Rotating Beacon Whelen LED

[N3322G]

Heads up on the Whelen LED rotating beacons.

The 70900-04 is the drop in replacement that fits the stock beacon housing on my PA-39 (and Kristin's 30). It no longer shows in the Whelen catalog but is available.

The replacement that is in the catalog is 90520-55. It will work but creates a moat environment for water to sit in the housing.

If you want to spend the more money, the Knots2U slimline housing will take the 90520-51 LED from Whelen but of course, requires potential fitting and painting.

Yes, I learned all this the hard way and so did Whelen. They did stand behind their product and will send me a 70900 to replace the badly fitting 90520. They declined to pay for the extra shop time it took because we also were lucky to get a mis-indexed 90520 but are sending complimentary landing lights - which, with tip tanks, costs more to have the shop install but worth it in the long run.

Hopefully by posting this another Comanche owner can avoid this problem.

[9089P]

Hi Pat,

Interesting, I replaced my rotating beacon, which is fuselage mounted, with an led whelen and it too creates a mote for water to collect. I filled the mote with silicone but wonder if I have the same or similar problem to yours. Who did you speak to at Whelen?

Thanks, Don

[Mark Anderson]

Thanks for the warning. I went with the knots 2u led strobe on top of the tail last year. I also added the wing tip led nav/strobes. The painting is sort of a pain. I had an auto body shop match and mix me some paint. I added the Lopresti slipper at the same time that required the same color paint. Along with the tail strobe and slipper I did the brake reversal at the same time. I think I got at least 3 knots out of all of them maybe 5. I think the brakes accounted for most of it. No problems out of any of the lights.

Don, I just saw your post. Come to think of it, mine has that mote also. Have you experienced problems due to the water? I have not noticed any with mine. But, it could be just a matter of time. I keep mine in a hanger when I am at home base. Good thinking with the silicone! Did this solve the problem? I may do this also as a preventive measure.

[N3322G]

Don,

I have an entirely email communications with Whelen. Before I ever made the first change, I emailed a photo of the Twin and asked for the replacement LED beacon model - that's why I believe they felt so responsible for the bad fit - it was their recommendation, not my independent purchase. Did it all through the listed contact on their website http://www.whelen.com/home.php#

I suggest you email them a photo of your install and ask if they have a better option. Feel free to reference the ICS Forum posting. They did say that I was the only one to raise this issue and asked me why that might be - I pointed out the owner of the shop, Tim Talley at Clifton Aero exhibits antique cars so he values fit and finish as much as I do - with the location of the Twin beacon at the top of the tail, most folks might not notice but since I'm the one to wash the plane, if Clifton hadn't pointed it out, I would have noticed anyway.

What model beacon did you install?

btw, it was recommended to just fill the moat with caulk but I felt it would be a problem to maintain in the future and declined. With Kristin and Zach both saying it was an easy drop in and having seen Kristin's I knew what I'd been sent was not what they had. It did not make sense to me.

[N8632Y]

I just replaced the rotating beacon with 7090004 from spruce.
It was almost an easy drop in, the previous wiring was very short and required some help.
The drop in did not require any painting.
There was a very small moat, 1/16 inch maybe, a bead of silicone fixed.
This beacon is bright and stays on longer than the previous one.
I made before and after video in my dark hanger. I should have taken better
before video, but who knew.
I posted on you tube if anyone interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdqmnWIosdE
steve

[N3322G]

Steve,

Thanks for contributing a great example of what I saw -
Kristin was coming to visit and I saw Maggie's new LED beacon 10 miles out - long before I saw Maggie and that's why I set off on this improvement to 22G

[N8632Y]

Pat,
Do you know if the Nav LED's are just as good?
steve

[N3322G]

Steve,

Don't know is the short answer.

We (as in Trusted husband Ken) researched landing lights on aviation consumer and found them to not be quite as bright as 4509 but MUCH longer life and close enough - so since we use them mostly for identification rather than night landings, we will change to the LED - we have to drop the tip tanks to change bulbs. Don't know about the nav lights but when we had the strobe powers supply fail we looked at going to strobe LEDs and since they were not as bright, we stayed with traditional strobe lights and replaced the power supply. This is just what we decided to do - other folks may have different requirements and so may make a different decision.

hope this helps

[N8632Y]

Update on video of lights: if anyone is interested.........
You cannot trust taking video of lights, especially the ones that flash quickly, because video records at 30 frames per second, and the light will flash much faster, so if you replay the video slowly and think you see something, do not believe it.
When I replayed the original beacon slowly, i first thought that the beacon did not flash completely everytime. I was wrong. The frame i looked at did not capture the entire flash, The beacon flashed, but my frame was too slow!
But the new LED beacon will flash for a longer duration, and brighter, making it much more visible.
steve

[Matt Bogard]

I have LEDs all around. The Whelen LED beacons are much brighter than the old Whelen rotator and quartz flashers they replaced - MUCH brighter. I have developed a little radio noise in the intercom since installing them, likely because my beacon power cables run alongside the antenna cables. That will be a work in progress.

The Whelen PLED1L landing lights do better, in my opinion, than the Q4509's - wider beam pattern and the beam is very even across it's entire distribution. I do wonder if the ultimate setup would be the LED landing light on one wing and LED taxi light on the other (wider beam thrown in front of the nose), but I can't complain with what I have now.

I also have the LED nav light replacemnt bulbs from aircraft spruce. The look like normal bulb bases with LEDs on the end and are a direct drop-in replacement in your current nave light fixtures - they also work great! Much brighter and run nice and cool. The dual tail lights light up the whole inside of the hangar at night.

[N3322G]

Thanks Matt, that's great input. Nice to to have personal references with experience.