Adding Electronics to our Models

[arbit]

I dremeled off the excess board material that doesn't carry the circuit. One fits in each Floodlight

One in the Tomahawk Floodlight, one each in the Beam Cannon barrels.

For the Phalanx I used just the SMD chips in the 3 Floodlights

I also made resin lens over the LEDs and in the ends of the Beam Cannons

That's about 10mm with the SMD board right?

I want to add the neos to my Yamato, it would be a shame not to. But I just dont have that much space.

I think I will use neos on the wave motion gun, and analogs with timing for the rest.

It will take me months to learn, but I think I have time since I'm taking the build very slow.

Will the instruction manual on the Adafruit teach me how to time analogs?

[NZEOD]

naa... send me a rough idea of the effects you want and the timing and cycles and I'll help you write a sketch program for them and the wiring and resistors.

use the Neos for the main guns and engines, standards for the deck lighting and any nav lights.

Edited August 8, 2016 by NZEOD

[arbit]

naa... send me a rough idea of the effects you want and the timing and cycles and I'll help you write a sketch program for them and the wiring and resistors.

use the Neos for the main guns and engines, standards for the deck lighting and any nav lights.

I hear you... but I had some problems with fiber for the main guns, because its too stiff and doesnt allow rotation.

At this scale, it is also diffcicult to thread the fiber through the main gun parts, and can snap off my custom turrets.

So I went with SMDs on magnetic wire which are very flexible and avoid all these problems.

I can still go with fiber if I can solve these.

Edited August 9, 2016 by arbit

[NZEOD]

Glass fibre or Poly fibre? Go poly and mount the fibre and the turret LED all under the turret in a cradle and have it turn with the turret...

[arbit]

Glass fibre or Poly fibre? Go poly and mount the fibre and the turret LED all under the turret in a cradle and have it turn with the turret...

Will give it another shot.

Finally ordered my Trinket and neos and the book. Paid a pretty penny on shipping because I live in the ash-end of space.

[arbit]

Got my trinket. Time to play. Gotta study the book.

Edited August 23, 2016 by arbit

[arbit]

You had said you used the 6mm Gizmozone gearmotor for the Destroid arms.
How did that work out?

It would be cool if the Yamato turrets could turn, fire, and return in place.

Adafruit can handle 2 servos, so I guess I will try that.

[NZEOD]

I used them to spin the Brass Photo Etch Vulcan cannons. 1000rpm is about perfect!

[Xigfrid]

at a completely lower level, I just ordered this in color White on Ebay for less than 3USD.

It has a 2x CR2032 case + integrated button with 3 flashing modes. It looks small enough to be integrated and I hope it is easy enough to remove the cloth and use the LEDs inside my models

[arbit]

Xigfrid. Once you start with leds, no model will be complete without them. Guess you're planning those for the workroid? You will need some blue and red.

[NZEOD]

at a completely lower level, I just ordered this in color White on Ebay for less than 3USD.

It has a 2x CR2032 case + integrated button with 3 flashing modes. It looks small enough to be integrated and I hope it is easy enough to remove the cloth and use the LEDs inside my models

It will be running conductive silver thread for the wiring hidden within the cloth weave to the LEDs. Just take a few photos of where the connections go to and from the LED modules for when you rewire. I doubt you'll be able to remove them with the silver wires intact so some rewiring will be needed.

[Xigfrid]

I will keep you updated whether it is easy or a dissassembly nightmare

[arbit]

I finally got the Adafruit Trinket to blink correctly as per the How to Guide.

I was getting errors on the upload, until I found an FAQ that explained that Windows takes more than 10secs to compile the sketch.

The solution was to click upload, then wait about 5 secs before clicking the reset button.

I don't know if this solution will work for a longer sketch.

So Trinket's a bit frustrating for me so far.

Edited August 26, 2016 by arbit

[Goodman Models]

Awesome NZEOD!

[arbit]

I went ahead and ordered an Arduino Uno. I think this will help me to run a servo for the battleship turrets, as well as control many more LEDs separately than the Adafruit.

[arbit]

After further studying, controlling servos and fading/dimming lights require Pulse Width Modulation.

The Adafruit Trinket does not have a data pin with PWM.

You would need the Trinket Pro or full Arduino for those functions.

[NZEOD]

Filament lights or LEDs? The Neoppixel LED has the driver chip built in to it can carry out the fade commands from a trinket 5v

Edited September 14, 2016 by NZEOD

[arbit]

I see... I meant fading normal LEDs.

