I found this place:
http://www.oznium.com/ Prices seamed good, so I placed a small order and got them pretty quickly, but haven't messed around with the LED's yet (soon now that fall is hear and I can do some work on this sort of project).

Re: All About LED's
 

Hi, nice schematics about the LED´s, thanks.
Did buy RC to my D8R build today, ask about this battle switch but they didn´t have one. Where can I find one? Radio (don´t think it matters) is a Multiplex 9ch.
Another question, back up warning summer, where to find?
Dan

Re: All About LED's
 

D8R, battle switches can be found here.

http://www.dimensionengineering.com/battleswitch.htm

A lot of different hobbiest electronic suppliers have similar devices, that go by different names, but they are all basically a miniature relay, designed to be activated 'on' by a low current signal, and used to supply higher current draws to bigger loads.

As for back-up beepers or alarms, I don't know of anyone who offers a stand along back-up beeper, but many ESC, combination sound units have this feature built right in. Servonaut comes to mind.

Re: All About LED's
 

Wow Nate thanks. I really need these...:cool::cool:

-Mike

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Thanks SP, will order one. Have seen alarms built in in lamps, that maybee can be used.
Dan

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Nathan very nice I am not into electrics my knowledge is red positive black negative so this is very helpful to me thank you very much. Ed

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Hi everybody:D Have you considered piezo buzzer's for back up alarm's?
I use a Radio shack 206-2399 in my Mack dumptruck for low oil, air pressure, power divider lockout warning. 3-28volt dc. It does pulse like a back up alarm, higher pitch. If it's too loud, just cover the opening with a bandaid, they make great muffler's for them.

It would make a nice backup alarm for rc model's. I'll have to double check the part # tommorrow. Hope this help's! Later, Neil#2 aka doodlebug.

Re: All About LED's
 

Your welcome guys. Always happy to share the knowledge. :D I'm glad it was / will be helpful to you.

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Thanks Neil, did find the same buzzer here localy, will get one tomorrow. Guess level should be adapted with all noice from running machine.
Dan

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Hey Dan, I hope it's not too high pitched for your liking, but it's off the shelf and loud!
It does sound impatient, so it will attract attention. Hope it work's for you, let us know what you think of it. Later, Neil#2 aka doodlebug.

Re: All About LED's
 

Hi Neil, got the buzzer today, tested it with 6v battery Will only have this on model for servo/lightning and so.
It sounds ok, tested it inside the batterybox (made of 1mm steel), will see how much you can hear with engine running.
Got a electric switch to, not same as in us but same functions.
Thanks again for the help.
Dan

Re: All About LED's
 

Hey Dan, Yer Welcome! Later, Neil#2 aka doodlebug.

Re: All About LED's
 

Wow this thread is so useful, since my wiring/ electrical current understandings are sub-par....

Re: All About LED's
 

I run all of my leds with their own resistor. I have the leds on a seperate battery from everything else. Wiring is straight forward. I get all my leds pre-wired from hong kong with resistors on them already. Sure makes things easier. I make my own lenses and drill a 1/8" whole for the 3mm and 3/16 I think for the 5mm. I then use clear silicone to hold them in place. Hasn't failed me yet.

Re: All About LED's
 

For people in the uk who don't want massive shipping costs try these guys.
http://www.newmodellersshop.co.uk/electronic-lights.htm
Theres everything for electrics. Battery packs, switches, Lights & LED's :D:D

Re: All About LED's
 

Hi there!

interesting thread so far. I must admit, I am a very lazy bum, so I usually opt for constant current drivers instead of resistors.

Constant current drivers are quite expensive, but somehow "fire and forget".. ;) ..just add it and forget about power settings (and -a nice side effect- also forget about power surge or fading leds when the motor is pulling to many amps etc.)

Here's my source (of both leds and drivers):

Constant Current Driver


Btw. I recently bought both the lightning starter kit and a pico switch from Dimension Engineering. Absolutely fantastic stuff!!!

I will be using the starter kit for a light bar

..and the Pico Switch (no need for the battle switch) to switch a siren.

