A solution just looking for a problem

[blinky465 17027xp 1]

So I made this: https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1353490/

Modular, controllable, full-colour LEDs for your tabletop terrain. While the final stage is to miniaturise (that’s a word, right?) the connectors and to use super-fine wire between the LEDs, it feels a bit like I’ve created a solution to a problem nobody has asked – but could have come up with something to turn a mediocre (possibly sci-fi?) terrain piece into something amazing.

Anyone any ideas what these could actually be put to use for?

When I get some hobby time, I might even offer to embed some LEDs into your favourite terrain pieces – leave your ideas below…

[maledrakhParticipant 11996xp 1]

Some random ideas

The mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind springs to mind.

That “Tech Noir” club that the Terminator first attacks Sarah Connor in.

Anything lava or green bubbly slime, depending on which colour options are possible.

Rivers of blood in the realm of chaos

that ice cream van for the zombie apocalypse

 

 

 

[timchubbKeymaster 3166xp 1]

have done something VERY similar myself 😀 (it looks ace check my profile pic with an illuminated 4ground hut)

On suggestion i would have is to forget about wires…. I use copper tape and conductive paint (yes you take quite a hit in resistance if its applied to thick, but you could also make a capacitive interface in the terrain it self…), the beauty of that is that you can keep the terrain gameable i.e. roofs can still come off…

You can cut the tape with scissors, so its easy to get thin busses cut, although i use a pcb pin now on the roof to make it less critical in terms of allignment.

My rgb rig has a different application though, i will be using it along with a miniature smoke machine i have made from an ecig and a childs bubble gun, and plan to use it for making enchanted fog and similar…

As an enhancement to your rig, make it talk DMX then could use an opensource lighting desk app to queue effects as well, lightening and fire effects would look good…

[sundancer 42906xp 1]

Spaceport landigpads

dungeon or sewer lighting

[blinky465 17027xp 0]

@timchubb – nice work! I’m no stranger to copper tape-based circuits (my nerdy mates at the local electronics group seem to think I do little else at the minute!) and love your modified house!

I have tried using bare conductive paint (and even a “better/less resistive” homebrew concoction) to print circuits but found resistance to be a problem over long runs (especially when connected with microwire which, itself, adds quite a bit of resistance). Voltage drop is a real pain when trying to daisy chain LEDs! I had some moderate success by electroplating copper over the painted tracks, but that was more difficult and messy to do than using 3mm copper tape so gave it up as a bad job.

I’m intrigued by your picture – is it a single-colour or an RGB LED? It looks like a pair of single colour LEDs; if they can, indeed, be changed (programmatically) to be any colour, please let me know – I’ve been looking for a two-wire colour-change LED for aaaagggges.

 

[blinky465 17027xp 0]

@timchubb miniature smoke machine? Please elaborate – I love the sound of that!

[mageParticipant 20596xp 0]

Man I’d burn down the house if I tried that.

[timchubbKeymaster 3166xp 0]

No that was mk1 so just some bog standard SMD white led’s im afraid, what i have done on subsequent versions (currently everything is in storage due to doing my house up) is use tape for all the conductors (but i cheat slightly and cut it using my desktop vinyl cutter) and only use conductive paint to dot the contacts on the led to the tape, as my main goal was to create a way of illuminating terrain which required zero soldering so nobody had an excuse not to 😉 basically if you can apply a decal you have more than enough ability to do this 😀

As for the smoke machine it is litterally as simple as getting a ecig head, a fan, construct a cowling for the fan to channel air at the base of head and pulsing the fan and heating coils, 2 or 3 second bursts will produce a lot of “smoke”.  The childs bubble gun comes into play as i wanted a peristaltic pump to top up the smoke fluid (glycerol) from a larger reservoir so it could run all day, and looking at prices in farnell and rs, bubble guns came quids in as i was able to get 2 for £4 on amazon lol

best example of a tutorial i could find is this:

https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Smoke-Machine-from-Ecig-clearomiser/

An aquarium pump could work nicely for this as well (dont currently have any spare, as i use them for my pcb fab and/or invert the bellow valves to turn them into mini vac pumps which i build SMD pickup tools from as im too cheap to buy a real one lol) but as i plan to build this into a specific bit of terrain battery powered is preferable,

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