[arbit]

And to clarify, the normal Trinket can handle servos, but you need to turn manually with a potentiometer.

Edited September 15, 2016 by arbit

[Xigfrid]

I received the luminous necklace today and dissembles it to its tiniest form. The power switch is a tad big (3cmx2,5cm) but the leds are just mounted on a pair of wires. The leds are basically PCB leds soldered directly onto the wires and glued in place.

This can be very nice setup if I can reduce the switch size, and reducing the dual battery cage to a single one

Test on my X-9:

On the workroid:

And sorry for the crappy pictures from my phone

Edited September 15, 2016 by Xigfrid

[NZEOD]

Love it

make the switch a magnetic reed switch.

That way its tiny AND you can hide the 1mm magnet on the underside of a peice of the model that can be "clicked" into place to turn it on, making the switch virtually invisible

Edited September 15, 2016 by NZEOD

[arbit]

I received the luminous necklace today and dissembles it to its tiniest form. The power switch is a tad big (3cmx2,5cm) but the leds are just mounted on a pair of wires. The leds are basically PCB leds soldered directly onto the wires and glued in place.

This can be very nice setup if I can reduce the switch size, and reducing the dual battery cage to a single one

This might give you some ideas if you want pre-wired switches.

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/mosu2.html

[Xigfrid]

Love it

make the switch a magnetic reed switch.

That way its tiny AND you can hide the 1mm magnet on the underside of a peice of the model that can be "clicked" into place to turn it on, making the switch virtually invisible

That's a great option, but I am realizing that for the current projects I got, I will need to also make a coat inside the cage where the leds would be placed. That's something to be considered beforehand.

This might give you some ideas if you want pre-wired switches.

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/mosu2.html

That gives some ideas, thank you!

Edited September 16, 2016 by Xigfrid

[arbit]

That gives some ideas, thank you!

If you don't want to solder, you can also find pre-wired leds and smds. So you can avoid destroying necklaces in the future

[Xigfrid]

Well for 2 usd, including shipping and 2 cr2032 batteries: it can be worth the disassembly!

[arbit]

Apparently Neopixels are so new that they were never considered for the Arduino. Some special programming libraries are required to avoid conflicts... I haven't studied this much in years .

From Adafruit site: "Not a week goes by in the Adafruit Forums that someone isn’t heartbroken to discover that the NeoPixel and Servo libraries won’t work together in the same Arduino sketch. Fear not, help is on the way!"

[arbit]

With LEDs the long stem is always + and the short is Ground (-).

Not so with Neopixels.

Edited October 5, 2016 by arbit

[NZEOD]

yeah I have the image on the workshop bench wall for that reason!

[arbit]

yeah I have the image on the workshop bench wall for that reason!

Another day, another electronics joke

[arbit]

I have a wiring question (Yes, I know nothing about electronics):

I have a lot of wires coming out of my model, so I want to minimize them.

Can I solder all the grounds together and lead only one ground out of the model? Or will that mix the signals?

My (+) and Data lines will still be separate.

I am asking because I had tried that before by soldering (+) lines together and ended up merging my blinking and steady leds, so everything ended up blinking after a cycle or two.

[NZEOD]

all the same input voltage? If so, yes. Just make the main line in a decent quality and good sized one. The servos will have a good current draw down on them. With Neos you can run a common negative AND positive line

[arbit]

all the same input voltage? If so, yes. Just make the main line in a decent quality and good sized one. The servos will have a good current draw down on them. With Neos you can run a common negative AND positive line

Thanks, NZEOD.

Let me clarify:

This is what I have, 3x servos, normal leds, blinking leds, and 1x neopixel.

The leds have resistors for 9-12v.

All will take the input power from the 5v Arduino board.

The question is, can i combine all the ground wires for all the above, or should i separate any ground wires?

[NZEOD]

Combine

Its the same idea when you wire up a project on a breadboard. The ground is taken from the same line for everything.

The neo and the servos can all have the same positive feed too.

Edited October 6, 2016 by NZEOD

[arbit]

Combine

Its the same idea when you wire up a project on a breadboard. The ground is taken from the same line for everything.

The neo and the servos can all have the same positive feed too.

Interesting. Thanks.

[arbit]

Any idea how "Electronic Cross Gauge" effect was done at 2:58?