Simulated Machine Gun Testing

One of the most enjotable things about building an experimental airplane is that there are numerous sources for everything from raw materials to electronics to tools, etc. Sometimes you have to "research" things in some less-than-obvious places to come up with solutions to a particular problem. One of the problems I am facing is trying to find a suitable weather proof enclosure for the simulated machine gun lights I mentioned in my previous post. I just happened to visit my local tool rental shop today to get a new propane tank for my backyard grill, and I noticed that they had a whole section of trailer light parts, including many LED assemblies. One of the lights caught my immediate attention. I have absolutey no specs on it yet, since the guy that does all the trailer stuff was out of the office while I was there. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to go ahead and buy one so I could try it out. It is  a small round 3/4 inch fully enclosed pre-wired 12 volt dual LED light unit.

It looks like this:

I took it home and wired it up to a strobe controller unit that I have also been testing. I wired up this light and one of the other lights I had already purchased to the strobe controller wires, and then I set both lights about 7 feet apart on the floor, and turned it all on to see what would happen. I ahve to say I was very pleased with the results. While the intensity from these lights may not be very visible from a distance, from a static "on the ramp" perspective these are more than enough to provide some real crowd pleasing WOW factor. The following is short video I took. There is no gun sound (yet). This was strictly a light test.

Both lights appear to deliver about the same intensity, so right now I am guessing that the trailer light I purchased is about 1 watt - similar to the other one. They are both red LEDs, the only major difference being that the one I purchased today was enclosed inside a red lense cover and appeared to be sealed from the elements from both front and back. Hopefully the video has rendered properly on this post, because it really looks cool in all the raw footage. Right now I am planning on 4 lights - two in each wing, in the Leading Edge bay just after the outboard end of the integrated fuel tanks. I will do some mock ups to determine if a 3 gun arrangement in the same Bay will look OK or if that will appear to be too crowded, and decide if I can go with 3 lights per side instead of two after I get a better look at that.

The other light that I wired up was a 1 watt non-polarized wedge base light from Super Brite LEDs, shown here:

The other ones I ordered yesterday might be here tomorrow. I am having way too much fun with all this. True, I am not getting much done on the plane, but this was a big reason why  I wanted to build it in the first place, so it's all good. There are many other tests to perform on all this, including adding two more lights to the same strobe controller circuit to see if it handles the load and if the sync between all 4 lights looks realistic or not.