RC Helicopter LED mod

Tools

• Soldering Iron
• Pliers
• Cutters (Scissors might do though)

Components

• 4 LED's, preferably surface mount (SMT) if you are confident with soldering tiny things, otherwise regular 3mm or 5mm will do, make sure they are two colours, and 500 mcd or above in intensity so that you can see them well in daylight
• Clear heatshrink 2.4mm and 9.6mm 2:1 shrinking ratio, (this will shrink to 1.2mm and 4.8mm respectively)
• 4 resistors, any value between about 130 ohm and 300 ohm , 130 ohm will work ok on 9v but for an 11v lipo you might want to up that to about 200 ohm, these are used as current sinks on the LED's to stop them burning out.
• Some wire, preferably two colours
• If you don't want to run it off the main heli battery, you'll need a 9v battery clip and battery
• If you do want to run it of the main heli battery, you'll need a switch

Instructions

Firstly you'll need to trim the legs on the resistor and the LED's and Resistors down to about 5mm to 10mm,

1. Solder one side of the resistor onto one of the legs on you first LED.
2. Solder a 1 wire onto the other end of the resistor , and a different coloured wire onto the spare LED leg
3. Cut some 2.4mm heatshrink, so that it goes over the led leg with the resistor on it, from the base of the LED, to 10mm above the end of the resistor that is soldered onto the wire, this will stop short circuits. Using the soldering iron, heat the heatshrink all over, this should cause it to shrink into place, gripping all the components.
4. Do the same for the other LED leg.
5. Now it is time to test the LED's, put the other ends of the wire across a 9V battery , if they don't work try swapping the polarity on the Battery round
6. No cut about 30mm of the 9.6mm heatshrink and put it on the vertical support of you skid, now slot the LED that you have just wired up into that so that it is up against the support, now shrink the heatshrink using the soldering iron
7. Repeat for the other LED's, you want to end up with one colour on one side and one on the other.
8. Now you can wire up all the wires together, making sure that the negative terminals are all together and the positive terminals are all together (it's a good idea to check this at every stage)
9. If you are using a battery clip then wire this in at the same time, otherwise you'll want to cut the wire from your battery clip to the receiver, on the heli side of the plug not the battery side, and wire in the switch in series to one of the wires from the LED's to the receiver battery wire, and a piece of wire from the other common LED wire to the other receiver battery wire.
10. Make sure there is heatshrink over any bear wire or soldered joints