SecretReeve

so no real progress has been made, i have installed the fibre strands in the spitfire, completed the display circuit and loaded its microchip with its program, finished the circuitry and programs for the messershmitt but i have popped the mosfets on the spits circuit board due to an ES discharge so have to rebuild that. next months im ordering the base stand, extra rod, messer kit and another pcb to rebuilt the spits circuit along with a few other bits to get all the circuits installed in the base and optics connected ready for the models to be painted up. so will add some photos tomorrow probably of the optics and that'll be it till next month when deliveries come.

not alot to report today, i installed the motor and the propellers into the model, ran it for an hour, ambient temp is 27*c and the motors sat at 30*c so well within safety limits. speed and sound is good too oh its running on 5v from a phone charger as well so happy days

a moderator has been over the thread, i guess that particular one is happy with it here, but your right, if a mod feels it needs moving i welcome a message or for them to move it if its in wrong place. anyway latest test videos have been added to the end of the very long first post.

i agree, its nice to get some input from the client as its more personal for them if you can add those ideas into it. i've actually got the whole lot rigged up to a test platform and in the process of uploading a video. i'll post it to my main post in a little bit and remark on here when its added. its looking rather impressive if i do say so myself haha. i also finished up drilling out the wing tips so the fibers now protrude as needed.

tamiya 1/48th spitfire mk5b i'll see if i can find the one you mentioned. would be nice to get some as means i can illuminate them as well adding an extra feature to this model.

IT WORKS!!!!!! we have morse code people! the guns fire randomly as they are supposed to and the morse code repeats indefinately! customers going to love this! will record a video of the new code loaded into the microcontroller and the circuit on the test fibres so ya'll can see the results in the plane! and all in 83 lines of code too! friggin insanely happy! okay slight kink in that plan, i gotta order a slight microcontroller upgrade from the ATTiny45 to the ATTiny85 as the program just exceeded storage capacity of the 45 by 8% will make a video next week when the new IC turns up and its loaded with the firmware. plus side is, i now have a spare 45 i can use for the messers side of things as the firmware will fit onto it as theres less going on with it because the fire leds are on thier own microcontroller circuit. what i'll do is upload a video of the test bed instead just so you can see the random gun firing and morse code later on

NAVY870 - i havent exactly been 100% perfect i suppose. anyway! i've added a random generator into the spitfires code so now the guns "fire" for 1 second periods at random intervals spaced between 2 and 20 seconds! much more realistic effect! im also attempting to add a morse code library into my code so the Spitfires ID lights flash the morse for "D" and the messerschmitt's flash "H" which are the initials of the client. this is a request of his, and frankly i think its awesome! it makes the model far more personalised and unique to the customer and im actually having great fun trying to incorporate the code into my own program! i've got it to slightly work so far, it sets the morse code once then stops so need to work out the repeat sequence.

latest test footage added into main post.

does anyone know of any decals or after market gauges for the cockpit by any chance? primarily the instrument panel gauges.

Have a look on the circuit testing youll see red and green static on, those are the nav light ports. In the videos of them in the plane they are just test optics fitted to a random led for testing the visual effect

updates added to main post.

keep an eye on the primary post, updates will be added to the bottom of that. i got some new videos and photos to add tomorrow when i can be bothered (being honest) but they will be added. as a teaser, ive rigged some fibre strands to a couple of test leds so i can see how to run the strands in the spitfire and how it looks. photos will follow in main post soon.

hi there jerry, i'll be using cotton wool to simulate the smoke coming from the wing. updates added to primary.

thanks for that Ed, I've ordered in a couple of motors for the propellers, we'll see how they work out as they may be a little large but thats the joys of online buying, you cant handle the product before you buy them. they are going to be mounted in a suspended state inside the fuselage and the pin hole for the properllers increased to avoid the melting aspect, the code will also be modified to slow them down a little. they should arrive in the next few days. i'll add a 12/13 second long test video and prototype circuit to my primary post later on. the code has been modified to immitate muzzle flash instead of a glowing after discussing accuracy with the client. they have also asked for the ability to manually switch on and off the navigational lights which have also been coded to solid state on and will be linked to a switch for turning them on and off and seated into the base plaque. the entire model will be fully open sided so no "walls" to project onto, i do like the idea of a parachuting pilot, this'll be too much work ontop of what ive already got going on.

Oh I know, 99% of rounds that were actually fired would miss. The joys of early air combat. But as I said the client has requested this be added into the model. Probably just to give it a little more to look at I suppose. I figure their model, their money, I just.do the leg work.

Fascinating and highly topical which I love. So they wouldn't have flashed other than Morse code. Well I can adjust my code so they are steadily on instead of flashing away.

The only request for help is the post below my primary in regard to the timing of the navigation lights if they flashed. And what do you mean too far from mainstream modelling?

what do you mean? instead of leaving comments like this please expand on that and try to be helpful.

