Global Scale Modeller

Hi everyone

This is a very large model - I hope to do it justice, and am adding lighting to the instrument panel, gun sight, nav and formation lights, and exhaust nozzles - which willt be controlled by a mini arduino progammable chip to try and get it to flicker like flame. My son and I have been learning about this chip and the potential for modelling is great.

It will be wheels up on a stand. When the seat and pilot are in the cockpit, you dont see much detail, but the lights should be seen well enough. It took a few attempts to get the optic cable positioned in a stable way, to shine through the dials - the double sheets of styrene with holes drilled holds each cable very well. Glue does not stick to the cables very well, so a mechanical solution was needed. The brightness will be adjusted later on down the track. So far the results are encouraging.

Here's some pics of the cockpit so far with optical fiber led lighting, and eduard interior set added for detail.

Awsome! Those arduino have alot of potential in so many applications. But what about landing, nav lights and strobe?

Looking forward to see the progress from your build !

well that's an interesting project ! Adding some level of difficulties on it !

the size of the electric cables is very impressive! I hope that will work well because it's a huge change and a challenge.

KBF wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:25 am Awsome! Those arduino have alot of potential in so many applications. But what about landing, nav lights and strobe?

Yes, I plan to add all the lights. The wing tip formation lights will be the most difficult. Still dont know how to do them...

Garion77 wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:37 am well that's an interesting project ! Adding some level of difficulties on it !

ForeverPlasticKits wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:42 am I hope that will work well because it's a huge change and a challenge.

Difficult and challenging - with a lot of modification to the structure of the kit.


Here is the result of lots of head scratching while working out how to illuminate the formation (slime) lights.





This attempt below was about the third attempt, but still a fail because the optic cables left small dots of light.






Below was the final result of getting the light even across the strip.
The fuselage plastic at the light area was scraped thin to let the light shine brighter. It will still have either a decal or a coat of paint to make the light green. I hope it doesnt block out too much light, as it's pretty dim. However Im happy with the overall evenness of the lights. The aluminium foil tape was used to mask out the area of the formation light and stop any light leakage. I think these lights are for formation flying at nighttime, so they are pretty dim anyway.

The optic fiber cable is routed to shine into both ends of the tube. Major plastic removal was needed in the front section to curve the cable tightly around and to point into the clear sprue 'lamp'

The white styrene framework was needed to hold the optic cable straight, as it was rolled up and held the curvature like a spring. It had to be held down with a solid frame to keep the light shining into the clear tube properly.


This is the styrene framework to hold the cable in place.
Just to the right of that is the rectangle slit framed by the foil where the light shines through, creating the formation light on the outside of the plane


Without the clear 'tube' (a piece of clear sprue roughened with a file)
At the far right of the photo you can see the optic cable bending back around to come into the right side of the tube lamp


With the sprue tube added


The sprue lamp is covered with a curved bit of foil, using half a tube that held knife blades, to reflect more light back through the rectangle


A tad brighter on the right, but I'm calling it done. It was very challanging. One more to go on the opposite side, and two more at the rear of the plane, and one in each wingtip which will be a major headache... but I hope it will be worth it. Im even thinking of adding speakers and the sound of a jet blasting low overhead...





Slime light decals


Wing tip lights - how, how am I going to do these...






Its getting cramped in there

This is a biggy and I like how you managed to get what seems to me the right scale amount of lighting for the instruments.

That's really cool!

digger303 wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 1:36 pm This is a biggy and I like how you managed to get what seems to me the right scale amount of lighting for the instruments.

aur0ra145 wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:13 pm That's really cool!

Thanks gents. It's a biggie all right digger. Lots of thinking about how to get the lights in there. Was glad to do a bit of actual modelling for a change.
Here's the driver, mostly finished. Eduard photo etch adds to the detail of the seat.

Some more detail on the pilot. He's a bit glossy in these pics, will need to do something about that. He is also going to be very hard to see under the closed canopy, so overall I'm happy with how he turned out. Was also my first time using photoetch, so lots of lessons learned there.

