How to light your multirotor: Lighting is obviously a necessity for nighttime flying, however it’s also really helpful when flying in daylight. Unlike helicopters, multicopters typically lack defining features to help with orientation; lighting is therefore a great solution. It makes most sense to employ a navigational lighting setup – Red on the Port (left) side, Green on the Starboard (right) side and a white strobe astern. When it comes to selecting your lights there are lots of options: LEDs, HPLEDs (High power LEDs), Strip lights and Strobes. Regular LEDs are inexpensive and come in an array of colours. While they consume little power, LEDs are best suited to nighttime applications as they are usually too dim to be seen in bright daylight. Alternatively the next generation of LEDS, namely HPLEDs and CREE LEDs are much brighter. They can be driven by much greater currents meaning that some can emit over 1000 lumens. At night they can be seen for miles, but more importantly they are visible in bright daylight. Since overheating is destructive, HPLEDs must be mounted on a heat sink to allow for heat dissipation. Both regular and HP LEDs are easy to wire up – however note that LEDs will only light up with correct electrical polarity and that they have a maximum current rating which must not be exceeded. To limit the amount of current through an LED a suitable resistor should be used. Strips lights are fun when it comes to night flights and are fantastic for orientation purposes. Some can be powered/controlled with an LED RGB Driver to cycle between different modes and colours. LEDs of all types can be turned into a strobe by using a suitable controller, strobes have the added bonus of low power consumption. The key to all lighting installations is to think about voltage and current requirements, a voltage regulator/UBEC will usually be necessary to help meet this requirements. Finally it is advisable to power lights from a separate battery to your flight battery.
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