The guns glowing from heat are a request from the individual who has asked for the diorama to be done so that ones out of my hands unfortunately as i do completely agree, with the speed they are flying and the colder air of the altitude they'd stay cool. as for the nav and I.D lights im not 100% sure, need one of the resident experts to inform us on that

To be done by chris marsh, on Flickr been given this to do at some point as well

hi guys, so I figured I would join up and make a thread on this one so progress can be monitored by the person who's asked for this to be done. I've been asked to make a model of a spitfire and a messerschmitt in a dog fight. sort of like a diorama. I haven't done this sort of work before so its going to be an interesting journey for me. Due to personal circumstances I'm starting modelling all over again which means I have to get all the equipment again from the very beginning so this build is going to take some time. Now what's lucky for me is I actually live within 5 minutes drive of the manston spitfire and hurricane museum which thank god I can go there for specific information that will become apparent soon. I've been asked to make the navigational lights on the planes a functional aesthetic to the model, as well as making the guns/cannons "glow" as if they are overheating and cooling down. so the first part of the thread is going to largely be based around that aspect. electronics people! integrated circuits, custom code, leds and fibre optic strands, all coupled with modelling. what's not to love?! thankfully I'm not a complete stranger to adding custom electronics to models, if you look for secretreeve on YouTube you'll see my USS voyager, battlestar Galactica, iron man armour and the start of a Galactica fighter I never got to finish. Those where back in my days of analogue circuits, now I've been able to develop code that I can load into an IC and control things alot more precisely, add "phases" so in star trek I can add a "start-up" sequence, impulse mode, warp mode and even a visualised "self destruct" by "overloading" all the lights as if its just gone boom. This isn't so advanced, I've deconstructed the original code I had and made various modification so its usable for this instead. the original code was designed with being able to do that in mind so its very versatile and can be used for all kinds of kits. okay so there's the build up, how about some specifics? the actual circuit I'm designing has to be small enough to fit within the fuselage of the planes as well so I'll be mounting the leds onto the PCB and transferring the light to where it needs to be via 0.5 and 1mm thick fibre optic strands. this also makes getting the light to where it needs to be alot easier when your dealing with space issues (in-between 2 half of a wing for example?) yeah, I gotta make the circuit myself, so considering its got a program to run I need an IC chip circuit. hmm component list? OKAY!!! through hole PCB board. atmel ATTINY45 IC 8 pin dip socket 2n7000 mosfets 1/4w 100ohm resistors 1/4watt 150ohm resistors 1.8mm leds of various colours as needed (some are still to be confirmed) micro USB socket for power inlet 0.5mm diameter fibre optic strand 1.0mm diameter fibre optic strand I haven't actually settled on a layout for the circuit yet, there's many options but I need the actual plane kit in my hands so I can dry fit the circuit, stuff it in the plane and see which works best for space ha-ha. I'm placing a huge order for components and the spitfire mkV5b kit from tamiya on Friday so next week I'll have plenty to do. so what's the need for this program? well, when plugged in and turned on, the various navigation lights have to start and be as accurate for the timing on them, this is definable within the program, any internal cockpit illumination needs to happen, and the guns/cannons have to glow. so the sequence is this, cockpit panel lights up, navigation lights light up and do what they gotta do, the guns will fade up and down at varying periods to indicate overheating and cooling down. And that happening repeatedly at appealingly random intervals. okay okay doesn't sound very impressive at the moment. but when all the components turn up and I get a prototype working it should make more sense and look more impressive than it sounds. but with the program I can set the brightness level of each led, be it a fader, flasher or statically on. Why do I wanna do that? well if it was on at full brightness it'd be the real life equivalent of the sun behind a fuel gauge. not very realistic. I'll be using my arduino R3 as an AVR ISP programmer for this and to do all the prototype testing as its a pretty robust platform to test this kind of thing out on. funny thing, I can do that stuff as realistic as possible, lets see how the paint work comes out shall we? hahaha. so what's a circuit like this cost? well its about a tenner for components, so realistically, with research for accurate timing and labour and coding as well as assembly, probably a good £40 worth if I was to retail them as a kit which I'd probably do quite happily as used to build up the lights for my Galactica and voyager and sell them as installable kits. without a power supply that is. oooo now there's a point. POWER! the circuit is designed to run on a 5v power supply, so if you was so inclined, and I wouldn't recommend it but would recommend a stabilised 5v supply, use your phone charger to power the model. I'll delve into that at a later point. "okay okay so enough text show us some pictures or something!!!" here's the schematic I doodled up using MS paint. spitfire circuit by chris marsh, on Flickr here's an image I'm going to TRY so hard, to base this diorama on 20191007_191104 by chris marsh, on Flickr okay so the model kits, as lets face it that's why where are all here, I'll be using tamiya 1/48 scale model kits. this means a spitfire Mkv b. I know tamiya also do a messerschmitt in the same scale so that's nice and handy. but im going to focus firstly on the spitfire as that one gets to stay in one glorious piece where as the messerschmitt is going to be taking a little.....damage shall we say. I will probably end up using model master paints so may need some guidance there when the time comes. I've used their paints before and always been impressed with the quality of them. plus those little glass bottles are so cute, who could resist?! I'm hoping to get video footage of work as it progresses and upload to YouTube so what I'll do is edit this first post with progress updates so its all in one big post. that way any comments, questions, helpful hints and constructive criticism is all underneath the actual build log. its going to take time. a long time to complete this. and as I said waaaaaaaaaay up there somewhere, the first part will focus heavily on the electrical side of this. okay so alot of this stuff is done by programming chips, now as i said before im using an arduino uno as an isp/AVR so i had to make a shield for it. well heres that shield. 2019-11-05_02-38-29 by chris marsh, on Flickr now ive been tinkering so heres a video of the spitfire program, the navigation lights are on but having discussed the accuracy issues with the client i'll be adding a dedicated switch to turn them off so he can choose what to do. also the cannon glow has been changed to muzzle flash (the orange ones in the middle of the board) still not sure if the i.d lights should be on or not but hey, they are flashing for now, i can change the program if needs be. next up we have the fire effect for the messerschmitts shot off wing, testing the circuit; and a tour of the completed circuit for the fire effect; note, the circuit board has been left in that size so i can add further circuits 5v and gnd leads to it so it'll act as a kind of distributor as theres the spitfire circuit, messerschmitt circuit and the lcd display to be powered still. however, soldering the main leads to the micro usb socket was GREAT fun. okay heres the spitfires circuit in construction. 20191106_002542 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_002553 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_003100 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_011512 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_011512 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_015535 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_022229 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_022222 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_104824 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_105234 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_104814 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_111939 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_111952 by chris marsh, on Flickr 20191106_130945 by chris marsh, on Flickr nice shot of both boards side by side. so theres no fibre optics at the moment as they'll be installed later on and then connected, need a few more bits first. also the code isnt finalised, i can pull the chip, modify the code and reprogram and install the chip. next up here we have and test fibers installed into the wings, had to drill through the wing end, still some work to be done so work in progress, colour, flash rate and all that is just for testing perpouses! and just as a note, im glad i was wearing steel toe cap shoes today, this happened. 20191106_230907 by chris marsh, on Flickr latest test footage, the fibre optics for the guns are glued into place, they just need trimming down after the planes been painted, the wing tips need to be finished up with the drilling out and test optics are installed so far, i.d lights are on test optics as well, all optics running off the actual MCB for the project. I quite like the effect we get from the optics, they are subtle and not overpowering either. latest testing videos, morse code added to i.d lights and wing tips drilled out running full current version of firmware. Heres the display up and running

