Superbrightleds.com light strips

Sft2 · Post by **Sft2** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 5:19 pm

Has anyone used the LED strips from superbright? These, specifically:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/moreinfo ... ample/880/

I'm gathering parts for my Defiant and need the light source. I have the DLM parts coming and plan on doing a fairly simple setup with strips blasting the interior of the nacelles to light the red and blue bits, plus a pair of red or green nav lights cast in tinted epoxy, glued into holes, and sanded flush when I fill the seams. Another strip in the beak for the deflector and a couple of spotlights or windows, depending on your opinion of what those are, and a couple more to light the plasma vents and windows on the lower hull. I might hit the white nav lights on the upper hull with fiber optics run to an LED somewhere, but they won't flash since I plan on leaving this one on all the time and the flashing would make me crazy.

So, back to the question. Are those strips bright enough to use 6 per nacelle to light everything, or will I need to double them up?

Paulbo · Post by **Paulbo** » Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:12 pm

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.

Sft2 · Post by **Sft2** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:51 pm

I can easily see how they will greatly simplify things. I'm just hoping they throw enough light to get the effects I want. Suppose the best way to find out is to spend the $20 and get some here, tape things together, and see what happens. I know I have a jar of aluminum plate or stainless around here somewhere that I plan on using over gloss black on the inside, just have to figure out where it went.

Also, I'm considering pulling clay molds off the plasma vents so I can cast new ones that will sit on some slices of acrylic rod. Actually, they're round. I'll just make new ones on the lathe. In the end it'll wind up being easier.

Ziz · Post by **Ziz** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 11:45 pm

ModelMan Tom runs Modeler's Brand. His light strips have more LEDs per inch.

He's working on a site update that will have PayPal shopping cart buttons.

Sft2 · Post by **Sft2** » Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:13 pm

Those look like they'll work great, and cheaper than what I was looking at. Thanks, I'll figure out what I need after the kit gets here next week. I wasn't looking forward to building mounts for a few dozen LEDs. The soldering would have been fun (I love my Haako FX888), but I'm betting I'll get plenty of that in before I'm done.

Sft2 · Post by **Sft2** » Sat Jan 26, 2013 12:57 am

Well this just got interesting. I was watching a couple of kits on Ebay and wound up using buy it now on the first a few days ago. Today I figured it couldn't hurt to bid the minimum... and I actually got it. So now I have two Defiants coming, one sealed, one not. So the plan is to start with the unsealed one, and if I have any issues I have a backup plan. If everything goes good the sealed one goes in the stash for a while. I almost bought one for around $100 a couple of weeks ago, but figured it couldn't hurt to look around first. Works for me!