PhoenixG,

How goes the Defender?  Forum traffic is way, way down recently so I was wondering if you had time to work on your model.  There is a person on another forum building the Xabungle "Government Type" walker machine for the contest as well.  It would be cool if we all finished and entered!

Looks good! All the extra work you're putting in there is sharp! 

Hooray, the FSM toilet is working again!  Those spambots must eat a lot of spicy, greasy buritos!  I was shut out since last week and kept checking back to no avail.

Anyway, great progress Phoenix G!  Tucking the batteries under the ammo packs was a great idea.  I also dislike wires dangling from a model.  I think only Evangellions can get away with it since they have those Tesla supercharger cords!

I wanted to make sure I left a little bit of a lip all around the area for the cowling to rest upon.  To do that I made this little jig out of .020 styrene.  It doesn't have to be exact so the slop in it doesn't hurt anything.

I had to cut the bottom to conform to the the shape of the shoulder to make it easier to scribe the lines.

As you can see my workbench is still a mess.  I seem to naturally lean towards chaos in my workspace.  :)

Quick check of the first section scribed.  Yup there is a lip present.  Success!

And just like that, one shoulder is done and ready to test fit the battery compartment.

Looking good!

And if in the end I give up.  There's these lovely little plates that can cover the holes.  The other reason I wanted a lip.

How it looks with both cowls in place.

And hidden underneath the cowls, the battery holders!

It will now be possible to store the batteries in the model and change them by lifting off the cowling.  The battery clips are simple pressure fits so they'll be easy to put in and take out.

Prep for soldering everything together.

The kynar wire is the blue strands.  It's very fine, very flexible, and easy to solder.

This should help with a sense of scale.

The tip of my soldering iron is larger than button!

No worries though.  I've had lots of practice soldering small items when refurbishing Sega Game Gear portable consoles.

the blue kynar wires go to the positive terminals of the battery clips, the red wires are the positive leads on the LEDs.  I'll be wiring the negative leads of the LEDs directly to the negative pole of the battery clips.

I tested the button and it works! 

Then I noticed I soldered in the wrong color LED.

ROFL!

No worries, it's an easy fix.  Just a couple of minutes of work to take care of.  I'm thinking of adding a light to the cockpit and perhaps seeing if I can backlight the sensor array.

Depends upon my ability to secure the lights and the amount of space to accomodate them.  Once that's ironed out I can add the screws to hold the button and then encase it in Apoxy sculpt.  It will help secure the button and also ensure the leads don't accidentally break off of the switch.

Thanks Gamera! 

I feel good about the solution I came up with.  So far all the test fits have been good. 

An unexpected side effect of this is I am having to adjust my normal paint/assembly process to account for these changes.  I don't think it will slow me down much.

She's coming along great!!! Nice work on hiding the batteries and switch. 

Gosh, this is the third time I've tried to open this thread.... 

The addition of lights to this model has effectively consumed my thoughts for the last couple of days.  Mostly likely because the addition of a couple of lights to this model is comparatively easy.  Making it an excellent gateway drug to electrify future models. 

My recent hangup was power.  I really didnt want to have a set of unchangeable batteries stuck in the model.  Effectively making the lighting a limited engagement gimmick.  Also I was getting stuck on where to place a switch.

I had originally wanted to store the batteries inside the model without leaving an external physical trace.  But if I am willing to cut out the the plastic under these cowlings.

I should be able to fit the battery in there.  The cowlings have a nice pressure fit so they can be put in place and removed easily to change batteries if needed.

Found the perfect button for it in my stash.

It's only a couple of mm long.  Got a bunch of them from when I was repairing an old DVD player.

It will make for a great hidden activation right behind the cowling.

However I am not mounting it there.  It will actually be mounted behind.  The button itself is just slightly taller than the thickness of the plastic which is about .041".  The button is .045" high and activates at .041".  It was like it was designed for this purpose.

I drilled a small hole and inserted the button to verify fit.  Turns out the plastic was slightly thicker here so I had to file it down about .004" to so the switch could activate.

This is how it looks from behind.  I don't have any epoxy on hand so am thinking of encasing it in Apoxie sculpt and securing it with a couple of small machine screws.

I've got the wiring diagram ironed out so next steps is to start cutting out the panels under the cowls and soldering on the leads.  I've got a spool of kynar wire, which is a very fine gauge wire, leftover from another electronics repair I did.  It's similar to magnet wire but instead of being enamled it has a very fine plastic sheath.  Very easy to work with.

Still waiting for the polycaps.  I've not yet written off trying some polycaps, but if they don't arrive soon I'll just have to go with the OOB joints.

Continuing to build out the cockpit.  Added the sides to the tub.  Unlike the my Destroid Spartan, I haven't created any templates for building the cockpit.  This one is figuring it out as I go along

Traced the panel I cut out to define the upper curve of the cockpit wall.  It also lets me use it as additional support for the canopy.

Now those tubes there look made for LED lights.  Especially since the far end will be capped with a clear lens. 

Seeing what Bakster has done with lighitng his models makes this one look like a cake walk. And the lighting he installs really adds to the piece.

So lighting this model has been on my mind since I saw those holes leading to the headlights.  Earlier this week I decided to pull the trigger and order some small pre-wired 3mm LEDs in an assortment of colors.  I don't know enough about how to properly select the resistor for a given LED so this seemed like an easy way to have them ready to go with minimal fuss.

