Come see us at Oshkosh

Jay Honeck wrote:
AeroLEDs is introducing a new high intensity LED wing-tip landing/
recognition light at Oshkosh 2007.


Dang it, Dean, you had me going for a while, but for two things:

- Non-certified. Can't use it in my plane.
- Price. $850 (for 2) buys a whole bunch of Q4509s.

Jay..

I feel compelled to chime in here. While my flying hours have slacked
off significantly in the past 3-4 years as I've spent most of my money
and time doing an experimental build, I've got about 500 hours, and well
over 1/4 of that was at night.

I bought a high intensity discharge landing light for our project and
installed it in the nose of the velocity. Scratch that.. i bought a TAXI
light.. not the landing beam.

The Taxi beam with HID was still able to illuminate further forward
than the halogen or quartz incandescent landing lights, and in addition
gave me wider coverage than the "spot" landing beams.

From 100 yards away, the beam is still bright enough in daylight to
leave spots in your vision when you look at it.

And I paid around $400 for it. But its power draw is less than the
regular incandescent bulbs, and its got a bulb life that is supposed to
be over a thousand hours.

I intend to leave it on for the duration of most of our flights -
day, night, only switch it off if/when flying ifr causes reflection in
the cockpit. I expect a big increase in the ability of other folks to
see me, especially in the congested Houston area terminal airspace.

The benefits? a LONG time between having to change out bulbs, not
having to execute a night landing with the relatively frequent risk of a
burnt out bulb, then landing and taxiing in the dark. If I chose not to
use the bulb 100% of the time, and only for takeoff, landing and ground
ops, it likely would be a lifetime bulb, good for the life of the
airframe. Even in the past two years, when i've flown less than 40 hours
combined, I've had two burnt out bulbs on the rentals I was flying. Try
buying a bulb on sunday when you have to get home sunday night. Not
required for non commercial ops, but how often does the average pilot
PRACTICE landing with no landing light, particularly at a field with
minimal lighting?

So yes. These new fangled bulbs - both LED and HID - cost a bunch
more. But you are very likely buying a device that will last for years
on your airframe, and outperforms the $10 "disposable" landing lights
hands down.

To me, its worth it. To you, if you fly VFR Day, nice weather only,
it may never be an issue. Had we been at a different point in our build
(we are doing engine testing now, and shopping for DAR's) I would have
been VERY interested in putting high intensity LED position lights in
our wingtips for ground visibilty and in-flight anticollision purposes.

Also, the noncertified issue can be addressed through field
approvals. I've heard they've gotten much more difficult lately,
depending on where you are. But once one person has it, its easier for
the next to get it based on their data.

Dave

On Jul 12, 1:29 pm, "Morgans" wrote:
wrote

Dean
AeroLEDs LLC
http://www.aeroleds.com


Try clicking on your page in the sig. It only brings up a page with no links,
at least in mine
--
Jim in NC.

The links are in the upper right hand corner of the page...

wrote in message
ups.com...
On Jul 12, 1:29 pm, "Morgans" wrote:
wrote

Dean
AeroLEDs LLC
http://www.aeroleds.com


Try clicking on your page in the sig. It only brings up a page with no
links,
at least in mine
--
Jim in NC.

The links are in the upper right hand corner of the page...

That is interesting. When the page open minimized, that portion of the page is
totally obscured, but at the same time, the page looks complete.

While I take responsibility for not realizing that, I can't help but wonder how
many others have missed them, too. g
--
Jim in NC

wrote in message ups.com...
I posted earlier in response to a message from Jay Honeck telling him
to come by our booth at Oshkosh and say high, not meaning to make a
public announcement about a new product we are introducing at Oshkosh,
but it was quickly noticed by others and I was told I was being coy.
I just didn't want to be accused of spamming the group. Well, I
guess I'll take those coy comments as an invitation to post an
announcement:

AeroLEDs is introducing a new high intensity LED wing-tip landing/
recognition light at Oshkosh 2007. If you are interested in seeing
it, come by space 413 in the north aircraft area. We will have them
mounted on a Red/White/Blue Kitfox series 7 that has an eagle graphic
on the tail. Our website is http://www.aeroleds.com

We are just getting our first batch of production units done this week
(without the last minute, would anything ever get done?) and will have
product at the show.

I believe that this is the first product of this type available on the
market. HID landing lights have been the only competition with
Halogen up to this point.

Dean


Thanks for breaking ground with this product. I wish you well, and will look you up at 'the show'...

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

wrote

Dean
AeroLEDs LLC
http://www.aeroleds.com


Try clicking on your page in the sig. It only brings up a page with no
links, at least in mine
--
Jim in NC.

Worked 4 me

Internet Explorer 7.0
--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.

