Blinded by the light

Now that we're working in the front avionics compartment again, I was reminded of an old saying that goes along the lines of "Sure, you can install it, but can you fix it once you install it?" With that in mind a quick fit check to make sure that I could get to the stuff I'm now working on. Yes, I do have access. All is well.

During the Quest for the Perfect LED Indicator, I came across some lights by Oznium. Aesthetically, they were very nice. But they were blindingly bright, even in daylight.

Oznium suggests I put a resistor in the circuit to lower the voltage and dim the lights, I checked with Rotax, Dynon, and ACI, and all said it was Ok to put a resistor on the ground/return side of the LED in their systems. Since the gear lights all hook into a common, pigtailed ground that was a perfect spot to test.

A dsub connector made the pigtail removable.

And connectors on each side of the resistor made it plug-n-pray. A gent on VAF had the same problem as I did and suggested a 10k ohm resistor. My first try was discouraging because I used a 10 ohm resistor, it was kindly pointed out that I missed the size by a factor of K. (Missed it by THAT much.)

Huge difference when you use the correct size.

Still a little brighter than I'd like for night flying, but I won't be doing a lot of that, and I can live with it.

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