Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Wolf Works: Orks Take to the Sky

I have to say that so far, out of all of the models that I have lit up, the most incredible one is the Dakka Jet for Evan’s Orks.  It has a lot of Orky goodness in it, and all of the lights add to that feel.  The whole setup is internal within the fuselage.  It is run off of a 9V battery with a total of 3 true LEDs and a switch that has an LED when it is in the on position. Below I will talk about my process for bringing this beast to light.


When talking to Evan and discussing what he wanted, he had no idea about the number of options available to him.  I first started with what color LEDs he would like for the Jet.  Of course this is an Ork Jet so the most obvious color was red.  Next he told me to go with whatever I felt would make the jet stand out.  I thought about what would be cool on the jet and I decided on a white light somewhere on it.


I then took the shell of the model and started to hold it together.  Looking at the wings, the fuselage, the tail, and all of the compartments, I realized that the fuselage was large enough to hold the 9 volt battery internally and would also allow for it to be removed by removing either a back exhaust or the cockpit.  I then started thinking about red lights and looking at the engines, I realized that I could drill out and dremel the openings to allow the red light to come through.  It was then that I remembered that RadioShack sells a red blinking LED.  I looked at the sizes and realized it would fit perfectly.  I was still unsure of the switch or what style to use until I looked in my bag of parts and saw a red LED push button that looked like it could fit at the end of the jet.

Push Button LED On
Single Engine Light On
Both Engine Lights On
With the LED button, I had 3 LEDs:  2 blinking and 1 that would be on when the switch was on lighting up the rest of the model.  I still needed to figure out what to do for the engine.  I started thinking of what could be Orky and still go with the rest of the jet and I thought what if a Grot was stuck in the engine compartment with a flashlight?  So a white light was installed in the nose of the jet.  With that I had 4 LEDs installed on the plane with 2 red Blinking, 1 White LED, and the LED push button switch.

Where all Grots Fear to Be
Below is a drawing of the circuit with the LEDs, where they were placed, the resistors used, and the wires.  This was done in Autocad (the next one will be out in Autocad Electrical so it is nice and pretty).  

Red - (+) Wire in
Green - (-) Wire out
Zig Zag - Resistors
I must say that even though this is an Ork jet for Evan’s army, it is my favorite model I have lit up so far.

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