Sometimes it pays to scrounge

I've shared my overall plans with many people over the past couple of months.  It never hurts to put word out you are looking for something.  Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't, but either way everyone ends up learning more or less as you go.

Got a call from a buddy who came across what he thought might be an airplane throttle assembly:

Turns out it is a throttle assembly, but for marine applications.  I'm thinking it's for a very large twin engine boat with adjustable pitch props.  Close, but not what I need.

​Next, I got a call from another buddy at work who tells me he has a bunch of "on the way to the trash bin" stuff he thought I might be interested in.

I grabbed a box of stuff from him that appears to have some sort of bench testing equipment for strobe light assemblies.  Among the junk were two strobe power supplies....

....and five of these strobe heads:

Our employer doesn't use this older technology any more (everything now is advanced LEDs), but this could work very well for me and my build.

I wired up one of the power supplies and connected 2 of the strobe heads.  In my shop they are almost blindingly bright and work in quad-flash pattern, very cool and would be excellent on the wing tips (the video doesn't really capture the brightness well):

My only concern is the amount of power that these older types of strobes draw and how much they weigh compared to self contained LEDs, but when something is scrounged for free, it's hard to turn down.  If I decide to switch to LED lights during the build, I can always donate (pay it forward) to my Volunteer Fire Department (I do their emergency light installs anyway).

Onto the shelf they'll go for now until I'm ready.

On another "scrounging" note, Dad's got his contacts in the old car world on the prowl for a Corvair motor.

Yes, scrounging is worth it and all part of learning :)