What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

RV-12 Light Kit

Geico266

Geico266

Well Known Member
I just finished installing the RV-12 light kit and I thought a thread about installation tips would be helpful.

The kit is exceptional. Everything fits, instructions are clear, another fine example of Vans engineering.

You can install the kit without pulling the wings off. It would be easier, and the plans recommend it, but it is doable. You'll need to remove the pins and pull the wing out about 1.5 feet. The wing tip MUST be supported to keep the weight off of the plastic guilds. The wing tip fiberglassing can be done without flipping the wing over.

Make sure you secure the strings in your wings to pull the wires though. Without them it's gonna be tough to route the wires.

Install the noise suppressor while running the wires.

I did anyway with the Molex connectors, and direct soldered the ends of the wires together. Just personal preference, connectors are heavy and they can corrode.

Adding a weep hole to the wing tip extension may keep water from becoming trapped.

Make sure you trial fit the Nav/ Strobes after attaching the mounting bracket to the tip extension. The light can be repositioned to better match the fit of the fiberglass.

For those who have already painted, be careful not to over heat the cut out area as it will burn the paint, other than that you should be good to go.

I decided to skip the pro-sealing part. I'll use caulking to seal the light extension after paint.

Since I have not painted the fiberglass yet I decided to use CS4-4 counter sunk blind rivets for the entire fiberglass tip. This way the painters can finish the fiberglass without having to go around the protruding rivet heads.

The lights & strobes are bright and really look nice on the plane. The flashing landing light will really get your attention on the ground. I would have preferred two lights, one on each wing.

Total install time 22 hours.
 
Last edited:
Larry,

What's keeping you from doing the other wing with a Landing lite? Be the first one to do it.

Dean
 
ddddsp said:
Larry,

What's keeping you from doing the other wing with a Landing lite? Be the first one to do it.

Dean
Click to expand...

I could I guess, certainly would be easy to do. There is an open space for wiring.

OH! Another tip I had would be to seperate the strobes and the nav lights. Currently they are on one switch. This would require another switch some where. When taxing at night it is pretty rude to leave the strobes on. It kills other pilot's night vision.
 
Last edited:
Geico266 said:
I could I guess, certainly would be easy to do. There is an open space for wiring.

OH! Another tip I had would be to separate the strobes and the nav lights. Currently they are on one switch. This would require another switch some where. When taxiing at night it is pretty rude to leave the strobes on. It kills the other pilots night vision.
Click to expand...

Nav and strobe lights should always be on separate circuits.
Besides taxiing, there are times of low visibility when you need nav lights, but strobes will flash back in your face.
 
Mel said:
Nav and strobe lights should always be on separate circuits.
Besides taxiing, there are times of low visibility when you need nav lights, but strobes will flash back in your face.
Click to expand...

It would have been nice, but the avionics panel & lighting kit comes with both nav & strobes on at the same single throw rocker switch. It certainly would have been a nice to upgrade to having them seperate. The panel could have had a 2-way rocker switch to have them both on, navs only, or off. It would have been the same switch as the landing lights; on, pulse, off. The factory might have to look at this and change the switch. That is why I started the thread, to give future -12 builders some helpful hints.

Scott, why are both the navs & strobes on at the same time?
 
Last edited:
Nav/Strobe

In addition to the 2-way rocker switch, which is a great idea, it would take some other changes. There are not enough terminals on the right wing for another wire.
Tony
 
Tony_T said:
In addition to the 2-way rocker switch, which is a great idea, it would take some other changes. There are not enough terminals on the right wing for another wire.
Tony
Click to expand...

I was just talking to another -12 builder about that. Maybe a Molex connector would be a better choice, then we could add more wires to take advantage of the features of the lighting kit.

The strobes are not synced together and after a 1/2 hour or so they start blinking slightly off sync. It is easy to manual sync them again by turning them on and off, but that is a pain.

The landing light is plenty bright enough, but it would be nice to have two in which case you would need to run another set of wires to sync the wig-wag feature of the landing lights.
 
Feedback?

Has all of this stuff been fed back to Vans? Any response?

Thanks...Keith
 
Geico266 said:
I think we are on our own.
Click to expand...
I asked Vans about this and Gus Funnel replied "there are no options with the lighting kit. The wigwag system is built into the board so it will not alternate the lights but will flash them on and off together - if it works at all"

He had further objections inc. overloading the system - ok -so go for aeroleds 800W lights which will give you the same 2 amp draw (put the same wing root connector in the other wing) but I don't see them. He is wrong about the wigwag system being controlled via the board, they are internally controlled and only need a communication lead to work and a 3 position switch.
 
According to FAR 91.205, for VFR night flights, in addition to the VFR day requirements, your airplane needs position lights: a green light on the right wingtip, a red light on the left wingtip and a white light on the tail; flashing anti-collision/strobe lights; a landing light if operated for hire; an adequate source of electrical energy to operate the required electrical and radio equipment; and spare fuses accessible to the pilot in flight.

