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In search of new WIG-WAG flasher

dan

dan

Well Known Member
Electronics wizards out there... My RV-7 has the SSF-1 wig-wag flasher from B&C. It has served me well. Except that after 834 hours, it finally died a painful death. So I'm in the market for a new one.

I could pay $22 for a new SSF-1 from B&C. That would be pretty straightforward. But of course the cheapskate in me had me looking around for other options.

Yes, I have seen Bill Vondane's very nice flasher, but I'm not interested in the complexity that it introduces. I want to stick with a simple 3-wire setup (+12V, load 1, load 2).

So check this out...here's B&C's SSF-1:
ssf-1.jpg


But here's a flasher that costs about $10 less but "looks" pretty much the same:
el13a-1_3X.jpg

http://www.midwayautosupply.com/detailedproductdescription.asp?11850

Yet on that page it says "Design Life: 500 hours". Just makes me wonder if the B&C flasher is basically the same animal and also suffers from limited life. Vibration in the airplane environment, yadda yadda.

Anyway, I guess I could rationalize spending $12.99 every 500 to 834 hours, but obviously I'd rather not if there's a better alternative. Especially if there's one with no moving parts.

So...does anybody have a "homebrew" flasher design/schematic that I could fab up from cheap components, save a few bucks, and enjoy having made it myself?
 
Yeah, saw that, but for the price I may as well get the B&C SSF-1 since it's a drop-in replacement. I don't want to change any wiring or have to add any switches or use a different switch. Looking for a super-simple 3-wire drop-in setup.
 
dan said:
But here's a flasher that costs about $10 less but "looks" pretty much the same:
el13a-1_3X.jpg

http://www.midwayautosupply.com/detailedproductdescription.asp?11850

Yet on that page it says "Design Life: 500 hours". Just makes me wonder if the B&C flasher is basically the same animal and also suffers from limited life. Vibration in the airplane environment, yadda yadda.
Click to expand...

I think this is the same thing - I purchased mine from a local auto parts place and it works swimmingly. The design life 500 hours thing is kind of a bummer - didn't notice that originally. However, this is a solid state device so I don't know where they get that number.
 
Perihelion

How about a couple of options offered by Periheliondesign.com

I'm going to add one of wig wag switch now that I've got the plane down for paint.
 
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RV7Guy said:
How about a couple of options offered by Periheliondesign.com
Click to expand...

Other than it costing 5x as much and requiring significant wiring changes...well...you get my point. :rolleyes:
 
Just curious about what made it a "painful" death. Are you referring simply to the pain your wallet felt? I've got the same flasher unit installed in my airplane.

Jim
 
I am guessing that the contact toasted from internal arcing. Dan, did you do a forensic analysis?

Is is a solid state design you are seeking?

I will have to consult the electronics gurus at school for a solid state design, as the power of the switching leads will be fairly high.

:rolleyes: CJ
 
Check the Dictionary-CHEAP=DAN

Dan:

You gotta be kidding? Send me your address and I'll give you $22 for the wigwag. Give it a break. Do you squeak when you walk?
 
Jim Percy said:
Just curious about what made it a "painful" death. Are you referring simply to the pain your wallet felt? I've got the same flasher unit installed in my airplane.
Click to expand...

Instead of click-clack-click-clack, now it goes "Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!" Sounds painful to me.
 
Tridon EL13A-2

I bought a Tridon EL13A-2 from Midway Auto Supply and will try that.
 
The so-called 'solid state' flashers that you buy from automotive sources is an example of misleading advertising.

In fact, they are electromechanical devices (relays) with a transistor oscillator in them. What wears out are the relay contacts.

I designed a true electronic flasher some time ago, but didn't take it to market because of the price (had to be at least $50), and I thought that there might be a better way.

The better way (which has not been exhaustively proven yet), is to put NTC thermistors in series with the lamps. These are readily available, and have the benefit of extending both lamp and circuit breaker life.

The NTC thermistor, when could, offers a high resistance (several ohms), limiting surge current through the breaker and lamp. The lamps, when cold, have a very low resistance-- which can cause a power on surge of several times their rated current (20-30 amps!). With the NTCs in series with the lamps, it minimizes the thermal shock to the lamps at start up by limiting the current. When everything warms up, the NTC's resistance drops to near zero, and the lamp's resistance increases.

I think that this can be of benefit to the automotive flashers. When wig-wagging for a while, the lamps are warm already, but they still have the start-up problem I mentioned... you are putting 20-30 amps through the tiny little relay contacts.

The devices are cheap, available at DigiKey, and install anywhere in series with the lamps.

Vern Little
 
Hard Knox said:
You gotta be kidding? Send me your address and I'll give you $22 for the wigwag. Give it a break. Do you squeak when you walk?
Click to expand...

I bought something from B&C expecting it to be "solid state," because that's how it's marketed. Now maybe I'm naive and don't really know the true meaning of that term. But when I hooked that sucker up and it started clicking, I found it was an electro-mechanical device. Part of me still feels a little misled on that one. So I bought what I believe is the same device for $9 less.