hey guys, been a long time so i figured i'd swing by here and just say hello, ive been away for a few years and as unsurprisingly im starting over again from scratch, got an interesting build to begin which will be in the WW2 section as thats most relavant. anyway its good to be back and look forward to your help along the way!

it makes sense just not sure how to sort it. this is the library being used. #pragma once #include <Arduino.h> class LedFlasher { public: // constructor LedFlasher (const byte pin, const unsigned long timeOff, const unsigned long timeOn, const bool active = true); void begin (); void update (); void on (); void off (); bool isOn () const; private: const byte pin_; const unsigned long timeOff_; const unsigned long timeOn_; bool active_; unsigned long currentInterval_; // time till we change state unsigned long startTime_; // when we last changed state }; // end of LedFlasher class unless im missing something obvious it looks okay?

Been playing with this again after having to recode alot of work after loosing my original files. anyway im getting the following errors and not sure what they are babbling on about, anyone have some insight on this. Enterprise_D_v1.ino:31:42: error: no matching function for call to ‘LedFlasher::LedFlasher(const byte&)’ Enterprise_D_v1.ino:31:42: note: candidates are: In file included from Enterprise_D_v1.ino:1:0: /home/chris/sketchbook/libraries/LED_flasher/LedFlasher.h:10:5: note: LedFlasher::LedFlasher(byte, long unsigned int, long unsigned int, bool) LedFlasher (const byte pin, const unsigned long timeOff, const unsigned long timeOn, const bool active = true); ^ /home/chris/sketchbook/libraries/LED_flasher/LedFlasher.h:10:5: note: candidate expects 4 arguments, 1 provided /home/chris/sketchbook/libraries/LED_flasher/LedFlasher.h:5:7: note: LedFlasher::LedFlasher(const LedFlasher&) class LedFlasher ^ /home/chris/sketchbook/libraries/LED_flasher/LedFlasher.h:5:7: note: no known conversion for argument 1 from ‘const byte {aka const unsigned char}’ to ‘const LedFlasher&’ Enterprise_D_v1.ino:31:51: error: expected unqualified-id before numeric constant

but you cant compare other movies to aliens, the prop crew knew the money was tight and everything had to be dirt cheap, they had pure skillz for that movie. these days its all million dollar cgi and crud instead of using a little clever thinking.