LEDs in small spaces and dioramas

[BrokenWorlds]

I'm looking to fit an LED into a 1/144 Gundam head. I'm struggling to find suitable batteries that can fit in 1/2-1 inch spaces and thought some of you gentleman may have some advice for the novice lighter. I'm new to this and I can do basic wiring I've been struggling finding batteries small enough to fit into the room we have in models. I'm happy to go serial killer on a kits (non visible) internals to make space, but fitting a coin battery is still quite difficult and almost impossible to replace. I've been considering trying tea lights you can get for dirt cheap. They're already in a pretty small space and taking off the casing allows for a really cheap and right sized LED set up. They even come in multiple colours if you're just looking for a single eye piece.

 

Like wise what advice would people have for LEDs in dioramas? What size battery would you ideally want to light a handful of LEDs for a competition? You need it to stay lit all day obviously. I'm thinking hollow plastic bases over wooden ones are the way to go for those. Any tips on wiring through terrain? I'm especially interested in having an LED in a light house, has any one made a scale model light house with any advice?

[bmwh548]

Been doing car models with LEDs for years.

You can get a few meters of UTP/FTP (Internet) cable and strip that. It contains 8 thin wires which are thin and tough enough for the job but thick enough so they're easy to solder. Disadvantage: a bit stiff. Old keyboards are also a good source for very flexible wires which are about the same thickness as the Internet ones.

LEDs come in a huge variety of sizes nowadays, I'd say order straight from China, get 10 pieces in each size you think you need and in the future you'll know exactly what to order to suit your needs. I typically use 3mm LEDs for headlamps for example. 

Batteries...as big as they'll fit the space. If you're really limited you can go for AG3. It's a good balance between battery size and battery life as long as you only power 1-2 LEDs. Around here we still get Chinese lighters which have a white LED in the back end. Take that out and you find a very useful case in which you fit 3 AG3 batteries. For more LEDs you'll obviously need heavier duty batteries. At this point you should really consider R3 or R6 ones as long as you have the space.

Keep in mind that regardless of the power source the LEDs will need limiting resistors (unless you buy the ones that have the resistor built in). The resistor needs to be calculated depending on the voltage supplied and on how many LEDs it needs to protect. It's also a really good way to adjust the light intensity (you can play with the resistor values until you hit the right intensity).

[Schwarz-Brot]

If you do a base the batteries can easily be hidden there.