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USS Voyager


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I have the 1999 Revell version although I managed to pick up the Special Edition on a well known auction site ;) for a snip! I'll wait until that comes to contrast/compare before I decide which to build. The deflector set is from Don's light and magic and is moulded in clear blue for lighting.

Special edition? Which one is that?

Nice work on the nacelles there. I hope mine look as good when I get round to starting her.

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I think the special edition has a clear deflector, thats the only diference to the kit. Thats what i read anyway, may be cometely wrong. And thanks khimbar :-D

I'll have to dig my ebay one out to see what my deflector is now. I'm curious.

Are you running the whole ship on 9v?

Edited by khimbar
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Special edition? Which one is that?

It's listed here - I'll let you know what the differences are when I get this delivered in the next few days if you like? Not sure it's at all different from the 1999 model -looks to me that all you get extra is a pin badge lol!

There are some great notes on the accuracy of this model here

Hope that helps

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Nacelle pylons are now sorted.

8048285941_deabd01282.jpg

I trimmed down the wires from the nacelles ready to wire them up onto the impulse engines, aluminium tape is stuck in the impulse engine area to help reflect the light a tad.

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The tops of the pylons have been glued in first

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Then its all wired up. I cut a small hole in the hinge section to feed the two wires into the rear of the ship. This will allow the pilons to move still. The 3 circuits are wired (bussard collectors and nacelle grills, impulse engines, and beacons) parellel to each other. Simple stuff. The bottoms are attached and then they look like this:

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Taken with a little help from my lovely wife, quite a bit of light bleeding out, but a bit of filler will sort that later.

Edited by Chablar
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This is looking better and better! I think the lighting is really going to make this model - it stops it looking like so many grey panels stuck together and in this case is a major part of the craftsmanship (and experimentation if technique) that will go into the build. Keep it up! :)

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It's listed here - I'll let you know what the differences are when I get this delivered in the next few days if you like? Not sure it's at all different from the 1999 model -looks to me that all you get extra is a pin badge lol!

There are some great notes on the accuracy of this model here

Hope that helps

Yeah if you could that would be great, thank you!

Back to the model, more great work! This is going to look so good when it's done!

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Started work on the aft part of the ship.

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The white LED strobe is attached in the centre, and the red and green ones are positioned on either side, To be honest, there is probably a far simpler way of me doing this, but ah well :D

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The white LED for the rear window is put into place, along with some aluminum tape to help the light spread a little more evenly.

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The nacelles are then positioned and the wires soldered into their correct points, setting the circuits up as parallel. Ive tried to clean it up as best I can inside using insulation tape. After its all glued together it looks a bit like this:

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I know, it looks like crap :D. A fair bit of the primer has come off with the tape i used while the cement dried, that's the price you pay for using crappy cheap primer. Once the model is assembled I will give it another coat so this wont be a problem. This picture is mainly to show the light arrangement.

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Here's a link to the inbox preview I did for the Special Edition way back when it was issued:

http://starshipmodeler.com/reviews/new_voy.htm

The special edition Voyager made some tweaks to the mold and the decals. For starters, the upper saucer windows on the standard production kits were just rectangular depresses as the window dividers weren't cut into them to make them slit type. The correction I had to make on mine was to use thin cut pieces of decal film painted in the hull color to represent the slits (since I don't typically light my models, it worked fine at the time). The navigational deflector had the mount molded in gray while the dish was molded in clear. The Special Edition reversed that and corrected it with a clear mount and opaque dish. The stand support rod was beefed up a little and the open shuttle bay was added in the rear end. The decal sheet was also much more extensive in the special edition kit than the original.

Now without having seen the current Revell of Germany Voyager reissue in the flesh (I have a special edition still boxed, so I don't necessarily need one yet except maybe for Revell of Germany's superior print quality on their decals), I understand the molds are the special edition ones. If the decals are the same artwork in the Revell of Germany kit, that means for all intents and purposes, it is the same kit. So there really isn't a need to go hunting for the SE kit, unless you want a Voyager hat pin that is.

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Here's a link to the inbox preview I did for the Special Edition way back when it was issued:

http://starshipmodel...ews/new_voy.htm

The special edition Voyager made some tweaks to the mold and the decals. For starters, the upper saucer windows on the standard production kits were just rectangular depresses as the window dividers weren't cut into them to make them slit type. The correction I had to make on mine was to use thin cut pieces of decal film painted in the hull color to represent the slits (since I don't typically light my models, it worked fine at the time). The navigational deflector had the mount molded in gray while the dish was molded in clear. The Special Edition reversed that and corrected it with a clear mount and opaque dish. The stand support rod was beefed up a little and the open shuttle bay was added in the rear end. The decal sheet was also much more extensive in the special edition kit than the original.

