Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

You mean kinda like this....

http://home.myfairpoint.net/johndavidcook/index.html



Nice builds by the way.

Here's a product I have in the works, its a photon torpedo FX: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsn_Xr8Y2C4 I"m planning two kits with this effect: A Klingon lighting kit, with torpedo FX, red-green marker FX, and white strobe FX. Other kit planned is a two torpedo shot FX. Same FX, just with two...

You could also ask me...

What do you want the flashing board to do? Same as the regular Starship Lighting kit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycUsql8aWG8 or something else?

-John

FYI guys, Madman is going Green and Paperless with our manuals. The current batch of kits will have both printed manuals and a mini CD rom with ALL our product manuals on it. After this batch, no more paper. All kits will get the same mini CD ROM with all our manuals, catalog, and whatever else look...

Check out Mouser (www.mouser.com) and Digi-key (www.digi-key.com). They are some of the biggest electronics parts shops around, if you cant find it there, try Newark Electronics. Just a fair warning.... Digi-key stocks nearly 1/2 million parts, so be sure you know what you're looking for. Good luck.

You may bother me all you wish. :wink: My kits work with a "standard" card, each card can drive up to 12 LEDs. The BIG kit actually has 3 cards, two for constant on, one for blinking effects. So, YES, you can get as many lights as you want, in groups of up to 12. Yes, I can generate a quot...

Well darn. I finally found some good NASA vids of the big V rolling around on runways and there are no lights on this bird. No red/green running lights, no white strobe lights, and no landing gear lights. Its hard to see any cockpit lights, even in a cockpit video. You cant even see the engine exhau...

Hi Can someone direct me to a good reference on just where all the lights are on an XB-70 Valkyrie? No, its not sci-fi but the XB-70 is a pretty nifty ship and certainly LOOKS like sci-fi if you ask me. I've got the Italeri kit in 1:72 for this bird and I'm thinkin of lighting it up. I'll just combi...

Got one! Our BIG Starship kit does that one pretty good. Here: http://www.starshipmodeler.com/newshop/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=92 Dont let the picture fool you, its big enough to do just about any 350th scale Trek style ship. Same goes for the "regular" Starshi...

Neat! Thats a nice little A-wing MF!

Can I suggest a little teased cotton ball in the engines to diffuse the light? Looks more like engines that way.

Really really good. Very nice indeed. I like your hull damage, thats alot of scratchbuilding of ribs in there and its nice. The damaged engine effect is nice too, and unique. I've never seen another like it. I did an Ent-D some years ago and I know how hard and time consuming it is to get that subtl...

Ouch. Man, sorry to hear.

My usual rule of thumb for any kind of electronics is to keep it unpowered (OFF) and even unplugged until I'm sure its ready to run or I'm doing a quick test.

If it makes you feel any better, my DS9 is missing all its orange docking lights for a similar reason. O well.

I have had the same issue in regards to heat shrinking around fiber optics to hold them together. The FO just curled and I was a good 6 inches above the flame. Tired the flame and a heat gun :( but would be interested in knowing what would work with heat shrinking around FO. I do that all the time....

I used 30 gauge wire wrap for all my LEDs and 24 gauge stranded for all the "power" wires. Works out well.

Yes, that will work.

But, it will only drive one set of LEDs per circuit and it will have a higher cost and part count that what I can do.

Who else is looking for this kind of effect? I'm pretty sure nobody produces one now.

If there's enough interest, I might write some code and create a product.

-John

HI, I'm not sure what a "cooper" star destroyer is but I do sell a kit to light the Revell Republic Star Destroyer. That kit has four different sizes of fiber: 0.25mm for the tiny windows, 0.5mm for the big windows, 1.0mm for the two small engines and 2.0mm for the medium sized engines. He...

Hi,

I second the suggestion you use EL sheet for this project. From the WIP pictures it would seem you want to replicate the overhead light in the real ship and about the only way to get that kind of even light in such a small area would be lightsheet.

I think even a small hair dryer will work with this stuff. You dont need a high temperature, just a goodly amount.

Thanks so much for recommending my products TShark! Yes, Delux-8 is our simplest, easiest to use kit and our "general purpose" kit, its not aimed at any particular subject. Everything else is a variation on a theme, or has a blinking effect added to the same card. Have a look over here at ...

It's a programmed effect, uses the same Delux Flasher card that all my other special effects use.

Well I went and done it now. Here's my prototype Klingon Photon Torpedo Effect, sold to our good friend Scott. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsn_Xr8Y2C4 I have ideas on how to enhance the product, like adding engine lights and some other goodies too. Anyone who has suggestions or ideas, I'm interes...

There's kits in the store you can use... And I can answer any questions you have about them.

Thanks.

You forgot because I dont make one.... sounds like I should though.

Anybody know of a good cheap field programmable sound chip? My little micro only has 4 or 8K of data space, probably not enuf for a sound FX.

I was kidding around to see if I could get a bit of a rise from VFX over there.

I'm already competing directly with him on the Falcon lighting kit, and its one of my best sellers. I'm just wondering how mad he is with me already, in a fun kinda way.

You mean its a little tiny Boost Regulator intended to make a common microcontroller rail supply from a variable input like a battery or solar cell.

(I have some experience building things like this).

I cant get it to load either, it must be huge.

I could do it with my rig... just a few lines of code in a table. But then Randy would be mad at me for stealing his idea.

The science behind it goes like this: If the end of the fiber is not polished or melted smooth, the light coming out is scattered by the rough, faceted end. Its worse trying to get light INTO an unpolished end, the light get scattered at the incoming end before its got a chance to run down the fiber...

Thats plastic fiber optics. You can cut that with anything, the sharper the better. There's also some nifty stuff you can do with it. If you gently warm up the end until it softens and melts a little it will "lens" over and become very round and smooth. This will let you get much more ligh...

There are lots of kits available for lighting models with electronics and LEDs. I make several: in the SSM store And I've built a few here: On my site Use LEDs because they last much longer than incandescent bulbs, usually around 10 years if you treat em right. I like to insert a few LEDs and then d...