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.

After looking at and falling in love with the new knight kits I decided that if i am going to do a stupid expensive army I might as well go and make it even more expensive.

I picked up my first 2 knights this weekend and ordered the LED kits to light them up.

Getting the LED kits from http://lifelites.com/products/list/1
I ordered 4 of the "eLite Jr. Signature Kit" so i can do 2 per knight. 1 board for static lights and 1 for flickering lights.
The plan is 1 green LED behind the eyes and then 1 red LED in each exhaust pipe, 1 under each side of the top chassis vents and 1 in the barrel of the main gun.
The gun and eyes will be on solid and the engine/exhaust lights will be set to flicker like fire.

The LEDs and control boards added another 40$ per knight. 80$ total for the 2 included priority mail shipping. Hopefully they ship this monday and i get them before friday.

Right now I am planning the wiring path, looks like 4 up 1 leg and 3 up the other leg and it should fit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So far I drilled out all the vents, holes, and eyes to get the LED lights to shine through. After holding them up to my lamp I am feeling very positive about this project.

Great, I plan on making this thread filled with pics...

Primed everything on the sprue to make it easier later on. Drilled out all the LED wire paths and planned the layout paths now.
Only thing left to do is get the LEDs in the mail and see how thick the wires are. The site says the LED itself will fit through a 3mm wide hole but 4 wires thick in the legs will be a tight fit still.

 Felmid wrote:
I am really interested to see how the LED's work out, of course I am sure it will be a challenge to photograph properly. I actually already own some LED lights and might try this as well. Please post any issues that you had to overcome. Looking forward to seeing the progress photos.

So far the biggest hurdle was carving out the head so both eyes can get light from the center hole. Then also setting up the exhaust so the LED will fit inside them.

The biggest challenge i foresee is the the legs, the shins are a bit thin.

I started painting everything up last night. Base coating all the pieces with my air brush. Ran out of silver and of course black wash was already empty, so it looks like a FLGS run for me after work.

Everything is fitting together nicely. I test fit the head and shell on, and now that some pieces are base coated I glued on the shoulder pads and heavy stubber since they wont be in the way of any of my wiring.

http://lifelites.com/ shipped my LED kits out yesterday and with USPS priority mail they should be here by thursday or friday. Then I can really start having fun.

Water transfers are a go, micro sol and micro set are a must. Watermarks went on with minimal fuss since the shoulders are such a shallow curve. much easier then doing tiny marine shoulders,

Woohoo LED kits came in today.

LEDs are all installed... fingers covered in glue... such a pain but it looks so much cooler now.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it.. this is turning into a real labor of love. Once I have it all put together I will make a video of it to show off exactly what I have the LEDs setup to do. The boards from Lifelites have multiple settings and i decided to have them all set to flicker like fire. Looks great on the table in normal light but looks seriously awesome in the dark too.

My wife was making fun of me this morning as she caught me going pew pew pew while playing in the dark with it.

Also make sure you are happy with the position of your LEDs when you glue them in, they are incredibly fragile and there is only 5 or so strands of copper filament in the wire so it will tear easily. I had to solder the LED for the head because when I glued it in I put it to far forward and one eye was brighter then the other.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Wait, they made a new base size? So how tall is this thing exactly, 6" or 8"?

I measure just over 6 inches tall

Found some foam around the office to cut out and house/conceal the controls on the bottom of the base. This should work until i can bust out the saw and make a nice wooden base to glue the model down to.

 Galorn wrote:

 Lord_Mortis wrote:
Looks awesome! Very cool stuff. Although the foam base kind of looks "odd" to me. I would suggest running the led wires back up through the base and making a "scenic base" to hide the controls. Maybe disguise them in some sort of ruins or cargo container or something.

An Ammo crate or a pair of crates would hide the box it looks like.

Thats what I am leaning towards now after spending the whole day looking at them. I was originally going to make a wooden base with carved edge like i and most people do for super heavies but i dont know if i will ever get around to it.

Airbrushed on highlights for all the blue tonight and started painting the 2nd knight before I put the wiring in.

And its complete I made a video to show off the full effect

mullet_steve wrote:
very nice, I have found some Led's that switch between three colors and have plans to hide them in and around my Kinght, I am also thinking that some sort of warning light may have to be mounted someplace and yeah flashing LED's for guns, I was thinking flashing blue LEd's for my engine bay though.

I would have been tempted to prime and paint those battery boxes and mount them visibly on the base as techno rubbish rather then hide them away

I am about to do 2 more knights for a friend who liked mine so much. With his im gonna try and see if I can fit the control boards inside the torso some how. I think if the boards are not in the little blue bricks they should be able to fit inside the torso and then I just wont glue the top on.

I just finished my 2nd knight assembly and wiring. Now I just need to at water transfers and finish all the small detail painting.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Nice Job the only gripe i have is, the foam, why not make a scenic base and hide it there like a imperial building or similar.

The more I think about it and with more feedback I am leaning towards pulling the wires from under the base and putting them above and obscuring them with terrain. Just trying to think of the best way to do it without it looking to obvious. Right now I have actually replaced the foam with a wooden base which gives it more a of a display look.

Ok the 2 knights I was working on are now finished and sold to a friend so I could get more knights
I now have 5 knights, 3 of which are mostly done, 1 in the works and 1 in planning stages. I am painting each one a different house so I can have a red, green, blue, black, and yellow one (go grim dark vultron).

I am only going to wire one of them with lights this time. For my knight army I am painting my warlord up as the obsidian knight. Im going to try and get a bit more extensive with the placement of LEDs as well as find a way to mount the control boards inside the torso.

As an added bit of shiny to really make my warlord stand out, I am building a cockpit and going to have the obsidian knight pilot standing in the chair giving the finger and smoking a cigar.

How my vision turned out.. modeling and green stuff work is done. just finished the base coating.