Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

I've got the board etched, with a modification to allow me to make the nacelle lights flash, or not, depending on how things go. I'm going to finish speeding through the last 3 seasons before making a decision - So far I've only seen the nacelle navigation lights flash in 3 scenes in the middle of s...

Actually, a little bit of rewiring and I can have those flashing as well. The nacelle navigation lights can be wired onto the same line as the ventral flashing light and the navigation lights will flash immediately after the main 5 strobes. This is exactly the behaviour of the "new" patter...

Just watched "Waking Moments" from season 4, and one scene showed the ship with the red/green navigation lights on the nacelles blinking... The other 4 red/green lights are permanently on, but for the sake of one scene which is unsupported by any other scene in the episode (or the last 3 s...

That certainly looks like a more efficient organisation than my second attempt. I've traced the PCB against the layout diagram and it looks perfect except for one positioning error where the anode track supplying the three transistors' collectors shorts against the cathode legs of the LEDs below it,...

I think I've solved it. Turns out autorouting is no substitute for sitting down for 4 hours and meticulously repositioning components to weave the tracks around each other. I needed to use 10 jumpers, but they are all in sensible places and I've got the PCB down to 10cm x 6cm. Single sided. http://i...

Yes, it's the same. I've uploaded it here for the time being. You should be able to grab it from there hopefully. I used 0.4W resistors all round but really I only needed them on the LEDs because of the voltage drop needed. The LEDs were 3mm daylight-white to match the ship. I haven't labelled the t...

The circuit schematic is identical to the above colour-coded diagram I posted earlier (the one that also appears in the youtube clip). The only modification is the addition of 8 connectors that tie directly into the +12V and GND lines so the always-on lights can be attached in parallel. Unfortunatel...

Well this is a pain. I've built the circuit in Fritzing (A great open-source circuit design program I've found) but it seems there is no way to put it on single-sided PCB without at least 7 unconnectable broken links (and a dizzying number of jumper wires to boot). It can be made quite compact on a ...

No. I've seen a number of models that do this, but I've been watching the TV series and at no point that I'm aware of do any lights other than the white ones blink (except when the ship is intermittently losing power). I'm halfway through Season 4 at the moment, speeding through the episodes that ar...

Today is a nice day of firsts. I have made an LED light up, then made an LED flash through the output of the 555 timer, then after a lot of headscratching and translating of plans into the real world, managed to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44bguq7xMzE The strobe circuit works flawlessly....

I think you're probably right on that one - Although it seems the primary reason for the diodes in the above application is to ensure the LEDs switch on correctly to form the right pattern of lights for a die roll (I assume from the general appearance that it is an electronic d6), I have looked over...

Thanks for the tips - I've read about the sanding trick, and I read about the drillbit dimple trick in my father's latest model engineering magazine. I'll probably use sanding for the window lights (a 10mm white LED for the saucer, and another for engineering) and the dimple for the bussard collecto...

I've found an elegant implementation of daisy-chained 4017 decade timers at http://www.bowdenshobbycircuits.info and made some modifications to reproduce something that closely approximates Voyager's light sequences (despite the fact that they vary from CGI/physical model and from episode to episode...

I've just done some more calculations: Putting as many in series as possible, it should draw a total current of 180mA and the resistors will be soaking a total of 0.373 Watts of power. With every LED in parallel, the circuit draws 430mA and the resistors soak a total of 2.7 Watts of power. In neithe...

So presumably if I did them all in parallel, I'd put a resistor on each according to V=IR, taking their usual operating current and the voltage of the battery minus each LEDs operating voltage (not their max rated), and wire them all into a stripboard connected to a common positive and negative rail...

I know that at correct scale the lights should be only 1mm across, but I think I'll stick with 3mm. It shouldn't look too bad at this scale. How did you organise the LED wiring layout? I have the paragrafix kit for adding corrected details, and plan to make small perspex boxes out of a CD case for i...

I've bought a Revell Voyager kit, and am planning to light it. I want to try to put the lighting together myself rather than get a kit, but I haven't done any electronics since making a red LED light up at school once, and once the model is sealed up then there's no going back - So I've been doing s...