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LED Service Life - Nav, Strobe, Ldg/Taxi

gmcjetpilot

Well Known Member
I switched to LED NAV/Strobe. Great, lighter, less electrical power required, bright. :) How long will they last? I recently became disenchanted with the many LED's I filled my home with. After 4 years several died. What happened to 10 yrs or 50,000 hrs? :( It could be the brand, the type. LED's cost more so you expect more.

Has anyone found short service life with thie LED Nav, Strobe or Landing/Taxi light? Could you give details.
 
The LEDs themselves have a long service life. All of the supporting components and circuitry have much higher failure rates.
 
LEDs can have a long life, but there lifetime is based upon current and temperature. That means that some LEDs if driven hard and not sufficiently heatsinked will have shorter lifetimes. That is why sometimes you will find cheaper LED lights because they don't spend the $$$ to properly handle the thermal aspect of the design.
 
Bad LED

I started checking the plethora of LED failures and noticed if they fail( from heat or overcurrent) the "lite" extinguishes but the current flow remains the same. But not always!

Yes, it's a fun fact, and useless. John
 
Thanks all. This confirms what I thought. The electronics to support driving the LED fails. If the LED fails it is from heat or poor heatsink design, causing causing premature failure. On the plus side the super light relatively low current Ldg, Nav, Strobe lights.

One thing I see that could improve them is component level repair.
If your circuit board dies, be able to replace that and keep the housing, LED's.
If you LED dies, be able to replace that and keep the housing and circuitry.

I don't know if Aviation LED lights are repairable. If repairable would LED light companies repair them. It may not be cost effective for them.
 
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One thing I see that could improve them is component level repair.
.

Your wish is already here. flyLed sells their wingtip lighting in kit form. If you have the soldering skill to put it together, it’s just a little bit harder to take it apart, for repair.
 
luxon star LED

I had good success with getting LEDs from Ledsupply.com out of VT. About 2 or 3 years ago, I built some homemade Nav light panels to mount in the wingtips... Make sure and get the LEDs that have a chip board built in which is basically a power supply driver so you can directly wire them to DC voltage. Use some heat sink when mounting them to your base mounting plate. Just solder about 6 to 8 of them in series and everyone can see you coming.....cost less than $80 to make a set of NAV lights that will make you look like a Christmas tree on approach.
 
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