11/9/2006
You didn't think I'd really wait until the fuselage arrived to work again did ya!? I started working on my Jeff Bordelon LED nav lights tonight. Let me start by saying that these things are SUPER BRIGHT!!!! I plugged 'em in to my portable battery jump starter, and these things lit up the room!
After I recovered my sight again, I started working on the aluminum plate that I'll be installing for the LED's and strobes to mount in. The LED's were designed for the older style -7 wingtips, which had smaller areas to mount lights. No big deal. I'll just polish some AL to a mirror finish, and this will be a slick installation. I used a piece of paper to get the basic shape to make a template. Then I traced it on the one remaining piece of AL that I had left over from the wing kit. Worked perfect!
I cut those with the bandsaw, and deburred the edges. Using the paper template again, I marked the middle where the bend goes, and set that up in a homemade break to bend them.
Here's how they fit on the wingtips (of course the blue will be removed later)-
I've started with the right (starboard) side for whatever reason. I drilled the holes in the AL and the fiberglass using the holes in the mirrored plexi as a guide. Then I marked where the large hole in the center will be cut to allow the LED plates to sit right down on the surface. There's a heat sink (I think that's what it's called) on the back, and the wire bundle will need to go through the large hole.
That's as far as I got tonight. I hope to have both of these done to the point of final install this weekend. I won't install them until after the tips are ready to install on the wings.
2.0 hours