Oh!pEnions: Battlestar Galactica

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Product #2 - Will it come out?

Bear with me. I just need to vent out because I am very disappointed with the progress and help. Also, I think this is my swansong on the world of modeling & electronics.

OK. I am back on track or rather, sort of. This is my second product. I was scheduling it to be released by September this year but now, it seems to be too optimistic. To be honest, it should have been out in August. I cannot use the excuse of my Mom anymore nor my sudden depression.

To tell you the truth, my business venture is a failure. I was initially so excited when we were doing the first product which is for a Cylon Raider. A lot of delays and missed opportunities happened. And in the end, I am very frustrated that the kit is not selling as well as I thought it would be and I still do not have a fully painted model to show. I was such a fool to believe in all the Sales talk. And I am months behind in my Bills. As predicted, my car would be the first to go. Its alright for the rest of them because they have a job and so, they can take their own sweet time do help me. Or not. It is very frustrating to be given excuses again and again why there were so many delays. I really feel like a dog, waiting at the table, begging for favours. Oh, if only I had an airbrush or even a proper place to cast resins!

And so, I am actually having second thoughts about coming up with the second product. It took me so long as I was literally scraping up enough cash to pay for the prototyping. But let me show you what I have done so far...

This is the 'teaser' video which we have put out quite sometime ago.

I have reworked the circuit by adding in more components. The end result is that the leftmost LED is now very bright. But the additional components now makes the circuit board very dense.

Although the circuit diagram looks very simple, its the design of the board that is important.

My initial spec was to use normal components which would speed up manufacturing times but now, I have to resort back to using SMD components. Here, you can see the size difference between a normal transistor (Left) and its SMD counterpart (right)

Initial mockup of the board looks promising. Just a little tweak here and there.

This is a what if should the user decides to mount the board on the sloping bottom. Not encouraged.

And this is how the board mounts on the other model

So far, I have checked and made sure the circuit is correct before sending them off to be prototyped. With any luck, it should be ready for me to work on it by next week. But i think, that is as far as I can go with this there are a few problems which is stopping me:

1. No money. For the first product, it wiped out some four figure sum which left me broke. So, for this product, the startup cost would be the same if not, more. Where to get the money? I am not sure. I was planning on the first product being able to help but I was wrong. All it got me was a month's grace on my car's installment.

2. The special surprise is not ready and I have not heard from them yet. The first guy is waiting for his cheque and the second guy, well, I do not want to elaborate. All I need is just to test if the part can reflect light and if it works, I will work out a business deal with you. Its that simple.

3. I hate asking people for help. It took me more than four months and there is still nothing to show. In fact, this is the greatest obstacle I am facing. If you cannot do it or this is not on your priority list, at least tell me earlier. Don't disappoint me every time I come to see you. Yes, I have COME to see you. I need YOUR help. I am BEGGING you. And it is not easy for me to keep on smiling amd listening to your whims and stories while being slapped on the face.

My Wife sums it all up when I talked to her, "Are you really sure you want to do this, again?"

You know, I think I should stop all this and start looking for a job. No more model kits. Even if there is, I will do it for myself. The first product was very difficult to assemble and is labour intensive. I mean, what is the point of telling me that everyone will buy and I am getting famous, etc when at the end of the day, the kits are stockpiling behind me.

What is the frakking point?

My new SMD soldering jig

Actually, this came to me by accident. I knew that with so many Cylon Raider PCBs that needs to be soldered, the normal way of sticking it to a piece of double-sided tape and making them less tacky does not work anymore. So, I have to think big, as in production line big. But how?

The first idea was to have a turntable. This would solve my first problem of the double-sided tape. It is very troublesome and time consuming ripping the PCB off and putting it back on another angle every time I need to solder a new component or, troubleshoot. And if the tape is sometimes less tacky, pulling the PCB off by force would mean accidents with the components. By having a turntable, I can eliminate this problem.

Secondly, with the double-sided tape, I can only work on one PCB at a time. By having a turntable with a large 'table' in theory, I can eliminate this problem too.

And so, by accident, I saw this for sale at the Multifilla counter. Initially, I was there to look for some clear 2mm acrylic rods which, ran out. Then, the Plastruct ladders are also, 'out of stock' as well.

Anyway, for RM20.00, this is worth it because, its not easy to find any used 5 ¼ Hard Discs where I stay and a real 'Lazy Susan' is out of the question too since its too big. So, this is a nice solution, where, a gutted hard disc space serves as a base for the upturned motor.

Alas, in my limited time, I could not go to the Pasar Road shop which sells the round glass covers for rice cookers (yes, it does exist) as the table and so, I got a Rm1.00 metal dish instead. It needs to be either metal, porcelain or glass since I am using a soldering iron on them. Unfortunately, the curved rim of the dish is causing some problems, which affected the quality of the soldering. I need to find another 'table'. Fast.

It came!

After picking up Kaelynn, I had roughly less than an hour before picking up Kristine. And so, I decided to pop down to Pasar Road to get some stuff for R&D on another project. While I was there, the owner was at the shop too and we talked a bit on the life in KL. Also, while discussing about my circuit board, he enquired his staff about the progress since it is very odd that there were no news from the PCB vendor. This was because, on the last communique, the vendor promised that they would get in touch with him should there be any problems in my design.

They did not and so, they went ahead with the production...

