Noob's lit Viper Mk. II

R

roflmaoist

Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2012
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86
Hi all,

I'm new on the forums and have just restarted my modelling hobby after about 10 years. Haven't done any modelling since I was in my mid teens. Anyhoo, I've done a few kits and bought myself an airbrush etc.

Now though, I want to try lighting a kit with LEDs. For this purpose, i'm going to be making a Viper Mk. ii - one of my favourite space fighter designs ever.

I've read through a lot of forum posts and seen a lot of videos. These were all helpful but left out important information for someone like me who is trying to find their way in the face of a daunting lighting project. So, I'm going to explain some of the things that puzzled me as I build this thing in the hopes that it'll help others starting out. Maybe some of you guys will be able to pass on some hints and tips too...

So, first things first. I've prepared the inside of the viper's hull to receive the lighting. I first cut out a large section of the rear of the fuselage to allow for a power jack and made a hole in the base section to allow the jack to be screwed in.
This was one of the big questions I had about the kit - how to get power into it. Grendels recommended putting a power jack into the model itself with the male section of the plug in a piece of tubing which doubles as the stand. With the batteries in the base I can then route power up through the stand and into the model. I bought myself a Size N Panel-Mount Coaxial DC Power Jack which cost less than £2 from my local electrics shop which now fits snugly in the bottom of the Viper (though I'm going to have to fill some gaps once it's all fitted permanently (I'm a noob at cutting holes too...).
I harvested loads of LEDs from pound-shop gadgets, including some red and green flashing ones from a fibre-optic lamp, from which I also got lots of fibre optic strands. It's amazing how cheaply you can get this stuff!

I haven't decided whether I'm going to model the Viper as landed or in flight. If I want to have the landing gear extended, I'll have to do a lot of work sealing the undercarriage from light leaks. In-flight looks cool but I feel like it's a shame to let those landing struts go to waste...

I'm also trying to decide whether to really jump in the deep end and hollow out the pilot's helmet, put a proper head in there and then make a clear visor to cover it. I don't really like the pilot as is - the solid visor looks a bit rubbish - but I'm not sure if my modelling skills are up to it. Any suggestions on either of these points would be very welcome!

Thanks guys!


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Right, I've got the power pack hooked up to the model. I have a problem though - the flasher circuit i harvested from a fibre optic lamp only seems to work properly with a switch connected directly to it. If i do anything else, the leds cycle once and then switch themselves off. The circuit has a number of lighting combinations (it originally had three leds connected to it - red, green, and blue) such as lighting the leds individually, and flashing each led on and off. On the original lamp, these were cycled through by pressing the power switch. Without the switch, the leds cycle through various patterns and are then extinguished. This looks cool but it would mean i'd have to keep disconnecting and reconnecting the circuit in order to keep the leds lit up.

I've tried connecting a switch at the battery end of the circuit and directly to the female plug in the viper itself - the only thing that results in continued, uninterrupted flashing is to connect the switch directly to the led circuit board. This is annoying because it means that in order to keep the leds flashing, i'll have to solder the switch to the flasher circuit and then have the button sticking out the bottom of the forward landing strut, in addition to the female power plug that's already there.

Has anyone come across this problem before? Is there a way to get the circuit to flash the leds by default?

I've included a picture of the setup.

Thanks all!

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what do you mean by... originally had 3 LEDs ! how many do you have now ? and if only 2 what happened to the 3rd one ???

please explain then we might be able to help you !

can you provide a picture of the item before you cut it out of the ITEM...? Thanks !
 
Ach, I'm afraid I didn't take photos of the lamp before i took it apart. I've included a close up photo of the circuit board though. Originally it had three leds - one, red, one blue, and one green which flash in different combinations controlled by the little button switch which they were connected to. I desoldered the blue one (which was originally in the two holes opposite the other two leds) and have wired it separately to light up the main display in the cockpit (pictured in the foreground). The remaining green and red leds still work fine - it's just that in order to control the flashing patterns and keep them going indefinitely, it seems i have to connect a switch directly to those two remaining leds. If I simply connect them to a battery they flash like crazy for 30 seconds and then die. That's really annoying...

Is that clearer? Hope i'm making sense!

Thanks for any help you can give...



[attachment deleted by admin]
 
I would reconnect the Green LED to its original position! If the circuit returns to normal operation then you have isolated the problem! If not? Then other mods you have done or.... A damaged component might be the culprit?

Good luck!
 
