Colonial Viper

smeagol the vile wrote:

Is that a lighting kit for that specific kit, or did you build it yourself?

This lighting kit is made from scratch. I think there are a couple of production kits out there already but really, I only have about $5 tied up in this one.

For lighting the Viper:  I definitely recommend you make your own lights from scratch.  I bought an after-market kit and paid way too much for what it was, and had to throw away the plastic parts they sent because they didn't fit and the original kit parts looked far better. 

For the engines, I used white LEDs and painted the clear plastic lenses with Tamiya transparent blue acrylic, airbrushed. Here's a view of mine.  I also put a red LED in the cockpit but nothing nearly as neat as what Swanny is doing here.  Great job, sir!

Yours sure looks good Chuck.

I've been puttering along on this project for a while now but today I took a vacation day from work, the wife is working, my daughter is working all day so I got some serious modeling done. The fuselage is now ready to assemble

and I was able to run an initial engine test.

Wow, great work on the Viper!  Are you going to post a tutorial on LED lighting to your site?  I tried LED lighting for an SA-16 Albatross I did a few years ago but didn't have something that was apparently necessary, and the result was that about a second after putting AA-battery to the LED leads, the LED burned out.

I have a Fine Molds X-Wing, Y-Wing and TIE Fighter that I am holding in the stash until I can develop a comfort level in working with lighting.

WOW ! She's turning out good.

I have that kit with all the Extra's too. Hope when I get to building it, it looks as good as yours.

Bud

Aggieman wrote:

Wow, great work on the Viper!  Are you going to post a tutorial on LED lighting to your site?  I tried LED lighting for an SA-16 Albatross I did a few years ago but didn't have something that was apparently necessary, and the result was that about a second after putting AA-battery to the LED leads, the LED burned out.

Ohm's Law

Most of the 5mm and 3mm LEDs can handle about 20 milli-amps mA of current so to keep things simple just take the voltage you plan on using like say a nine volt battery then divide that by the amperage, .02 and you get your minimum allowable resistance. 9/.02=450 Now you need to install a 450 ohm resistor, OR GREATER, on the plus side of your power line before the LED. There is more to Ohm's Law than this but this is the area that impacts our discussion. As the Ohm value (resistance) increases the LED will get dimmer. I had a hard time finding 450 Ohm resistors for my project so stepped up to the 470 Ohm unit and really you cannot tell that the LED is any dimmer plus it's lifespan will be a bit longer now.

Putting a steady LED in a model is really a very simple thing to do. Getting them to flash or strobe gets a little more complex because you have to add timer chips, capacitors and diodes to the circuit.

Beautiful job, Swanny!  The cockpit lighting is most impressive. I also had the idea of using a box something like you did for the battery.  However, I managed to cram the battery inside the fuselage and left the thruster assembly unglued so it can be pulled off for battery replacement.  I used a miniature slide switch mounted in the underbelly of the ship, with the actuator sticking out through a small hole.  Can't even see it if you aren't looking for it!

This kit was well made and a lot of fun to build.  It's easy for a beginner to build a basic model, but it can be enhanced as far as the imagination can go, and can be a challenge to experienced modelers as well.

Here's another shot of mine in the daylight-

Great job on yours, Swanny.  I gotta get me one of these kits!  One of the fellas in the local model club is doing something similar to yours.  He broke open a Photo-Etch cockpit set in the same scale to further detail his, but you've got more light holes opened up. 

Thanks for sharin', as well as to you, too, Cadet Chuck. 

Swanny

in addition to the great build I like your switch it is well incorporated!

we have multiphase LEDs that are no larger than a "jumbo" led inside our TIE costume chestboxes. I think the hole size needed for this is 3/16 inch or better.

They run off a 9V battery with a resistor in series to each LED. I am running two multiphase (red/blue/green alternating) and two steady (red white) LEDs off of one battery, and the bright white is the big power draw.  When the white one starts getting dim after about 5 hours or so it's time to change batteries.

The mutliphase would be good for a display that would need to change constantly. I dont know if there are other color combinations out there, the circuit is all internal and looking at it I cannot tell it from any other clear domed LED.

Love what you did and thank you for sharing, I just picked up this model as as a learning tool for the bigger project that I also took on, but wanted to practice my painting and modifying skills on this much more expensive model, the decals that you used on the side og the cockpit, did you make them or did you get them someplace?