PIREP Aveo Posistrobe CP

[DrDave]

Greetings:

I purchased an Aveo Posistrobe CP combination position/strobe light for the Skymaster. I was unsure how the LED light output was going to be compared to the Whelen A500 strobe/nav combination light I have on another plane. I did a quick and dirty comparison last night between the two systems. The LED position lighting is dramatically brighter than the Whelen incandescent bulb in the A500. In the strobe position the comparison is a bit closer. Both units have the multi-flash. I think the LED wins out when you consider the effort of running the strobe cable and mounting the A490 strobe power supply.

I just completed a full re-wire of the right tailboom. I replaced the harness that feeds the beacon/position/electric trim motor. The original system has multiple connectors in each line. These are simply multiple opportunities for trouble. I ended up running eight (8) wires through the boom. The breakdown is three for the position/strobe, three for the future Aveo red/white beacon, and two for the trim motor. I am doing all central point grounding. The extra with for the beacon and tail position are ground wires. When completed it makes a very nice install. It took about an hour to fish in all new wiring. I used red/yellow/black/white. These colors match the Aveo lights. I've labeled all the wires with the original Cessna code and a one or two word description with my shrink tube label maker.

Some helpful soul put wire ties around the wires many years ago when the booms were off. The camera helped to see what was going on.

I'll link a video when I get the beacon installed.

Dave

[hharney]

What position are you installing this unit? Tail? Aveo has some really nice designs and a bit pricey but probably worth it

[DrDave]

This is a tail position/strobe light. The cost of this unit is significantly less than the Whelen A500 + strobe power supply + install kit. The Aveo was $611 to my door. This price includes tax and shipping. I had to pay a state sales tax since I bought it locally. The Whelen strobe system for the tail position is $208 for the A500 combo light, $460 for the A490A 14-28 strobe power supply, $42 for the CA kit 32 install kit. The Whelen kit comes in at $711. For a fair comparison the Aveo is $549 before tax and shipping.

I have the Whelen setup as listed above on my 150. It's quite bright but not as bright as the Aveo.

The other cool part is that I got to run all new wiring in the tailboom. I eliminated multiple connectors in the process.

Dave

[rmorris]

I went with AeroLED with the following:
- nav position/strobes
- tail beacon/strobes
- both taxi lights/landing lights with wigwag

My plane is lit up brighter than a Christmas tree. With a 50,000 hr mtbf I just leve them all on and flashing (including nav/strobes) throughout entire flight....very seldom does ATC call out traffic where I see them before they see me, and I'm ok with that.

I've even had towers comment on my roll-out that I looked like a 747 coming for landing at night.

LEDs, with huge mean time before failure, should just be standard on all planes now...turn em on, and leave em on.

The folks at AeroLED are awesome to deal with....I had looked at Aveo, but they didn't have lights certified for our planes ready and AeroLED did...

If you do reach out to AeroLED, tell Susan you heard about them from a fellow Skymaster owner.

[DrDave]

Great to hear comparative information. The Aveo lights that I used are certified.

Dave