BS-75: Side ribs part 02

Another reminder, folks. This is just to explore the lighting possibilities and its not a confirmed thing. So, don't blame me if your model kit catches fire or explodes and everything lands on the cat which then runs out screaming with its fur on fire and burnt your neighbour's house down. OK, so its a bit far-fetched since not everyone has a cat.

And so, one last post before I wait for the Wife and kids to come back home.

What I am doing here is to see which type of LED would be effective in creating that six red spots on the Battlestar's ribs. Again, if you see the screen shots of the TV series, these red spots are very faint but enough to show up when the ribs are in shadows. Lets try to recreate these effect using the LEDs I have.

I have set up the test rig to test the three red LEDs. Its a very simple test. All I have to do is to see which LED gives the best effect through a 0.8mm hole. Yes, we're (me and the Cat Hotel Man) will not be so barbaric in the sense of drilling six 3mm holes. No, Sir. We're going to go nuts and drill 0.8mm holes and align the LEDs until they give that perfect effect.

So as not to confuse myself and everyone who reads this blog, I have masked all the other holes leaving only one, which we shall call it, "Test Cavity #628A". Test Cavity #628A has a hole of 0.8mm, which, is big enough for the 3mm LEDs and small enough not to be an odd-thing on the model kit.

Right. Let's begin. Which LED will give the best result? The normally bright red LED with the diffused lens on the left or the extremely bright red LED with clear lens on the right? The test will be in two parts for each LED. The first will be the normal test of suspending it on top of the test rig to simulate that barbaric 3mm hole. The second test would be to position and align the LEDs into the 0.8 hole of Test Cavity #628A.

Let's test the red LED with the diffused lens. Here, when it is lit normally, the LED gives a very large spread of light and because of the diffused lens, the area is well flooded.

Once I align it to Test Cavity #628A, the effect is quite subtle, almost as close to what you see in the actual CGI ship. So, this is good. But what about the other two LEDs?


This is the red LED with the clear lens. It is very bright and its the same one I tested for the engines. But here, its too bright and note the red spot it created. For a model needing spotlight, this would be it but here, its too extreme.

This is the test result when I aligned it to Test Cavity #628A. Its so bright, the effect is like a laser spot. So, this LED is out.

Lastly, this is a surface mount LED which I was discussing with The Man who owns a Cat Hotel. The LED is about 1mm x 2mm, which is very small. As you can see here, it took me a very long time to solder it onto the test pins. And out of one successful LED, three were killed in the process.

So, let's put it to the test since I was advocating for this LED for weeks. Sadly, this result is already not a good sign.

On Test Cavity #628A, the result is less than stellar. In truth, I was hoping for it to fail because the amount of soldering required and its high failure rate. And using wires to connect them, this would make the whole circuit very fragile. Not only that, you would still have to use a pair of tweezers to align the lens of the LED, which is very troublesome and frustrating.

Still, this is the best of the lot and maybe, I might drill a wider hole to act as a receptor for the LED's lens and also, so that the LED can rotate about until I get the six spots all properly aligned. Its not easy to accept this LED since initially, from what The Cat Hotel Man told me, there is not enough space between the ribs and the actual body of the model. Fortunately, this picture says otherwise. But the real result will be when I actually get a drill since I do not have a drill anymore. Heck, I even lost the pin-vice long ago.

Still, all is not lost because if you see from the picture above, the penciled dots are where I wanted the holes to be. So, if I moved about 5mm inwards, I would still have the space I need, provided the angle of drilling is correct.

And as for the metal stickers I got from tkting last night, well, its on hold for the moment because after looking at the engine's clear part, it already has those round mesh moulded in. But I am not doing to dismiss the rectangle ones as they could be perfect for the model. If this is really metal, I could then create a more realistic battle damage by bending or warping the metal sticker itself. That is, if it is actually metal....