Section: Avionics
Hours: 5

Some time ago I purchased a position/strobe light kit from FlyLEDs I had priced out other position lights and was disappointed about how expensive they are. I heard about FlyLEDs and thought it would be fun to build my own lights. I have soldered together quite a few projects over the years so I was confident I could build it. The company is based in Melbourne, Australia but the kit arrived surprisingly quickly after I ordered it and then sat on my desk for a year before I got to it :-(

I ordered the wing position lights and the tail light as well as the heat sinks (it gets hot in the CA Central valley during the summer). The kit includes all parts, solder, thermal paste and nicely detailed assembly instructions.

The first step in assembly is to trim the circuit boards to fit in the wing tips. I started fitting the circuit board and realized I first needed to fit the plexiglass lens cover to determine how much margin to leave.

The plexiglass lens covers are oversized and must be cut down to fit. Make sure you get an optimal fit of the curves of the plexiglass to the wing and then trim off a little at a time and refit before trimming more. I used the bandsaw with a 1/8" blade to do the first 2 rounds of trimming and then used the belt and disc sander to do the rest. I used a single edge razor blade to scrape and chamfer the edges when I got to the final fit.