Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok, so a friend said that having an interior in a Thunderhawk was a moot point because most of any detail you would put in it wouldn't be visible even with clear windows in the canopy. So the idea came to me, what if the entire top where held on by magnets and removable? What if the interior were lit with LED's? What if the upper command deck were removable just like the sundries tray in a military footlocker to allow for a bad @$$ paint job on a very highly detailed troop/cargo area? The idea is that the lower deck and upper deck are connected via a middle deck that has only the main gun cabin door on it.the upper deck won't extend as far back as the middle deck so a railing will have to go on it, but that is for later.



Then, by accident, I discovered that the rare earth magnets I use are conductive. I wondered how hard it would be to wire LED's to REMs in order to have upper deck lighting that would be removable with the upper deck.

I started with a fairly standard size and shape thunderhawk body.



The staircase is in at the beginning for sizing comparisons on the decks and for support as I build in the rails. Ok, It is in because I got ahead of myself and think it looks cool.

I cut a hole in the bottom of the gun deck for the battery pack and wiring harness and started work on the LEDs:





That last picture is one LED. The next one shows, poorly that REMs can be soldered to the LEDs and used to pass current. This is how I intend to wire in the removable top deck:



I needed the rails to house not only the lower blue LED (blue for tactical lighting) and the magnets that are the contacts for the white upper deck lighting:









The magnets sitting on top of the above rail are just placeholders keeping the smaller magnets in place inside the rail while the glue dries. As you can see the LED is sticking out the bottom of the rail:



That is just the bottom light, below I have added two white LEDs on to the contacts:


Any one of the lights can be removed from this circuit without interrupting the circuit. I may have to step up to AA's instead of AAA's after I get all the LEDs installed so that they remain as bright as they should and can.

This is gonna be a fun project.

Looks very, very cool

I look forward to seeing the final results!

Yeah this is gonna be a mock up. I do not know If I will finish this. I have other projects going, as you know. But at least the idea is flowing. I have wanted to do something like this for a long while.

Well yes, but its still a very cool proof of concept.

Thank you, this is the new idea I was mentioning. I put a couple things on hold to start testing.

Ok, did a little more work on the new T-hawk. Finished the inside rail lights and cut theupper deck. Also, made the nose sheath. I decided to make the nose a seperapte piece that will be glued on after the interior is done but for measurement and fit purposes I needed the nose done.











I will need to finish the front rails and their respective lights after I get the bottom interior done and the nose installed. But I am considering doing the bottom interior walls on seperate pieces of plasti-card so that they can be painted and installed later. The upper deck won't see much more work on it for a while. Now that it is sized, shaped and I know it fits in, it can wait untillater to finish. Below is a sketch of what I have planned for it:



And a basic idea for the bottom:



Of course the walls will be covered with detail like wiring and pipes and control boxes and weapons racks, etc...
I think the drawing is a little unclear but it will do for me, you have to wait for it..... LOLOLOLOLOLOOHAHAHAHAHAHALOLOLOLAHAHAHHAH!!!!!!!!!!

This is going to be on hold for a couiple weeks. I will be back to this soon.

Found some spare time so did a little work on this experiment.

Framing the command deck:







Second set of lights on the lower deck:





And first light on the Command deck:



Can't wait to devote all my time to this beauty!

Starting to look very, very promising!

I look forward to seeing it completed

Sweet.

Subscribed.

Thanks, guys. Getting finished with other projects is stalling this one. I hope to go full on with this one in about three weeks, but most likely not til early January.

This is going to be a good one.

wow, pretty lights

The thunderhawk has always been the ultimate model in any space marine army for me. I am not brave enough to scratchbuild one, however. If it ever comes out on plastic (if you were given a cent each time this is said...) it will be the centerpiece of my custom made chapter.

LED's for the LED god!

Look forwards to seeing the detailing these LED's are illuminating

OK, I have too many projects going on at once and people keep coming and checking this out. I have to get into this in about a week, I promise, Stay tuned it is coming.

no hurry bro

I'm sure it will be awesome when its done.

So, got into this again day before yesterday. Had to relook the method of lighting the top deck. Decided on a new course of action to be revealed tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on when I can get to Radio SHack again. Once the lighting inside is complete and stable, the rest of this bad boy will be done in about two or three weeks. Hoping to get this and a Mars Pattern I am doing for a friends birthday buy the thirtieth of this month. I am also working on the twin Lucian pattern Warhounds so be sure to keep up with that thread, too. Update coming tomorrow on all three.

Ok, update on this one is as follows:

Had some trouble with the magnets and soldering them to the power leads. So I decided that the lights didn't necessarily need to be integral to the top deck and have started building a wall set in to the Main Hull so that all the electrics can be contained therein.







The circut board made it easier to solder the lights into sequence and snapped apart easy enough to set each of them into place. It also made it easier to put them on the wire without risking breaking the leads on the LED's themselves.