Also the switch to activate the lights is in the nose cone.

There is now a huge amount of work involved in lighting the rest of the plane. Have to wait for some optic fibre and electronics to come from china. In the mean time I'll be making some gentle progress with painting the forward fuselage and chipping away at the engineering for the lights. I have lots of real work to be doing, so I guess it's a good time to be going slow on the modelling. I was going to start a 1/12 Tamiya F1 car, but I think that can wait until this plane is done...which will be sometime next year just because the postage time from china.

Great work, love the magnet to keep the nose closed.
In regards to China post times I'm finding it depends on the seller and which postal avenue they go through. Sometimes I get stuff within 2-3 weeks other times it's months. I suspect that at times they don't have the stock too.

Yeah, pretty sure I will NOT be doing all this when I get around to my E. LOL Great work so far!

Used some blue tack to mask the camo, and a couple of Tamiya rattle can colours to get a pretty decent match, the best I could find at the local hobby shop with some great help from the guys there. I know the blue is not right, but it's not bad.














And next to a 1/72 Eagle and the 1/24 Typhoon

The blue wasn't quite right. Gone with a dark grey, and it has a clear coat over that for the decals. Will give it a lightish weathering once the decals are sealed up with another clear coat - brush painted vellejo clear gloss on as a very watery thinned.

Also cut a hole in the top to access the electronics for the lighting setup. Not a lot of room in there, might have to cut more of the intakes out....omg

Just caught up with this - what an absolute beast of a build!

Awesome work with all the lighting rigs you've packed in there

Tomcat64 wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 8:38 am Just caught up with this - what an absolute beast of a build!

Awesome work with all the lighting rigs you've packed in there

Thanks Neil. Plenty more lighting to cram in there yet.

Heres an attempt at sealing the plastic from the light spillage.

Looks like good progress!

On my latest two tone 15, the15EX, I used aggressor gray and Dark Gull Gray mixed with a tad bit of Intermediate blue. You can also go with staright up light and dark gull, which I have also done.

And looking good!

smokeriderdon wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 5:24 pm On my latest two tone 15, the15EX, I used aggressor gray and Dark Gull Gray mixed with a tad bit of Intermediate blue. You can also go with staright up light and dark gull, which I have also done.

And looking good!

Thanks for the tips. I dont have an airbrush, so am going with Tamiya rattle cans, thats why the colours will not be perfect. I have many photos of these things, and there are many different variations of the scheme - so I think what I have so far will be acceptable.

aur0ra145 wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 1:42 pm Looks like good progress!

Thanks, lots of cutting plastic at the moment to accomodate the lights - which is, yes, good progress, as it's very time consuming, espeicially that big square on the back.

I sprayed the dark grey with a thin coat of the light grey, toning the contrast down a lot. I think it worked and looks a lot better...

Did some dry fitting on the main parts and its starting to look like an F15.
Optical cable has arrived in Australia, so a week or so away from more lighting engineering work. If it wasnt for the lighting, this would probably be finished already, there is not much to the main body, just a lot of painting...


Dark grey went from this



to this










A giant seam in the canopy







Thats a 1/32 spitfire for size comparison. This is a rather large model.








Some spare pe bits and bobs found their way onto the aircraft also.

Was thinking of splurging big on some resin nozzles, but the kit ones seem pretty good. Dont know if Ill go the resin yet, will see - they are a large feature on the model, and I plan to have light flashing inside, so not sure yet.

Also I missed filling some holes on the insides on the first nozzel... oops, they'll be hard to smooth out

I thought these nozzles were resin at first glance....pretty good.

digger303 wrote: Sat Oct 15, 2022 11:40 am I thought these nozzles were resin at first glance....pretty good.

Cool, that's encouraging. Can save myself sixty bucks...

