Xerogear Night Fly System

Written by Ashley Davis Thursday, 03 September 2009 22:42

Xero Gear

This night fly system is designed to be an improved version of the typical glow wire installation seen on most night fly helicopters. The system itself is a number of LEDs wired in series to produce self-adhesive strips of light. The strips themselves come supplied as one long strip and it is down to the user/installer to cut it down as required and install. Each strip can be cut into multiple smaller strips and all that is required is to use the supplied wire to connect the strips together.

This is of course a bit of a departure from the usual glow wire system where each glow wire cannot be cut and has to be installed on the helicopter as one continuous length. The LED strips can be bent around the curves of the canopy but they are not as flexible as your typical glow wire. This lack of flexibility is to some extent overcome by the ability to cut the LED strips into smaller lengths which can then be applied in whatever pattern you wish. You can even mix colours from different strips, it doesn't have to be all of one strip of one colour followed by the next. Each cut strip must be connected to the previous strip using the supplied two core wire. This involves some soldering of the wire to the LED strips. Each LED strip and each separate LED on the strip has an area where the supplied wire can be soldered in order to make the electrical continuity. The system also comes with a four LED white landing light which can be connected to the underside of the helicopter in order to illuminate the ground for landing. For the review I decided to use one strip of LEDs to decorate the canopy, one strip to decorate the tail boom and then used a different colour strip in order to illuminate the tail fin. I fitted the supplied landing light between the front skids pointing straight down at the ground.

The system comes supplied with some micro deans connectors which are used to connect the canopy on my helicopter to the LED strips on the tail boom. Also I used micro deans connectors for the connection of the lipo to the canopy. The whole system runs from a single small lipo which in my case is a small 7.4 V 800 mAh pack. This can power the system for a significantly long period of time, certainly longer than the 20 minutes or so that I normally spend night flying.

Installation of the entire night fly system took as long as it would normally take me to install glow wire of my helicopter. Normally with glow wire a lot of holes need to be drilled in order that tie wraps can be used to secure the glow wire in place. With the LEDs system a lots less holes are required as the LEDs strips self-adhesive. The only holes I required were for rooting the wire from one LED strip to the next in order to create a continuous circuit. Most of the time was spent carefully routing this wire and soldering it to the LEDs strips. Installation of the LEDs strip on the boom was exactly the same as installing glow wire. The sticky backing was not removed from the LED strips and that they were just held in place using tie wraps. I did use the sticky back to install these strips onto the vertical tail fin but aside from this the entire boom section could be removed just by cutting a couple of cable ties.

Xero Gear also provide some little extras such as the ability to switch the LEDs on and off via a spare channel or even control the intensity of the LEDs via a spare channel. This is all handled by the optional light controller which uses the Servo position (endpoint) in order to determine the intensity of the LEDs. The most obvious use for this optional light controller is to turn on or off your landing light but the more adventurous may be inclined to mix one of their channels to the light controller channel causing the LEDs to pulse in time to the movements of the stick assigned to that channel mix.

Apologies but I got some strange light reflection in my lens for the following shots, despite this you can see just how bright these LEDs are on the helicopter...... and this is just using a 2S lipo rather than a 3S for full brightness!!

Flight Test

Having installed the system one of the first things I wanted to do was to give it a dry run in my backyard to make sure that everything was working correctly. I waited for a nice dark evening and then plugged the system in. The first thing that really struck me about the system is that the LEDs are extremely bright, certainly far more bright than glow wire. In the pitch black it was actually quite dazzling to look at my helicopter close up.

Having verified that everything was working correctly I took the whole system to my local flying field for some night flying tests. One thing that I was concerned about is that I usually use glow wire to outline the entire shape of my canopy. With the LEDs strips I had just got some rudimentary outline of the canopy but certainly nothing as fancy as I could achieve with glow wire which is much more flexible. I needn't have worried, the LEDs strips were so bright I could see the outline of my canopy anyway.

With the system all powered up and working I took off and experienced my first proper 3-D flight using this system. The thing that strikes you went using this system is just how brightly lit the helicopter is in the sky. The LEDs strips are massively more visible than glow wire. My flying field does suffer from light pollution from a nearby town and this can make glow wire not show up very well. With the LEDs strips this problem was completely removed, even with light pollution I could see the canopy and tail boom very very clearly. Visibility with this system compared to glow wire is massively better. I also found that once I got used to not seeing the entire outline of my canopy in glow wire I didn't really miss it as I could orientate perfectly well on the LEDs strips.

Having had a very very successful 3-D flight with no issues with regard to orientation or disability of the model I came in for a landing. Usually I struggle a little on landing as it is very difficult to judge where the ground is as glow wire doesn't really illuminate the grass. The white landing light supplied with this night fly system did a fantastic job of illuminating the grass allowing me to make a perfect landing without having to guess where the ground was. This was a very welcome addition to my usual night flying experience.

Pros

Very very bright LEDs
Easy to install provided you don't mind some simple soldering
Landing light
Good instructions provided with the kit
Everything you need is provided in the night flight kit

Cons

Not as flexible as glow wire
More expensive than glow wire

Conclusion

When I originally heard about the Xero Gear night fly system it raised a lot of questions for me as to why a new system was required and what advantages it would offer over a traditional glow wire system. I could see that the LEDs may be brighter but I thought that the lack of flexibility in the LEDs strips would cause me problems in flight with regard to orientation as I wouldn't be able to outline my entire canopy. I couldn't have been more wrong. This system is so much brighter than glow wire that it gives you new-found confidence in being able to see exactly what you're helicopter is doing. You can fly higher, further away and faster and have no issues whatsoever with orientating on the helicopter. The added bonus being when you come into land and having a nice landing light to illuminate the grass/ground.

Installation is no more complicated than installing glow wire provided you don't mind doing a little bit of simple electrical soldering. The overall install process should be no longer than using glow wire and tie wraps.

When I initially saw this system I wasn't convinced that I would like it. Having looked at the design, the amount of thought involved in putting the system together and the overall experience it delivers when night flying a helicopter I would not want to go back to a glow wire system. This system has greatly improved my night flying experience and I thoroughly recommend it.

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