Non LED head lamps

[tokdl]

Ok so I did a search on how I should power my head lamps and didn't see much other than powering up LED's. I've decided to go with low voltage incondesant type bulbs as to stick with the scale apperance of the truck (Trailfinder 2) I tried powering them off of the reciver which didn't look to bad, but they were rather dim looking. This may be the fact that I just installed the 2S lipo battery without charging it into the truck. I just wanted to see how bright they would be. Any way. Has anyone powered up 8 6volt - incondesant type bulbs off of the BEC with rather good results? My next step is to just run them off of a 9v... which works great, but would raher use my reciever. I'm still quite new to all of this so I'm sure theres something obvious I'm missing out on like an external BEC? Would that give me more voltage to the head / tail lamps? Perhaps there's an adjustable BEC?

[heyok]

I would suggest that you avoid using a 9 volt battery to power your lights because 9 volt batteries are expensive. Use your rig's lipo battery to run your lighting if you can because it will most likely be protected from over discharge by your ESC's lipo cutoff.

Is 2S lipo isn't enough for your lights, get yourself a 3S lipo (assuming that the lights will run at about 12 volts) and one of those plug in lipo alarms to protect it.

Have an extra channel on your remote and want to turn the lights on and off? I suggest one of these:


Remote Switch for LEDs with Dim function

I know it says LED all over it, but it will work your incandescent bulbs too.

[sickcivic95]

Your issue is the voltage from the receiver is only about 4.5 Volts. So their way under powered and will look dim. If you want to run them straight off the battery id say Get the castle bec. 10A version and a castle link to program it. It's programmable for output voltage from 5v-25v and will run these plus more w no problem.


--Dan

Ps. I was looking for the info and saw that heyok already posted it: this is the best way with the light controller, it's still getting the higher boltage and gives u the ability to control it if you have an extra channel.

[craddock35]

You should look into the different temp or color led's they make them in different temps some of which will use much less power and look the same color as what you are looking for. Look up led color temp on the net and it should bring up charts with colors and tell you what temp you need from that.

[tokdl]

Great ideas guys. Thank you. I had wondered if they had an adjustable BEC. Looks like that may be the option I go with then. I do have a third ch. but that went to the trans. selector. I'm thinking 8 volts is ideal and if that Castle BEC is programable then that may be the ticket item. I already have the link so thats a good thing. True 9v batteries are way too expensive to keep chucking in the trash which is why I'm on the hunt for an alternative. Thnaks so much!

Craddock, didn't know about the temp sensitive LED's will; look into that this evening!

[STANG KILLA SS]

ive been down the 12v halogen tiny bulb road. they are hot, low light output, and high draw. however they do have the color that your looking for (yellowy white) most "white" LEDs look like HIDs on a lexus or something with a blue outer tinge to them, killing the old school vib.

hit up chaotic crawlers he makes Warm White LED kits that look just like old halogen headlights, but put out a ton more light, and draw almost no juice, and have the right color for vintage crawlers.
Chaotic Crawlers has LED's....


here are the old 12v bulbs i tried, i quickly switched them out for chaotics warm white LEDs

here you can see there is zero light being projected from the bulbs. (look at floor)

[STANG KILLA SS]

here are the chatoic warm white LEDs installed in the headlights (normal leds every where else)
you can see the color difference. in the pic they look very yellow,(saturation was turned up on camera) but in person they are just the right headlight color

[tokdl]

Originally Posted by STANG KILLA SS

here are the chatoic warm white LEDs installed in the headlights (normal leds every where else)
you can see the color difference. in the pic they look very yellow,(saturation was turned up on camera) but in person they are just the right headlight color

Oh wow! This is a game changer, first time seeing LED's with this output. Most I saw and have, have the blueish tint you mentioned, which was a no go for the Hilux. I'm more intrigued that they should pull very little from my batt. and they do have that vintage look to them. Great job on your rig BTW.

[STANG KILLA SS]

glad to help. even better he can add amber leds for turn markers, and red leds for brakes lights all wired together and draw virtually zero Mah

[Charlie-III]

Originally Posted by tokdl

Craddock, didn't know about the temp sensitive LED's will; look into that this evening!

The LED's are not "temperature sensitive" (meaning they change color based on their temperature), it's a color rating usually listed as "K" (or "Kelvin").

Different "K" values have different colors as seen by your eye.

There are lots of charts on the web, here is one.... Colour Temperature Chart

Basically a "very low K" light is red, a "very high K" light is blue. Incandescent light is a low "K" (sorta yellow), halogen lights are a higher "K" (thus whiter looking), HIDS are even higher "K" thus the "blue tinge".

PS, an external BEC (like the Castle 10A BEC) CAN'T put out more voltage than what is going in.
If you put in 3S LiPO voltage, you can drop it to something less (like 9 volts), if you run a 1S LiPO, you WON'T get 8 volts out of the BEC.

PPS, yes, LED's draw VERY LITTLE power, part of why they are becoming more frequent in use. The low draw is also why they put out very little heat.

[tokdl]

Thanks Charlie III, good information there. I'll be reconstructing an entire head/tail light harness with these LED's when I get my order in.

[Olle P]

Adding a little more info here...

The main reasons for not using actual bulbs are that they 1) use a lot of current, and thus drain the battery faster, and 2) they get HOT, potentially melting the surrounding plastic.

A replacement LED should have a colour temperature in the region of 2,700-2,900 K.
The "temperature" reading means that the radiation from a "black body" of said temperature seems to have that colour.