The LEDs in that lantern are not as high output as the ones we are
using. We are using LEDs that cost over $3.00 each and can burn up to
3 Watts per LED. I seriously doubt the ones in your lantern come even
close to that.

snip of good stuff

Thanks, Dean -- all of that makes good sense. I doubt my Chinese-made
hand-held lantern would last long in the environment you described.

I'm looking forward to seeing them...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In rec.aviation.piloting wrote:
On Jul 12, 1:29 pm, "Morgans" wrote:
wrote

Try clicking on your page in the sig. It only brings up a page
with no links, at least in mine

The links are in the upper right hand corner of the page...

IMHO it would be better to have a big notice about the product on the
very first page. It can be a link to the detail page, but it needs to
be on the first page your potential customers see.

If you go down to the Chevy dealer, most of the new cars are parked out
front and the ones that are inside are behind big glass windows. They
don't ask you to come inside the front door into a room with just a
sign on the wall saying "Welcome to Acme Chevrolet", and _then_ go
through another door into a windowless room where the new cars are
sitting.

The press release should be on the Web page (in HTML) as well as in PDF.
Again, don't make people do extra work to find out about your product.

The photo of the light by itself is natively 587x373, but is being
scaled in the HTML to 587x464, which makes the light appear "stretched"
vertically. It also makes the photo a little more blocky or pixellated
than it otherwise might be. Things with reflectors are somewhat
difficult to take pictures of, but if you reshoot, consider putting the
light on a piece of white paper (to remove all distractions from the
background), lighting it from multiple angles to reduce shadows, and
turning off the camera flash.

The photo of the light as installed on the Kitfox is set in the HTML at
its native resolution, so that photo isn't distorted.

I think the installation instructions for the light would benefit from a
typical wiring diagram for both one and two light installations, and a
view of the connector with pin numbers. You should also give directions
on what to do with the master and slave wires that are unused (tape
off/insulate, most likely). This gets into the specifics of how it
installs on a particular plane, but you may also consider installing the
light half of the Molex connector at the factory, and possibly even
providing the harness half of the connector installed on a 12" or so
pigtail. Otherwise, the purchaser has to deal with crimping Molex pins,
which nobody has the right crimper for. If you are going to supply the
pins loose piece, give 'em six or seven of each, so they can screw up
once or twice.

The installation instructions also suffer from typical Microsoft Turd
paragraph indent problems in the ten installation steps and in part
1.0 of the Specifications. Also, part 1.0 should say "LEDs" (plural)
instead of "LED's" (possessive). Should part 3.4 say "Lightning"
instead of "Lighting"?

I don't quite understand section 3.5 of the specifications. I know what
the difference between positive and negative ground is, but it's not
clear whether the red and yellow wires always have to be more positive
than the black wire, or if it doesn't matter. Put another way, if you
have something like

resistor LED
red wire ---/\/\/------||--- black wire

then the red wire always has to be more positive than the black wire,
whereas if you have something like

bridge resistor LED
red wire ---+---||---+------/\/\/------||---,
| | |
'---||-----, |
| | |
,---||---' | |
| | |
black wire ---+---||-----+---------------------'

then it doesn't matter how the red and black wires are hooked up. (Yes,
I do realize that what's inside your light is a more complicated than a
resistor and an LED!)

I realize the big show is over, but an interesting demo might be to
mount one of your lights and a plain old incandescent lamp on a paint
shaker, or an electric motor with an offset weight on the shaft, or a
lawnmower engine - something that vibrates. Hook both lights to a
battery with very simple and visible wiring, to show that there's
nothing funny going on. Then turn on the shaker and see which one burns
out first. It's not as impressive as seeing it in person, but a
video of such a demo might be useful. Again, this is hard to
photograph, and it's not as good as seeing it in person, but you could
also put one of your lights on one wing, a regular lamp on the other
wing, turn them both on, and take a photo (no flash) from the cockpit
to illustrate the difference. Depending on how the lights are aimed,
it might help to have the plane pointing at the wall of a hangar, or
a known distance from a stripe on the pavement, to illustrate the
difference.

Matt Roberds

wrote in message
...

very long, yet extremely informative post snipped

I find the contrast between the reception of this product, and Wayne's
wingspam.com interesting. Both are trying to make a living selling to
pilots, however one has chosen to simply spam and run, while the other is
properly using this forum to both inform and generate interest in his
product.

Dean, I wish you the best with your product.

Wayne, I wish you would stop spamming us.

Just some general comments - not aimed at Dean's product...

LED has been touted as the end all and be all of lighting, replacing
the incandescent bulb... However, the emperor's new clothes may be a
bit revealing...

