Lights on the Titanc?

Depends on the bulbs, really. ANY traditional incandescent light bulb might get too hot, left on long enough and under confined conditions, such as inside a model. If they are LED bulbs then no worries. As far as having the end effect look "right," I can't help you and would suggest experimenting to see what looks right. There used to be a fairly regular ad in FSM for a lighting kit for the old 1/570 Revell Titanic, but I have not seen it in awhile and don't have a link for you to peruse.

Try a search on the "Tools and Techniques" section. of the forum. You are sure to find something relating to your request there.

See the RMS Titanic Fiber Optics page for good instructions and links to sources

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Portal/5262/index.html

Linked from the Titanic Research & Modeling Association & Rivit Counters page

If I were wanting to do it I'd use a couple of CCFL tubes running off a 12V supply - they come in 4", 8" or even 12" I believe.  Tungsten light globes will get hot, will blow sooner or later (sooner once you've sealed them inside says Murphy's law) and are very inefficient power-consumption wise.

Michael 

Ed,

I went over to the Titanic page and have to say that is more than I want to tackle!!! I could swipe the fiber optics out of the angel on the Christmas tree but I think the wife would get a TINY bit upset...I put the light set I got and left it on for a few hours and it didn't get hot at all so that may be the way. I didn't realize it but they are LED lights. Good deal. I'll post up a picture soon!!  Thanks for the advice!!

-Stephen 

At least 20 yers ago, I built the 1/350th Titanic. drilled the portholes, mounted it on a plaster "water base inside a custom built wood/glass case. Lighted it using a christmas tree string with only about 10 lights left on it. Hasn't melted yet !! Of course, I don't leave it on for hours and hours. Looks really neat in a dark room with the lights shining up thru the skylights and out the ports on the passenger decks, as well as the ports in the hull. Believe me, once you see it, you won't regret all the time and broken drill bits doing the hull. Used Tom's modelworks stuff to really bring it to life, including scale "passengers". They really give you a sense of just how big that ship was !

 LED lights are (to me ) the way to go,low power needed,and the almost never blow out. They also come in a aray of different voltages so you can get the desired brightness. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the feedback. I found a small set of LED Christmas lights on clearance at Walmart. I'll use those instead of the battery operated ones I originally bought. Now if I could figure out a way for it to shoot up a SOS flare every now and again!!!

This is what I had in mind to use for a similar project.  The tubes are about 4" long and all that you see (apart from the ruler of course) is what goes inside the model.  Power supply is only 12V and power consumption 280mA - about the same as 14 LED's.

Michael

 

That is really cool. Did you set up the circut board or were you able to buy it?  I may rethink my plan. I'm sure it barely puts out any heat too!!

These are what's called CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluoro) tubes.  The lights are pre-wired and supplied singly and so are the circuit boards which include the red/black input cable, all ready to go with no soldering required.  They come in a variety of colours and lengths and provde the back-lighting for LCD computer screens.

The ones I have came from a local electronics shop.  Theoretically you have to have one circuit board for each lamp BUT close examination of the original boards in this case revealed they are set up to operate two lamps each - the additional parts are simply not fitted.  I had already bought two circuit boards before I realised this so I removed the white output socket and the blue capacitor (at the left hand end of the board above where the lights plug in) from one board and added them to this one - works perfectly and saves room.  I have yet to identify the capacitor (appears to be a special high-voltage type marked 3kV) and find loose replacements for both it and the socket but I'm sure it can be done.

One set (lamp plus circuit board) cost me about $23.00 (AU).  The lamps do get warm but can be handled comfortably.  However, it is wise to keep your fingers away from the output end of the board when it's operating as it can give you a tingle even though it's operating from a 12V supply.

To mount the lamps I had intended to use 3mm clips made for small glass fuses which are easy to get and cheap.  For an older vessel like the Titanic I would look at using the yellow tubes or paint these with clear yellow paint - I think the lights of the day would have had a more yellow appearance.

I bought these locally as I say but there are similar products available in the US from Miller Engineering @ http://www.microstru.com/.  Well worth a visit before you commit.

Michael