Cheers

Pip

Re: All About LED's
 

Very nice thread. I have one question tho. Had anyone use the under sleeper cab light for the king hauler from gardentrucking. I am curious to know how I need to hook them up with the mfu if it's possible. I spoke to Ric from gardentrucking and he was unsure how they needed to be wire in, all he said was that they require 7.2v to light up, each side has 8 LEDs total. If someone could shed some light on these will be great. Thank you

Re: All About LED's
 

I don't have any experience with MFUs but what I would do is find a relay switch and trigger it to close by wiring it to one of the outputs that the MFU uses to turn on it's own LEDs. Then whenever you turn on the lights controlled by the MFU, the relay will close and send power to the step lights. You could easily wire any extra LEDs to the same relay and their would be no limit to the number of LEDs you could add. The only limit would be the current capacity of the relay itself. Another option would be to control the relay switch with a free channel, if you have one.

Re: All About LED's
 

Im way late on this as the last post is from 2 years ago, but i dont care..just wanted to thank Espeefan for spending so much time with the diagrams. Whats a great resource for someone who is planning to light up a model like myself. THANKS!

Re: All About LED's
 

Nathan, great info! How you found any nice tiny terminal blocks?

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Jason and Scott, thanks. Glad this little write up is still useful. Once I start wiring up my Kenworth, I'll update this thread with some photos of how I did it.

Scott, I've been digging around the web, looking for smaller terminal strips, and I've found a few varieties, but I'm still on the search for something smaller. Here is a terminal strip I bought from www.allelectronics.com. I used this on my Tamiya F-350.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ringbegins.jpg

They are small-ish, and space isn't so tight on Tamiya trucks, but I'd still like to find something smaller for the really tight spots. Maybe half this size. I'm going to be running 36 gage wire, so I can afford a smaller terminal strip. As long as I can find one!

Re: All About LED's
 

Mr. Ric sells some. Don't know if you've seen his

Keith

Re: All About LED's
 

Thanks for the suggestion, Keith. Looking at what Ric offers just gave me an idea!

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heres a crude led controller i came up with some parts i had laying around.

http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6f5cc673.jpg

instead of terminal blocks i used pcb board and header pins.... then run the regular servo connectors to which ever leds. the center bank is clearance power, and the 4 offset are turn and headlight circuits.

Re: All About LED's
 

Glad to see people are still keeping an eye on this thread. I still use it when I need to refresh my memory. Don't forget the pictures when you get some Nathan. Thanks again for all your helpful info.

Re: All About LED's
 

Goose, nice job on the electro-mechanical switches to run your lights. Way back before I knew anything about other methods of turning lights on and off, I had the same exact idea. A limit switch activated with a servo arm and cam type system. Really a very effective and simple way to do things on a budget!

A couple months ago I picked up a new RC truck. This time an Axial SCX-10 Jeep Rubicon. Just a quick build so I would have something to run again. Happens that a friend of mine is also into the RC rock crawlers, and so am I. We got together in late fall to run our trucks. Anyway, I thought I'd like to dress up my Jeep a little bit with some lights, so I came up with a really simple lighting system of my own.

If anyone is curious to see a real world example, here's how I did it.

First the electrical schematic -

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps6e5d6128.png

For clarity's sake, I didn't include the fog lights, but they are wired in with my parking lights. It is very easy to add, change, or modify this print to suit your own project. I used three toggle switches, but you could easily add more, or even replace the toggles with some other means of switching the lights on or off. This was a budget minded build, and I run my Jeep with a 3 channel radio, so I opted to keep it simple, with toggle switches.

