Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Sparkfun has lots of stuff that would be helpful for this type of project. If I were to do this (and wanted wireless control) I'd probably go for infrared, because it's a dirt-cheap way to control something. All you really need is an infrared sensor and a microcontroller programmed to listen for re...

Mouser has it. Just go through the catalog system - find single conductor wire, set the wire gauge and filter it to exclude the non-stranded stuff, and you'll see a bunch of options . It's not exactly cheap (around $40 or more for a 100 foot spool) but it's well worth it if you need to wire up somet...

I've also heard that the Arduino solution is somewhat overbuilt and that it can be stripped down to the microcontroller proper pretty easily. Do folks have any links to projects that proceeded that way? The extra bits on the Arduino (that is, the stuff you might frequently not need) would be the vo...

Have you thought about building the ATMega as a standalone rather than using the complete Arduino board? All it needs (apart from 5v) is a couple of small caps and a crystal. It doesn't even need those. You can skip the crystal if you use the ATMega's internal oscillator. (The internal oscillator's...

Thanks for the response. From what I've seen it seems like Arduino's can pass wall wart 9v current along as well as the onboard 3 and 5 volt options. I haven't checked the amperage yet, but I assumed that the board would pass the properties of the power supply along mostly unmitigated. Is that fals...

You can take this with a grain of salt, bearing in mind that I've never actually completed a lit starship model: One thing you might need to consider is the limits on output current. The ATMega can (IIRC) source or sink a maximum of 40mA for each I/O pin, with no more than a total of 200mA for all t...

The one thing I'm still unclear on, though, is the limits of the power supply needs. I picked up a 12V adapter to use that has a 500 mA capacity. I know I read elsewhere in this thread that your sets use about 100 mA each. So (cost to me aside), is the 500 mA adapter too much, and do I risk frying ...

I would stay away from wiring in series. If you lose one component, you lose the entire circuit, think old-style Christmas lights. Not entirely true. LEDs, when they fail, tend to turn into short circuits. They pass greater amounts of current at lower voltage, and fail to emit light. This is unlike...

I know a lot of people still use 555's for flashers and things, and there's various resources for showing us how to use 'em in different ways... Anyway, I'm a big advocate for understanding these sorts of things in more depth. Sparkfun is a shop for electronics hobbyists, and they've been doing a vi...

Let's say an overloaded bridge collapses. The cars approaching the bridges divert to the remaining bridges -- increasing the load, thereby causing another collapse... Actually, from what I've heard, when an LED burns out it tends to become an easier current path, not a harder one. Let's take this b...

Ok. What am I doing wrong I wire up 4 led's in series and they work fine with a 470ohm resistor and either a 9v or2aaa batteries. soon as I add a fifth led I get nothing everyone say's wiring is relatively simple but I am pulling out what hair I have trying to figure this out. I've watched the yout...

Maybe instead of gating the current through the LED with the switch, you hooked it up so that it short-circuits the battery instead? Don't do that.

Yakface wrote:

ChrisQ wrote:Here ya go

Stolen from another thread with the same question.

Thanks ChrisQ. So do you basically get male and female versions of these?

The wall-wart presumably already has a plug attached, so you just need the matching socket.

If you want to disperse the light, flat white should be the best choice. Silver would get you more of a specular reflection (i.e. light coming at the surface from a single angle would bounce of at a single angle, like a mirror) - while flat white would scatter the light everywhere. Coatings of black...

It's kind of a broad question, like asking "how do you scratchbuild a thing?" It really depends on what kind of thing. For instance, if you were building ankle joints for an AT-ST (small joints that are really part of the design of the leg) that's a lot different from building a Zaku's sho...

As a simple and straight forward system that doesn't include bying anything off the Bay, just put a 9V battery in series with two AAs. 9 + 1.5 + 1.5 = 12 volts. The problem there is the 9V will discharge before the AA's do. You'll basically wind up wasting a lot of the power of those AA's. It's bes...

Note that even though you are using all the voltage in the 9 runs of 4 - I'd still put a minimal resistor on it - say a 10-20 ohm - to prevent any minor fluctuations - there will be near zero effect on the light output A minimal resistor is also going to have minimal ability to linearize the voltag...

Thank you tetsujin, that was awesome. But, it was over my head on the technical side. So, let me ask this question. Could you use one of your boards to mount momentary switches to it, and have it control 5 LEDs? Push one button and one LED comes on, push again and second comes on, push the other bu...

For what it's worth: personally I've come to the conclusion that the "spinning effect" isn't something worth faking . No matter how you sequence those LEDs, it's not going to have the look of that spinning fan blade. Next time I build a TOS-style starship I'm just going to make the lights ...

I designed a small microcontroller board: the goal of the project was to develop something that I could conveniently fit into any model or prop. Raven controller board Raven installed in a Sonic Screwdriver The board hosts a 14 pin TSSOP PIC (16F688 or another PIC with the same pin layout) and break...

After having spent the last few weeks learning more about electronics, I have discovered that I can wire up the 12v to positive and the 3.3v to the negative (ground) and this will give me a current of 8.7v, which is good 'nuff. 8.7 volts is not current ... Not meaning to nitpick exactly but to me a...

Radio Shack sells some small batteries - stuff for pet collars, garage door openers, etc. Smaller than an N cell (I think 2/3 AAA or 2/3 AAAA size, or even smaller) and 6V and 12V capacities... As for battery holders - they pretty much suck. Any battery holder you can buy off-the-rack is going to ad...

For compact / mobile applications, there are a new generation of Lithium Ion batteries. You need a charger, however, to recharge them. And the point can't be stressed enough. If you charge these batteries incorrectly they act as very effective incendiary devices... US modelers interested in LiPO ce...

Snapable headers have grooves between each pin, making it easy to "snap" them apart in custom lengths (2 pin, 10pin, etc) Non-snapable doesn't have the grooves, so the easiest place to separate them is where a pin is, less plastic to break apart The socket-pins on the non-snappable 2mm so...

I was looking for the smaller ones (.05-.08) OK, that makes sense. I was wondering why on earth anybody would have to ask where to find 0.1" pin headers... :) .08" is 2mm... There are these ones on Digi-Key: S5800-40-ND (snappable 2mm pin headers) S5751-40-ND (non-snappable 2mm pin socket...

1) Are the calculations for the resistors and circuit correct? For the 9V, seems like it's correct, yeah. For the AAA's - no. You said you were going to be using three cells, but you still show the LEDs being wired up in series... That would mean the LEDs wouldn't get enough voltage. (2 * 3.3V > 3 ...

And Jameco has multi-conductor mini-flat plugs (the type your PC's Sound Board connects to the DVD/CD with) for 0.30-0.50 each - 2-12 conductor 0.1" pin headers are pretty common. The Miniatronics connectors are brutally priced, but the great thing about 'em is they're about half the size of t...

I'm going to connect the electronics in the base to the kit using a deans plug or similar. I'm wondering if I can use a mux so will be doing research. I know the MUX will reduce the number of data combinations I can use but I need to constrain the number of wires going into the model. I'm not sure ...

And Jameco has multi-conductor mini-flat plugs (the type your PC's Sound Board connects to the DVD/CD with) for 0.30-0.50 each - 2-12 conductor 0.1" pin headers are pretty common. The Miniatronics connectors are brutally priced, but the great thing about 'em is they're about half the size of t...

I'm not entirely sure (since the Radical RC link is the only link I have that shows those Deans plugs with a ruler for scale - and they're using a non-metric ruler) but I think the spacing on the Deans plugs is 2mm. The spacing on the Miniatronics connectors (based on measurements of the ones I have...