USS Independence
Since the stock hangar is 4 flat pieces of plastic, with injector pin marks, I’m going to get rid of it and build the hangar from scratch.
2/3 walls done
The port side of the hangar bay has much more space for hidden walkways and internal passages, while the starboard side appears to be directly against the exterior of the ships. This is going to make constructing some of the overhead elements difficult.
I added tie down spots using a hand drill. The styrene taped to the back will be a ceiling for the overhead lighting, even though it’s slightly lower than it should be to scale
Upper walkway is done. Details still need to be added. Once done, over head pipes and lighting will get added
I removed part of the top of the superstructure. This will make finishing and closin the hangar much easier.
More hangar details, I’m starting to add things without reference because of a lack of images
Railing and ladders finally arrived. The ladder is borderline awful, but it’ll do
Primer down
Floor done. Will need to mask and re-spray the walls
The firescout will be in the left hangar bay, and a sea hawk on the right. I think I will add some more equipment in the middle between the two hangar bays
Just waiting on the lighting supplies to finish up the hangar. The tail rotors of the Seahawk are the same height as the overhead pipes, so I’ll need to finish that before closing the bay up as well
Seahawks and Firescout painted with a glosscoat
Leds aren’t quite as bright as I thought they might be. They’re also much smaller than I expected
I re-set some of the leds, and it has improved the brightness somewhat
Day time lighting
Next update will be the exhaust vents on the super structure. They’re just a pair of recessed holes, so this should be a pretty quick change to give the structure a bit more depth and accuracy
Attempt 1: failure. Holes aren’t centered, and I didn’t wait long enough for the glue to dry, so a lot of the layers have tear-out.
Attempt 2: successful-ish. I bought some 1/4 inch styrene tube for the exhausts. Removing my previous attempt caused damage to other parts of the super structure piece, so there will be more work to fix that
Hangar is fully closed up now. Some putty will be needed to fill the seam
After a little break and a bit of thinking, i’m going to put a photoelectric sensor underneath the little platform for the fire scout. I did a bit of testing, and even with the photoetch mesh that will go over it, it will still. Be able to detect sunlight as it should. This will be hooked up to the blue hangar bay lights, and any external lights I may add
I’ve cut out locations where i want to install the landing pad lights. A friend is 3d printing some boxes that should host the lights in order to get that nice floodlight look.
Like I said, my first time wiring lights. Making due without wire strippers, a soldering iron, or any experience
Note to self: buy soldering iron and wire strippers. I'm not proud of it, but the landing pad lights and hangar bay lights are attached to the photo sensor
8 landing pad lights. I tried to shorten cables to a necessary length, and ended up tearing the resistor off of one of the lights, so I used a slightly smaller LED for the furthest rear port side light
Hangar bay and pad lights
I'm considering building out a lighted bridge. I don't know why, I probably shouldn't, but I'm still thinking of it. This is a 3d model that i'm considering getting printed
The only holdup on following through with this is drilling out the windows of the original molded plastic, and how I might replace the window "glass"
I’m trying to fix the shameful mess I made before. As is my luck, I destroyed one of the LEDs, so I will need to order some more before I can finish wiring the landing pad leds. The 3d printed bridge, and boxes to house the pad LEDs have been ordered and should arrive in the next few days.
Deck light boxes finally arrived. There’s about 50-60 of them total in these two pieces. I will need to go through and clean up some of the extra flash, but these should house the LEDs nicely, and ensure that they look like directional swaths of light
Good learning lesson, use measurements when creating scale parts. The back wall currently measures at 5mm, which would equal the height of a tall individual. The wall should be ~8mm to be in proper scale. It also seams that the front of the bridge does not match the angle of the inner plastic, so those dimensions will need to be re-drawn
Deck LEDs are fully re-wired and soldered. The bridge needs to be constructed, and wired. The deck lights need to be fully seated and covered with the boxes I had printed
コメント
15 31 December 2021, 02:20
John HughesThe LED's look fine to me. My usual complaint with most model lighting is that it is too bright. Everyone would need to wear sunglasses all the time!
24 January 2022, 13:31
Reaper_leadI think part of it might be how I'm mounting the leds in the ceiling. Fair point on the brightness bit, but I think I would've liked them to be a fraction brighter so that there were a few more details visible.
24 January 2022, 19:01
AlexanderReally cool additions with the scratch-built hangar and LED's. Watching. 👍
28 January 2022, 00:10
Reaper_leadI'm trying to light the landing pad. I was hoping that I could somehow get some leds seated underneath the little moulded rectangles so you can see the light beams on the landing pad. I tried drilling a little hole and then covering the top with some styrene. Scale-wise, the lights would be a little too big, and even the pico leds that i'm using 1mm width, are too wide. Perhaps some trickery with little bits of mirror or something like that might be an option
9 February 2022, 14:49
Reaper_leadIt's been a while. The deck lighting boxes have arrived, as has the bridge. I have yet to test the lighting boxes, but the bridge is totally out of scale with the rest of the ship. I will need to re-work it and have it printed again
17 July 2022, 16:30
