Powered Simple Soarer with LEDs

Crophopper

New member
I'd like to build a powered glider like the Simple Soarer with LEDs...so it's like the eflite Night Radian.
Any tips or easy product links for LEDs?
Thanks. See you at FF24
 
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Foamforce

Elite member
Coincidentally, I’m planning to do the exact same thing.

Look for WS2815 LED strips. They’re individually addressable, which is what you need for effects like the Night Radian and they’re 12 volts, so you can plug them straight into a 3s battery without using a BEC.

You also need a controller. You can either get a generic controller that has the basic patterns, or you can get the nice MudLED controller (sold by FT) which lets you control the light show from your tx and lets you configure patterns on your phone.

I assume that the Simple Soarer has the power pod, since the plans include it, but I can’t say for sure. I was going to do the Simple Soarer myself because I wanted the wingspan and low speed. Watching Night Radians float slowly along with the light show is mesmerizing and I wanted to replicate that.

My other thought was a Storch, which has about the same length wing and flies slowly.
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
Careful, not all Ws2815 strips are 12v, nor are all the controllers. Mine are 5V and require a UBEC. Make sure you know what you are getting. Technically mine are WS2812B, but it is easy to get them mixed up, they look nearly identical.
 
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Foamforce

Elite member
Careful, not all Ws2815 strips are 12v, nor are all the controllers. Mine are 5V and require a UBEC. Make sure you know what you are getting. Technically mine are WS2812B, but it is easy to get them mixed up, they look nearly identical.

I think the 2815s are all 12v. The 2812s and 2813s are 5v. It never hurts to double check though, if nothing else because it’s hard to remember the model number.
 

Crophopper

New member
Awesome, thank you both for the feedback.
So does it matter if I do 12v or 5v?
I'm an amateur with the LEDs. This will be my first time using them in a build. I'll start gathering whatever you guys suggest. You lost me about the controller thing. It makes sense, I just had no idea what I needed or where to get it all. If you have a parts list for what you're doing that would be great. I'm still a rookie at this. This will be my 3rd FT plane. Ha. I'm building the FT Tutor next...do LEDs work in that too? Thank you! :)
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
So 12V you will be able to run longer runs without voltage drop affecting brightness. For the lengths we are running on planes it won't make much difference. The key is making sure you know which you get and match your controller to the strips you get. If you are running 3S, you can run the 12 V strips straight off the battery without a UBEC. The 5V will always require a seperate UBEC.

You can also just get Dumb LEDS that only emit one color. There are options. What do you want? Super simple, or Fancy flashing lights?

Cheers!
LitterBug
 

Crophopper

New member
Coincidentally, I’m planning to do the exact same thing.

Look for WS2815 LED strips. They’re individually addressable, which is what you need for effects like the Night Radian and they’re 12 volts, so you can plug them straight into a 3s battery without using a BEC.

You also need a controller. You can either get a generic controller that has the basic patterns, or you can get the nice MudLED controller (sold by FT) which lets you control the light show from your tx and lets you configure patterns on your phone.

I assume that the Simple Soarer has the power pod, since the plans include it, but I can’t say for sure. I was going to do the Simple Soarer myself because I wanted the wingspan and low speed. Watching Night Radians float slowly along with the light show is mesmerizing and I wanted to replicate that.

My other thought was a Storch, which has about the same length wing and flies slowly.
I like the idea of the Storch too but I'm leaning towards the SS this time. I don't want landing gear and I like the wing/fuse on the Soarer. I'll have to do a Storch sometime though. Cool airframe and I like the 4 channel. Ha.
 

LitterBug

Techno Nut
Moderator
I am still trying to decide what to do for a night flyer this year. Smart thing would be to continue using the platform I used last year but move all the LEDs over to a seperate BEC to prevent the brownouts that caused it to crash. :-D ..... It's an old RMRC MAKO flying wing. (with a few nose in crashes :) )
RMRCMako.jpg
 
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Foamforce

Elite member
You can get the controller together with the light strip so that you have the right combination. Here’s a cheap one that I’m getting.


This page lists all four styles of the LEDs. I chose the fourth style, which are the WS2815s. I chose the white strip, 5 meters, 30 LEDs per meter, IP30, for $17.25. The controller is powered by a barrel jack, but I’m planning to change that to a JST connector.
 

