With nothing much on my plate today, I decided to have another look at the Engines while the revised PCB are on its way. This is because the current board had a missing link to the power rail. Plus, since I have connected the 5mm LED to WW1, the sixth solder pad is free which I decided to connect them to the pair of red navigation LEDs. So, instead of 10 wires going into the engine pods, I would have 6 instead.
TESTING ON A RAINY AFTERNOON
It’s raining for hours today, reflecting my mood since I have resigned. So let me tell you a little more about this Project for lighting the Razor Crest. In reality, a lot of Star Wars spaceships, apart from the Tydirium Shuttle (and maybe more now), have lights that does not blink nor flicker. So I when the Razor Crest model kit came out, against my better judgement, I wanted to light it up. Sadly, the Revel version which came out first was very difficult to obtain due to it being expensive or, not many wanted to ship to Malaysia. The model has crisp details and a cargo bay, which I so wanted. But its engines would need a lot of work since it was not designed for lighting. Although there are third-party 3D printed parts available, my Wallet preferred I injure my hands instead if push comes to shove.
A year later, the AMT version came out but its details was not something to shout about. A small hump (for the base) killed any plans to put a cargo bay in there without extensive plastic surgery. Still, it has Grogu in the Cockpit but and it was designed for lighting (no drilling, hooray). Not only that, it was readily available. The moment Starship Modeler made the announced, I clicked ‘Buy‘.
THE TWO DIFFERENT MODES
Coming back to the lighting issue, anyone, I mean, anyone can light this model up, by using either a bright LED with some reflectors (cannibalise a torchlight) or even using those ultra-bright and hot COB LEDs (if you can find those using 5 volts and has a 39mm diameter). I am not sure what made me design the lighting system in the first place. Oh yeah, the lighting the interior cargo bay was the main attraction and purpose.
In the first place, there is nothing special about lighting this mode as most of the lights are static. But throughout each episode where the Razor Crests engines were shown, they emit hot gases. So, this can be done with LEDs using flickering method! So now, the idea is to allow the model to have two different lighting modes:
- Startup Mode or when the Razor Crest is flying, and
- Standby Mode, when the Razor Crest has landed.
THE PRELIMINARY TEST
The following images are the actual stress test using the Main Board v02 and Engine Boards v03. I have yet to connect the other white LEDs for the cockpit and the red navigation and chin lights. As I go along, I might want to re-design the Main Board as I think it is sensible to include the lighting for the landing gears too. Just as soon as I look at the model kit and the Series once again, that is.
Until I get a more reliable reading, this simple test using a questionable battery pack and a spoilt USB tester, this circuit is consuming about 7xx mA which is a third of the theoretical value. (Someone want to give me brand new Bench Power supply an dno more PC PSUs?)
The reason for such drastic reduction of current consumption is because I am using PWM to control the LEDs.
