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Munga wrote:
I'm groaning at this one. It's far too easy to do this yourself. I agree with Charax. In fact, to hell with it. You guys kickstart this so I can open a competing company selling the same 3 bucks worth of parts for 20 bucks.

If it is so easy to do how come no one does it? I have been to over 100 tournaments from coast-to-coast in the US and I have seen less than 5 people use LEDs.

I looked into it, and it is a major hassle and requires equipment and some know-how. If you have both, then great, because you do not need this product. I, on the other hand, would love a simple kit that would be easy for me to use.

Now the bad news...this kickstarter is a mess. Who wants a t-shirt? People who want this product are the ones who will give you money, not ones who want a t-shirt. Also what is up with the $100 pledge? $100.00 is a sweet spot where you are getting decent money, but not too much where it hurts the wallet and you throw it away with a haiku?

So if I wanted your kits, and I wanted to give you $100 and seeing that I do not want a poem, I would then go down to $50.00 pledge. Then after reading what you get is the $30 kit + a T-shirt I would then only give you $30.00.

So I am going to pledge to you $30.00. Way to go, you just lost out on $70.00.

You might be engineers or hobbyists, but you are not marketers.

 Blackmoor wrote:

Munga wrote:
I'm groaning at this one. It's far too easy to do this yourself. I agree with Charax. In fact, to hell with it. You guys kickstart this so I can open a competing company selling the same 3 bucks worth of parts for 20 bucks.

If it is so easy to do how come no one does it? I have been to over 100 tournaments from coast-to-coast in the US and I have seen less than 5 people use LEDs.

I looked into it, and it is a major hassle and requires equipment and some know-how. If you have both, then great, because you do not need this product. I, on the other hand, would love a simple kit that would be easy for me to use.

Because they don't look in the right place maybe?

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/mi.html

$7.75 for a battery holder (disc size - about as big as a nickel), a micro switch (to turn it off when not in use without having to futz with removing the batteries), a couple of 1.8 mm LEDs (small enough to hide in the barrel of a lascannon or lights on various vehicles) and heat shrink to finish it off and avoid having to solder. They also sell prewired colored LEDs in 1.8, 3 and 5mm sizes for $2.25 as well if you want to use a color other than white light. If you are really adventurous you can even go with some of the nano chip LEDs which are about 1/2x1mm that you can hide on figures.

No engineering, nothing complicated. The voltage of the battery matches the power consumption of the LED. Since disc batteries have a high internal resistance you do not need to regulate the current with a resistor or any math relating to series/parallel voltage drops and the like. Each battery is capable of driving 6 LEDs at full brightness for roughly 12 hours time. All you need to do is drill/cut an area to run the wires, slide the wires through, trim them to length, strip the ends of the leads, twist together, heat shrink and done.

This is a bit like Instant Mold. It is a product that has existed for decades - but it seems that not too many people were familiar with Friendly Plastic.

We have been told (in no uncertain terms) that our previous stretch goals were less than inspiring.

Thank you, we love the input.

So we responded.

Stretch Goal # 1 – Smaller Battery – $70,000

We have designed a 9v battery pack that is smaller than a AAA battery.

When we reach this goal everyone that supports at the Army Level or above will receive (for free) one of these battery packs with their rewards in July.

Stretch Goal #2 – 40mm Powered Base – $140,000

We have designed a lighting system that is powered by the base the model sits on

• Supports up to three LEDs

• Utilizes a microcontroller to extend battery life and

• Has multiple effects options for each LED

• Only 1.5mm taller than the typical 40mm base

When we reach this goal everyone that supports at the Army Level or above will receive (for free) one of these 40mm Powered Bases for free with their rewards. This reward will ship in August.

Thank you for your support

Chris Wessling

 chris_valera wrote:
This is a very cool idea. Maybe add an extended tutorial on how to add lights to a GW model.

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

Hey Chris, Great idea. Check out ourhttp://poweredplay.net/?p=193] tutorial on our blog of how we lit our Vendetta (image below) and also our YouTube channel that has a tutorial on the modular effects on the Rhino/Predator/Razorback Chassis.




We have more coming. Got a request for a specific demo?

Cheers!
Chris Michaels

@ Blackmoor

Kickstarter played havoc with our tiered backer rewards because we were categorized as Technology/Hardware rather than Tabletop Gaming.

We changed to Tabletop Gaming this morning and I hope to get the OK from Kickstarter to return to the tiered reward levels.

The poem? Yeah... seemed like a good idea at the time...