Now without having seen the current Revell of Germany Voyager reissue in the flesh (I have a special edition still boxed, so I don't necessarily need one yet except maybe for Revell of Germany's superior print quality on their decals), I understand the molds are the special edition ones. If the decals are the same artwork in the Revell of Germany kit, that means for all intents and purposes, it is the same kit. So there really isn't a need to go hunting for the SE kit, unless you want a Voyager hat pin that is.

+1 sir - spot on - there is no difference other than:

- The box art

- The decals are indeed of superior quality and sharper in the reissue. There are some tiny differences - especially for the decals that go behind the windows that are purported to give an illusion of depth, but not much else.

- The instructions - the spec ed has more details on how to add the panel effects...

...oh and the stoopid pin badge!!

:banghead:

Back to this excellent build - looking great!!!

Couple of Qs for you - there doesn't seem to be much room between the two aft sections - can I ask what size of LED you used to light the rear window - and did you have to mod it it any way?

And the six million dollar question...nav lights - blinking or not blinking? Seems to be a difference of opinion on what they should be...

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In the aft section i used a superbright white 3mm to light the rear window, it was a standard dome capped one, but I filed the end flat and didnt bother polishing it like i did with the other LEDs that I changed. Because its quite close to the rear window I wanted the light to dissipate as much as it could to avoid a bright spot on half of the window. i also stuck a little piece of aluminium tape behind it to spread the light more, I think you can see this in the picture.

I used one green and one red 3mm, each filed flat on the end and attached to two 1.5m fibre optic strands for the port and starboard lights (in a similar manner to those in the nacelles). I've also hooked up one white 3mm LED to fibre optic cables, this is not lit on the picture because it will be hooked up to the 555 chip setup in the primary hull. This will blink, along with some other anti collision lights on the rest of the ship. There is hardly any room at all i the aft section, there may have been a simper way for me to put it together but this seemed to work ok. Thanks for the good comments everyone :D

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Looking good! With regards to your primer issue, it might be worth sanding it back to bare plastic if it doesn't take too much effort; this will give a better surface for your paintjob and will help prevent mishaps when you unmask etc..

R.E. the navigation lights, I'd have thought solid (non-blinking) navigation lights with flashing anti-sollision beacons (circa once every second or two) is about right since the general arrangement is similar to an aircraft's navigation and strobe lights, which are as I just described.

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Yeah thats right. Ive decided that im going to re drill out the windows that ive filled in (ive only done half of the primary hull) because the product i use to fill them can be done entirely from the outside and can be wiped with a damp cloth to leave no marks what so ever. This will save me hours of cutting out small pieces of tape to mask every window. So im moving on to this next

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  • 3 weeks later...

UPDATE TIME! (FINALLY!)

I haven't had too much time spare to do this or to upload the pictures, but we will see how this goes. I was going to start work on the secondary hull but im waiting for the brass tubing to come through the post. As this is obviouly an important part of the secondary hull, ive started work on the primary hull. First things first, I drilled out all the windows again that I had previously filled in, this is to save me masking every single window. I then primed both halves of the hull.

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After this the fibre optics were bent and attached to the filed down LEDs as before. Each one soldered to a 270ohm resistor before being wrapped with insulation tape to prevent light leaks.

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These are then wired together in series

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and lit up...

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The same is then done with the two anti collision beacons, apart from this time no resistor has been attached, as the current is handled by the 555 circuit which will be aded later.

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The front beacon is then done in the same way

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And the two are then soldered together in series

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I then make a start on the lower half of the hull, and the same is done for the lower collision light

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And yes, you guessed it, the same is done with the lower red and green lights

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Now that's all done I can make a start on the white lighting inside the hull. The large window sections are covered with some clear plastic card that has been frosted using sand paper, just like the rear window sections earlier. I then start with a single white LED, filed down again to give a wider angle to the light spread. These are 5mm super bright white LEDs. A second one, pointing directly up is then attached and wired in parellel.

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Then either side I also position two LEDs facing each other, these two are also wired in parallel.

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A third LED is then positioned facing rearwards, and wired in to be parellel with the central light hub

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These different circuits are all then linked to a piece of stripboard like so:

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It ends like this:

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The green and red lights are not lit up on the upper hull as they are not attached to the main circuit. Im waiting for some 47uf capasitors in the post to complete the flasher circuit, this will then pe positioned in the primary hull. Im not starting on detailing the secondary hull, hopefully updates wil be moreregular after this. Keep checking back and let me know what you think

Rich

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Thanks everyone for the encouraging words. Been struggling with time lately, but im at a point now where i just want to keep going. At the moment im replacing the inferior detailing on the secondary hull. More pictures soon

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This is a quick video showing the flashing anti collision lights. In the series its more like a strobe, flashing for a split second and then remaining off for 2 seconds or so. However, as the ship is quite small and only has one set of flashing lights (unlike the larger vessels which have 2 different flashing patterns that compliment each other very well) i preferred the steady, consistent on / off pattern you see here. Let me know what you guys think

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