Lighting Models: Overcoming Intimidation?

[grayson72]

I forgot about the painting on the inside actually, I've heard about that as well. What I was referring to was the finished painting on the outside of the hull, would you do that last then? If so what's the best way to mask the LED's and windows?

[Nightshade]

I forgot about the painting on the inside actually, I've heard about that as well. What I was referring to was the finished painting on the outside of the hull, would you do that last then? If so what's the best way to mask the LED's and windows?

I too, would like to know what is generally the best order in which to do things~

[Sparky]

Grayson27 I just saw that your in Sacramento, I'm originally from Fresno! Is grayson a reference to the Honor Harrington series?

Anyways:
For masking I've seen orange liquid mask, SSM has it in ther esotre, we used it recently to mask a clear cast control panel. We have tried some metal foil stuff (baremetalfoil brand maybe) had some bled under on that.

People were buying parfin wax wrap at wonderfest by the roll, I was told it was for masking.

One thing to look into, is this pencil looking thing I got from the badger airbrush table several years ago, when you twist the top it moves a cluster of fiber optic like bristles out the tip. I have used to scrub off the console casting and other parts that I need to let the light shin through on (cast in metal powders with clear resin).

[Madman Lighting]

This reminds me of when I was young and trying to learn electronics...

All the above advice is good. Play with it first outside the model on breadboards. Go slow. Read the directions carefully.

Thats why I invented my product, to make it easy for people to do this kinda stuff. It helps that it makes it easier for ME TOO. I'm finishing up a B5 Starfury with DLM clear parts, SSM cannons, SSM decals and my own lighting kit. Hang on a few posts and I'll put up some On The Bench pics.

As to the original question, how to light the huge 1/350 PL NX-01....

You could read the 11 page article I wrote in Sci-Fi Fantasy #4. I did it and I wrote it all out, in extensive detail.

[Balok]

Right! Get a solderless breadboard and some breadboard jumper wires. That stuff isn't very expensive. You can build your whole circuit on it without any soldering. ICs plug into the solderless breadboards too. You build it up bit by bit, making sure that it works. That's the only thing that gives me the confidence to transfer the circuit to an actual circuit board. Its much easier to make mistakes and fix things you haven't soldered. Actually I keep the circuit on the solderless breadboard to refer to, and use duplicate components to solder in the circuit board. Also when you transfer I would recommend soldering in IC sockets to your board and then just plugging in the ICs to the socket after the soldering. That way you don't cook the IC to death with the iron. It happens sometimes to those of us using stone knives and bearskin. The sockets are pretty cheap, so are CMOS ICs. Get the CMOS Cookbook. The descriptions of each IC are simple and tell you exactly how to hook them up, you don't need to be a genius and you don't need to know all the details. My copy is falling apart from use. Its one of a few books I would never dispense with.

[Sparky]

The binding on that cook book sucks, that's why they fall apart. It is a very useful book, simply for the picture of the pin outs. there are some simple circuits in it too (555 timer setups). I have one where the pages were already coming out, a week after I got it. Unfortunately all the copies were like that so I kept it, it's to useful not to keep.

[Balok]

The binding on that cook book sucks, that's why they fall apart.

Yeah I must've got a primo copy, mine went 6 months before the pages fell out.