Crophopper

New member
You can get the controller together with the light strip so that you have the right combination. Here’s a cheap one that I’m getting.


This page lists all four styles of the LEDs. I chose the fourth style, which are the WS2815s. I chose the white strip, 5 meters, 30 LEDs per meter, IP30, for $17.25. The controller is powered by a barrel jack, but I’m planning to change that to a JST connector.
Right on Force. Looking forward to night flights! Thanks for the link and details.
 

Foamforce

Elite member
So I finally got it all dialed in! I’m happy with the results. The cheap lights I used look great, the video doesn’t actually do it justice.

I didn’t anticipate how much crimping and soldering would be needed. I was very sick of that by the time I finished the lights! It turned out well though.

For the wing, I ran two strips, from the center of the wing outward, straight along the bottom of the spar, all the way to the end and wrapped it around so that I have five LEDs on the top. In the middle I soldered leads on into a Y connector with a four pin DuPont male connector.

On the fuselage, I ran one strip down the bottom, starting at the back of the access hole. At the back, I soldered on leads, and about Y connection, with those going to the strip on the bottom of each side of the horizontal stabilizer. Then one short step on either side of the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer, then put a perpendicular slit in the stabilizer, pulled the strip through, and put two more LEDs on the top.

For power, I soldered a JST plug into the positive battery pad on the ESC and each that to the LED controller.

I didn’t like the power pod arrangement on the Simple Soarer, so I used the glitter nose and cut it off right about where a full size firewall would fit. Then I made an access door in the top. It worked slick.

I covered all the LED strips with white (not clear) packing tape and also made sure to use LEDs with a white PCB. It looks slick.

One thing is that, per the warning, there’s a lot of up thrust when you give it throttle, even though I used the recommended amount of down thrust angle. I then doubled it and it was still too much, so then I also added 4% throttle -> down elevator mix. It flies well enough now. Maybe I’ll try adding more down thrust angle later.

For a motor, I originally had a 2205 2350kv with a 6” prop. That was more power than it needed. I now have a cheap ($5) orange 2204 1400kv with the same 6” prop. With 2s, it’s under powered but flyable. With 3s it’s very nice. I think I’ll try an 1806 next. This plane barely needs any power to fly.

 

Flyingshark

Master member
So I finally got it all dialed in! I’m happy with the results. The cheap lights I used look great, the video doesn’t actually do it justice.

I didn’t anticipate how much crimping and soldering would be needed. I was very sick of that by the time I finished the lights! It turned out well though.

For the wing, I ran two strips, from the center of the wing outward, straight along the bottom of the spar, all the way to the end and wrapped it around so that I have five LEDs on the top. In the middle I soldered leads on into a Y connector with a four pin DuPont male connector.

On the fuselage, I ran one strip down the bottom, starting at the back of the access hole. At the back, I soldered on leads, and about Y connection, with those going to the strip on the bottom of each side of the horizontal stabilizer. Then one short step on either side of the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer, then put a perpendicular slit in the stabilizer, pulled the strip through, and put two more LEDs on the top.

For power, I soldered a JST plug into the positive battery pad on the ESC and each that to the LED controller.

I didn’t like the power pod arrangement on the Simple Soarer, so I used the glitter nose and cut it off right about where a full size firewall would fit. Then I made an access door in the top. It worked slick.

I covered all the LED strips with white (not clear) packing tape and also made sure to use LEDs with a white PCB. It looks slick.

One thing is that, per the warning, there’s a lot of up thrust when you give it throttle, even though I used the recommended amount of down thrust angle. I then doubled it and it was still too much, so then I also added 4% throttle -> down elevator mix. It flies well enough now. Maybe I’ll try adding more down thrust angle later.

For a motor, I originally had a 2205 2350kv with a 6” prop. That was more power than it needed. I now have a cheap ($5) orange 2204 1400kv with the same 6” prop. With 2s, it’s under powered but flyable. With 3s it’s very nice. I think I’ll try an 1806 next. This plane barely needs any power to fly.

That looks fantastic! And thanks for describing the process so extensively, I've been thinking of doing something similar as well, so it's cool to know what's going on under the hood there.