RC4WD Light Bar in ESC

[DavinG]

I'm looking at tying my RC4WD 1.5" LED light bar into two 3mm LED fog lights, together plugged into a single channel in the Axial AR-3 RX. I'm running 3S lipos and already have a BEC connected to ESC.

All of my lights are bright except for the light bar. The website for RC4WD states this light bar works with up to 11.1v lipo with use of a BEC to regulate voltage below 7.4 volts. I don't currently have the Castle Link (on order) to program the BEC to increase the voltage to 7.4V (current default setting is 5.1V)...do you think the lower 5.1 voltage is not allowing the light bar to fully illuminate? I'm hoping increasing the BEC voltage to 6 or 7.4V will fix this issue? Do you suggest I set the voltage to 6V or 7.4V? My Tactic Servo is 6V.



Thanks.

[Hydrocarbon92]

The LED light bars use resistors to allow them to run off 7.4-11.1v (probably more like 8-12.6v). The less voltage you feed it, the dimmer it gets.

The servo might fry at 7.4v, you'd have to look at the specs. If the fogs aren't 11.1v max and instead something like 8.4v max, that would explain why they're brighter at 5.1v than the bar. To make a long story short, you can only "tie together" LED's that use the same max voltage w/o getting some that are dim. If you added the right resistors to the fogs, you could run them all off battery voltage.

[Jim85IROC]

For something like a small light bar, I'd run a separate buck converter (the real name for what we call BECs) on the light bar so you can use your Castle BEC at whatever voltage your servo prefers. You can get adjustable 2A buck converters for a buck or less on Ebay. They may not be able to provide a full 2A continuous, but a 2" light bar is likely only to draw about 1/2 amp or less, so it would be perfect.

[DavinG]

I adjusted my BEC (connected to the RX) to 6A and have my fog light LEDS and light bar connected together to the RX. The light bar is now bright! I could increase the voltage even higher but I prefer the simplicity of tying all my lights together in a single plug...makes it easier for connecting/disconnecting.

[durok]

^^^ Nice pic - really captures how good the lighting works!

Something about it says "I'm Dreamin' of a White Christmas"....