Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Very sad news, he had a great way of breaking things down for the rest of us. Its just hard to hear this news.

I've had issues with the envirotex setting up in rtv molds, the oomoo is a definite no. And I've had it both work and fail in some other alumiltie rtvs, real pain to clean out took a few castings to get all the sticky out. take a look at smooth on's new color match. Last time is saw a casting of the...

I'm not sure what fx you're looking for. 1) all LED banks moving/clocking along at the same rate, but that rate is variable 2) each LED bank moves/clocks at its own rate, allowing some sequences to restart while other banks have not yet finished. 3) advanced, each bank of LEDs can progress through t...

If that's not clear, I can draw something up tomorrow at work.

also you won't be able to have different speeds for each bank of LEDs, as you may have guessed. They will all clock at the same time

To have [individually] varied speeds you will need a 4017 and 555 timer for each bank of LEDs.

sounds like you are talking about dividing up the display into quadrants (well if it where a circle and you wanted 4 off LEDs at a time). When you do this you can get away with one 4017 and 555 but you may start to max out the 4017 drive circuits. Here's an example. If you want 3 LEDs off/walking th...

in addition to ohm's law: E=I*R (also sometimes written as V=I*R) don't forget PIE P = I*E E is electromotive force and is measured in Volts P is power and is measure in Watts I is current and is measured in Amps R is resistance and is measured in Ohms The rest of Direct Current (DC) ohm's laws has ...

you will not be able to measure resistance of the LEDs to tell you how much resistance you need to consume the over age power. The info you need still involves Ohm's Law: First for parallel circuits know that current is cumulative. So if you have say 4 white LEDs in parallel each drawing 0.02 Amps (...

When we used Zogs circuit in the nacelle lighting we used it to generate a moving dark spot. The logic chip will ground an output or drive it to Vcc (high), if the LEDs are hooked up so that their cathode (negative) is connected to the 4017 and their anodes (plus) to common Vcc (or a resistor going ...

I have access to the PNI style shown above, if you're interested PM me with a mailing address I can send a few for you to try out. The primary issues is how easy it will be to pull them apart without stressing the wires. For a lot of moving about you may have to go back to mono jacks and plugs since...

You might check in the on line build section of the main site . http://www.starshipmodeler.com/olb.cfm Trekman Scott has done several lighting how too's in there for trek kits. He's around too for follow up questions. Though there maybe some lag now-a-days as he's gone crazy and gone back to school ...

There are 2 sizes you should get, one for the wires to protect against short circuits and one to help bundle plastic fiber optic bundles to the face an LED. So the second one depends on the LED type. But for wires and inline resistor solder points you'll want 1/16th and 1/8th probably. 1/4 inch is g...

i don't know how you can calculate resistor values without knowing the LED's forward working voltage and their forward working current. You don't want to guess on these since you will either under drive the LED or overdrive them. He want's full brightness so that means getting the exact requirements...

my calculation was 37.5 ohms, a 10k certainty is providing enough voltage drop to protect the LEDs.

just remember that if you have multiple series of 4 leds in parallel and one resistor dropping voltage, the current through the resistor is the current through 1 series of LEDs * the number of 4 LED series loops. So typical new LEDs would be 4loops * 0.020 Asmps per loop = 0.080 Amps total. Wattage ...

I use the barrel of the soldering iron, not the tip for heat shrinking. The tip will be hot enough to start to burn the tube but its not a problem for the tube more of the tip is getting dirty when this happens. Get a tub of tip tin-er to help keep your tip in working order and use it often while us...

remember if you daisy chain the LEDs the current is not additive, the voltage is. So if you have a chain of leds and they all want 20 mA, they must all want that cause the current cannot change in the loop, then add the voltage and thats the voltage you will need for that chain, Current is 20mA. you...

we put 12 volts and lots of power through ours, and made it stand up to slow rotation

We should start a thread for mounting examples. Need some basic pictures of each technique and examples of it so that the thread isn't to wordy. Short answers is anything from 1/4" mono or stereo jacks to mini mono jacks. To spring fingers removed from RJ45 ethernet jacks and brass plate. IT de...

there are also colored plastic/acrylic rod I picked some up for use as laser beams. Just light with a bright white LED. As long as there aren't big bubbles in the rod it wont' look too obvious. I did also get the el flex wire, but its hard to see that in full light of a contest room, also the invert...

Its mainly about 'pot time,' if you are pouring into a lot of molds or a big mold you might want to go with the longer pot life so that the larger batches of resin aren't kicking in the mixing cup. There are also some resins which cure to a very hard plastic that can be milled and cut. If you will b...

give the youtube trick a try, I'd be weary of blowing out the computer sound card but you could try some other audio device maybe an little fm radio for jogging or what not. 30 LEDs assuming newer white or blue. Assume you slightly under drive and run 4 leads in series (wants 13.2 volts). you can ge...

sounds like you're talking about two different things, passing power into a model over a connector and using sound to activate lights.

sounds right

you can order direct from kingsbright http://www.kingbrightusa.com/default.asp I have and they pretty fast, digikey lists them but they were out of most of the LEDs I wanted to try out so I ordered direct. I'd be very surprised if they didn't have something in the color scheme you want. But you can ...

That looks great I had a design started in eagle layout but never finished. How much will a bare bones board cost (un-populated).

Did anyone catch the mistake I made on one of the boards? I just saw it looking at the pics. I tests 2 out of 3 boards and the one not tested wont work. . .

You're only hope is to get the actual 'color' warmth rating then find another example that you can look out with the same ratings then you'll have a good idea of how yellow the light is. The battery powered lights from target that say warm white are pretty nice think of a grain of wheat blub that ha...

Gonna have to find someone casting gribblies on the side. Casting will let you use parts made from things you can't properly glue or paint. The best thing to do is create a few gibbly pieces from stock styrene and other parts, then get them cast up in a gang mold. that way it looks less like a jumbl...

Here's the small freighter with the 'no neck' configuration as described in the instructions. http://www.kc6sye.com/images/small_freighter/IMGP6142.JPG http://www.kc6sye.com/images/small_freighter/IMGP6143.JPG http://www.kc6sye.com/images/small_freighter/IMGP6144.JPG http://www.kc6sye.com/images/sma...