Anti-Collision Strobe & Photography

[Sheep.Dog]

Hi everyone, hope all are doing well.
I looked through previous posts re: anti-collision strobes, but could not find what I was looking for.
I am wanting to fly during morning twilight and take photographs.
My question to you all is, does the strobe interfere with your photographs ie: white out spots from the light of stobe, or seeing the stobe light during video?
Is there a proper place to mount it, to avoid light intrusion into the photography/video?
I guess another option would be to fly 30min before sunrise, and not need to use anti-collision lighting. But, I'd rather be on the safe side.

 

[bumper]

I can't answer your question directly. However, when I put LED landing/taxi lights on both wings of my Husky aircraft, I craftily (?) put polished aluminum foil on what had been the dividers between the two lamps in each housing. Then flew at night to test the new, much brighter lighting. With the lightest fog, mist, or precip, it was a total wash out, lighting the area forward of the cockpit. Very annoying. So, any light that can illuminates the area viewed by the camera, even if that light doesn't fall on a close by object (though that makes it much worse), will be a problem sooner or later.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

From posts here . . . particularly from @Thomas B . . . he uses ARCII and ARC XL, both about brightest there is in strobes.
Reports no problems.

I'd suggest if foggy, thin cloud, light misty rain, dust in the air, yes you'd probably get some strobe 'feedback'.
Edit - insects too might be an issue ?
Also obviously if close to something it'd be very noticeable.
I'd say street signs, reflective, would show up light flashes at a fair distance too.

I use FHT Duals and ARCII in white (brightest) and various colours with no issues.

Decided to mount mine with dual lock velcro, on the outer legs up front and angled out a bit . . .

Here are FHT Duals on front arms . . .




And a public series ARCII red / white on the back . . .

 

[Sheep.Dog]

From posts here . . . particularly from @Thomas B . . . he uses ARCII and ARC XL, both about brightest there is in strobes.
Reports no problems.

I'd suggest if foggy, thin cloud, light misty rain, dust in the air, yes you'd probably get some strobe 'feedback'.
Edit - insects too might be an issue ?
Also obviously if close to something it'd be very noticeable.
I'd say street signs, reflective, would show up light flashes at a fair distance too.

I use FHT Duals and ARCII in white (brightest) and various colours with no issues.

Decided to mount mine with dual lock velcro, on the outer legs up front and angled out a bit . . .

Here are FHT Duals on front arms . . .

View attachment 98487
View attachment 98488

And a public series ARCII red / white on the back . . .

View attachment 98489

View attachment 98491
View attachment 98490

Thank you! I've been looking for low profile a/c strobes. I'll be doing a search for those.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Thank you! I've been looking for low profile a/c strobes. I'll be doing a search for those.

Firehouse Technology, PITA site, has 2 places you can find them in their store on the website, kits, individual strobes etc.

drone strobe lights

drone strobe light anti collision light DJI Parrot Autel skydio unmanned aerial system quadcopter multirotor

www.firehousetechnology.com

Search this site for MANY recent threads, feedback etc (they are generally highly regarded) . . .

Search results for query: Firehouse technology FHT strobe

mavicpilots.com

There was a bad batch a fair while ago, they were great, replaced many for people on here, no such reports since.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Oh, and the arm mounts are also something many people like !!
Our member @Aerial-Pixel makes mounts that many use.

 

[Sheep.Dog]

Firehouse Technology, PITA site, has 2 places you can find them in their store on the website, kits, individual strobes etc.

drone strobe lights

drone strobe light anti collision light DJI Parrot Autel skydio unmanned aerial system quadcopter multirotor

www.firehousetechnology.com

Search this site for MANY recent threads, feedback etc (they are generally highly regarded) . . .

Search results for query: Firehouse technology FHT strobe

mavicpilots.com

There was a bad batch a fair while ago, they were great, replaced many for people on here, no such reports since.

Is THIS the dual set you went with, as well as a TRI-COLOR for the rear?

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Told you it's a dang awful site to find stuff . . .

This is the Dual strobe, 2 hi intensity leds in white, red, green options . . .

DJI Strobe Light

Fully self contained high intensity drone DroneUAS strobe light for quadcopters hexcopters uas rc and uav use.

www.firehousetechnology.com

You can get a kit to set up in navigation format . . .

drone strobe

drone strobe light

www.firehousetechnology.com

Typically you'd put one (or two) white on the back, front rd on left arm, green on right arm (looking from the 'pilots seat'.

The ARCII strobes are 4 x leds, kits are here . . . in 3 format . . .

drone strobe lights

drone strobe lights

www.firehousetechnology.com

Or 4 light set . . .

drone strobe lights

drone strobe lights

www.firehousetechnology.com

The ARCII are double the size of the Dual, but ARCII best bang for buck light output and for price difference.

The Dual though are small postage stamp size, and very bright still, great for limited space to mount (I use mostly on my Spark drone) and if flying reasonably VLOS distance.

 

[Sheep.Dog]

Told you it's a dang awful site to find stuff . . .