First, is that LED lights require substantial heat sinks and adequate
ventilation in order to function... (Dean's product looks competently
designed for this)... Failure to adequately cool the LED will result
in short service life... An adequate heat sink often erases any size
advantage the LED started out with...
Initial installation cost of LED light assembly is markedly higher
than an incandescent... Colreg approved LED running lights for boats
are downright expensive...
Replacement cost of LED lighting that fails in service is vastly
higher than simply replacing a $20 bulb...
By the time the LED assembly is properly cooled with a heatsink the
weight advantage of LED is markedly lessened...
Voltage control is more stringent for proper functioning of LED light
assemblies, as opposed to incandescent filament bulbs..
Dimmers for LED lights are expensive for technical reasons...

In boats/yachts where extended operation from a battery set is a way
of life there has been a rush to replace incandescent with LED due to
it's more efficient use of watt hours... The experience with that has
shown that LED has its place, but it is not a blanket replacement...
For task lighting, such as spot lighting over a galley counter, the
LED is excellent... It is also excellent for lighting of stair steps,
in the head, inside of cabinets, drawers and closets, and night
lights...For general cabin lighting (even lighting of large areas) the
cold cathode and fluorescent lights are still preferred... For high
intensity tasks, such as deck lights, anchor raising lights, and spot
lights, the halogen bulb still reigns supreme... For a reading light,
the jury is still out - and I personally have not found a light my
eyes like better than the incandescent for extended periods of
reading... For mast lights and running lights the LED is making
progress, but initial cost and light output is still an issue...

Things are never as simple as they seem... Now, this is not intended
to begin a debate over Dean's product, it is simply remarks on what I
have found in the 2 years of research for outfitting my boat... What
that means in an aircraft is up to you...

denny

On Jul 25, 7:14 am, Denny wrote:
Just some general comments - not aimed at Dean's product...

LED has been touted as the end all and be all of lighting, replacing
the incandescent bulb... However, the emperor's new clothes may be a
bit revealing...

First, is that LED lights require substantial heat sinks and adequate
ventilation in order to function... (Dean's product looks competently
designed for this)... Failure to adequately cool the LED will result
in short service life... An adequate heat sink often erases any size
advantage the LED started out with...
Initial installation cost of LED light assembly is markedly higher
than an incandescent... Colreg approved LED running lights for boats
are downright expensive...
Replacement cost of LED lighting that fails in service is vastly
higher than simply replacing a $20 bulb...
By the time the LED assembly is properly cooled with a heatsink the
weight advantage of LED is markedly lessened...
Voltage control is more stringent for proper functioning of LED light
assemblies, as opposed to incandescent filament bulbs..
Dimmers for LED lights are expensive for technical reasons...

In boats/yachts where extended operation from a battery set is a way
of life there has been a rush to replace incandescent with LED due to
it's more efficient use of watt hours... The experience with that has
shown that LED has its place, but it is not a blanket replacement...
For task lighting, such as spot lighting over a galley counter, the
LED is excellent... It is also excellent for lighting of stair steps,
in the head, inside of cabinets, drawers and closets, and night
lights...For general cabin lighting (even lighting of large areas) the
cold cathode and fluorescent lights are still preferred... For high
intensity tasks, such as deck lights, anchor raising lights, and spot
lights, the halogen bulb still reigns supreme... For a reading light,
the jury is still out - and I personally have not found a light my
eyes like better than the incandescent for extended periods of
reading... For mast lights and running lights the LED is making
progress, but initial cost and light output is still an issue...

Things are never as simple as they seem... Now, this is not intended
to begin a debate over Dean's product, it is simply remarks on what I
have found in the 2 years of research for outfitting my boat... What
that means in an aircraft is up to you...

denny

Denny,

You are correct that proper heat sinking is essential to preserving an
LED. Exceeding the rated junction temperature of an LED will result
in it failing long before its rated life. Our design guarantees that
the LEDs will remain at least 40C below their maximum junction
temperature of 150C even on the hottest day at full power. We have
had many people come by our exhibit in the North Aircraft area wanting
to know why the device has such a large heat sink and weighs 0.9
pounds (just under 1 pound).

Most people who experiment with LEDs just hook them up to a current
limiting resistor and call it good. That is really not a good
practice for an airplane. Our product has a switching supply that
regulates the LED current for an input voltage range of 9V to 36V
which guarantees reliable operation. It is also protected against
voltage spikes, ESD, and lightning transients. We have also conducted
DO-160E RFI and conducted emissions tests to ensure that it does not
interfere with radios or anything on the electrical system.

To really appreciate how well our landing light works, you have to see
it at night. We have demoed it to a few people after 9pm. We
generate a lot more light than a 55W halogen at less that 1/2 the
power.

We arrived at Oshkosh at 12:15 on Saturday when the sun was very
bright, and the controller at Fisk called us out as the high wing with
blue stripes on the wings and flashing lights (wig wag mode was on).
We were happy to hear that!

Dean
AeroLEDs LLC
www.aeroleds.com