Cheap? Sure. The savings translates into half an hour of flying. Every little bit counts.
 
Tridon EL13A-2 from NAPA

Hey Dan,

I have the homebrewed AeroElectric wig-wag using the Tridon EL13A-2 flasher and a bridge rectifier, I got the flasher at the local NAPA store and the rectifier at rat-shack.

I thought it died a couple months ago when it started making a terrible noise like you described... "wahaaaaaaaaaaa", turned out to be a burnt-out landing light?!? :confused:

Changed the LL bulb and it's a wiggin and a waggin again! :D
 
Tony Kirk said:
I thought it died a couple months ago when it started making a terrible noise like you described... "wahaaaaaaaaaaa", turned out to be a burnt-out landing light?!?
Click to expand...
I have the B&C flasher in the Moose, and while installing it, I found that if the load on one side was not hooked up, it didn't work, and made that "wwaaaaahhhhhhhhhh" sound. Having a burned out bulb would cause an open on that side, same as not hooking it up. Something to check.
 
What's strange is that in the past I've had landing lights burn out (multiple times) and it didn't make that noise. The wig-wag flasher would just be silent when both loads weren't connected -- and the weird "new" sound is what led me to believe it was the flasher that went bad.

I confirmed today that indeed my right landing light isn't working. I swear it was working the other day when I checked!! Weird. The bulb filament looks fine. Other than that, I didn't have time to poke around to see if it's the bulb or the fuse. Will find out tomorrow or next time I have time. That'll be sweet if I jumped the gun and it's just the bulb and not the flasher (and I guess I'll have an extra flasher).
 
So I guess the $200+ Pulselite (Certified system) is the way to go. I believe that it is totally solid state. That would definitely be the way to go if someone could reverse engineer (or just engineer their own). I would definitely pick up a solid state over relay.
 
Building a wig wag

Have a look at the circuit I put under the electrucal forum. It is totally solid state with only a small number of parts costing round $A10 which is about $7 US.
It is fun to make and works well. What can I say?
There is no radio noise. If a globe burns out the good lamp still flashes.

I used the idea that if the taxi switch was on, then the taxi light was on; if the landing ight switch is on then the landing light is on, but if both are on then there is a wig wag.

The box is small and can mount behind the switches and only requires lifting the taxi and landing light wires from the breakers and putting the box in series.

Have a look. The only advice is to use bipolar capacitors in the flip flop part of the circuit.


Infact there is a kit for $4 which works a wig wag as part of flashing jewelry which is how I first started the project. It took the addition of two power mosfets to complete the thing.

If you can wire an aircraft then sure as hell you can wire a simple piece of electronics.
 
Simple wig wag

Tracy,
You seem to have picked up the thread.
There is a little Vellerman kit which in about $5 that is perfect as the flip flop.
http://www.apogeekits.com/electronic_mini_kits.htm (its the first one listed).
I didn't use a kit simply using vero board and parts I had.
You may have to change the collector resistors to allow for 14 volts rather than 9 volts. The collector value is about 1.8k ohms but it is totally non critical.

The capacitors should be non polarised. I don't know what is provided in the kit.
You will also have to split the feed to the individual transistors if you want to have individual switching from the taxi and landing light breakers. (see the circuit).
There are a raft of cheap Mosfets and Hexfets that will do for the application. The cheapies I used are rated at 23Amps but they will blow before the breaker. They must be P channel.

If you put a small light globe say 15 Watts across the two light wires wires, it will act to keep the filaments in each wing light hot and reduce inrush current and premature burn out. This is not talked about much on the commercial models so is probably not of any real concern.
The beauty of the thing is that it is so simple to put in and take out if something goes wrong, It's fun to make and at the price you can throw it out if you dont like it.
 
By adding an RC filter to the gate of the mosfets, you can slow the turn on to help keep the in rush current down, at least during wig-wag. Figuring out the right values would take a bit of experimenting with the choosen mosfets. I would bet the 'commercial' ones do this.
 
Wig wag

James,
You are correct about adding the RC filter (integrator) but I chose not to slow down the turn on simply in order to save having to put in a heat sink. Still, correctly chosen, the heat generated at the transition would be minimal........I might muck round with some cap values and see how it looks on the oscilloscope.
 
FS - certified wigwagger

At a substantial discount from retail. Write if interested in the whole story.
h
 
what about WigWag / StrobePak (1/2 price of Creatvair)

This unit from nova is pretty cool. (For emergency vehicle head light wigwag).

http://www.strobesnmore.com/flasher-modules.html

There are other brands you can buy a true emergency flasher for
about $40. They are made by whelen, Nova, Code 3 and Federal Signal.

These things are pretty cool and you don't need high amp switches since it is
solid state. The switches are handling milliamps. The flash rate is (1.9/sec),
will get peoples attention. They may even pull over and wait for you to write
a ticket. George
 
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