My body (and front bumper) can be separated from the chassis with the Deans B4 and B2 micro plugs I used. To keep things neat I used one common (black) wire for all of the LEDs. To turn the LEDs off or on I am only switching the hot (red) wires with the toggles. My toggles are SPDT (single pole double throw) switches. Most of the wires under the body are shrunk wrapped together with heat shrink, to consolidate and keep things neater. I used some hot melt glue to secure the wires to the underside of the body. This is a lexan body, so the hot glue didn't wreck a thing, but I would suggest you be careful if you choose to use this same method on a ABS body. I don't think the glue is hot enough to melt the plastic, but you never know! It does a good job of keeping the wires out of the way, and the wires are very secure.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps784ae6cd.jpg

In this photo, I'm mainly trying to show my LED feeder wires, coming off the terminals of the Deans plug for my ESC. I am using a 3S LiPo to run all of the electronics on my Jeep, including the external BEC. The 4 pin Deans, which connects to the harness inside the body is also there.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psfcf820b7.jpg

A quick picture of the 2 pin micro Deans plugs that I used to give me the ability to remove the front bumper on the Jeep. If I ever need to pull the chassis apart, I can easily take the bumper off.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps1225b309.jpg

Here's a photo of my toggle switches. They are mounted to the side of my custom electronics box, which happens to be a HiTec servo package. :D It worked perfect to fit all the electronics inside. We run our crawlers in harsher conditions, so I thought it would be a good idea to protect the ESC, BEC, and receiver better. Anyway, the toggles are all wired in parallel, and the juice comes from the positive (hot) feeder wire, straight off my battery pack.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps2df9426d.jpg

Front bumper with lights, and some of the wires.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps4cf060ff.jpg

Headlights, parking, and off road lights can be seen here.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psa4ca179c.jpg

Tail lights much the same, but simpler because there are only two.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psdf879618.jpg

Finally, one of the underside of the body, with the wires ran and secured. Pretty simple really. Any model could be wired in a similar fashion. The real test will come with those trucks that have chicken lights everywhere! :D Maybe mine will be one of them.... if I ever get them done.

Yeah, I know, it's not a semi truck, but the principals are all the same. Just thought I'd add some photos to give a better example. Schematics are one thing, but then there is the actual wiring.

Here are some finished pictures. Enjoy.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psda398e96.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...ps00bbaaa2.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...psd835cec2.jpg

Re: All About LED's
 

Thanks a bunch for the pictures Nathan. Really awesome and Clean job. I'm starting another build for the March 15TH meeting in Brookville, PA. I'm so thankful to have all this info as a reference. I will be visiting this thread a lot with my build. Unfortunately my memory isn't what it used to be. Due to a car accident back in 2003. But with a little reading of your posts I'll be back in the game in no time. Thanks again!!!
:)

Re: All About LED's
 

You're welcome John. I am just glad that you and Cindy are doing well after that accident in December. God Bless!

Re: All About LED's
 

Hey so being a techy and all as long as you have the channel or receiver setting for the light out put will be able to wire them with the correct resistor or relay inline in series as very similar to your standard house hold Christmas lights I do have few certifications in advanced electronics ima little rusty but can definitely find some answers if need be

Re: All About LED's
 

Not sure I understand your question 100%.

If you want to trigger a relay 'on', from a radio receiver channel, to run a string of LEDs in series, with the correct resistor, then yes, you can do that. The relay allows you to activate the lights, with a low voltage, low current control signal, and to power a load with a separate, higher voltage, or higher current source. If that makes sense, and answers your question?

Re: All About LED's
 

I use http://www.dimensionengineering.com/products/picoswitch its a pico switch, you could use a battle switch as well, either one would work fine. wire it all up like you would and put this on your power. uses a channel on your receiver and works very good! I love mine

Re: All About LED's
 

Tamiya MFU clear red ...anyone know where to get these, or a substitute..? I need more...

Many Thanks...

Re: All About LED's
 

Anyone? Clear red MFC-01 LED source?

Thanks

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Look here to get the part number http://www.tamiyausa.com/pdf/pl/56511.pdf

Then go here http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/ite...uct-id=7175096

OR use Google to search for the part number 7175096 for other options..

Cheers

Re: All About LED's
 

Water clear T1 (3mm) LEDs in red.

http://www.lc-led.com/Products/department/2

Seems to be a lot available on E-Bay too, if that's an option for you.