 Blackmoor wrote:

Munga wrote:
I'm groaning at this one. It's far too easy to do this yourself. I agree with Charax. In fact, to hell with it. You guys kickstart this so I can open a competing company selling the same 3 bucks worth of parts for 20 bucks.

If it is so easy to do how come no one does it? I have been to over 100 tournaments from coast-to-coast in the US and I have seen less than 5 people use LEDs.

I looked into it, and it is a major hassle and requires equipment and some know-how. If you have both, then great, because you do not need this product. I, on the other hand, would love a simple kit that would be easy for me to use.

Now the bad news...this kickstarter is a mess. Who wants a t-shirt? People who want this product are the ones who will give you money, not ones who want a t-shirt. Also what is up with the $100 pledge? $100.00 is a sweet spot where you are getting decent money, but not too much where it hurts the wallet and you throw it away with a haiku?

So if I wanted your kits, and I wanted to give you $100 and seeing that I do not want a poem, I would then go down to $50.00 pledge. Then after reading what you get is the $30 kit + a T-shirt I would then only give you $30.00.

So I am going to pledge to you $30.00. Way to go, you just lost out on $70.00.

Hey, Thanks for the great feedback. We actually had about 7 other levels, including one at $100, which allowed people to order different quantities of the product. The problem is that Kickstarter doesn't let us make multiple levels for pre-orders. They actually denied us the first time we submitted because of that. They literally came to us and said:

"• Creators can only offer one of a single item or one sensible unit of multiple items. For example, if you had a drinking glasses project, you could choose to offer 1 glass per reward tier, or if a set makes more sense, 1 set of 4 for each tier. You could not offer 1 glass in one tier and 4 in another tier. "

So, we created the individual levels for the spotlight kit, and alpha kits, and created the set level for the "Army" kits.

We do hope to have a $100 level coming out soon as a number of people have said that they want us to create a "set" around there - so we're working with KS to identify a set at that price point.

Thanks again for the thoughts and support!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, for everyone who asked, we'e updated our levels to include a $50 and $100 level - AND a limited quantity with a bonus of color packs!

For $50, you get an Alpha Kit (PC Board, Battery Cable and choice of 5 Lighting strings of any available color) + a Spotlight Kit (PC Board, Battery Cable, 1 White 5MM LED string and 1 Yellow LED String). For early adopters, we have a limited number that come with a bonus color pack (2 LED strings of any available color)! That's up to 9 LED strings and two boards!

For $100, you get 2X - and there's a limited number of double bonus strings. All of which is perfect for a small battalion of vehicles, or large terrain. We'll update with more options, shortly.

It is good to see that you added more lighting products to the $50 and $100 pledge levels.

I want you guys to succeed, and this should help out. You should get some extra traffic at Adepticon and the new pledge levels will give people value who are interested in your products.

@ Blackmoor

Thanks much.

I messed up and listed our project as Technology instead of Tabletop Gaming which caused quite a few problems over the last few days. we got permission to change the project to Tabletop Gaming, giving us much more flexibility in how we offer rewards.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@ Sean

Regarding batteries.

I captured the thought process that led to using a 9v battery here.

The summary:
We looked at the AA, AAA, CR2032 and the 9v

We chose the 9v battery because it offered the best compromise between size, capacity and cost.

Size – The 9v has a smaller footprint than 2 AAs and effectively the same as 2 AAAs, leaving the 9v and the CR2032 for further consideration
Capacity – Has the discharge rate to support many LEDs and will run from 53 to 80 hours powering 6 LEDs as opposed to 10-12 hours for the CR2032 powering the same 6 LEDs
Cost – 9v batteries are widely available. Relative battery life reduces cost of ownership when compared to cr2032.

Also, there are smaller battery pack options coming down the pipe for both vehicles and based miniatures.
-----
I welcome any and all feedback.

Chris,

Thanks for letting us know your thoughts on why you chose the battery size you did.

On a personal note, for me the size is a much greater consideration. I suspect that a great many modellers here on DakkaDakka are used to the 28mm heroic scale as used by GW or things like the Bandai 1:35 scale MG kits of Japanese mecha, and the restricted spaces required to run lights in these sorts of models. I own one of the 1:35 scale Patlabor models by this company that comes with a small circuit board and a battery holder which is placed in the rear torso to run the flashing patrol lamps in the shoulders.

