Saturday, August 16, 2014

An LED in a Yellow Electron Beam Controller

Right after the Quest Q2G2s were introduced -
Some had the igniters fire when the safety key was inserted.

The Quest controller has an LED continuity light, the Estes controllers had an older filament bulb.
The Q2G2 requires less power to ignite. When used with an Estes Electron Beam controller the bulb didn't provide enough resistance. All the new Estes controllers now have LED lights.

JonRocket.com is offering a special on LED bulbs. I picked up two for replacement in some older Estes controllers.

The Estes Electron Beam controller has gone through some changes over the years. The post covers just one of the yellow versions.


This yellow controller has a clear plastic cover over the bulb. It's glued in place and I couldn't remove it from the outside.
The battery cover was removed. All the internal parts are under a glued on cover. It was pried open and slowly lifted with a small screwdriver.

Two more screws were removed to lift the contact plates. In the inset picture you can see the base of the bulb.

There is a strange shaped spacer on the bulb.
Note the shape. The flat side has to fit against the side wall of the housing. The two extended pins fit into notches around the open circle housing.

The LED is slightly higher than the old bulb. To fit in in, the clear cover had to be broken and pulled out. Trim off any remaining plastic if still glued onto the side of the hole.

Here's the new LED in place.
It was tested with a Q2G2 with the key in place. The igniter did not fire.

The LED sits a bit higher than the old bulb.
It is very bright outdoors under sunlight.

EDIT: If I were to do this again, I would just cut the top off the clear light cover.
The LED would stick up over the side walls of the dome. The LED light wiggles a bit. Having just the side wall of the clear dome around the light would protect it  from all sides.

The two year old Estes controller I've been using has an LED already in place. It was a test model hand wired at Estes to see if the LED lights would work. 
I added some colored electrical tape trim to the single color, yellow controller. On my current controller, the launch button is red.

No comments:

Post a Comment