Use LEDs for night flying

Night flying means making the kite visible without making it unpleasant or unsafe to fly. This page documents two onboard approaches: adding an LED strip to the leading edge or carrying a light behind the sail.

Both ideas come from Cengel Kites pages that are now offline: an LED leading edge published in June 2017 and the MagicRolls variant, which was designed to make rear lighting easy to mount.

Christopher Engel wrote that he had been experimenting with kite LEDs since 2009, improving the setup across several generations. In 2017, he presented an option that had become affordable enough to install on a kite.

Night flying with an LED leading edge by Cengel Kites

The idea is to place an LED strip on the leading edge, with an RGB controller and a battery compact enough to fly on the kite. The setup necessarily adds weight, cables and power management, so treat it as a special night-flying configuration, not as permanent gear for every session.

The original Cengel list indicated the following component families, with 2017 prices kept as archive reference points.

• RGB 5050 LED strip, 30 LEDs/m: about 10 to 15 euros
• Mini RGB LED controller, 12 V: about 6.50 euros
• 3S 11.1 V 350 mAh LiPo battery: about 9 to 15 euros
• JST/BEC connectors for LiPo batteries: about 2.50 euros
• LiPo balance charger: about 25 to 70 euros

Christopher noted that he personally did not use quick BEC connectors. He preferred a more classic and reliable connection, at the cost of soldering.

Power is the tricky part. Christopher mentioned testing several options, including CR1632 button cells for single-colour strips. The problem is not only capacity, but the ability to provide current under load.

His estimate required guaranteeing up to about 1 A, with four lines of consumption around 260 mA each. In that context, small cells and some camera batteries drop voltage quickly. His conclusion was that LiPo batteries remained the most suitable power source for this setup.

LiPo batteries need careful handling.

Key points from the Cengel article:

• Charge only with a suitable charger, ideally with an integrated balancer.
• Stop immediately if light intensity drops or the LEDs turn red.
• Do not wait: deep discharge can make the battery unusable.
• Use a fire-resistant charging bag, often called a LiPo safe.

This page is not an electrical manual. If you are not comfortable with LiPos, soldering and short-circuit risk, get help from someone who knows RC modelling or onboard electronics.

Christopher wrote that an LED strip can be hand-sewn to Velcro if you do not have a sewing machine. He also noted that a Mylar tube is more durable.

Since 2017, he said he had been using adhesive Velcro: the adhesive held long enough to last until the LED strip reached the end of its life. That is a pragmatic solution, but test it carefully: sand, humidity, leading-edge folding and heat can all affect adhesion.

These recovered photos document the practical details of the build: connector, solder pads, controller and LED strip attached to Velcro.

The Cengel MagicRolls “simply the best” page presented a simplified magic-sticks variant. One of its listed advantages was easy rear LED backlighting.

MagicRolls by Cengel Kites

This is an interesting path if you want to light the back of the sail rather than turn the whole leading edge into a light strip. It is less fully documented, though: the page announced diagrams and a PDF for 2017, but we have not recovered them.

• LED leading edge: very visible and spectacular, but heavier and more electronics-heavy.
• LEDs on magic sticks or MagicRolls: more localized and practical for rear lighting, but depends on the stick setup.

In every case, check added weight, left/right symmetry, cable retention, line-snag risk and kite behaviour before flying for a long night session.

• Northern Light for Kites: system overview and flight demonstration