Animated Cylon with LEDs at 32mm
Like all the best ideas, it began with some trash talk
A little while back, I entered a painting competition and – in a desperate attempt to distract from some rather dubious panel-lining and lack of detail on feet (seriously, by the time I get below the knees on a mini, I’m bored and just want it over!) I thought I’d stick an LED instead the head for a bit of “wow sparkle”.
While I thought it looked pretty cool (as did a few others) it wasn’t quite enough to satisfy @sundancer – who started to ponder “how would you go about making the moving eye of the original Cylon Centurion from Battlestar Galactica in a 28mm mini?”
(https://www.beastsofwar.com/forums/topic/unofficial-weekender-oh-boy-my-back-hurts/page/3/#post-1554267)
My knee-jerk response was “don’t be ridiculous – if you’re not impressed at the soldering required to make an 0805 LED light up inside a 5mm sized head, nothing will impress you, even an animated LED.”
My follow-up response was along similar lines – you’d really need to have a “strip” of LEDs, and a microcontroller and animate them in a sequence; you’ll never fit more than one LED inside a miniature’s head.
But there was something nagging in the back of my head.
Much like how you can complete a sudoku by guessing at the numbers and sticking them into the grid, the satisfaction comes not in knowing the answer – but proving it.
I needed to prove it wasn’t possible.
Thirty minutes later I had some 0402 and 0603 sized LEDs on order from fleabay…..
This project log is absolutely stunning and mind blowing work!
Thanks. It blew my mind a bit. I wasn’t convinced it was even going to work. I wouldn’t really have minded either way (a lot of my electronics projects don’t make it to the end or get abandoned once I’ve proven it’s not possible/not worth the hassle to do something). But it *was* pretty cool to connect the battery to a fully painted Cylon and see the animated eye. Mind blown, myself!
Fabulous work on your Cylon project @blinky465 you will be going for a moving figure next !?!? Congratulations on the gold button.
I had a couple of ideas for moving, but I did some animated bellows back in March, using an RC servo, and even invented a micro smoke machine for it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-VtQquEiIA) and I played about with stepper motors a few months ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZNRX5T8Ew) so scratched that particular itch. The trouble with moving parts is that the motors/servos are relatively large – it’s hard to make a “small” model with movement, whereas LEDs can be teeny tiny! @avernos said no more golden buttons until I’ve got something moving and playing sound. I’ve got something in mind; but I’ve got a project… Read more »
Lol they look brilliant the gun would be fabulous for aliens auto turrets.