RC Lighting Systems Build Log: Navigation LEDs, Addressable Strips and Night Flying.
This build log covers a small, practical lighting system for a park flyer that I assembled for evening flying and orientation, with an emphasis on traditional navigation LEDs, addressable strips for effects and a clear power budget to avoid surprises during a flight session.
I planned the build around three goals: visible navigation lights for orientation, a controllable addressable strip for status and style, and a separate, fused power feed with a simple switch to avoid drawing down the flight pack unexpectedly, and for the full parts list and wiring diagrams I kept everything on my project page at WatDaFeck.
- Two navigation LEDs: green starboard and red port, 5mm high-efficiency LEDs with appropriate resistors.
- One WS2812B addressable strip, 8 LEDs, cut to length for tail and belly accents.
- Small 5V regulator (BEC) rated to 3A, inline fuse, JST connectors and a micro JST for the strip supply.
- Logic level shifter for data line if using 3S or higher battery, small capacitor for power smoothing and a MOSFET for switched power to the strip.
The wiring for the nav LEDs was deliberately simple and legal-minded, with the green LED on the starboard wingtip and the red LED on the port wingtip both connected to the same switched 5V rail but each with its own current-limiting resistor, and I used 330Ω resistors for the 5mm LEDs to give a safe, visible output while keeping current under 20mA per LED during night flights.
I fitted the addressable strip to the fuselage belly with the data input led back to a spare UART or a small microcontroller when the flight controller did not expose a convenient programmable output, and I paid attention to the WS2812 requirements by adding a 1000µF capacitor across the 5V rail, a 330Ω resistor in the data line close to the first LED and a level shifter when running the strip from a 3.3V micro; I also programmed simple low-brightness patterns and a dedicated landing/arming sequence so the strip never reached full white at flight time to avoid excessive current draw.
Power budgeting was the most important step and involved measuring expected currents and planning battery choice and fuse protection, and as a quick rule I assume each WS2812 at full white can draw up to 60mA, so an eight-LED strip at maximum white would be around 480mA, with the two nav LEDs adding another 40mA, meaning the lighting system at full blast could pull roughly 520mA and shave flight time off a 2200mAh 3S pack by about 20 to 25 percent if lights were left at full power for the whole flight, so I set a practical brightness limit, fed the lights from a separate BEC with a 3A fuse and ensured wiring runs stayed short to avoid voltage drop and excess heat during sustained use.
For testing and first flights I bench-tested all sequences, verified heating of the regulator and strip with extended runs and waterproofed the belly strip with a thin layer of silicone and heat-shrink tube at connections, and the final tips are to label connectors for quick field swaps, use an accessible switch to disable lights between consecutive flights and keep a small current meter in your toolkit to verify in-field behaviour before committing to night circuits.
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