Van's substituted the strobe system for the red anti-collision light. I believe we must have the strobes on when operation at night.

Rdog
 
grahamcalder said:
He had further objections inc. overloading the system - ok -so go for aeroleds 800W lights which will give you the same 2 amp draw (put the same wing root connector in the other wing) but I don't see them.
Click to expand...

I guess it depends on what your priority is regarding the landing light.
tests done at Van's (outdoors in the dark) showed that the selected light unit performed much better as a landing light than the other choice(s). If your only goal is to have two lights that wig-wag then then you may be happy with something different but if you are actually interested in a landing light that performs well during night operations, the one supplied in the kit is the best choice.

It is not possible to just put the same wing root connector in the other wing...the other wing has the stall warning vane switch which utilizes some of the connections on that side.
 
Last edited:
RDOG said:
According to FAR 91.205, for VFR night flights, in addition to the VFR day requirements, your airplane needs position lights: a green light on the right wingtip, a red light on the left wingtip and a white light on the tail; flashing anti-collision/strobe lights; a landing light if operated for hire; an adequate source of electrical energy to operate the required electrical and radio equipment; and spare fuses accessible to the pilot in flight.

Van's substituted the strobe system for the red anti-collision light. I believe we must have the strobes on when operation at night.

Rdog
Click to expand...

a white position light is not required on the tail if there is a white light on each wingtip.
 
rvbuilder2002 said:
It is not possible to just put the same wing root connector in the other wing...the other wing has the stall warning vane switch which is utilizes some of the connections on that side.
Click to expand...

A Molex connector would be a nice upgrade to allow for more connections.
 
Geico266 said:
A Molex connector would be a nice upgrade to allow for more connections.
Click to expand...

Why a molex connector? The existing board could easily be modified on the fuselage and wing side by adding one or two more spring connectors. In fact, we have left-over spring connectors. They came on a strip, and, all were not used. I think there is room.
 
RV12 lights

The landing, pulse light in the RV12 lighting kit have an interesting feature when they are operated at a reduced voltage. Only four of the eight led's illuminate saving power in the case of an alternator failure.
 
Wiring

Hi,

According to the plans the strobe power wire (212) terminates in a different spade connector at the wing root on left and right wings. Seems strange. Is this correct?

Also, what switches on the internal light? I'm wondering whether to bother with this for a day VFR aircraft.

Thanks, as ever...Keith
 
Interior light

Just to add to Scott's reply- the interior light is actually controlled by the nav/strobe switch (as is the light on the autopilot disconnect).

Jeff
 
jte65 said:
Just to add to Scott's reply- the interior light is actually controlled by the nav/strobe switch (as is the light on the autopilot disconnect).

Jeff
Click to expand...

I guess we are both right.
The cockpit lights (other than the panel switch indicator lights) turn on with the nav light switch.
The brightness of all cockpit lighting (including the panel switch indicator lights) is controled by the dimmer control in the D-180 (so if you turn on the nav lights without the D-180 being powered up the interior lights do not function properly)
 
Brantel said:
HMMMM, unless Van's has some fancy dancy custom hardware from Dynon, the D180 ain't controlling any exterior to the Dynon system lights...
Click to expand...

Remember...unlike all of the other RV models, the RV-12 is a fully designed airplane with fully integrated systems and a D-180 that is supplied as being specific for the RV-12.
It's electrical system is designed so that the dimming function on the D-180 controls the dimming on the rest of the cockpit lighting.

Builders of other models should keep this in mind when giving advice in the RV-12 section... A lot of the advice given here is incorrect because of the RV-12 being so different from the rest of the models
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I removed my comment based on the fact that I forgot that the D180 has a PWM output for use as an input to an external dimmer system...unused in most applications.

No comments were made on the RV12's custom integrated Enigma of a circuit board..

A D180 is a D180 no matter how you integrate it unless you have a custom hardware solution in which then it is not a D180 anymore...The fact that you lock out certain parameters, screens, etc. only means that you have configured the D180 for the RV12. It is still a D180...
 
Brantel said:
No comments were made on the RV12's custom integrated Enigma of a circuit board..
Click to expand...

And my comment
"Builders of other models should keep this in mind when giving advice in the RV-12 section... A lot of the advice given here is incorrect because of the RV-12 being so different from the rest of the models"

was not specificaly directed at you or your comment, your comment just happened to make me think of how many times this is the case in the RV-12 forum

Brantel said:
A D180 is a D180 no matter how you integrate it unless you have a custom hardware solution in which then it is not a D180 anymore...The fact that you lock out certain parameters, screens, etc. only means that you have configured the D180 for the RV12. It is still a D180...
Click to expand...

And I didn't specifically say that it was different hardware. What I said is correct....it is a D-180 specifically preconfigured for the RV-12 (which it is).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top