This is the Dual strobe, 2 hi intensity leds in white, red, green options . . .

DJI Strobe Light

Fully self contained high intensity drone DroneUAS strobe light for quadcopters hexcopters uas rc and uav use.

www.firehousetechnology.com

You can get a kit to set up in navigation format . . .

drone strobe

drone strobe light

www.firehousetechnology.com

Typically you'd put one (or two) white on the back, front rd on left arm, green on right arm (looking from the 'pilots seat'.

The ARCII strobes are 4 x leds, kits are here . . . in 3 format . . .

drone strobe lights

drone strobe lights

www.firehousetechnology.com

Or 4 light set . . .

drone strobe lights

drone strobe lights

www.firehousetechnology.com

The ARCII are double the size of the Dual, but ARCII best bang for buck light output and for price difference.

The Dual though are small postage stamp size, and very bright still, great for limited space to mount (I use mostly on my Spark drone) and if flying reasonably VLOS distance.

Thank you for the help. Now to decide how much/little I want to spend right now. Thanks for the referral to Aerial Pixel too.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Now to decide how much/little I want to spend right now.

Yeah, a good time to restrain spending until the dust settles a bit on corona.
Many can't fly much (if at all) anyway, so wait and see how long this will go on.

 

[Thomas B]

@Sheep.Dog Here’s an example of the ARC XLs in action in daylight... notice the ground. No photo or video problems ever. They in @Aerial-Pixel mounts

Comes with certification of 3.5 miles visibility when viewed straight on:
there’s also the LAND technology to help find an errant drone. Might work for you on the underside.

 

[Sheep.Dog]

Yeah, a good time to restrain spending until the dust settles a bit on corona.
Many can't fly much (if at all) anyway, so wait and see how long this will go on.

If buying a single strobe for the rear, would you recommend the all white, or the tri-color? Does the tri-color still produce 600 lumens in all colors? It's not specific if it does.

 

[Thomas B]

If buying a single strobe for the rear, would you recommend the all white, or the tri-color? Does the tri-color still produce 600 lumens in all colors? It's not specific if it does.

Get white for the rear. They are brighter and visible for a longer distance than the red or green.
Here’s the white in a 3.5 magnified video from my iPhone at 1000’ get distance and 200’ altitude.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

If buying a single strobe for the rear, would you recommend the all white, or the tri-color? Does the tri-color still produce 600 lumens in all colors? It's not specific if it does.

I'd get all white.
If room on the rear body / arm / leg, I'd go for an ARCII, or if on an arm mount an ARCII or ARC XL, if you like the increased brightness of the XL (1000lm vs 600lm) and audible locator alarm feature.

I think the tri colour you refer to is the 3 set nav lights ?
Or FHT have introduced a new all in one 3 coloured led strobe ? (Couldn't find one on their site.)
I googled tri color FHT and an Amazon page came up, I think that just means you can get them in either of the three colours, red green blue (for the ARCII strobe).

I'd ignore other colours if you just want increased VLOS, white is brightest, as mentioned somewhere in the FHT info.

If possible, mount it underneath (maybe towards the back away from the camera area), as your drone will likely most times be above you.
You can always put some velcro on top if you are going to fly from a hilltop, down into a valley.

If you mount one white to the back, in an arm, or velcro to the body / arm / leg, then you will see it generally in flight away or to an angle.
Other directions, you can turn the drone to find the strobe, and you can / should refer to the map icons to see which way the drone is facing, look at telemetry to see altitude and distance etc.
Helps look in the right spot for it

 

[Tombie]

Hi people. Please advise, where did you source the mounts for the ARC XLs?

 

[cyeung]

Here's how my strobes are mounted on my Mavic 2 ...


I did not encounter any artifacts in my pictures. The lights were not even visible from the camera.

 

[offtheback]

Hi everyone, hope all are doing well.
I looked through previous posts re: anti-collision strobes, but could not find what I was looking for.
I am wanting to fly during morning twilight and take photographs.
My question to you all is, does the strobe interfere with your photographs ie: white out spots from the light of stobe, or seeing the stobe light during video?
Is there a proper place to mount it, to avoid light intrusion into the photography/video?
I guess another option would be to fly 30min before sunrise, and not need to use anti-collision lighting. But, I'd rather be on the safe side.

Can get them on Amazon.3rd party seller

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Can get them on Amazon.3rd party seller

That is Firehouse Tech selling through Amazon, and yes, compare prices to their website, and to their Ebay store.
You never know where they might be marginally less cost.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Hi people. Please advise, where did you source the mounts for the ARC XLs?

I believe @Aerial-Pixel makes them for the ARC XL, as well as the usual ARCII and Dual strobes.
Again they are arm mounts, and would suit any of the larger Mavics.

For the Air and Mini, I would suggest smaller Duals, I use one of those on my Spark, not that I fly it too far, usually within 500m or so.

 

[Thomas B]

Hi people. Please advise, where did you source the mounts for the ARC XLs?

From our own @Aerial-Pixel