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1:32 Flying Sub from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" from Moebius - COMPETE!


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I picke dup this kit at the Poole Vikings show a couple of weeks back as something different, ie its not a Gerry Anderson vehicle!!! I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the thing...

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I picked up the ParaGrafix PE set as well and my intention is to light the interior, so to start with masking the hexagonal panels in the floor

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Next was to decide where to put the batteries ans switch. On closer inspection of the lower hull half, I saw that there are panels ready for cutting out for the Undercarriage accessory set that is available for this kit, so I thought that cutting one of these out would be a good way of hiding batteries inside it

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From the underside

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This gives an idea of what the internal structure looks like

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One of the problems with the lighting on this model is likely to be light bleed as the plastic is yellow so will be a bit more transluscent than darker plastic, plus in particular for the floor its actually a transparency, so some extra masking has been undertaken...

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which when turned over reveals

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I picked up some reflective gaffer tape in Hobbycraft :) Similarly this is the upper hull half

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and turned over...

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Underside, with battery panel closed

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Battery penel open

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This is actually the battery panel that I originally built when I was planning to light the Garrett Showmans Engine earlier in the year - came in useful in the end! This is the inside

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Finally for now, here is the ParaGrafix PE set being added to the internal walls

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More to come...

Edited by Kallisti
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Getting some of the sub assemblies painted up now. This is the upper hull ring which is removable to show the interior

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Next the interior floor has been painted along with the internal framework. These are just dry-fitted for now

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Work has started on the pilots and their chairs

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This is the reactor wall panel - I've used Alclads on the large panel (polished brass) and on the small panels beneath (polished aluminium). These panels have had their decals applied. Each will get a white LED behind them to illuminate the decal from behind.

I've built a lightbox behind the large panel and there are three flashing LEDs, one red, one green and one yellow. It looks like this when lit:

The other internal walls have been completed. The instrument panels have been sprayed with Alclad polished Aluminium.

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and the forward console has had its decals applied

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At the back, the engine exhausts have had red flickering LEDs added with the internal engine pipes painted with Alclad polished Aluminium to give internal reflections

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This is a test fit of the upper fuselage over the dry fitted walls. You can see the blue LEDs used to illuminate the floor panels

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but it looks better in this longer exposure without the flash.

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You can also see the back panel illuminated by the 3 white LEDs behind the wall which make the buttons shine. Still a lot more LED wiring to go before I can continue with the actual assembly, but its been dun the last couple of evening to be soldering while watching Shakespeare plays on BBC 4 :)

Edited by Kallisti
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A favourite TV show when I was about 8 years old. I seem to recall it was a little like Star Trek and any character with a red wetsuit was fodder for the giant squid, lobster or mutant whale.

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So here is yesterday's progress, starting work on this panel

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The first thing to do was to decide how it was to be lit. Once this was done, next was to box in the various elements

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Then it was the main job of soldering resistors and connector leads onto the nine LEDs chose... this took FOREVER!!! :)

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I did cheat a little ont his and used 4 pre-wired Surface mount LEDs for the two upper left and right LEDs.
Once done, a quick test it all works...

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and finally install and test

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Today I have a second of those panels to light, will use some different colour LEDs just for variety :)

Current LED count: 22 - never put that many in one model before, and there are still at least another 9 on the other panel plus those needed for the front instrument panel - another 3 or 5 depending how much I want to light that!

Edited by Kallisti
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Too cool.

I always loved the flying sub.

I had the Aurora kit as a kid 'til I lost it in the lake. :weep:

I snapped up the Moebius kit when it came out and all the associated goodies but never actually got around to putting it all together.

Someday....

In the meantime I shall watch your build! :popcorn:

So Irwin Allen!

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That takes me back a few years, the TV series not the model that is, fantastic work on the wiring it looks amazing

Cheers

Dennis

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Well I knew it was all going too well to be true!

Today I managed to get the second control panel LED'd and wired up, but on connecting to the rest, all the existing lights dimmed significantly...

