Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Could you post pictures of the circuits or the model you're working on? I just hope its a short and although it pains the heart, you might need to rip it open and get it sorted out.

It happened to me once when I stupidly forgot to include resistors for a parallel red and green LED combination.

Ah, the LM3909. It was a fun chip to play because all you ever needed was a capacitor and a resistor to run an LED (it had a voltage booster, I think). Just plug an AA battery in there and it will blink the LED for a few weeks. The chip went obsolete last millenium and against the still going strong...

Heh. The last link was from my website. The "Next Generation" Tricorders started with the Mk VI but then switched to MK VII (Scientific and Medical) in the Third Season or so, before going to the MK IX and X during the Deep Space Nine and the movies (After Generations) before becoming a pe...

Well, I am not sure how big the model is, but you can escape with putting one red LED and use a diffuser to spread the light.

If you can, you might want to take some clear pictures of the model still in the sprue so we can have a better idea

I got these last year but they're either too long or too short for the both 1/350 PL Enterprise. Still, I bought it because well, over here, we never had CCFL for Hobbyists before. :D http://chowfookcheong.blogspot.com/2007/05/for-captkirk.html http://chowfookcheong.blogspot.com/2007/05/testing-ccfl...

Wow! A 4cm model! More than a decade ago, I used to have some W40K plastic marines and I know how shallow their round plastic base are. Anyway, for a metal model, it is not easy to put lights on this. I mean, since it has a fluorescent green tube, you could shine it with UV but the bad thing would b...

And I would also like to add about viewing angles. For the SMT LEDs, or any LEDs in particular, their viewing angle is very narrow (an average of 60º?) compared to electroluminescense of about 175º. So, if you plan on putting SMT LEDs behind the wall, you would need to put a lot more than just three...

I was testing some circuits sometime ago and even with a voltage regulator powering a few other circuits, it did get slightly hot. So, I think there is a short somewhere, maybe some wires are squashed together. Anyway, in this video, I was describing about the 1701A's Navigation and strobe light tim...

OK, sorry for the delay since my camera broke, I had to borrow another one as my Wife was keeping her Nokia close to her. The next camera would be a DSLR, which does not have movies mode. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqlrJxZs-ag I did this on an 8-pin PIC, then used a transistor to switch all the ...

This might help you, or it might not. I downloaded the software to simulate the timing of the 555 and its quite fun.

http://www.tucows.com/preview/72749

Can I post a suggestion here? Anyway, I am not sure how "small" is small but when it comes to using watch batteries, they tend to drain off pretty quickly. So, if you need to display it lighted up most of the time, maybe a wall adaptor would be a better idea, IMHO. The model looked like th...

Same here. I just used a PIC for the strobes and navigation lights as someone told me the timing for them. Once I have a camera, I'll post it on youtube (but don't wait too long for this) My plans to use them is so that I can build a "console" for the refit where I can "control" ...

Correct me if I am wrong but the wattage on the PSU means the maximum wattage it can give. So, you might want to calculate the power and get the higher one. But personally, I only use the PC PSU for quick voltages in the office (to power up my own personal fan, for example) and because its switching...

I have switched from ISD (obsolete and a bit expensive) to another called APR9600. In a few weeks time, I will know if it works or not. It allows you to record a maximum of 8 4-seconds sounds and playback when each button is pushed.

I am guessing this is similar to ISD's 25xx series?

Yep. Just think of the switch as joining two pieces of wires together to complete the circuit. Just like a resistor, it does not matter.

But for other electronic components, polarity does matter.

Over here, its almost the same except that there are three LEDs, (Red, Yellow and Blue) and when the button is pressed, they flash very fast almost is if altogether. All are house in clear clases in the shape of cartoon bears, hearts, etc.

And they sell them in boxes too!

For the Star Destroyer, that is the best solution with the fibre optics. If you used the LEDs in there, it would have created more problems instead of solving them.

Thanks. I have an idea on using PWM for a project. But this wont see the light until next year as I am going to move soon and are packing all my stuff.

I think it has never been done before but then again, whatever I thought of, a few weeks later, someone already has done it. Grrr!

That is so sweet! Anyway, as much as I try, PWM is way out of my league here as I am hopeless in PIC programming. So much so, I am using another software to do all this for me. But if the PIC does not have PWM, the software cannot do this (I think) but using pure assembly language it is possible. I ...

And one of them is the PIC12F629, which I just bought a few and am trying (unsucessfully) to glow and LED on and off.

But for the rest of my projects, its wonderful.

Thanks. There is a solution to driving Luxeons to keep them cool. I am used to direct drive (i.e. Batteries and resistor) that I forgot about PWM and also those Boost/Buck drivers which I am not so familiar about. These will keep the Luxeon bright and cool (and do not kill your batteries like when I...

I have not tried a proper heatsink yet, just a piece of copper metal. But there are two reason, I suppose why it got so hot: 1) The voltage potential dropping from 12v to 5v 2) The current output of the voltage regulator. Here, in one of my experiments, it got quite warm to the touch and personally,...

Another IC which I like was the LM3909 by National Semiconductor, which, sadly, is now no longer exist. Its very good for flashing/strobe effects like for the Starship Enterprise.

LEDs are current sensitive devices and as long as you feed it the right amount of current using the correct resistor values, they would last for a long time. The only time it "died" in my hands were when I accidentally gave it the wrong voltage/current, static shock (some version LEDs are ...

IMHO, There are two ways to go about it. (I could not understand why I chose the difficult way) 1. Convert all the lights of the 9v to 12v if you can so that everything is 12volts. Then you would not have a headache of worrying which voltage regulators dies first. 2. If you plan on using voltage reg...