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.