I have also already stated my desire to run both continuous and flashing lights in my Crusader Leviathan, but the big thing for me is the fact that I just can't envision runing 6 LED's from a single battery for between 53 and 80 hours. I firmly believe you are grossly overestimating how long these things will be run for (Within the wargaming and occasional activation to show off to friends or at a model show that would be the norm for a forum such as this). I would happily buy whatever was required to get a set from you that would run off a single CR2032 to power 2 LEDs in a single green colour for a cockpit set-up and two sets of a single red flasher also powered by a single CR2032. The run time I would consider more than enough if it ran for 10 hours as I would not be considering running them for more than an hour at a time, and even then only if it had to be left for judging at a model show. Other than that, I would not envision having them on for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

It could also be conceived that with CR2032 power systems people could put lighting systems within the track sections of such kits as the GW Rhino troop transport and still have room for a complete interior and driver compartment by magnetising one of the exterior hatches to give access to the battery and switch to turn the lights on.

Hope this single modeller's views can help you in future, and wishing you all the best with this project.

@Conrad

Thanks for the feedback.

What it looks like is that there are applications people have in mind for lighting and they need the small battery for it.

We're definitely listening and have shifted our product development timeline in response.
If you could bear with me through some boring stuff I'll show how we get so many hours out of the 9v battery. Let's take the case of 6 LEDs of whatever color.

CR2032

The CR2032 is a 3v battery that varies depending on manufacturer (190 to 290 mAh). The best one I can get at the local drugstore has a 240mAh capacity.

LEDs require either 2v or 3v to run, depending on color. From experience they seem to run at/about 1.8v and 2.7v respectively; although this varies by manufacturer and color.

Since the CR2032 is a 3v battery each LED must be run in parallel; which means that each LED draws it's current separate from each of the other LEDs. For the sake of this discussion and to keep all things equal let's assume each LED draws 5 mA.

For the 6 LEDs in parallel the total current draw is 6*5mA=30mA

The CR2032 has a capacity of 240 mAh or 240miili-Amp-hours

If we divide the batter's 240mAh by 30mA (the current draw of 6 LEDs in parallel) we get 8 hours. This seems to be in line with your experience and is definitely in line with our testing.

Why does the CR2032 actually last 10 to 12 hours instead of just 8? Because 5mA is a round number and the numbers in the datasheets for batteries are representative and conservative. Of course if a lower quality battery is chosen the life can drop by up to 1/3.

9v

The 9v battery that has a capacity that varies widely. The typical lithium batteries have between 800 and 1200mAh, while the alkaline batteries have far less, in the 565mAh range (for Duracell).

To compare relatively equivalently (good CR2032 to good 9v battery) I use the lithium batteries. The one I can buy at the same drugstore has an 800mAh capacity.

Take the same 6 LEDs and run them in parallel (30mAh) divide that into 800mAh and we get 26.667 hours.

However the LEDs in our system do not all run in parallel. Each lighting string contains 2 LEDs (and can have up to 4 LEDs based on the needs/wants of the community) running in series so the current draw is cut in half (reduced from 30mA to 15mA).

800mAh/15mA = 53.333 hours

Using the worst batteries available (alkaline) we would still get 565mAh/15mA= 37.667 hours

[color=green]But why stop at 6 LEDs[color]

The current kit was designed with the larger vehicles and terrain in mind.

The kit has 4 slots for which currently supports up to 8 lights.

However we can build strings with even more LEDs in series, three of some colors and four of others, for applications where even more lights are desired.

Let’s take for instance something like the Fortress of Redemption (or any other large building for that matter). Here’s a model that could benefits from the generous use of lights. The fortress has four spot lights, multiple gun slits, lascannons and a potentially lit walkway going around it. Here we could use what will soon be (new lighting strings coming in August) the full complement of 12 to 16 LEDs (depending on color) lit from one kit. That’s four strings with either three or four LEDs running in series on each string.

12 to 16 LEDs that would run for 40 to 60 hours on one 9v battery (lithium).

Chris,

I think you may have misunderstood my previous post. I have never doubted the figures you have given as to why you went with the 9V power supply, and I can see their usefulness in certain situations. However, as I stated in my personal situation, it is just too much. All I need is a single set of two LEDs at the most running off a battery, so this tripples your expected battery lifespan. I do not expect to have lights running over an entire game lasting several hours, nor do I expect to have it lit up in a store window somewhere during the day, overnight, or at weekends. It's something I might need to leave on for an hour or so for a judging at a model show, or for a few minutes showing to friends before the game starts.

Your stated lifespan of a CR2032 now becomes 32 hours, a 9V becomes 113 to 160 hours. As I personally do not expect to use the lights for more than, let's be generous here, 5 hours per year, that means a CR2032 lasts me 6 years and a 9V would last between 22 and 32 years - provided of course the battery hadn't decayed in that time.