I hope to have all the lights in and powered on the main hull NLT Thursday night. I will then start building the rest of the main hull around them, i.e. the command deck tray and lower interior panels (which will be on a seperate piece of Plasti-card for easier painting prior to installation into the main hull. The plan is to have the entire interior done prior to starting any of the exterior armor layers and detail. I am drawing up different sketches of the wings framing and engines to see what will be most sturdy. The last order of styrene tubing should be in Friday so that landing gear and the main gun will be stocked and ready when I get to the final stages of the build. Once final detail works thats when I will slow down a whole lot to get it right and good. Final detail will include the outer Armor layers and all the little gubbins that make it layered.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I do plan on finishing the other style of lighting with a different type of LED's. They are 21volt dash LED's designed to wire into the dash of a car. But at 20 bucks a set they aren't cost efficient or conducive to wingtip and Tail fin lights. because to wire another typw of single LED light into the system with the 12 volts on the same circuit would require some fancy circuitry and that is something I am not comfortable with. So, for now, this is how it will be. I am hoping that when I go to Springfield on the 15th of February I can find a custom car detail shop that has and can explain the usage of EL Wire. Then and only then will I know just how far I can and want to go with the electric models.

ohhh, cool idea for the walls... making them with a gap for wiring is a great idea.

EL wire is basically just a glowing string of wire hooked up to an inverter. What do you plan on using it for? It would look sweet as the coils of the thunderhawk's turbolaser... forget OSL on the coils, it glows by itself! Only problem I see with that is that when painting it, you'd have to mask that section off, otherwise you'd paint on the coils... its much easier to go back and just paint OSL effects on them.

Hell, thats going to be a problem for a lot of the painting, having to mask all the LED's before you spray them. Hmm... maybe a liquid masking agent would allow for that? Its no reason not to light it, it just requires a more innovative solution

Your planning (or thinking about) lighting the wingtips? Very cool idea!

The inverter thing is whats killing me. I really don't know much about electricity and LED's, just enough to know that the have to be wired right or they blow. I have a good book on the subject but haven't been ab;e to find any that are dumbed down enough on the subject of EL wire. I want a Plasma Blast Gun for my Warhounds that uses it.

The wingtips, tailfin and one on the front outer point each side. If I can get the Red LED's it will take. I think that I can.

The Painting isn't going to be as hard as you might think.

mxwllmdr wrote:The inverter thing is whats killing me. I really don't know much about electricity and LED's, just enough to know that the have to be wired right or they blow. I have a good book on the subject but haven't been ab;e to find any that are dumbed down enough on the subject of EL wire. I want a Plasma Blast Gun for my Warhounds that uses it.

The wingtips, tailfin and one on the front outer point each side. If I can get the Red LED's it will take. I think that I can.

The Painting isn't going to be as hard as you might think.

I wired some inverters into a computer case mod I made a while back, for EL wiring... it wasn't overly complicated from what I remember. The inverter had a positive and negative, and I just wired the inverter into a normal switch circuit. Something like this... http://www.xoxide.com/5ftgreenelca.html

It requires a 12v power supply, so 8 AA batteries wired in series would be sufficient to power it for a while. Just wire the negative to the black lead on the molex converter, and make the positive switched.

You can cut EL wire to length, but you gotta seal the end with some glue or something. I've used it in PC case mods back when that was all the rage in my high school days, its a pretty fun thing to work with.

8 AA's!?! Wow..... About how long could you run that straight? My idea for warhound weapons was to have the two cables that connect the weapons be leads and have power and on/off housed in the body of the warhound.

mxwllmdr wrote:8 AA's!?! Wow..... About how long could you run that straight? My idea for warhound weapons was to have the two cables that connect the weapons be leads and have power and on/off housed in the body of the warhound.

Well, I don't know too much about using batteries to power EL wire. You can also get EL wire strips that run off 2 AA's.

I have know idea about wiring, but all of the glowy bits sound awesome!

Capitansolstice wrote:I have know idea about wiring, but all of the glowy bits sound awesome!

It does, doesn't it? Now, just get some servos, and add retractable landing gear.

Let's not go too far, Horst..... Although a 1980's X-wing fighter is available on Ebay......hmmmm.......ummmmm.........i donno........





We'll see what happens.

mxwllmdr wrote:Let's not go too far, Horst..... Although a 1980's X-wing fighter is available on Ebay......hmmmm.......ummmmm.........i donno........





We'll see what happens.

I was joking. Lets also make the turbo laser fire.

You could put laser pointers inside the turbo lasers! You might just have to make the "pew, pew, pew" sounds yourself, unless you add a speaker, and play sounds from Star Wars!

If you do that, +10,000 internet points!

I actually have the little laser pointer diodes already. They run on a 9 volt. STOP PUSHING ME OR IT WILL NEVER BE DONE!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH