Welcome to Canuck Engineering

Here's a few things to try when installing LED light kits.

Plan out your colors and placement

The first thing you need to do is to plan your colors placement and wire length. Order the correct kit from Canuck Engineering. The standard kit is for a 48" combat wing or Lumberjack. Wires legnths are chosen for you. All you need is a color scheme.

Next you want to test the led harness (all harness are tested before shipping) and layout the lights over the plane. Windrider Bee is used in all the examples.

Make sure you mark out where you want the ribbon spar and allow space for the routing of all the LED wires and also the RX antenna.

Leading Edge Lights

I cut a small square of foam out on the bottom of the wing on the LE and routed the LED wire back to the RX bay.

Here's a couple shot of them installed.

Bottom Wing Lights

I picked this trick up from the southern California night flyers and it works great. Check out the gallery section under videos for the Night Fly CA video to see it in action.

I am going to use an ordinary drinking straw as a light pipe to make a line of light on the bottom of my Bee.

I use a Dremel and a router bit to cut the slot.

Run the wire back to the RX bay. Then use a bit of tin foil to back the straw covering the open end as well and install in the slot.

Top Wing Lights

For the Top Wing Lights I am going to use the Bee core spar slot (not used for the spar since I am using ribbon spars) and let the Blue LED diffuse through the foam. The bottom will have Dark covering and maybe a layer of tinfoil to keep the light from showing through on the bottom of the wing. Here's a pic of the LEDs pointed down the spar channel.

Trailing Edge Lights

For TE lights I cuts a small spot out to set the connector and LED into and then use the cutout piece to cover the connector and LED.

Wing Tip Lights

My idea for the wing tips was to bounce part of the light off the tip fins. I routed the wires along the bottom of the wing and cut a hole through the wing angling the LED slightly against the wing tips.

Here is the wing tip Light bouncing off the tip fins. I cut new tip fins out of white coroplast instead of the blue Bee wing tips.

Continuing the build.

I added some aluminum foil over the bottom of the wing to keep the blue light from shining through.

I used my normal tape pattern, then a coat of thinned goop. I'm trying out Pat Bowman's recommended tape this build.

Next covering. I used some bright colors on top and dark on bottom as normal. I made some cutout around the purple light pipes.

Here's a few quick picks in the dark.

Hopefully night flight report coming soon. Standard elevons and control rods will be used.