Even with your original 6 LEDs running off the battery, the CR2032's 8-10 hours would probably last me 2 years, the 9V between 7 and 10 years.

Take a quick look at the model I am talking about, the Leviathan crusader from http://www.dreamforge-games.com/catalog/ . The Vulkan cannon, like the other arms for this model, is removable. This limits me to what I can basically get in the ammo hopper at the back, which is a couple of cm square at best. As the arms are removable, having LEDs powered from the torso will not be much of an option for me as I don't want to fuss around with 3.5mm jack plugs and sockets in the arms.

This is why I stated that " I just can't envision runing 6 LED's from a single battery for between 53 and 80 hours". I was not stating that I didn't belive a battery would last that long, but that I didn't believe the vast majority of people would require it to do so.

Gary.

I'm guessing if the Kickstarter fails I'd be unable to purchas these? Thats rough.

I had signed up for the freebie giveaway a while back, received a email back which I thought said your out of luck. They were trying to get samples out there for people to see first hand. When the kickstarter popped up I was sure I was one of the people too late for the freebie, they said only the first xx would get some.

Today in the mailbox....supply drop!


Picture might not be that great, but the product works great. I think it will fit in my dreamforge leviathan crusader.

Thanks guys

Tried the kit out with the crusader, unfortunately the batter doesn't fit, definitely need the other power pack.

 Newabortion wrote:
I'm guessing if the Kickstarter fails I'd be unable to purchas these? Thats rough.

Not at all. If the Kickstarter doesn't go through, we're absolutely moving forward with our production run, just a smaller run. Additionally, while we were at Adepticon, we officially signed on a number of retailers who are placing orders, including one of the largest tabletop and miniature online retailers in the world. We'll be announcing that in the next day or two.

Most importantly, if you or anyone supports at the $125 level, you'll automatically be enrolled in our BETA program - even if Kickstarter doesn't go through. That means, as soon as we roll out a new product, be it smoke, sound, an effects multicontroller, powered bases, small vehicle kits, you're going to get one a month before anyone else. That's about $800 of product we're going to send you for free!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Theophony wrote:

Tried the kit out with the crusader, unfortunately the batter doesn't fit, definitely need the other power pack.

We'll get one out to you in the mail.

Great meeting you guys at Adepticon. Those LED sets are going to be so useful for mocking up reference images for OSL models. Keep up the awesome work.
Vic.

Excited to hear about what's coming down the pipeline. one thing that i would suggest though is to move the on/off switch to its own side. Right now there's no way to set it up with the on/off switch being outside of a model, your forced to open a door or hatch to get to the switch and close I back up. Otherwise these are sweet. Looking forward to getting that smaller battery.

 Blackmoor wrote:

Munga wrote:
I'm groaning at this one. It's far too easy to do this yourself. I agree with Charax. In fact, to hell with it. You guys kickstart this so I can open a competing company selling the same 3 bucks worth of parts for 20 bucks.

If it is so easy to do how come no one does it? I have been to over 100 tournaments from coast-to-coast in the US and I have seen less than 5 people use LEDs.

I looked into it, and it is a major hassle and requires equipment and some know-how. If you have both, then great, because you do not need this product. I, on the other hand, would love a simple kit that would be easy for me to use.

For me, it's a question of effort. The hardest part is drilling all the holes to run the wires. This kit does not (and really cannot) mitigate that.

Oh gak. Holy gak. Guys, you need to make one of your stretch goals be some sort of non-lead conductive paint that can be painted on UNDER real paint to get to LEDs without needing to run wires at all times, along with some wire attachments that can be glued into the paint. I'm picturing something similar to the repair kits you can get for the lines for the rear window defrost on cars, but with less resistance.

Well, I wasn't expecting this today, although they emailed me to let me know they were sending it last week.

Supply drop. Some of my newfound love. Lights for my models. In this case a prototype 9 volt. Yes PROTOTYPE! I know they are putting them into production but I got it now . This is for the poweredplay.net kits that I got last week. They were sad to see the battery did not fit into my crusader, so they sent this smaller battery pack to see if this would work.

New 9volt size.


Into the leviathan it goes. Quick mockup, no holes drilled. Just have to figure where to put the other two strands I have, I have white, and red, also think I might have a purple strand. The smokestacks have orange in each one, if only they flickered.


I like these kits a lot, hoping for big things from these guys.

Thanks,
John