Building the Enterprise C by Don Matthys part 3

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White LEDs are used for anti collision Navigation strobes. These white LEDs are the T-1 variety 3 mm in diameter. You can turn down the diameter of the LED by chucking the LED evenly into the jaws of a mini lather or power drill. Make sure the LED is secured hand tight… even as so it will not wobble. They you can turn the LED down to 1 mm size by laying a file to cut it down to size. The 1 mm projection of the LED is very authentic to the scale of LED strobes.

The newly turned and resized Strobe LEDS are mounted aft of the Bridge, the bottom of the Engineering Hull and aft and top of the Warp Nacelles. A 1 mm wide hole is drilled through the kit plastic. From the inside, a counter sink hole of 3 mm is drill partially the way through for the main body of the LED. Go only as deep enough to the countersink to let the Strobe LEDs point to project through.

Controlling the blinking and flashing of running lights and strobe is the FFB Circuit kit. (Federation Flasher Board) Shown mounted center of the Primary Hull this circuit board will run the red (port) green (starboard) and white (bow light) with a IC555 timer chip. The four white LED strobe are controlled with their flash with a LM3909 LED blinker chip. Before final assembly and closure of the model a one last lighting check is made and the blink and flash rates are adjusted with two small potentiometers located on the FFB circuit board

Lighting the interior of the model is done by flooding the interior with white 5 mm LED lights. These are arranged to take advantage of the brightest and widest viewing angle to bounce white light off and around the painted white interior surfaces.

Shown in the picture of the interior of the Engineering Hull one LED faces to the rear and another faces to the front to cast their widest brightest light angle.

As seen in the darkened picture the true effect of the round cut EL Lamp wit its cool white even glow.

The AMT kits clear Deflector part was a substandard casting that had optical distortions and projections that did not lend itself well for an even glow of light. The kit part was sanded smooth polished and re-detailed with raise ribs made of half round Evergreen Plastics strips. A mold was made of RTV silicon rubber

To Be Continued…..

RESOURCES & MATERIALS USED:

Primer Coats Paint made by Duplicolor
White, Black and Dark Gray

EL Lamps by Miller Engineering

http://www.microstru.com/
#2504 – Experimenter’s Kit#4601 White 4″ x 6″ EL lamp

JKL EL Lamp Inverter from www.Digikey.com