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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
So there I am, my usual lovable self, ****ing & moaning about all
these HOT projects that I've been ****ing & moaning about for the last couple of years, NOW using a simple case of cancer as my excuse for not getting anything done... and one of my regular cage-rattlers sez: 'So what ARE these hot projects? Is there anything on them that WE could work on?' Which brings me down a notch or two in a hurry. Calling my hand. Well... okay. Howzabout Nav Lights? Have you guys even SEEN what they want for your basic Grimes light nowadays? Not Grimes of course; somebody else... Whelen, I think. Back in the Day we went down to Western Auto, across the street from the Greyhound bus station, bought a red, a green and a clear -- truck clearance lights, as required by the ICC (yep, green & amber too). The lights were kinda cone-shaped... about 28B, if you get my drift. So how do you streamline your 28B nav light? Turns out, you can reduce the drag of your 28B's by about 90% by simply building a vane on the down-wind side; something to keep the burble created by the displaced air from mixing together. The vane could be anything at all.. plastic, aluminum, 1/16" plywood... whatever came to hand. Of course, if you gotta roll your own, why not make it a fully streamlined housing? About a thousand times more work but sexy as the devil. And since this is Experimental Aviation we may as well go ahead and use a couple of those high-intensity, high-wattage LED lamps. That way, we can seal everything up. No need to provide for replacement when the lamps have a longer service-life than the airframe. Of course, we still gotta make that streamlined GREEN housing... and a red one, too. Where do you find GREEN plastic nowadays? Well... I found some at Wal- Mart. In the shape of a pill bottle. Full of Vitamin C tablets. Of course, once we've found our green bottle-shaped plastic we gotta turn it into a SHEET of plastic, which means cutting the ends offen the bottle, slitting it down the side, heating it in cooking oil then laying it out flat. Or even PRESSING it out flat, if it don't want to lay there. That means some flat.. somethings. Precision tooling plate is pretty flat. So's a surface plate. But a pair of polished granite tile is something available to all (at least, all here in the States). So now we got a sheet of FLAT green plastic. Sorta thin and I don't know how well it will stand up to ultra-violet. Go ahead and hang that puppy out the window until you need it. Making the MOLD is pretty easy... once you know how. You can make your mold out of Plaster of Paris or spackling paste or Portland cement or... all kinds of things lend themselves to making molds. Once you know HOW to make molds. The tricky bit is conveying the HOW using only printed words, which is virtually impossible. Whatcha need is PICTURES. Lots of them. And this GROUP doesn't allow them. So before I could worry about showing folks how, I had to find someplace to hang pictures. Did that... Blog and the chuggers Group allows pictures. So... you wanted to know what some of those Hot Projects were? Nav Lights is just one. And yes, I see you, there in the back waving your hands saying why do you even need nav lights since were Day-VFR anyway, or that you only fly out of the south forty. We need nav lights because a lot of folks aren't you. If you live in the western United States there's plenty of places that are far enough apart that you can't accurately predict your arrival time, such as flying from Sandy Eggo to Lost Wages. Get a head-wind and you'll find yourself crossing some of the emptiest land on the planet. Now, lots of folks simply don't believe that but there's a sign beside the Interstate outside of Barstow that warns folks the next services are over a hundred miles away. It's even farther if you're driving an aeroplane. Big EMPTY country out here. Why do you think it took them so long to find Fawcett? This AIN'T your south forty. So you're chugging along, lotsa fuel, and you notice your landmarks seem to be standing still. Little later you notice you're flying BACKWARDS over your landmarks! Don't laugh, it happens. Get a big high pressure area over Utah, there's plenty of days when you simply can't fly from San Diego to Las Vegas. The winds will reduce your actual ground-speed to only ten or fifteen miles per hour. And while there's lots of landing strips (See: 'Where Am I?' on my blog ) most of them date from WWII and don't offer any services. Some are owned by various 'Agencies' with alphabet soup instead of names. And they are definitely not happy to see you dropping in on them, asking for a couple gallons of gas. So how do you get from here to there? Go to Yuma and hang a left. Fly up the Colorado River corridor. Hundred miles outta your way but several airfields to help you out. So why the nav lights? Because of that high pressure area over Utah. Slows you down so that your arrival dictates a night landing... and a bit of night flying. And that's why you need those nav lights. Now -- who wants to tackle this particular Hot Project? -R.S.Hoover |
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
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#3
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
Scott wrote:
wrote: And since this is Experimental Aviation we may as well go ahead and use a couple of those high-intensity, high-wattage LED lamps. That way, we can seal everything up. No need to provide for replacement when the lamps have a longer service-life than the airframe. Of course, we still gotta make that streamlined GREEN housing... and a red one, too. Where do you find GREEN plastic nowadays? Well... I found some at Wal- Mart. In the shape of a pill bottle. Full of Vitamin C tablets. -R.S.Hoover Can't a guy just use clear lexan? Or, maybe there's white plastic so that it would turn the color of the LED illuminating it? LEDs come in red, green, white, blue, yellow, etc... Scott I bought some 12" x 24" pieces of plexiglass in red, yellow and green on e-bay a few years ago. The local glass supply here will only order in 4' x 8' sheets and rarely have smaller pieces for sale. Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired |
