Jump to content

LED lighting for airliners anyone?


Recommended Posts

yes the pairs have to, being counter rotating. (I did want to experiment on a Fairy Gannet first, but that would be individual running motors, but that's anothe project) The lights would be whatever's used at startup and push out, including interior, maybe with the interior check, when the interior lights go out for the one second. I don't know if that was done on a TU-114. Kinda getting the '114 and regular modern airliners mixed together here. I'm sure it would be easy to have something sitting at a holding position nea the runway, then you have to cut the flaps out.

Edited by busnproplinerfan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a first draft schematic of what the control electronics might look like for the 8 engines (4 pairs) and up to 12 LEDs: https://easyeda.com/Armored76/tu-144-attiny85

 

It is using the smaller ATTiny85 microcontroller using all of it 6 available ports. Furthermore, the components are all available as breakout boards, small PCBs with components soldered on them so, you'd only need to connect these boards and write the software to control them.

 

It is only a fun exercise to me so, do not feel obliged to use or even comment on it ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, armored76 said:

Here is a first draft schematic of what the control electronics might look like for the 8 engines (4 pairs) and up to 12 LEDs: https://easyeda.com/Armored76/tu-144-attiny85

 

It is using the smaller ATTiny85 microcontroller using all of it 6 available ports. Furthermore, the components are all available as breakout boards, small PCBs with components soldered on them so, you'd only need to connect these boards and write the software to control them.

 

It is only a fun exercise to me so, do not feel obliged to use or even comment on it ;) 

Looks doable, I don't understand what some of it is, but can get a basic idea. The motors I have, I have no specs on them,bought them at a surplus store. They are for a cell phone vibrator. About 1" long and 1/4" diameter, a very short small diameter shaft coming out. I don't know if anything else is similar. I did see a smaller version of the same motor, from a servo. The other thing with those is adding a tube that will hold on and not slip on the shaft.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most pager motors I've seen where 3V ones. Maybe you could hook them up on a 3V coin cell and see if they move we can determine if that voltage would work.

 

As for the schematic:

  • U9 is the microcontroller board, the "brains" of the whole thing
  • Q1 is basically a switch that can drive enough current to drive the motors (the "muscles" if you will)
  • P1 is the LED driver
  • IC1 is a voltage converter that "produces" the 3V required by the motors from the 6V voltage
  • the 6V is provided 4 x AA batteries
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not really... If you take two CR2032 batteries in series with their 230 mAh (probably even less in real live) and consider about 8x60mA for the motors plus 6x20mA for the LEDs, you'll see that the total consumption of 600mA will drain the batteries in minutes.

 

Of course you can use several packs of two batteries in parallel but then you are at about the same volume as AA or AAA batteries.

 

An alternative would be the use of a 9V battery but it needs to be checked as some will not be able to drive DC motors reliably. Yet another alternative would be 6V or 9V wall plugs. Less flexible but would also require less space (only for the connector, basically).

 

I wouldn't put the batteries in the model anyway but place it under the base, for instance which might reduce space requirements.

 

I'll have to revise the schematic above as I forgot about the infrared receiver we discussed and will also have to double check on the available PWM channels for the motor control.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok, I see the battery situation. Sometime i want to light up a semi truck with a similar set up, but that would be a lot easier to hide stuffDo this first. Wall plugs can work, maybe with a battery option in case i want to take the plane for display and have no where to plug in. Would there still be any kind of throttle control on the motors?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, after the update there will be throttle control on the motors. These would would work with so called PWM control signals. Basically, a very fast signal turning on and off with the time it stays on and off controlled by the software. The longer it stays on compared to the off phase, the higher the "average" voltage on the motor and the faster it turns. The relation between the on and off times is called duty cycle. The best part is, this is all taken care of by the TLC59711 driver. All the software does is tell the chip "Set duty cycle to 30% on channel R1".

 

Exactly the same mechanism can be used to control the LED brightness, if that is required.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...