FT Spear - "Night Spear"

Tiznom

New member
Hey guys,

Made the FT Spear over the weekend, added some LED lights to it for night flying.
Used a power pack "C" and a 9 inch prop. Also has AS3X which helped with a smooth maiden flight! (link below)
Hope you all enjoy!


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mrjdstewart

Legendary member
thats pretty cool.

how can you tell top from bottom at night though? i like the headlights and tail lights but they really don't help with which side is up, they point the same direction no matter what. i'm afraid that might get very confusing very quickly.

good luck,

me :cool:
 

Jonny Gum

Elite member
I am about to start the same project but with programmable LED's. It looks like the lights show through the foam pretty well!
 

nevenelestate

No Agenda FPV
I am about to start the same project but with programmable LED's. It looks like the lights show through the foam pretty well!
I have a modified Spear that I am planning to put an arduino Nano into to do programmable LEDs, 12V LEDs to run off 3S balance plug. I just ran out of LEDs and need to order more strip, I accidentally killed 2 or 3 lengths of the LED because I had a servo plug that I used to wire them to the arduino that had the GND and V pins swapped from another project :(

thats pretty cool.

how can you tell top from bottom at night though? i like the headlights and tail lights but they really don't help with which side is up, they point the same direction no matter what. i'm afraid that might get very confusing very quickly.

good luck,

me :cool:
This is why I'm doing programmable and some pointed up and some pointed down. Should easily be able to have one color for top, another for bottom as well as different colors, red and green, for wing tips.
 

Jonny Gum

Elite member
I have a modified Spear that I am planning to put an arduino Nano into to do programmable LEDs, 12V LEDs to run off 3S balance plug. I just ran out of LEDs and need to order more strip, I accidentally killed 2 or 3 lengths of the LED because I had a servo plug that I used to wire them to the arduino that had the GND and V pins swapped from another project :(


This is why I'm doing programmable and some pointed up and some pointed down. Should easily be able to have one color for top, another for bottom as well as different colors, red and green, for wing tips.
That sounds a lot more complicated than mine. I just have some little led controller from amazon that has 50 or so different modes, and it all runs on 3s. I'm just going to put it on cycle mode and let it run, as I'm not really worried about orientation (I've flown worse). I'm most likely going to fly on 4s and run a 12v stepdown for the LEDs. I have all the spear parts cut out and I'm starting the build soon.
 

nevenelestate

No Agenda FPV
I started messing with the arduino code for another wing, a hot wire cut nice one, but wanted to have something to set it on so I decided to build another spear, I believe I just narrowed down the center.
The MudDart RC MudLED controller looks like the best option for this though, for simplicity :)
https://muddart.nz/product/mudled/

***Update - I actually ended up ordering one of these right after I posted the MudLED controllers. I'll update when I get it into my Night Spear :)
 
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Jonny Gum

Elite member
I started messing with the arduino code for another wing, a hot wire cut nice one, but wanted to have something to set it on so I decided to build another spear, I believe I just narrowed down the center.
The MudDart RC MudLED controller looks like the best option for this though, for simplicity :)
https://muddart.nz/product/mudled/

***Update - I actually ended up ordering one of these right after I posted the MudLED controllers. I'll update when I get it into my Night Spear :)
I'm just gonna roll with what I've got. So to get this straight you are building a narrowed night spear with mudled?
 

nevenelestate

No Agenda FPV
I'm just gonna roll with what I've got. So to get this straight you are building a narrowed night spear with mudled?
I am now haha at least the MudLED part is new.

Here is what I have so far, wing spars glues in and I have the aft wall and fuselage cover part cut too. You can see the LED arrangement in the left wing (top LED strips not placed fully yet).
PXL_20201211_004127882~2.jpg


The Spear had constant color LED strips in it and flew well, I just decided to take the electronics out for other projects.
 

Jase_MK

Member
Whack a £25 inav board in there and you can have your lights do all sorts of cool stuff to help with orientation, like change colour when you go inverted
 

nevenelestate

No Agenda FPV
Whack a £25 inav board in there and you can have your lights do all sorts of cool stuff to help with orientation, like change colour when you go inverted
I have lots of FCs for iNav, but trying to get it without the whole iNav setup, just receiver for control an then minimal color control for the LEDs.