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Post  Planes Fri Mar 09, 2012 1:29 am

Has anyone here tried their hand at LED work on transports before? Against my better financial judgement I picked up a Command Barge so as to have something to work on and maintain my sanity with, and I was thinking about putting four red LEDs in it. One on the "tail" and three in the rear hover-ports.
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Post  Dom.0 Sun Mar 11, 2012 8:01 pm

LEDs in models is vary possable but your gona need a energy output so find a spot for a battery.
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Post  Dom.0 Sun Mar 11, 2012 8:11 pm

In fact i think im gona add some Red LEDs to my lascannons need to figer out an on off switch that blends. I cant alos put one in my Basilisk's main gun, every time i fire in the gun in the game id press a button that would make the light flash. It would be even cooler if a added a artllery gun sound to it. On my vendeta where ther are soposed to be lights I can put LEDs ther. I can even put LEDs in my search lights. Dam thanks for bringing that up ya gave me 100 ideas.
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Post  Rhaevyn Sun Mar 11, 2012 9:01 pm

I think your going to need to think it out very carefully.

adding batteries to plastic models on flight stands sounds like a recipe for heartbreak to me.

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Post  dusktiger Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:50 pm

not to mention that you have to choose the correct kind of LEDs; if you're making the LEDs be setup that they'll be on all game, there's been mishaps where others have had the lights overheat and melt the plastic because they didnt get the resistance, bulb size, and wire gauges correct. and that wasn't from a long game either; most of them said any lights in infantry/gun barrels saw damage within 2 hours of run time. another guy tried casting clear resin helmets for his marines and embedded the LED bulb inside the head, then painted it as normal so the eyes would glow; looked awesome, but the heads melted apart after 90 minutes of run time.

If you really want to put lights on your models, the correct way to do it is place a single LED bulb of your color choice somewhere spacious, like inside a rhino or land raider's hull, and run fibre-optic wires to the locations you want to see the lights, such as headlights, searchlights, targeting scopes, and gun barrels. this way there's no overheating and melting of the model, and fibre-optic wire is alot easier to fit inside small things than an LED; the smallest LED for hobby use is usually sold in a 5mm size these days. you 'can' get 3mm, but they need alot of special configurations using resistors between them and the battery source so unless you're an experience low-voltage electrician, don't try this; i worked almost 6 years as an electrician and i can tell you now, if you dont know what your doing, LED setups will confuse the hell out of you.
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Post  Planes Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:06 am

I'm pretty sure the LEDs I got were of the 3mm verity, and the old man at the shop was kind enough to provide me with a diagram for the set up and the completed resistor calculation. My general wisdom gained thus far from this project is that if you are thinking of doing LEDs with Necron armor, don't. Unlike most any other race's armored choices, Necrons do NOT use boxes. Boxes provide all kinds of lovely interior volume. Necrons are all flat crescents and surf-boards. I would imagine a 5mm LED where the "power source" orb is on the Barge with a bunch of fiber optics running everywhere else would have been a far less arduous and aggravating process than trying to get all that circuitry inside the rear crescent.

All in all I think my end result looks alright, though there is at least one flaw, but if I were to do it again I would either do it completely differently or pay an experienced electrician/modeler to do it for me.

Incidentally, I noticed that there aren't really any good push button toggles for the size of model I was working on. The work around I came up with was a traditional silver switch toggle which will be mounted where the right pilot would sit in the Barge, and then I will simply build the pilot's torso on top of it. When the lights are on he will be working the console, and when it is off (due to being wrecked or just off the board) he will be rocked back facing the sky.
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Post  dusktiger Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:27 am

nice! not alot of the sellers will go out of their way to give you a diagram like that. nice score on that one!

if you have a monolith or plan to have one, that has alot of conversion potential. i know of around 7 or 8 different setups using a monolith that all were pretty cool; some with just a light, some with flickering lights, some also had sound effects. one dude boasted he made his flicker and play the whooshing sound the TARDIS makes from doctor who to represent the Phase Out rule the last codex had. because of how large it's insides are, it was also one of the first models to have LEDs placed inside, so you'll find alot of videos and directions on how to do those ones.

small toggle switches....that's a bit trickier. i know you can order really small little ones, but i dont know what the switch casings are like for dimensions. but if you're putting lights on a model larger than a command barge, or even on a dreadnought, The Source (Circuit City) has a set of these small micro toggle switches, like those on small electronic toys, that IIRC are packs of 5 for around $6. marine players use these one rhinos and land raiders, and hide the jutting out switch lever by glueing a searchlight, or radio array, or hunter killer missile, etc, onto the lever, so they just move the, say a radar dish, forward to turn the lights on, and backwards to turn them off. it was really nifty and clever to hide it that way, because you dont realize that's the switch.

when necrons have their 2nd wave and those flyers come out, maybe they'll be big enough in size for you to encorporate some of those ideas into lighting them up as well if you feel like doing it again to another model.
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Post  Dom.0 Mon Mar 12, 2012 12:45 pm

I could afecifly use those ideas in my leeman russ tanks, chimaeras and vendetas.
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Post  Rhaevyn Mon Mar 12, 2012 1:21 pm

Best not Dom.

One day you'll want to resell those models and their value will be seriously depreciated.
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Post  Dom.0 Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:23 pm

Ya I will and that day will be when they come out with new desings for those modles or I might disasemble them and use ther parts on the new modles.
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Post  Planes Mon Mar 12, 2012 2:38 pm

I am very much looking forward to the day I can properly field a Doom Scythe. I want my 2 STR 10 AP 1 strafes before it gets shot down.

I massaged my list a bit now that I have it, and if I field it as an Annihilation Barge I can hit 1400 pts. It also give me a chance to play with a Voidblade and see what fun comes of that.
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Post  Planes Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:34 pm

Here, have some low quality iPod camera shots of the WiP.

LEDs Tumblr_m0t3a4jGP21r718cuo1_1280

LEDs Tumblr_m0t3a4jGP21r718cuo2_1280

LEDs Tumblr_m0t3a4jGP21r718cuo3_1280

LEDs Tumblr_m0t3a4jGP21r718cuo4_1280
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Post  Dom.0 Tue Mar 13, 2012 11:03 am

ya know i jest rembered that my modle railroad club use relly relly tiny LEDs on our n scale layout (that about 1/150 scale or a bit bigger cant relly rember) and we have tons of them on some of the layout moduals and we had ther runing all day in plastic street lamps and ther are no sings of melting.
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Post  Rhaevyn Tue Mar 13, 2012 11:29 am

Weather or not a plastic will melt at a certain temperature is a feature of the Resin/plastic used. LD polyethylene will melt fairly easily, where as PET, or HD Polyethelyne will tend to withstand temperatures better.
The plastic found in most hobby kits will tend to be LDPE so that it is easily modified, bent, or cut, but also ends more susceptible to heat. LED's give out a pretty constant heat, fairly insignificant compared to other light sources, but its still there.

Train kit terrain is usually fairly rigid, and would be molded with a higher density plastic than a space marine. Think of the difference in plastic between the 2x2 foot terrain table toppers GW sells compared to what it uses on tactical squad sprue. or perhaps easier the rigid clear flight stand plastic vs a guardsman. if you put them both in the microwave, i guarantee your guardsman is going to turn into a pile of goo a lot faster than the stand.

yes. i'm a geek.
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Post  Dom.0 Tue Mar 13, 2012 12:07 pm

meh ill test it on one of my scarp guards men. plus the LEDs im taking about were made under a micro scope.
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