In the beginning
I always like to catch this Video once in a while. This was the very video which inspired me stubbornly finish the lighting effect and became my first (and most successful) product. IN the beginning, I did not take much notice of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series until the Scale Model of the MkII Viper arrived around 2011 was sold out within 30 minutes. Honestly, I never did find the Vipers appealing until the beautiful MkII came into the picture and showed off its maneuvering capabilities.
The Tylium flicker
At that time, the plan to produce my First Lighting system, which was the Strobe and Navigation lights module for the Star Trek Enterprise/s has already started. Although the Mk II Vipers were beautiful, the lighting was relegated to the three thrusters and the cockpit, which reminds me of a normal, boring, jet plane. That is, until I saw Katee Sachoff’s Video on receiving her QMX ‘Starbucks’ Viper. The flickering of the three thrusters has somehow convinced me to delay the Star Trek module.
The need to mimic that flicker effect was quite consuming but it needs to be slightly different and hence, the twist. The story is that the only fuel source in that Galaxy is the Tylium, which was mined from ores, refined to powder form and eventually refined further into liquid fuel. Throughout the stages, small contaminants or minute percentages of impurities would be introduced into some batches. The result would be some noticeable but brief ‘failure to ignite’ sequences to show that the fuel is not perfect.
Everyone praise the PWM
The effect I am looking for, is a fast flickering effect, which even a simple off-the-shelf solution could not replicate. All they could do was to make the LED blink very fast. Unfortunately, that was the extend of my software knowledge with the Flowcode. To be honest, I do not know much about assembly language neither as programming is not my strongest skill. In the end, the internet gave me a solution; PWM (aka Pulse Width Modulation).
Basically, the PWM concept is to switch the LEDs on and off but in a much faster fashion, and with varying degree of delays. Using this new technique, I was able to create individual flickering pattern for each of the three thrusters. It is not exactly perfect (hey, copyright) but to me, it is good enough. The only problem is that PWM flicker mucks up the camera’s image or video when you take them but otherwise, it is OK on the eyes.
I did, what?
OK, about this part, I am not sure if this was true as I heard if from a good friend of mine whose knows a lot of things by searching/ trawling through the Internet. Though my Lighting Systems sold out fast, there were some great disturbance in the Force. And eventually, I did notice a few things within that period, which, is great news for the Customer but worries me. The fear of rocking the boat did come to my mind.
The changes in the Land
Not understanding what was happening, I noticed that in some Websites or Ads selling the lighting kits, they are suddenly termed as ‘ready to run’ or ‘plug & play’. I suppose, this was the effect or change that I have initiated. Long ago, before I decided to venture out into selling my lighting solutions, I did trawl the Internet & Forums to, as one would say, ‘read the room’. I discovered that those who had purchased lighting kits discovered that they were… actually, lighting kits. Kits which requires an Electronics Degree or, hours of soldering experience. This became a problem to the Company (let’s call him the Guy as I’m really tired of typing by now) if the Customer does not know how to solder, wrongly identifies & soldered the wrong component, burnt or shorted the printed circuit board. The Guy would then have to walk the Customer through to troubleshoot the issue and in some cases, offered a replacement out of goodwill. The Guy would need to go into various Forums or Facebook to ‘patrol’ if there are any of their Customers having issues 24/7 i.e., putting out fires. Being the person that I am, and trying to juggle all that while keeping with my Day Job, it can be overwhelmingly exhausting. Furthermore, since I live at the other part of the World, any return shipping or any shipping at all will definitely kill off the whole thing.
The Sacrifice
The only option opened to me was to endure a few weeks of hand-soldering all my systems and make it ‘ready to run’. Plus, I would only sell what I have and not ‘promise’ future stocks for those who want to wait in line. I believe that a Scale Modeler only needs to worry about the construction of the Kit, how to paint it and worry about getting a Degree in Electronics (but it helps). This way, it would encourage them to venture deeper into lighting, learn from it and not see it as a boogie-man of sorts. By going down this path, I would have potentially minimised a lot of issues.
And boy, those solder fumes can either make you think of a lot of unrelated stuff or, well, have a big headache…