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
Google for your closest TAP Plastics store. They have scraps in all colors
of the rainbow. Jim -- "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle I bought some 12" x 24" pieces of plexiglass in red, yellow and green on e-bay a few years ago. The local glass supply here will only order in 4' x 8' sheets and rarely have smaller pieces for sale. Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired |
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
Why not just use CLEAR plastic. Lots of that stuff around. The chemistry
of the LEDs will take care of the color. The only reason that you use colored plastic on incandescent lights is that they only come in one color. Jim Of course, we still gotta make that streamlined GREEN housing... and a red one, too. Where do you find GREEN plastic nowadays? Well... I found some at Wal- Mart. In the shape of a pill bottle. Full of Vitamin C tablets. |
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
RST Engineering wrote:
Why not just use CLEAR plastic. Lots of that stuff around. The chemistry of the LEDs will take care of the color. The only reason that you use colored plastic on incandescent lights is that they only come in one color. Jim Another advantage of using the clear plastic is that it is possible to get AR grade scraps. The AR grade is scratch and UV resistant. I also found it to be much less brittle that any plexiglass or lexan I've ever worked with in the past. I was able to cut the 1/8" sheet very effectively with a pair of sheet metal shears (then I cleaned the sides up with a belt sander, followed by a 400grit sanding block). |
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
Ernest Christley wrote:
RST Engineering wrote: Why not just use CLEAR plastic. Lots of that stuff around. The chemistry of the LEDs will take care of the color. The only reason that you use colored plastic on incandescent lights is that they only come in one color. Jim Another advantage of using the clear plastic is that it is possible to get AR grade scraps. The AR grade is scratch and UV resistant. I also found it to be much less brittle that any plexiglass or lexan I've ever worked with in the past. I was able to cut the 1/8" sheet very effectively with a pair of sheet metal shears (then I cleaned the sides up with a belt sander, followed by a 400grit sanding block). Nice for flat parts, but how does it heat form? -- Richard (remove the X to email) |
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
cavelamb himself wrote:
Another advantage of using the clear plastic is that it is possible to get AR grade scraps. The AR grade is scratch and UV resistant. I also found it to be much less brittle that any plexiglass or lexan I've ever worked with in the past. I was able to cut the 1/8" sheet very effectively with a pair of sheet metal shears (then I cleaned the sides up with a belt sander, followed by a 400grit sanding block). Nice for flat parts, but how does it heat form? I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds like a "hot project" that I need to get around to. |
#9
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
"cavelamb himself" wrote Nice for flat parts, but how does it heat form? Do some googling over in rec.models.rc.air. The subject comes up fairly often, as it has around here, as I seem to recall. There is a need to get a very smooth mold, and cover it in felt, or have a very perfect hard plug. Any cloth with texture will transfer the weave to the plastic. You mound the plastic in a frame, and either pull mold it onto the plug (which is sticking up off the table, so you can pull well past the bottom of the mold) or vacuum mold it. Wait until the material starts to sag pretty good, and stick it over the mold and pull, or use the vacuum table method, if it is a complex part. The only major difference (other than a slightly different heat requirement) between plexi and lexan, is that you need to bring the lexan up to over 250 degrees and keep it there for an hour or so , to drive the moisture out of the plastic. Weird, that there can be water in plastic, to me! g You just have to look at the material and get the right timing when it sags just right. Also, that your part will only be as good as your mold. Also, sports fans, remember to fix up a special drill bit before you drill the plastic to mount it. Use a dremel, and grind a couple degrees negative angle on the bit, so it scrapes the plastic, rather than pulling through the plastic, and cracking it. -- Jim in NC |
#10
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Hot Projects List -- Nav Lights
wrote in message ... So there I am, my usual lovable self, ****ing & moaning about all these HOT projects that I've been ****ing & moaning about for the last couple of years, NOW using a simple case of cancer as my excuse for not getting anything done... and one of my regular cage-rattlers sez: 'So what ARE these hot projects? Is there anything on them that WE could work on?' So why the nav lights? Because of that high pressure area over Utah. Slows you down so that your arrival dictates a night landing... and a bit of night flying. And that's why you need those nav lights. Now -- who wants to tackle this particular Hot Project? -R.S.Hoover Bob, I am able to mooch all the scrap acrylic plastic I need for my projects from my local electric sign shop. In colors, both translucent and transparent/tinted. I have connections to the industry, but that doesn't seem to perjudice them. Mostly, they are happy to have someone remove some scrap. Bigger shops accumulate bigger pieces and bigger piles. Flash |
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