How to light up a sphere?

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TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan
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How to light up a sphere?

Post by TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan »

Last night I started tinkering with a model I have some spare parts for, drilling out the spare parts for the engines to see how it could light up. It's the R9-A Arrowhead from R-Type Final by PLUM. It's not a cheap kit, so I'm glad I happen to have those spare parts to screw around with.

ANYHOW, the ship comes with a big force orb. It is a semi-transparent orangish plastic ball. What type of LED would give a light in nearly every direction? There's an online shop here in Japan that sells these neat little diffuser caps that fit onto the bulb. I was thinking about getting some just to tinker around with because they are so cheap.

Would a butterfly LED be better? Those seem to shine in all directions.
Greg
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TazMan2000
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Post by TazMan2000 »

How about one of these?:

http://www.omailighting.com/product/led ... bulbs.html

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TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan
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Post by TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan »

Because the sphere is the size of a ping-pong ball, not a basketball. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Last edited by TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan on Thu May 11, 2017 2:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Greg
Plastic modeling and other nerd stuff in Japan on my YouTube channel
My WIP modeling page on Tumblr.
One day I was walking and I found this big log. Then I rolled the log over and underneath was a tiny little stick. And I was like, "That log had a child!"
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Richard Baker
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Post by Richard Baker »

Why not just go old school and use a Grain of Rice bulb?

Those worked fine for decades before the LEDs took over and they do emit light in every direction.
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Kylwell
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Post by Kylwell »

you can get wide angle LED's, often in larger sizes too. Just do a search for "wide angle LEDs".
You will also want to add some diffusing material like polyfil to the inside.
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robiwon
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Post by robiwon »

Those diffuser caps are pretty nifty. The benefits of sanding without the hassle of sanding. Plus they come in different colors to. If you get some let me know what you think, I may order some as well.
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Post by brt »

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Post by Kylwell »

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Mr. Engineer
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Post by Mr. Engineer »

A friend has shown me the same model years ago but I just cannot remember the size so, you'll need to take my 2 cents with a pinch of salt...

Since the tennis bal... er, sphere is held by four holders, you have some choices but they're all must be shining to the opposite holders, but the front and back would not be lit well:
1. Use two SMD 0805 warm white LEDs, this has no lens so the spread of light is wide but limited distance, or
2. Use flat top LEDs which has wide angle (or bigger hotspots), or
3. How about white LEDs with diffused lens?

Another extreme way would be to solder six SMD LEDs into a small cube and place it in the middle...
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TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan
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Post by TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan »

Apparently I never finished the message I began typing on here. I asked this same question on the Sci Fi Model Action forum and have had good responses there. Over the weekend I bought some of those tiny SMD/chip LEDs with a 120 degree wide angle of shine. My initial thought was to have a single light source radiating from the center of the ball, but perhaps that might not work. I'll put the parts together and do a dry fit sometime soon.
Greg
Plastic modeling and other nerd stuff in Japan on my YouTube channel
My WIP modeling page on Tumblr.
One day I was walking and I found this big log. Then I rolled the log over and underneath was a tiny little stick. And I was like, "That log had a child!"
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