Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

As the title says here is how to make a quick, cheap, and easy LED controller using the 3rd channel.

Total I spent on parts was under $4, most of the rest was scraps from other stuff.
servo $2.69 http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...?idProduct=662
2 White LED's 10 cents a pop (I buy em by the hundreds though for other things)
100 Ohm resistor (dunno what radio shack charges) generally around 50 cents a piece
A STSP micro push button switch few bucks at radio shack. I got mine off of the box for those decorations that they sell at Christmas so you can see how the thing looks. anything similar to whats in the pic will work.
Connector so you can unplug it I salvaged some from a broken battery switch from a nitro. can use a cheap tamiya connector or whatever.
A servo plug. The one I used was one of my (many) spare bind plugs for my flysky radios.
A piece of plexiglass about 2X2in big (or something stiff near the same size)

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

Step one mount the servo to the plexiglass as shown in the pic.
Use strong servo tape. In the pics I used 3m double sided tape, and it did not hold (I found some real servo tape later)

Step 2 take the bind plug(or the servo plug), and make sure you are using 2 of the connectors next to each other. You can usually move the female plug by lifting a tab up. If you are using a standard 3 pin servo wire with wires still attached skip this step.

Now solder a red wire (or remember that the center pin is positive) to the wire coming out of the center pin. I just soldered it straight to the red wire on the connector I'm using. Solder the negative to the switches one terminal, and solder the other terminal to the other pin for the connector.

Now mount the switch where the arm from the servo can hit it, and secure it with servo tape.

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

OK now is where it starts to matter more about polarities of stuff

On LED's the long arm is positive, the shorter is negative.
Take one of the LED's and cut the longer arm down so its kinda short, but still long enough to solder. Take a 1-2 inch piece of wire (I used red to keep polarities straight), and solder it to where you just cut.
Now solder the resistor to other end on that piece of wire.(the side of the resistor doesn't matter there is no polarity with them)

Take the other LED, and cut off the shorter leg, and solder a black(or how I used white) piece of wire to it. measure it so you have enough wire to reach where you want the LEDs. Then on the other end of that wire solder it to the resistor on the side opposite of the red wire coming off of the other LED.

Now cut down the longer arm that is left, and solder a longer piece of wire to it(a little longer than you need to reach where you put the servo so you can take the body off easy)
do the same on the other side but use the color of wire you used for the negative


Solder the opposite gender connector onto those wires.

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

IF all went well you can now try it out

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdKZ1nhckvo[/youtube]


You will have to tinker with your controllers D/R, arm position, and trim to make it have a smaller throw like in this video.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eYh8s2ch28[/youtube]

After this you will want to coat the exposed sections of wire with an insulator so you don't accidentally short it out. I used shoe goo to cover it (ran out of liquid electrical tape)

all that is left is mount the LED's and you are done.

Heres a quick demo of the complete product.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNJztQ6eDi0[/youtube]

Total time spent building this(outside of glue drying) was around 5 minutes.

I hope someone will find this useful. If its hard to understand just point out where, and I'll see if I can clarify it.

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

good job, way to be inovative and DIY!

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

whoa that looks awesome in the Nissan!!!!

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

So I'm gonna guess you plug in the black plug (The one that was a binding plug for the flysky) into the "BATT" port on the receiver?

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

Hey, and if you mount a switch with the throttle/brake servo and select ABS (for radios that have it), with a little adjustment, you could have flashing brake lights when you apply the brakes.

Or maybe it's so fast, the lights would apear merely ON, and a bit dim..........oh well, just a thought.

Regardless, a cool set-up you did. Thank-you for sharing.

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

I was surfing ebay a while back and saw a little electronic light controller that plugged into your 3rd channel. I know tamiya makes one.

RE: Quick, easy, and cheap LED control
 

yup
just make sure the polarities match up.


Argess I thought about that for a nitro a LONG time ago, actually where the thought that this would work came from ;)
Just I don't see a point seeing I don't have any nitros that would need brake lights seeing they only stop when they hit something :D
Actually up til my one tank thing I built I had no need to make the headlight setup, then I got the TT01, and the body, and looked at it and was like hmm that would look pretty neat with the headlights like I did in my tank thing.

proanti1 I know about that one but the one I see from tamiya (TLU-02)that allows you to control headlights is $90 (well it also adds brakes, turn signals, and reverse), The TLU-01 is an always on thing that just plugs straight into the battery, and is uncontrollable ;)


BTW forgot to add to add more LED's just hook another 2 with another 100ohm resistor in parallel hell of alot cheaper than tamiyas 6-LED's for $10 :D
Gonna have to break out my old electronics setup, and see if I can come up with a version with no moving parts eventually.