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LEDs?


SpiralngCadavr

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Looking to light pandora's LE crew with internal LEDs, wondering if anyone has tips (where to get units, how to work with them), particularly wary about pandora, since she has tiny malifaux feet.

I'm also hoping to use multicolor LEDs if I can find them.

You looking to drill and mount them in the mini, or in the base so they shine up through the mini? The base can conceal the battery, etc either way, but getting the LED in the smaller minis would be rough, as how would you wire it is the wires did not look horrible? I could see internally lighting the Poltergeist, and the wiring may look fine, depending on the translucency/opacity of the plastic. Maybe a satin finish would help.

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As far as the electronics, they are fairly simple circuits to build, but I would suggest simply repurposing the components of the small electronic votive candles. They already have a cool "flickering glow" cycle, and they are only a buck or so.

---------- Post added at 03:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:09 PM ----------

Yeah, I was going to be going from the base aiming up myself, but I'm no longer sure if that's possible with 'Dora and Candy.

If you use a planar surfaced LED and base the feet of the mini directly on it, a decent amount of light should refract up through the model, though the thicker the feet or contact point the better. I could see Kade with his mass low to the base working better than trying to get light bouncing up through long spindly legs, but I don't know optics as well as many, many three would be a surprisingly good fiber-optic-like effect.

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A what LED? O.o I was planning on using some circuit board ones, honestly. I work in electronics, so I was going to track down a good Surface Mount LED and use one of those...but that's not what it sounds like you're talking about.

We are talking about the same thing. I merely meant planar (flat surfaced) as opposed to a convex lens LED that many are familiar with. The flat or square shape would allow you to maximize contact between the model and model to increase the transmission of light.

A surface mount LED would probably be just the ticket being low profile and most have a flat, planar surface. Using a and old school round lenses two-prong would be comparative hassle and likely yield poorer results.

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I had no clue how to work with LEDs and then I lit up my Rail Golem using a Fire Kit from these guys:

http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/ledlights1.html

Their kits are helpful, but definitely more expensive than buying elsewhere, but they have nice small components (such as switches, batteries, and wire) which are comparable in price, so I would recommend this website for at very least a start (if you have any working knowledge of electronics, you can almost certainly do it cheaper from elsewhere).

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Fitting the battery under a base took a little bit of fussing about. I used two bases, put together like an oreo. The bottom base is simply a base (I used a magnet to hold the two together. The top base had part of it cut out to better fit the battery and I built up a bit of basing material around that hole to hide it. This works surprising well at keeping the battery contained under the base even during play.

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Thanks for the tips and link, everyone

So, I 'm definitely feeling confident about the woes and poltergeist, but still pretty uncertain about pandora herself- sounds like that would be really tricky?

I was hoping to get light all the way up to her box's wispy flame thing, with most of the rest painted normally. I thought a white undercoat would help reflect the light inside, but that's about as far as my plan went...

Since I'm painting over it, I thought it might be possible to run something up through a leg or something she was leaning against and into her torso, but would prefer to not need to do something so drastic, esp. since it's LE and may be a more brittle plastic to cut.

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