Ok, so i decided not to worry about the flashing led problem. I've attached a button to the bottom of the ship (in the forward landing gear bay) which solves the problem and allows for different flashing patterns.

A little more cutting was required on the inside of the model to make room for all the leds and fibre optics but it's now stuck together. Fixing the fibre optic strands in place was a bit of a nightmare and i had to re-glue them all several times over in order to get them to stay in place over their led. Eventually it came together and there were only two strands which didn't quite make it through the process. I'm learning a lot as i do this and I'm already thinking about my next project - some more sic-fi I think...

I also managed to feed two fibre-optic strands through a small gap i cut in the lower wing section. The then feed through to the wing tips through channels i carved. This, surprisingly, was much more straightforward than i expected it to be. I've decided to leave long strands sticking out of the wingtips so that when it comes to painting i don't need to worry about covering the strands; I can just trim them off when it's all done.

The next step is to fit the three engine lights. I've been having some trouble with this - i can't decide how to fix the leds in place. At the moment i have little cardboard cylinders (badly made...) with translucent plastic fixed over the ends. These just about fit into the engine cans. The disadvantage of this is that the engines don't light up as brightly as i'd like. I guess that's partly because i've used only one led per engine. Keeping it simple though cos this is all new.

Any ideas on lighting the engines?



[attachment deleted by admin]
 
SO, I've been making slow progress - work's been holding things up. First post is to show the engine lighting solution i came up with. I had trouble finding tubes to place behind the engines to direct the led light so i made my own out of cardboard. Then stuck some translucent plastic from a folder/binder i had lying around on the end of each tube to diffuse the light...

The leds aren't as bright as i was hoping - I think I may have burned them out a bit when I was testing them. I've decided that that's ok though because I'm going to be modelling the viper as 'on the deck', so it's engines wouldn't be at full power anyway.



[attachment deleted by admin]
 
It's primed!

It was a complete nightmare filling in the seam down the middle of the fuselage. Had to keep priming, then sanding, re-filling, and priming again. I pretty much got it in the end though - there's only a slight trace of the seam at one point along the nose. I've decided that i can put that down to weathering...

Think I need to find a better solution for seam-filling than revel plasto. Any ideas?



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So, final update for tonight. Detailing. I decided not to spend an extra £20 on the paragrafix photo etch simply because i wasn't too fussed about the cockpit (it's pretty well detailed already and the lights are the most important thing, anyway) and because the engine details on the two rear access panels are pretty much just wires and cables. Using this reference shot of the studio model (full scale prop? Not sure):

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IYihBiTh-cM/TOQEXGM0h3I/AAAAAAAADy4/XRuQx1FEE2Y/s1600/4734624047_737434cdc7_b.jpg

I decided it would be much cheaper (and more fun) to reproduce the detail with stretched sprue and other odds and ends. So I did.

Quite pleased with the result, and i didn't have to spend a penny on it! :)

Next step, pre shading and painting! Woohoo!




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Thanks Grendels! Yeah, I'm pleased with it! Can't wait to get painting - I'm halfway done with the pre shading. hopefully i'll get the white layer on later tonight. It's looking really cool all lit up! ;D

I just bought myself an AMT/ertl A-wing on ebay which is gonna be my next lighting project. Also got a scribing tool because I hear the A-wing has raised panel lines. That'll be an interesting first-time experience!
 
roflmaoist said:
Thanks Grendels! Yeah, I'm pleased with it! Can't wait to get painting - I'm halfway done with the pre shading. hopefully i'll get the white layer on later tonight. It's looking really cool all lit up! ;D

I just bought myself an AMT/ertl A-wing on ebay which is gonna be my next lighting project. Also got a scribing tool because I hear the A-wing has raised panel lines. That'll be an interesting first-time experience!
Click to expand...

It does have raised panel lines. If you look on this site, there are quite a few builds of one, and I know one for sure removed the raised panel lines and re scribed them.
 
Yeah, I've just been looking at that - guy's called fubar (also from the uk!). He's doing a really great job and I love the torpedo tubes he added. There's also a link to an amazing japanese build of the kit with a lot of added greeblies. Lots of potential there for a really detailed build...

Still, I've got loads to do on the viper before I move on!

I'm putting on the white layer now but have had some trouble with water condensation bing spat out of my airbrush. It's been rainy and humid in where I am in the UK (surprise surprise) and I'm now thinking of getting an in-line moisture trap to help deal with it. Need to pay a visit to my lhs methinks.
 

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