How to power a lightbar?

[ThatOnePerson47]

I am building a scale trail truck, and I need to prepare it for night runs at axialfest. I already have a small light bar on the front, which is powered by a gear head rc battery pack. This light bar does not give off enough light to see very well, and the light "beam" is very narrow. Because of this, I want to add a wider and brighter light bar, which I will mount on the roof of my truck. There is just one problem, I don't know how to power it. I've researched this issue multiple times to see how other people are powering them. I came up empty. Are they plugging them into their esc or do they have a separate battery? I am running tamiya batterys, and I tried to plug it into the esc, and it was very dim. Should I upgrade to a lipo? Or can you find a battery pack that will plug into the light bar, if you can please send me a url so I can buy it on amazon. Thank you.

 

[magic_yeti]

I use gearhead headlight and 6shooter Front direct Out of my receiver. They Operate with 6v.
If you use a 12v lightbar you can use a Small 3s lipo or direct from your lipo if U Running 3s.

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[nivapilot]

Very much depends on the operating voltage of the light bar.....if you plugged it into your ESC and it was very dim, then the voltage was too low.....just be careful as LEDs only require about 20ma to work...much above that and you will blow them...and they go bang.
If you are using, as magic yeti says, a 12volt array, then a separate 3s lipo will power them for hours (you will only need a very small 3s lipo).
If using a 6volt array, then you can power either from the battery direct very bright), or from the usual 5v of the ESC bec(slightly dimmer)
another way to power the 5 or 6volt lights is to purchase a small BEC unit and use that.

 

[fyrstormer]

White LEDs have a nominal voltage requirement of 3.7V. If they're strung together in-series then the voltage adds together. If they're strung together in-parallel then the voltage doesn't add together. When I wire my own LEDs I prefer to wire them in-parallel and use small resistors to restrict the power each LED receives; this way I can run them off a spare plug on my receiver because the BECs on all of my ESCs provide 5-6V. However, if you're going to use a pre-fabbed light bar then you'll have to deal with whatever the manufacturer-stated voltage requirement is.

By the way, never run LEDs on significantly higher voltage than they're rated for, unless you have resistors to restrict the power the LEDs receive. The electrical resistance of an LED decreases as it heats up, and you can end up with a thermal-runaway condition where the LEDs heat up so much and lose so much resistance that the power supply fries them.

 

[sharkattack99]

I use onetoomanyrcs light bar His Black Beauty 2 (think he as a new version as well) and it is super bright.

Example
this is his light bar on 3s...i just wired it to the balance plug on the lipo.(comes wired that way) as well has a driver so you don't over discharge your lipo (shuts it down at a certain voltage)

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[Highmark]

I am building a scale trail truck, and I need to prepare it for night runs at axialfest.

For Axialfest I would very much recommend you invest in a good headlamp over lights on the truck. The first year I went I spent a bunch of money on really nice light bars and I ended up not using them because they ate up battery and because the headlamp just provided more useful light. I got something like this:

https://www.dexterpaxton.com/produc...NHqaJd_tOKw29eXZ8etrjI0ti2G5UQXPYKRoCQP7w_wcB

That said, it depends on what batteries you run (2S vs 3S) and what the light bar is rated at. If you run 3S and it's a 2S light bar use a BEC to bring the voltage down. Otherwise your fine to wire it in with the battery.

 

[fyrstormer]

Yeah, light bars are just for scale appearance. You're not looking out through the windshield of the truck (though a FPV crawling comp would be a cool idea), so the light bar doesn't necessarily light up what YOU are looking at.

 

[nightcrawler48]

Yeah, light bars are just for scale appearance. You're not looking out through the windshield of the truck (though a FPV crawling comp would be a cool idea), so the light bar doesn't necessarily light up what YOU are looking at.

Actually, for some of us, they are more than for "scale". I crawl with a group who are out at 10:00pm at night, in a totally dark park (as in forest) in the middle of a city. No flashlights or personal headlamps used except when doing a trail repair or battery change. We rely entirely on the lights on the RC to make our way down the trails. Without a good, functional light bar its tough to see where you're at and what obstacles are ahead. Rock lights and reverse lights are a big help as well. We get together to do this once a week, 12 months out of the year, sun, rain, snow, you get the picture. Try it some time without a "scale" light bar.

