20230520 For a Friend

20230520 For a Friend

Posted on | No Comments

Soldering this simple lighting system for the Razor Crest took me more than a week. Sad to say, it was far too long than I liked. However, coming back home tired and locking myself in the Works Room which felt like a sauna really sapped all the energy I had left. The heatwave has been going on for the past two weeks and it was really unbearable. Even the infra-red temperature (everyone used during the Covid Pandemic) showed temperatures between 34ºC to 36ºC from the Chair to the table.

So, I did the soldering and programming in little steps until it is done. Heck, this is much better progress than not doing anything at all. The reason I am doing this is because a friend of mine is doing his Revell Razor Crest at a much better speed than me and his debut date would be in mid-June. They way I see mine, it would be very well be sometime in September. In return, I will be getting his Cargo Bay which he will not be using.

WHAT’S WITH THE CARGO BAY?

There is something very special and fascinating about a lit interior of a scale model. I cannot put my finger on it as to why I am attracted to it. Maybe it was the museum exhibits or maybe when I was kit-bashing the interior of a clear toothbrush casing with Matchbox pilots and parts at a very young age. Yeah, I was doing that in the late 70’s and the term kit-bashing was unknown to me until decades later. I just wondered why I stopped later on.

Just like the Revell’s Type XXI Submarine which has an interior (and I’m still building it despite losing parts), I just love to place LEDs in there. Be it a diffused lighting simulating a bulb or a clear lens with its hot-spot highlighting the floor. The results creates subtle shadow plays, hidden details and so on. These are the things which to me, made the model alive and the observer more interested in the model. Or, maybe that I am just imagining things. Heh.

20230520 For a Friend
Basically, this was the design for lighting up the AMT Razor Crest. But once I got hold of the Revell copy, the circuit board evolved and was thus re-designed. I am not too familiar with this single Battery charger system but it requires a switch to activate it instead of a simple action of slotting in the battery. Also, it was too hot in the room for me to solder some wires to the USB meter to see how much current it is using. But I am guessing, based on the last test, it should be pulling about a quarter to a third of an Amp.
With the lights on, you have the engines complete with the pair of red LEDs, then there is the pair for red chin LEDs (bottom left) plus four LEDs for the cockpit, the main console and lastly, the door (bottom right). I needed to tweak the programming a little as well since the original PCB uses two different output ports for different lighting compared to the re-designed version.

UPDATE: THE MEET-UP

I now have the Cargo Bay in my hands and with some reconstruction of the ceiling (yellow) under the cockpit, I am ready to go. It was a great to meet up and and for once, we can discuss about scale model lighting. Still, there is a slight issue with one LED which I plan to solder another engine PCB for him and swap with him later. I suspect it is not the LED in question but, the resistor array which is a pain to solder. Maybe if I went the reflow route, this might not me much of an issue…

The Revell Cargo Bay consists of 7 parts but he has also given me the Carbonite Block clamps too. Can I scratch my own Carbonite slabs and add some choice victims or buy some .stl files and get them printed?

You can follow my friend on Instagram as secretrebelbase

Posted in A Piscean Works Blog, AMT, JLCPCB, Lighting, Microchip PIC, Microcontroller, Printed Circuit Board, Programming, Razor Crest, Revell Germany, Scale Lighting, Scale Models, Sci-Fi, Spaceships, Star Wars, The Mandalorian.

Leave a Reply