Which we both found out, much to my delight. But I am also at a loss for words because this caught me by surprise and I do not have the money with me not could I get Bruce to come up with his half in such a short time. And so, luckily, they were quite receptive to Mr. Chart's services.

Perfect. Its right here, in mu hands, after so many to and fro, its right here!

And so, the next step is to get the necessary components and solder them. Easier said than done because this means mucho $$$, something which I readily do not have...

1/32 Moebius Cylon Raider Part 006

OK, while waiting for the circuit board to be ready, I have also ordered the SSOP to DIL adapter. In the meantime, its time to fine-tune the electronics. I have done this design late least year but because there were no physical model for me to design the PCB, it was kept on hold. I have, by this time, decided on the battery pack to be 4.5 volts since a White LED needs at least 3 volts to run.

So, with the Youtube videos of the actual prop as source, I got the timing as close as possible.
But not too close since in this scale, the light from one LED to another would be 'jumping' instead of 'sweeping'.

Moebius 1/32 Cylon Raider Part 005

Because of the size of the PCB, right from the start, a normal 18-Pin DIL chip is out of the question. This is because the chip is almost the same size of the PCB. And so, I have two other choices, which is either the SOIC or the SSOP package. I chose the SSOP package and proceeded to order it from Microchip directly since there are no shops in Pasar Road that have them.

In in just three working days, the package was delivered to me (from Thailand)

And so, there it is. With Microchip, there is no minimum order but with the shipping charges, it makes sense to order a lot from them

And so, I ordered 20 of the chips in SSOP packages

And there you go. It fits the mock-up PCB nicely.

I shouyld have taken a 18-pin DIL for size comparison too. But the SOIC (left) is more than half its size. The SSOP (right) is the one I ordered.

Moebius Cylon Raider Part 004

Here is another development. With the Model Kit, I can now confidently get its correct measurement instead of guesswork. And looking at the design, it is not going to be cheap...

The shape of the circuit board means the manufacturer would need to cut it to shape. A normal PCB is rectangle. This is not.

Moebius 1/32 Cylon Raider Part 003

OK, a snag in the planning stage. Apparently, there is a problem with attaching the 0805 LEDs to the edge of the board for soldering. One way is to use White glue. Which was all fine but there is a long drying time and not only that, the glue dries very fast by the time you apply the second dot for the second LED. And I have not even attached the LEDs yet.

So, not wanting to give up easily, I decided to use another approach with is to solder all the negative tabs of the 0805 LEDs to the 'simulated' copper track. But alas, it failed too.

What am I going to do?

Once you solder the second LED, the heat from the Soldering Iron would melt the solder on the first LED. This is not good because if this was to be done en masse, it would be very labour intensive and hair-oulling experience.

Moebius 1/32 Cylon Raider Part 001

Ok, I am very excited about this. What I have in my hands is Bruce's new 1/32 Cylon Raider from Moebius. This was because when it came out, not many were excited by it until he held it in his hands and took a picture. Then everyone realised that its big and yes, the mad rush was on.

Luckily, Bruce got his from shipped and so, I can say that he is one of the few proud owners to get this Cylon Raiders first here. And he is lending it to me for R&D. You see, we want to light this model up and the prospect of doing it in a very small space was a challenge. Anyway, this is the preliminary examination of the model kit:

Although the box of the Raider is the same size of the Viper, it is noticeable thinner.

But when you held the model in your hands, you realised that it is very big.
How did Moebius cram that into the box?

My plan was to have White LEDs for the thrusters and by the looks of this instruction sheet, it is possible.
Except that you need some sort of support when mounting the LED inside.

What is nice is that the 'Plasma Emitter' is clear and so, its going to be great.
But plastics being plastics, it is not easy to light-proof it especially when all the parts are glued together. You will see the light coming out from the joints even if you used aluminium tape inside the parts.

The real challenge lies in the head of the Raider. Stay tuned for more progress notes.

Viper Seats

Finally, I got the chance to break out the Moebius viper Mk II lent to me by Bruce for R&D. OK, it looks good but yeah, like he said, I am not going to use this re replace the model kit's chair. One, its molded into the whole contraption and two, I would need to dremel off a lot of beautiful details from the resin chair.

So, I'll just leave it for comparison and the put it away.

BSG

22082010 1713

Oh, man. This is torture! Half the stories are not
interconnected and I think my brain got lost in
the stories. But its very exciting, that is, if I did
not read some of the episode guides ahead, that
is. Still, I am getting a headache.... don't feel well

Fever

22082010 1158

Here we go again. After Kaelynn's turn, it was now Krsitine's turn to have a fever. Its not a nice feeling as if there is something in the air which does that. And some friends, also told me their kids have fevers too. Damn.

And so, Krsitine lying miserably on the mattress
while Kaelynn accompanies here.

Things got worse when I found my copy of
the Season 2.5 Battlestar Galactica DVD. I
too suffered because although the stories
were entertaining, it was a bit too slow. And
the information I was looking for (Vipers and
their navigation strobes) was not there or
too brief on the screen. After two days watching
it, I think I have fever too. Or a sprained neck.

A second chance

As it was with a stroke of luck, I got the Battlestar Galactica Colonial Viper. This is the re-tooled version from Revell. I remember getting the original model so many years ago and I only went as fas as damaging the cockpit while trying to turn it transparent. Then news came that Revell is redoing the model kit but as soon as I wanted one, it was all sold out. Thanks to SFTPMS member cptan, I finally got one and I am very excited about it.