Finished the nozzles mostly. The kit ones came up pretty good.


instructions


added a strand of wire around them




whittled away at the plastic

Added a bit of thick aluminium wire around the nozzle, near the base, and bent it at an angle at every actuator rod. Also started painting - metallic titanium to start with, Mr Color. The wire busies it up a bit with some extra detail. I think it looks better

cor wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:17 am Added a bit of thick aluminium wire around the nozzle, near the base, and bent it at an angle at every actuator rod. Also started painting - metallic titanium to start with, Mr Color. The wire busies it up a bit with some extra detail. I think it looks better

Yep good call.

Thanks Digger.
A very thin wash brought out the fine detail Tamiya crafted into these excellent nozzles.






Some extra detail painting. Polishing the Mr Color metallic paints with a cotton bud shines them up nicely.

The nozzles look really good!

Superb work on those jet nozzles - they look great

Tomcat64 wrote: Fri Oct 21, 2022 8:25 am Superb work on those jet nozzles - they look great

aur0ra145 wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 3:01 pm The nozzles look really good!

Thanks gents, I'm happy with how they turned out. I'd like to see what a set of resin ones look like, but they cost almost half as much as the whole kit. For me, not cost effective.

Heres the work on what comes out of them. It was a slow process getting all the optical cables tidied up. There will be orange yellow and red LEDs, their flickering controlled by the Arduino computer to look like flame. The tests so far are encouraging, and it all seems to fit in the plane, so ... so far so good.

Cool, can’t wait to see that light up

Twokidsnosleep wrote: Sun Oct 23, 2022 3:25 am Cool, can’t wait to see that light up

Thanks Scott, I also could not wait to see what it looked like, so . . . here's the first test.
The video doesn't record the flame simulation flickering effect very well, but it gives a decent rendition. The real thing does look pretty awesome - its inspired me to keep plodding away with laying the optic cable in the rest of the jet.

The nozzles will definitely look super cool once this is tweaked and installed in the model. A scuffed up orange glass filter may be put between the burner can and the back of the nozzle to soften the light up and hide the dots of the optic cables. More experimenting to come.


Below is a video of it firing up for a test

Video - click here







This is the code - certainly not modelling, but someone might find it interesting
'delay(6)' etc refers to 6 milliseconds, 6 thousands of a second. It breaks up the constant lightsource to give the fire flame effect.
HIGH = led on, LOW = led off
Pinmode is just the number of the pin on the circuit board - using pins 7 to 13

That is sooo cool
You are a trooper to use the fiber optics, that is lots of tubes to route and fit
You are miles ahead of me in the programming stuff
Tried some fiber optic and went to led’s, they come in large and tiny sizes and multi colour assortments, the SMD’s are my current favourites. Hell there are self lighting balls of led lights that have no wires using an inductive coil as power source

My space shuttle was just white/blue led clusters for three main engines
And orange/red for the booster rockets. Just saw the video, I am super jealous of your flicker would have loved that.


Keep at it, your build is going to be awesome

cor wrote: Mon Oct 24, 2022 10:13 am Keep at it, your build is going to be awesome

Thanks Scott. It doenst feel like modelling at the moment. It feels like Im building a christmas tree.

This is another 2 videos in daylight, with nozzles on, and the orange filter on the right nozzle. It's starting to look like the real thing.

Watch Video - overall view

Watch Video - close up


Your space shuttle is great. I like the smoke and the fire glowing within it. That photo looks real. Its got me wanting to build a big shuttle with boosters and fuel tank.

The issue with wiring LEDs directly into the model is you cant replace them when they stop working.
Robert at the local hobby shop put me onto the optical cable idea. I had already bought heaps of tiny leds, blinking leds, all sorts of leds, and was going to embed them into the model. But as soon as one goes out, the overall effect will likely be ruined. Hence the optical cable. I can even replace the computer if it fails. So model viewing longevity is what this is about...

