Re: Classic MPC C-3PO and R2-D2 uber detail build
Worked on the test circuit today... now I gotta warn ya, I'm not an electrician, never took electronics in school, nor did I ever take any classes to learn how to do this stuff... I basically am a tinkerer and everything I've learned is all from observation and messing around. A long time ago, I bought the
VooDooFX R2-D2 Lighting Kit and nothing against VooDoo, they provide some really cool lighting kits for alot of different models and I love their stuff, but I was seriously disappointed here. Sure you had LEDs (4 in fact) but none of them flashed or did anything that even looked semi-cool. It was just a bunch of LEDs and a little circuit board with pre-soldered resisters on it, you also got a switch, some wire, a couple of pieces of shrink tubing, a piece of thick styrene (a 6"x4" square), and a same size piece of metal (I guess for shielding). Oh and some instructions for putting these into the model (which meant leaving the 3rd leg out of the body to hold the circuit board which would fit in the dome). Sounds like alot but for $50 bucks I was expecting alot more bang for the buck. Hell, I could have rigged up a few LEDs in the same manner alot cheaper and kept the 3rd leg in the picture. Matter of fact, if you want the design for this, send me $50 and I'll send ya the plans I made so you can do it youself! So, after finding this handy and extremely cool FREE program called
Yenka (formerly Crocodile Clips) I began doing some research on a simple LED flasher circuit. Sure I could have bought a bunch of self blinking LEDs but then I wouldn't have any control over their flash rates at all. So I found this nifty little 2 LED flasher diagram online and plugged it into Yenka and whaddya know, it worked. I messed around with it a bit and came up with a 3 LED version that will flash alot slower (kinda pulse with dimming on and off), and the diagram looks like this:
So as you can see... I want to power everything using just a single 6V power supply. That way I can either use 4 AA batteries or a AC Adapter (I use an AC Adapter for testing because I can vary the voltage anyway I want). As you can see above, it's just a temporary circuit design to test the concept. In it I've got 3 red LEDs (I will be able to change out the LED colors later for the various colors I will need for the dome). I got out my old breadboard circuit tester and began wiring up the test circuit. And whaddya know, it works! Here's a video to prove it:
R2 Circuit Board Test 1
Now mind you, there are no IC chips to work with, just resisters, capacitors, and a couple of transisters. So, after testing and knowing this thing works I began to play around with the design and messing around with Yenka to get everything in proper place that I think I'll need and came up with this design:
Oh, in Yenka, you can import your own Sketchup designs as a "case" for your electronics.. how cool is that? As you can see, I plan on using a total of 9 LEDs. The 4 on the left hand side will be in 2 pairs (red/yellow and blue/white). These pairs pulse at a rate of once a second approximately and will drive the logic panel fiber optics. The 4 LEDs on the right are in 2 pairs (red/blue and red/green) and flash at a very slow rate (maybe once every 20 seconds) and will drive the mood indicators on the front and rear. The center LED is a bright white that will be used in the holoprojecter. It will remain on until the switch is turned off.
So now I've got my circuit design working and tested and all I need to do is get the large circuit put together and tested. Then put it into the dome. What do you all think? Lemme know... More to come later.
