Hello. I'm currently working on the cockpit of the Moebius Viper. I'm completely new to lighting models. I've purchased one of Madman's lighting kits but quite frankly, the kit could use some clearer instructions. My questions are should I only use one strand of fiber optic per hole on the instrument panels? It seems like if I do, it won't be bright enough to notice. ALso, the screens in the front of the cockpit seem like they should be lighted with a bare LED, not fiber optics for the same problem (that is the FOs won't be bright enough to light it). If so, I will have to do some drilling in the front of the cockpit for the LED to fit through. I am a real noob on this so thanks for your help.
Kevin
Need Advice on Moebius Viper lighting
Moderators: Sparky, Moderators
-
Madman Lighting
- Posts: 1818
- Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 9:16 am
- Location: Serenity.
- Contact:
Hi.
Funny you should ask about this, I'm using my own kit to light the same model.
The kit is intended for just about any "fighter" model, so I had to leave the instructions generic.
Here's a few pointers:
I'm using a single strand of fiber to light various indicators around the cockpit and a fat bundle of them to backlight the main display. I'm using a white LED to light the bundle/main display and picking a bunch of different colors to light the various indicators.
I'm using a couple of fibers into carefully drilled holes in the wing tips to handle the red and green navigation lights.
I'm using three white LEDs to light the three rear engines and I'm using a bit of stiff wire, curled into a sort of spring/LED holder and held in place with white glue to hold each LED in position, facing out the rear.
This one is tricky to route all the stuff through the engine area, it all fits together like a big 3D jigsaw puzzle so I'm carefully fitting things together, drilling holes to route wires and fibers through, and taking my time.
One thing I definitely did first was to paint the entire interior with flat black acrylic paint as a light block. Looks kinda weird with the black shadow within it right now, but finish paint will fix that.
Good luck and write back here if you need some more help.
-John
Funny you should ask about this, I'm using my own kit to light the same model.
The kit is intended for just about any "fighter" model, so I had to leave the instructions generic.
Here's a few pointers:
I'm using a single strand of fiber to light various indicators around the cockpit and a fat bundle of them to backlight the main display. I'm using a white LED to light the bundle/main display and picking a bunch of different colors to light the various indicators.
I'm using a couple of fibers into carefully drilled holes in the wing tips to handle the red and green navigation lights.
I'm using three white LEDs to light the three rear engines and I'm using a bit of stiff wire, curled into a sort of spring/LED holder and held in place with white glue to hold each LED in position, facing out the rear.
This one is tricky to route all the stuff through the engine area, it all fits together like a big 3D jigsaw puzzle so I'm carefully fitting things together, drilling holes to route wires and fibers through, and taking my time.
One thing I definitely did first was to paint the entire interior with flat black acrylic paint as a light block. Looks kinda weird with the black shadow within it right now, but finish paint will fix that.
Good luck and write back here if you need some more help.
-John
That Madman Who Lit Up Deep Space Nine