And the computer is pretty simple once you get a handle on it. And so versatile. I am going have the main switch to turn the computer on, and then a snap of the fingers will turn the lights on and off using a tiny microphone as the switch. The computer controls electricity, so not just lights, you can run any electrical device out of it - motors, sound, all sorts of sensors. A mini smoke machine and speakers on an F1 car starting up, with wheels steering a bit and some chassis vibration would be (a lot of work) interesting.

That said, my next model will have zero electrical components in it, for some reason...

It is excellent work, man
Interested to see where your light source for the optic fibers is placed wrt the plane and how it all comes together
Never thought about the led’s dying…very true issue with them
I make the kit with lights in and then honestly, I get bored and move on, often stealing the battery pack or whatever from an old build for the next one

I cant believe you have done all these stunning builds without an airbrush. I had to read that again just to make sure !
Amazing !!!

Johnj wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 6:42 am I cant believe you have done all these stunning builds without an airbrush. I had to read that again just to make sure !
Amazing !!!

Thanks John. Brushes give me a sense of craftsmanship. Rattle cans fill the void on certain tricky things, but I suppose I'll have to see what all the airbrush fuss is about sooner or later.

fantastic build!

Simply an another level. What patience you have with the lights it's amazing. My brother did the same kind of project with a star destroyer but he has a background in electronics.

Parker wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:23 am fantastic build!

Thanks Parker. It's coming along slowly.

Below is a test of the code to get the red wing root lights and rear red tail light flashing like they do on the F15. They dont blink, but seem to fade in and out.

Video of blinking light

The LEDs orange not red, but it's truly fascinating stuff. I just wanted to show the fade effect. It needs more tweaking on the code to make it the same as the real thing, but getting there.

Garion77 wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:08 am Simply an another level. What patience you have with the lights it's amazing. My brother did the same kind of project with a star destroyer but he has a background in electronics.

Thanks Francis, i was thinking of making a star destoyer later on. Those things are cool.

I have been learning a lot about patience these last few years, I think that's what's enabled me to do this project. It long ago left the realm of modelling. Thinking about how nice the finished project will look is what is keeping me at it.

He

Twokidsnosleep wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 3:32 am Interested to see where your light source for the optic fibers is placed wrt the plane

Crammed it in there to see what happens. Plenty of room...



Some videos

overview

More tweaking + filters in place

I'm just reading and following the build string ......AND SMILING

BEN (DRUMS01)

You seem to have it licked now, won't be long before you button it up.
I admire your will and ingenuity in getting this all to work properly.

Finally got back to doing some more of the eagle.

Made the brackets that hold the optic cables for the rear formation lights. Have run out of 2mm square styrene rod, so reverted to the modellers friend - sprue... It looks a mess but is very solid.

Cut the slots and added a clear piece of plastic for the window which ensures a very bright light. Used the same clear 'sprue lamps' as the front formation lights.

It's getting heavy with all the suff crammed inside. Still have more cable and leds and another tiny 'nano' computer to control the flashing lights.

Once the wing tips lights are done, next on the agenda, the bulk of the lighting will be finished.

Finally got all the computer and led work finished. Installed an Arduino Nano computer to make the red light fade in and out. The first computer I could not get to run 2 tasks at once, its busy making the nozzle flame only.

Also got a good result with the wing tip lights again using clear sprue, just pointing about 10 strands of optic fibre into it as a line of light. It should look about right with the decal over it.

Only lights left to do are the flashing red wing roots and rear stabiliser lights, one in each.

Kids are going to love this....

Wing cabling finished, they will be screwed and glued on soon.
Also got the optic cable in the rear stabilisers, but I will put them on near the end after everythings painted and decaled. So the next step now is tidying up the cables, and then on to some actual modelling for a change.

Hi all. Bit of an update.

Adding some sticky foil panels and surfaces to give it some texture and break the smoothness and give the body some depth and texture.






















this one hasnt had anything done to it yet

Wasn't sure what you meant about adding some sticky foil then the penny dropped.....damn good idea.