Plus they have all started to flicker slightly - even the ones that aren't supposed to. After some experimentation, it turns out there is feedback coming from the flashing reactor panel which is causing the whole circuit to flicker. These two problems have made me realise that I can't drive the whole thing from two 3v batteries in one long parallel circuit. So as a result I've spent this evening opening up the other side of the lower fuselage and repeating the framework I built to support a battery platform.

This will mean all the starboard lights will have a different power source to all the port lights. That should keep the load on the batteries to manageable levels. It has, however meant progress has ground to a halt while this fix is put in place. I also have a sneaking suspicion that there is a short somewhere in the new panel, so that might need disassembly and trying again :(

Oh well its a Bank Holiday (with rain) tomorrow...

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There is a simple calculation to work out the amount of 'running' time you get from a battery. All batteries have a milli-amp hour (mAh) rating. The CR2032 has a rating of 220mAh, which means it will deliver 0.22A for 1 hour. If you have 2 in series you double the voltage but keep the same rating of 220mAh.

On average a LED draws 20mA (0.02A) so if you have 22 that is 0.44A, as the CR2032 is really a low draw battery it will struggle to deliver that level of current without affecting the lights, this reduces the voltage which is why all the LEDs start to flicker.

If you have 36 LEDs in the model you will have something like 0.7A of current, way too much for the CR2032 batteries.

If you want to take the sub to a show and not have to change the batteries then you will need to look at time it will be running and the current used. Most shows are 6 hours so the rating of your batteries needs to be 6 x 700mA = 4,200mAh. AA batteries have a rating of about 2,500mAh so you would need to change them after about 3 hours. If you go to 9V (PP3) you would need to change the battery every 45 minutes as they only have a capacity of 550mAh!

Personally I would have gone with a rechargeable Lithium-Ion 12V battery pack. Even splitting the LEDs you will get about a hours running before they need to be changed.

Here ends today's lesson.

Cheers,

Warren

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Thanks for that Warren, my problem is that when I started I didn't realise how many LEDs would be used. I've never built a model with this many so looks like I ned to rethink things...

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So after a serious bit or reworking and rewiring, things started going back together again last night. In order to avoid the problems Warren described, I now have two battery access ports, one either side. Each now is designed to hold a battery pack of 4 AA batteries, each of which will give 6V, enough milliAmps and plenty of mAh. Each pack powers about 20 LEDs.

Here it is from the starboard side

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You can see the strips of velcro hooks on the battery pack - this will stick to the strip of velcro on the inside of the upper fuselage to hold the battery pack snugly in place. I no longer have power switches - turing the lights off involves unplugging the battery packs. The view is similar on the port side. What this means is I can now test all the lights apart from those in the instrument panel, so here goes...

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As you can see, its all working well, with nice and bright lists. I'll do a video of the flashing, flickering lights towards the end of the build. The walls and floor have now been cemented in place and the front with the windows and headlamps has been glued and the huge gap in the joint filled, sanded and painted over.

Next job is the instrument panel...

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Awesome lights, I don't think I've ever seen so many wires in a model. How do you close-up the battery hatches, and will you need to do anything to stop e.g. the paint chipping if you have to open and close them often?

Cheers,

Will

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This second rond of battery hatch design only uses two high-power magnets at the top edge to close it up. They are held quite snugly like this. In the first attmet i was using 4 magnets and it wasn't that much different, but the support frame for the 4 magnet options was too bulky when I had to switch to AA battery packs.

Ahh now paint chipping... mmm yes, interesting problem eh? Thankfully because of the magnets, the hatches close themselves quite well, so we'll just have to see. I suspect a good coat of varnish will have to suffice!

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The LED work is now complete, a grand total of 40 LEDs!!

Pilots have also been painted and have assumed their places:

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and the instrument panel

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and lit

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and there are the battery packs and wiring

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So the next step is to join the upper and lower hulls together and then to mask up the previously painted sections.

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The main problem with this is the joint between the hull halves is pretty ropey, not so much a join line, more like a crevasse

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and the underside of the front "beak"

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So lots of filling and sanding in the future for me I think...

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So now its joined, filled and has been given another (several) fresh coats of yellow paint.

The blue fins and window surrounds are next... its now ready for the great unmasking... how badly will the paint have run?

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