Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Go with C or D cells! You'll have plenty of life then. :-)

Somewhere I read that the stuff from Miller Engineering ( www.microstru.com ) has around a 400 hour half-life. Useless IMHO.

As noted earlier, add pots to your LEDs to reduce the brightness. If that's still not enough, you can put a filter between the LEDs and the surface.

To the susceptible to water damage notation, you could say the same for decals ... and you solve the "problem" the same way:

Coat your model with a clear sealant when you're done. You're going to do it anyway, so there's really no problem.

I used to have a pair of cuticle scissors that had flush-cut jaws. They worked great ... until the brtittle casting snapped.

Ditto Micro Kristal Klear. (Testors Clear Parts Adhesive and Window maker if your LHS can get the Microscale material.)

The British equivalent of a dollar store.

Of course, does anyone remember "5 and dimes"?

http://www.thefiberopticstore.com/ is another good option. ...are there anything thinner than .25mm? I'd be surprised if there weren't (for some bizarre technical application), but think about the size for a moment and try to figure out how to drill a hole small enough to fit that small a fiber and ...

The 3M adhesive they all have should be fine. If you want to reinforce it 5 minute epoxy should do the trick.

I think he gets that cool white don't run any cooler temperature-wise.

Personally I think that warm white work better for windows. They're similar to incandescent bulbs, which are what you're used to seeing in a window.

I've heard of people cutting white plastic straws in half, but haven't seen the results. Might be worth a try.

Just noticed... you signed up for a whole new forum just to kvetch about a slightly high (in your opnion) shipping cost?!

You agreed believing that they would ship it first class, then complain BECAUSE they shipped first class. The $0.63 you mention is for a LETTER not a PACKAGE which can't go through the automatic sorters. 2 oz is for the LEDs. Packaging will typically more than double that, so at least $2.24+. A box ...

I think this answers all of your questions: http://www.starshipmodeler.net/talk/vie ... p?t=105731

Starlighting Projects has some cool flickering LED effects for their torches. Perhaps they'd be up for selling just the flickering LEDs without the torch thing. I'm not sure it'd be applicable to what you're doing.

http://www.starlightingprojects.com/

I would try to avoid it purely because the paint will a (very minor) amount of thermal resistance to make the resistor run warmer. However, if you paint the part that it's connected to and mask off most of the resistor you should be fine. It may be overkill, but it's in the better safe than sorry sc...

I'm assuming you're using the Polar Lights TOS lighting kit. If so, did you check that the LED strips are properly polarized? Typically the red wire should be connected to the + side of the strip and you want to make sure that it's connected to the + connector on the board (don't have the kit, so I'...

The fibers are extended through the skin so the ends aren't painted over. Once you finish painting the kit, trim them off with a flush cutter (looks like a wire cutter).

There you've stumped me. I will leave that to members smarter than I.

There is no "switch" per se - when the solar panel stops generating electricity the battery runs power the other other direction. There's likely a diode to keep juice from running back through the solar panel (just as there's likely one to keep juice from running backwards through the LED ...

Those type of lights are quite good.

Starship Modeler carries them: blue red

They won't be good for the nav lights because they can only be cut in 3 LED sections.

Well, damn. That's a terrible shame.

Planes don't have top/bottom differentiation lights. Of course it's easy to tell whether you're above or below another plane in flight (look up and you're seeing the bottom, look down and you're seeing the top). OTOH - in the Trek universe (and in most every other SF universe) everyone flies oriente...

High impact POLYstyrene is what you want. For those in the Northeast, Modern Plastics is a great supplier. I've bought 4x8 foot sheets and they don't charge for cutting unless you're looking for precision cuts - i.e. I tell them "about half at about 1 foot square and the rest at about 2 foot sq...

I think Paul is referring to something like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/AC_adaptor_polarity.png This indicates whether the "pin" or the "sleeve" of the output coming from your AC adapter is positive or negative. Is there any chance you could post a p...

There should be a wiring diagram on the back of the package. You want to make sure that you match + to + and - to - as shown on the little "circle with a dot and line" diagram that should be on your power supply. (The dot corresponds to the inside and the circle/C corresponds to the outsid...

Your local Radio Shack will have the part you need, ready to be mounted onto your base. While you're there, pick up the matching plug so you can add it to your battery pack and then you swap power supplies in under 5 seconds.

You could always try Easy LED - cut the strips, connect with solderless connectors, attach to a 9V battery terminal. Nothing easier.

Carried in the SSM store: http://starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index.c ... grafix.cfm

Hi Chiver, All of the window parts (except the cutting templates for the missing windows) mount from the inside. Please note: I made a mistake on some of the part numbers in the instructions. This was just brought to my attention last week - I have updated the instructions. Here's a link: http://www...

That's it. The 5050s are a shade brighter because they have 3 LED "filaments" in them instead of a single one. If the strips are like this then you can hook them straight to a battery. (Notice the resistor between the two right-hand LEDs in this picture .) Depending on the resistor used in...