Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Ah, this isnt too hard. Most modern "wall wort" wall power supplies will work in either US or UK power, its the darn PLUG that's different. What you want is a wall wort with a UK specific plug, or, you can get one with a snap-on plug system that works anywhere. Then you buy the plug that g...

I got to know Clyde a little some years ago, he seemed a kindred soul so I reached out and made the effort. A really nice guy and a great model builder. Very sorry to hear.

Have a look at my web site, www.madmanlighting.com in the Downloads section. There you will find all the instructions for my kits which will explain the basics of installing LEDs and fiber optic lighting. You can also look at my YouTube channel that shows how some of the installation is done, but mo...

Sounds like you're doing it right. 6V DC, one resistor per LED so that any failures only take out one LED. That will give best current regulation to the LEDs. One thing you should be doing is using LESS than 20mA for your LEDs to improve reliability. I use 18mA for all my stuff. The difference in br...

Hi all, I know this may be asking for trouble but I'm trying to verify something important here. Earlier this year I added some ESD protection parts to my controller card, to combat a rash of possibly ESD induced processor failures. Customers would call up saying "Hey man, this thing sucks! The...

I have a new retailer!

Madman Lighting is proud to announce that Free Time Hobbies in Georgia is now carrying our products and listing them on eBay.

Thank you.

I can do better than that! I found a YouTube vid that explains exactly how to wire-wrap, using the Radio Shack tool.

Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SSOKppwpAE

This isn't me, but he's good. He's even got my slightly nasal geeky voice!

Hi Jim, Well, that power supply should work very well for your project. It is indeed an older style linear regulator that will produce 6VDC and will do so up to a 500mA load. More than enough for LEDs. A typical LED will draw only 20mA so this supply can power about 20 LEDs connected in parallel. (I...

Well I make a lighting kit you can use for the 350th refit. Its not fully assembled but to get it together you just need to wire-wrap things together and do some very basic soldering of the power leads. Have a look here: www.madmanlighting.com Its the "Big Starship kit" which was originall...

Good question!

You will need more voltage to run a string of 4 of those LEDs. Good news is that the new Delux-24 card can take up to 18V input, so for those LEDs you can actually run two strings of 5 blue LEDs with an 18V input.

Thanks!

I used a mix of 0.25mm and 0.5mm diameter, with a #80 drill for the small fibers and a bigger one (I forget) for the 0.5mm diameter.

I can supply fiber optics too if you like. I have bundled 0.25mm (very fine), single strand 0.5mm, 1mm and 2mm.

I have also built the DS9 (aka the "Wheel of Pain) and can offer a lighting kit for it if you like.

There's also an article I wrote on how I did it, ask and I'll forward it to you.

Hey, no sweat. Enjoy the kit.

Have you tried reversing the direction of the LED wires? LEDs only light when powered the correct way.

Well allow me to toot my horn as well Tom! Madman Lighting offers over a dozen kits based on our easy to use pre-assembled Delux-24 LED controller card. Here: www.madmanlighting.com and here: www.youtube.com\MadmanLighting Yes, we ship to the UK. Heck, I'll ship to Mars if someone can tell me how an...

Hi all, We now have our latest kit: Space Battleship Yamato Wave Motion Gun FX kit. This kit has a very bright white LED with a "halo" of fiber optics to create a very realistic wave motion gun effect. It works with the 1:700 and larger Yamato kits. Here's the YouTube vid: http://www.youtu...

Hey John, Neat little project there. Damn, I remember my first little micro project, it was with an MIT HandyBoard (I never went to MIT). I got it because a couple of guys had greenboards of the unit made and someone else got all the parts into a big kit. Then I soldered it all together myself. I ha...

Clap on! Clap Off, The Clapper!

I forget where but someone posted complete code for decoding a Phillips IR command set with a PIC micro a while back. One day I want to add this feature to my controller cards but the timing is tricky, esp since I'd be porting it to a different micro than the one the author used. Still, it would be ...

Glad you like my kit. Yes, you can add more LEDs, no problem. Those are 20mA, 100 degree, viewing angle 1000 mcd blue LEDs. To add more you would create longer, series strings of them, and you would need a higher voltage power supply. This kit drives two strings of 3 LEDs but you can double that to ...

Updates are coming! At last I have time to fixup my website and get all the new instructions put up there, as well as post the new kits I've produced. For those not following, earlier this year I redesigned my controller card to drive 2X as many LEDs and overhauled my product line. Ye GADS what a pr...

Nice little diorama there dude. Thanks for sharing.

I agree with putting all the power handling into a set of external MOSFETs or other similar devices. Have a look at the 2N7002 MOSFET. Its small, can be driven by microcontroller logic levels, and its cheap. I really driven person would invent a constant current regulator circuit to drive long strin...

Whats with everyone out there selling these strips of pre-wired LEDs? I've seen them in person and they're pretty neat.

Wow thats all pretty cool stuff there.

I gotta ask, how many LEDs can you drive with each output? I can drive six with each output on mine... And its a constant current source so brightness it the same no matter the battery voltage.

But keep on with it, sounds like a neat project!

Were back!

As of Friday Nov 4, all our services are back and we are digging out from a pile of emails. I'll be spending tonight and all weekend getting caught up, some orders that were pending will be going out tomorrow.

Thanks!!

To my valued customers: Madman Lighting has been hit by the October Noreaster snowstorm and has been without power for 4 days. We apologize to those waiting for projects and will try to be back up again as soon as a large oak tree is removed from our power lines. We expect this to happen sometime wi...

Well.... You certainly can use the PS1212 for this project. Lemme see here, that one is rated at 1.2Ah and one of my cards uses about 0.1A of current. That means you could power one of my cards for 1.2 / 0.1 = 12 hours on a single charge. More than enough I would say. FYI: those are heavy lead-acid ...

You'll need a power supply, 12VDC at at least 100mA. Thats about it.

Correct on all counts. LEDs that are marked as "flickering", "blinking", "strobing" or doing just about anything except being on all the time are controlled by the flasher circuit. In all truth, if you've got a flasher controller card, ALL the outputs are under the flas...