The LEDs were delivered this weekend.  They came in unlabled baggies so they needed to be tested and sorted.

Broke out the good old breadboard I use for testing out arduino circuits.  I've got a bunch of 3V CR2025 buttoncell batteries hanging around.  They're nice and compact so I figure they would make a good concealable power source.

Wasn't certain of their brightness so tested them at both 3V and 6V.

Here it is wired for 3V.

And the same light wired for 6v.

These little LEDs are bright at 3V but nearly blinding at 6V.  So if I go with installing them it will be at 3V. 

To get an idea of what it could look like installed I stuck the lights on the outside

And powered them up at 3v.

That could look really awesome.  Even at 3V they practically blind the camera.

However, it's going to take time to figure out installation and power placement.  There's room for the buttoncells inside.  Barely.

If I go this route there won't be a way to change the batteries, but it would be 100% portable, last long enough to take photos for the contest, and it's not like I'm planning on having the lights on all the time.

I'm likely biting off more than I can chew with this build.  So far everything but the pilot tub is still 100% optional.  Pretty soon I'll have to decide just what I am going to implement.  There isn't a bunch of time for dallying around.

She's coming along well Phoenix, nice work on the cannons and pilot! 

I've not been idle the last couple of days.

Continued hashing out the cockpit.  Decided to build the seat itself using Apoxie sculpt.  Very glad I picked up a cheap set of sculpting tools.  It would have been a nightmare trying to shape that seat and headrest using a toothpick.

I don't know if my batch of Apoxie sculpt is old or if it's normal but both compound A & B are rather dry and need a fair amount of water added to make it supple and workable.

I extended out the front of the seat with more Apoxie sculpt so the legs would look fully supported.  I'm debating if I want to go so far as to try and build out foot pedals.

I think the chair is coming along nicely.  I'm going to punch out some small bits of styrene to use as buttons on the sidepanels.  Next up will be aligning the pilot's arms.  Once thats done I'll know where to place the joystick controls. I've got some very thin brass that I'll likely use for those.

The pilot isn't the only one getting attention.  The cannon barrels have been assembled cleaned up and primed.

You might see a slight step in the larger barrel bands.  Interesting fact, that isn't a mold seam.  That is how they sculpted the bands.  They did left/right halves so the seams are at the top and bottom of the barrels.  Which thankfully look to be invisible underneath the primer. :)

Started assembling the main part of one of the cannon housings.  This may turn out to be a mistake from a polycap retrofit perspective, but with the limited time for the build I don't want to hold up everything while waiting for the polycaps to be delivered.

Real G

PG I will provide as much intel on retrofitting the joints with polycaps as I can to assist you. 

Thanks Real G, I'll likely take you up on that once I have the polycaps in hand.

Real G

One challenge is that the older kits often have pins that are NOT 2, 3, or 4 mm in diameter! The Queadluun Rau was maddening to retrofit!

That is exactly what I discovered with the Destroid.  Most of the pins are 2.5, 3.5, or 4.5 mm.  There were a couple that were nearly 4mm or nearly 5mm, but they were the exception.  I ordered a wide range of sizes and types of polycaps in the hopes of finding a magical mix.  My hopes aren't very high, but I'd like to try.  Even if it doesn't work out for this kit, I'll at least have caps available to experiment with later on. 

PG I will provide as much intel on retrofitting the joints with polycaps as I can to assist you.  One challenge is that the older kits often have pins that are NOT 2, 3, or 4 mm in diameter!  The Queadluun Rau was maddening to retrofit!

Looks cool! Good luck!!! 

Hit the ground running on this project.

The plastic of the cockpit area is oddly brittle in places.  When trimming some of the sprue with a new blade it broke off in chunks rather than shaving neatly.

Thankfully nothing that can't be fixed, but something I'll have to look out for going forward.

Scribed around the panel area where I want to build the cockpit.  It came out suprisingly clean.  Practically no clean up needed.

Flipping the panel and going to use it as the floor for the cockpit since it's a perfect mirror.

Taped it into place for a dryfit.

Hopefully that will save me some work.

Intial test fit with the pilot worked well!

Something I noticed is the cockpit entry hatch isn't exactly aligned to the seat.  Perhaps it lays back for entry/exit.  :)

Started roughing the layout of the cockpit.  Getting a feel for the space and how to use it.

Will need to add a panel spacer at the bootom to push the cockpit tub in a little further.  Otherwise the feet will keep the canopy from fully seating.

Thinking of adding some joysticks to the angled panels to the left and right of the pilot.  Do some test fitting with the arms loosely attached with blue tack to get a good idea of placement.

The old friction fit joints on these models loosen very quickly so I've ordered some polycaps.  Maybe a few of the joints can be easily retrofitted.  Never done it before so not sure what that's going to be like.  It's also going to be a couple of weeks before they arrive.  Given the tight timeline they may not make it into this build.

Real G

PG, please do not melt anything!   But if you do... I have spare parts.  

Glad to see you throw in!  But hurry Star Force, there are only 52 days left!

 

ROFL!

I'm hoping not to have to visit Real G's Parts Shop this go around. 

As for the deadline.  I either make it or I don't.

Regardless, my goal remains the same.  Have fun and learn something new.  :)

PG, please do not melt anything!   But if you do... I have spare parts.  

Glad to see you throw in!  But hurry Star Force, there are only 52 days left!