Rotating Bussards On TOS Enterprise

Thomas E. Johnson · Post by **Thomas E. Johnson** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 1:41 am

I'm going to be doing a Rebellion Creations 1/350 TOS Enterprise, and need to come up with a way of doing the rotating bussards. I don't want to use a rotating fan or similar approach since I don't want the model to make any noise. I'm aware of DLMs boards for the 22 inch cutaway, but they would be to small for a 1/350 size model.

SeoulWind · Post by **SeoulWind** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 6:58 am

You could use the boards anyway, and mount them behind a bulkhead cut to fit the nacelle interior with wire leads between LEDs mounted in the bulkhead and soldered to the appropriate pads on the board...

Also, for fans, check out the Sayama 58 rpm gearhead motor - it's tiny and relatively light, cheap, and since it's small you should be able to put some foam around it to mask the minimal noise. I have some here, and just tested one with a 9v battery (the motors are 12v) - There is some noise but it's not too bad compared to a Tamiya gear train. Oh, and a bonus, they will turn clockwise or counter clockwise depending on wiring (I wasn't sure they would so I checked - yay!). I got several pairs of these from AllElectronics.

Edited to add: I love Don's stuff, and some of the other electronic kits for TOS nacelles are very nice, but the rotating chaser LEDs are just not very accurate to the real effect. I picked up one of these kits as an experiment to see if I could get closer to the random blinking effect that more closely matches what we see on screen.

Mark in Okinawa

tetsujin · Post by **tetsujin** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 9:57 am

For what it's worth: personally I've come to the conclusion that the "spinning effect" isn't something worth faking. No matter how you sequence those LEDs, it's not going to have the look of that spinning fan blade. Next time I build a TOS-style starship I'm just going to make the lights twinkle, and probably not bother with different colors either.