By the way, the lights on the RC in sharkattack's post would work awesome in our situation.

 

[excabswap]

I also run one too many RCs lightbars. I have their gen i on top and a gen iii inside for underglow so I can see the tires when it's facing me. They're wired in parallel and then to balance port plugs. I don't run an lvc. The HH ESC has a built in lvc so when my truck shuts off, I know it's time to unplug.

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[sharkattack99]

Actually, for some of us, they are more than for "scale". I crawl with a group who are out at 10:00pm at night, in a totally dark park (as in forest) in the middle of a city. No flashlights or personal headlamps used except when doing a trail repair or battery change. We rely entirely on the lights on the RC to make our way down the trails. Without a good, functional light bar its tough to see where you're at and what obstacles are ahead. Rock lights and reverse lights are a big help as well. We get together to do this once a week, 12 months out of the year, sun, rain, snow, you get the picture. Try it some time without a "scale" light bar.

By the way, the lights on the RC in sharkattack's post would work awesome in our situation.

Yep you get them bright enough and some lights in the back and some rock lights (underneath) as well and should be bright enough to see just about anything needed to see.

Thats just the one light bar on the top, i have his head lights as well for that body, and 2 proline 2" lights and a maddog 1" light bar as well and some blue lights underneath as well. these are all powered by one small 3s lipo (1600mah) controlled by my radio with a heyok light contoller.

 

[84yoda]

Proline has there light bars rated at 6v-12v, so it will run on rx or battery voltage (2-3s). And yes I would upgrade to a lipo, for better performance and run time while your out at axialfest.

 

[MattySlimz1987]

The onetoomanyrcs bars have resistors in them. It doesn't matter if you run 6v to it or 11.1. It's still going to be the same brightness.

 

[CoolRunning]

I've got 6v spot lights and BEC run light bars on my 4 trucks. They end up not being cheap and at night you still need even better lighting than this I've personally found. My son and I trail sometimes in the evening so it gets dark as we head home or we go out at night for a cruise. It's impossible to see what you're doing without undercar lighting or reverse lights. You just keep crashing or rolling over on rocks and cannot pick lines worth anything.

Head lamps/miner style lights work great but we only use them as needed; we try to also only use the truck lights as it's FAR much more enjoyable.

As these trucks always escalate in cost, I didn't want to spend up big on lighting as whilst on a single truck it's not so bad but with 4...so I bought some single LEDs and resisters and some waterproof 12v strips. I setup lighting for reverse lights and under car rock lights and even red tail light type lights to compliment the spots/bars. It's not fancy or pretty but they are fantastically functional. Lights are tied and hot glued under wheel arches and at various points and we don't (nor anyone else that we meet - especially kids) care from 5' away that it's not A1. It was cheap and is all powered by tiny $7 800ma 3S packs which give about 2-3 hours of run time at just over the size of a 9v battery.

You buy a couple of these lipos and there is a long evening of bright lighting. It made a huge difference and without them, we simply couldn't go cruising around when ever we want. I think the SCX10 has about 48 LEDs in the 4 spots and about 24 under the truck for rock lights (4 groups of 6) and a couple of bumper mounted red 'tail' LEDs. You can definitely see what you've doing now! lol

 

[CoolRunning]

I don't think this is correct as if you add resisters to handle 12V, it's going to have too much resistance at 6V and will be dim at that voltage. Otherwise, if it has resisters suited to 6V, they'll run too bright and hot at 12V and burn out.

I guess you could have a two independent circuits/plugs that was suited to the voltage to get both 6V and 12V similar brightness though this would be more complex and likely cost a lot more for a bar etc

I found 12V lights are far brighter when run at 12V and tended to be non operational or super dim or even flicker at around the 6V mark.

The onetoomanyrcs bars have resistors in them. It doesn't matter if you run 6v to it or 11.1. It's still going to be the same brightness.