Dan Johnson interviews me on the Belite UltraCub

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!



Great, great video on my airplane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5LG1aMy3RgA

Thanks to Dan Johnson and Dave Loveman.

How to attach a Belite instrument dimmer

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


Belite LED instruments are very bright, completely suitable for viewing in daylight, but they do come with a 'dimming' function for dusk conditions.  Here is an example Belite LED instrument:

Belite LED instrument:  Turn Coordinator with solid state gyro

Each instrument has a yellow wire which may be attached to a dimming potentiometer, so that you can control how bright the LEDs are.

We've had several tech support inquiries on how to attach that wire.  Here's the answer:

A)  If you never plan to fly in dim light conditions, just leave the yellow wire unattached.  Your unit will always be at full brightness.

B)  If your bird has navigation lighting (EG: position lights) you can attach the yellow wire to them.  Therefore, if your position lights are turned on, your LED indicators will be fully dimmed.

C)  If you desire to have variable control over the dimming intensity, the yellow wire may be attached to a separate potentiometer (not supplied by us) to provide control.  You'll need a potentiometer (10K ohm suggested) and perhaps a knob for the potentiometer, and you'll want to mount the potentiometer in your instrument panel.  A suitable potentiometer is from Radio Shack, part # 271-1715, and they look like this:

Potentiometer.

The potentiometers have three connections.  You'll need to connect the center one to the yellow wire; and one side to ground, and the other side to Switched +12 volts.  (From your avionics master switch, for instance.)  This allows the potentiometer to 'sweep' all the way from ground up to twelve volts, allowing you to select the proper intensity level of your LEDs.  If you have several of our instruments, just connect all the yellow wires together.

Your Belite instrument still requires its own power.  You can hook it up to the same +12v source (red wire) and the ground (black wire).

If you don't have access to a Radio Shack, and if you are so inclined, Digi-Key sells bazillions of variable potentiometers.  A suitable Digi-Key part # is: 3852A-202-103AL-ND; but the Radio Shack part is a lot less expensive.

Even More Technical info:

The yellow wire going into the Belite instrument is not connected directly to the LEDs.  Rather, it is connected to a small microprocessor inside the instrument, which analyzes the voltage level and controls the LEDs by varying the amount of time they are turned on.  This happens so quickly that your eye sees it as a dim condition, but its actually a very rapidly flashing light with a varying duty cycle.  Many LED lighting systems with variable intensity work this way; for instance; LED brake lights on cars.
 

Prototype Digital Altimeter from Belite

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


Hey, I don't comment on upcoming Belite products, but sometimes beta testers do.

http://flydiverprojects.blogspot.com/2012/11/new-toys.html

Digital Altimeter from Belite Aircraft

Blatant Pitch for G Meter with Near Death experience as illustration

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


I've always been interested in how strong the bumps are.  A great illustration of this is derived from a terrible mistake I once made as a pilot.

I was in my great big turbo Cessna 206 somewhere over the high plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado.  My passengers and I were eager to get to our fishing and camping destination in Idaho.  Perhaps I was a little too eager...

Because I made a shortcut to my destination and I flew under a developing thunderhead.  I remember seeing, with some sense of awe, the cloud vapor moving from clear air below, straight up into the thunderhead.  In other words, I could see the thunderhead acting like a great big Hoover, sucking up moist (but clear) air from directly below and converting it into cloud vapor as it moved into the thunderhead at a rapid rate.  And for some stupid reason, I flew directly under this monster.

And got sucked up into it.

The plane oscillated between overspeed (well over redline -- I was staring at the airspeed indicator and I remember seeing the it *well over* redline) and something else.  The forces on us occupants varied between negative force (less than 0 G) and something else...  I'd love to have seen the G's.  But I couldn't -- we had no "G" indicator in the cockpit.  (We only had the evidence of things flying all over the cabin during negatives, then returning to the floor during the positives.)

So, many years later, I have designed an instrument that would show all of the G forces --- Belite's G meter.  It shows positive and negative G's on separate scales, up to plus or minus 6 Gs.  It keeps track of the peek values, by blinking the highest extremes observed on both the positive and negative scale.  It uses very little power, runs off 12 volts (actually anything from 8 to 14 volts), and has a tiny little microprocessor in it that keeps track of everything.  And I made it inexpensive, in 3 different configurations (1.75 inch square, 2.25 inch standard round, and portable box).  Since the LEDs are so very bright, it is also dimmable for night usage.

2.25" Round G Meter, with positive and negative scale

 By the way, the thunderhead did spit me out the other side a minute or two later.  I'd been 'flight following' with Denver center.  The controller had observed the altitude and airspeed variations I'd been experiencing, and was kind enough to verify that I was still with him.  I was, and I am still here now.

Please enjoy using our G Meter.  You can see a lot more of it on YouTube here.

And you can purchase it on our webstore, or from Aircraft Spruce, or from Wicks.

Wiring an ultralight instrument panel into an Ultralight Aircraft

Interested in more info from Belite?

Subscribe to our news announcements here:
Please drop us an email if you are a journalist.
And subscribe to James' tweets here, for the latest sneek information.

Let's wire up an instrument panel, using Belite' featherweight avionics.  Our completed panel will weigh about 12 ounces (0.35KG), and it will look like this:

That's a lot of functionality.

Anyway, let's build it.  We're starting with our precision machined aluminum panel,