Yeager wrote:
I stick with the cost friendly day VFR only AeroLites for my purpose.
I have now ordered the Aero-Lites:
AL-3615X-S-PA ULTRA X Series – PAR36 LED Landing / Spot Beam (5,100lm) = 165.- USD
AL-3615X-F ULTRA X Series – PAR36 LED Taxi / Flood Beam (5,100lm) = 155.- USD
AL-NM1030-RGW-14-GL NavMax PRO Series- Wingtip Nav Light Replacement Bulb 12/28V – SET of 3 = 226.- USD
Transport 55.- USD from the US to Europe
Importation VAT = TBD
TOTAL cost = 600.- USD + VAT (if imposed, airplane is in a company!).
Going to be installed under CS-STAN, and should be a simple job also under part-CAO.
OK this is a different lamp.
At 12V, 4.5A is a lot more input power than the 1.5A at 28V for mine. But mine used to draw 4.5A in the 28V version and probably 9A in the 14V version (unless the 12V TB20 simply had less powerful lights, which is very likely since 18A just for the landing+taxi light is pretty silly).
Separately, I don’t buy their “output power” which would indicate an amazing efficiency of 85% which is clearly BS 
See e.g. here.
Does the cd stand for candela or foot candles, a usual measure of light?
@Peter in this case it is Not marketing speech. 4.5 Amps at 14 Volts translates even to 63 Watts.
These are the specs:
https://www.aveoengineering.com/hercules-jp-14v/
100.000 cd is of course a number that should be taken with care. But these lamps are incredibly bright. I would have liked to have a taxi light, because the spot is very well defined, but the Comanche has no such mount. But as the landing lights are in the wingtips it’s ok.
Mine (see further back, pics and all) draw 1.5A each against 4A of the old ones.
A “40W LED” is a marketing term, used with all LED lights, meaning it is equivalent in light output to a 40W incandescent.
LEDs have a definite other advantage in the TB20: they do not degrade the plastic moulding around them. But in the TB20 they prevent the cockpit lamps coming on because they don’t draw enough current to energise the current sensing relay. A simple mod if you are into electronics (a reed switch with some copper wire wound around it) and Socata developed a mod kit many years later for some huge price. Here.
I’m not convinced that LED landing lights draw less current. That might be the case in consumer applications. But look at the specs of aviation lights. I replaced a 50 W halogen bulb (that was already an improvement over the former 100 W one) with around 40 W LED. So practically the same current. But it is damn bright! 🤓
You need the interconnection cable anyway unless you are happy with the strobes looking weird (out of sync) after a few mins. In some planes this wire is a pig to run through; in the TB20 there was one spare already – this thread already has the details here. I suspect a lot of planes which had the old strobes will have a spare wire they can use for the sync.
Personally I would not go for the alternating mode strobes; I doubt it adds to visibility. Best visibility is with the old style flash tube strobes but we are all trying to get away from those, aren’t we? Unless the old strobes were wired correctly (which is rare in GA) they caused interference, and the lamps normally used (Whelen) were frankly crap build quality and suffered from water ingress. The Whelen strobe inverters were built well; see the avionics internals thread for photos.
Threads merged because the discussion became identical to previous.
Peter wrote:
For visibility (to others), plus the LED versions draw so little power they can be left on all the time one is flying.
This I my primary reason for wanting to install them. I would prefer the “wig wag/pulse” light system for extra “visibility”, but it seems only AeroLEDs supply these with build-in feature and from what I understand requires an extra cable and a 3 point light switch. Not having looked further into it, I’d imagine that CS-STAN for this cable and switch installation is not going to work for an EASA part-CAO certified airplane (under CS-STAN), and would therefor require a pricier installation process – even if it’s all rather simple. That being said – AeroLEDs actually seems to have and EASA STC for their system – as opposed to almost anybody else!
I stick with the cost friendly day VFR only AeroLites for my purpose.
I installed a WAT pro PAR36 it was expensive very happy with it . It has an heating element in the front in case of icing. I leave it on now for a local VFR flight.
