B
Bunkerbarge
Guest
If you go back to the beginning of the thread you will see the steam plant
Nice work mate, what do you use to do your rivits, i use a fine oiler bottle but am always open to new techniques.\ said:One part of any such project that seems to progress in the background alongside everything else yet remains a separate and independent item is the electrical installation and in particular the lighting.I decided right from the start that I wanted to incorporate a lighting system but did not pay a great deal of attention as to how I wanted to arrange this when I first started building. The one decision that I did make however was what type of lamps to use. I could have gone for the simple and reliable path of LED’s but for a 1920’s coaster which would almost certainly be using oil lamps I thought the bright blue light from an LED would not be an appropriate light. The best way to achieve the type of light I was after was to use 12v incandescent lamps but use a lower voltage across them. This would have the advantage of producing a dimmer light, more in keeping with the model’s age, and it would also hugely increase the life of the lamps. This was to be particularly significant as I was going to seal the lamps in for the life of the model. This being mainly driven by the fact that a number of lights were to be in locations that access could not possibly be achieved after the model was completed.
Initial experiments tended to indicate that a six volt pack would produce the required degree of illumination so a simple four “AA” pack battery holder would be perfect for the job. The lamps seemed to be suitably bright enough so I started to install the initial lamps in the hull as the building progressed.
I have always believed in completely encasing wiring for lamps such as this in a resin to protect the wiring for the life of the model and the lamps were arranged to be located in a reflective housing to protect them and to enable the best from the lamp. I therefore started to install lamps in the hull inside paint pot lids and ran the cables back to a central location for connecting at a later date. Lamps were fitted behind the ports in the fo’c’sle, behind the ports in the mid ship hull and were incorporated into the bridge unit and the aft accommodation unit.
The lamps in the aft accommodation were a bulkhead lamp fitting with the 3v lamps removed and 12v lamps fitted instead to give a similar level of illumination. Other lights fitted during the build included the red and green bridge navigation lamps, which were turned brass items with a thin acetate sheet fitted over the opening after the insides had been painted. The lamp itself was painted up to resemble painted copper with some of the paint chipped and a degree of weathering added before putting another 12v lamp inside after feeding the cables up through the back of the bridge housing.
Once the aft accommodation lamps had been fitted the whole concept of how I wanted to operate the lights had to be addressed and decided before taking the model any further. I was particularly after a level of realism in the use of the lights so consequently I wanted separate circuits for separate uses. I decided on one circuit for all navigation lights so the two bridge navigation lamps, the aft anchor lamp and the forward mast lamp were to be connected together. All accommodation lighting was to be common and independently switched so that the ship could be alongside without navigation lights but with accommodation lights and finally the light on the bridge had to be independent. Bridge lights are very rarely lit except when in port so I particularly did not want the bridge light to be lit when the ship was underway. This therefore gave me three circuits, more than enough for such a simple old steamer!
The next decision was whether I wanted the circuits to be operated via the transmitter or manually. Part of this decision was based on the fact that using a Dx6i meant that I would be switching lighting circuits with a proportional channel, which didn’t seem right, as well as requiring either servo’s and switches or electronic relay’s to operate the circuits. All more complexity and weight in the model. Consequently I opted for the circuits to be operated manually from switches located in the main hatch. Obviously you don’t then have the convenience of switching circuits on and off when the model is under way but I thought that was a price I was prepared to pay for the sake of keeping the internals that bit simpler. I think I have enough complexity in the steam plant without going down the same path with the lighting circuits as well!
It was also at this point when I decided to use rechargeable batteries for the lights so fitted four “AA” rechargeable batteries in the holder. Then I noticed that the lamps were now getting too dim for credibility and then realised of course that four rechargeable “AA”s only gives 4.8 volts. Time for a rethink. The solution was to go for a 7.2 pack, which I tried but thought that the lights were too bright so eventually removed a cell and settled on a 6V 5 cell rechargeable pack. This was partly dictated by the fact that the lighting battery is also supplying the gas control valve and 7.2 v proved to be two much and the servo did not operate smoothly so consequently the 6v pack seemed to be the best compromise all round. A charging connection was also fitted to enable a normal Tamiya type charger to be used to charge up the battery pack with all items remaining in place in the model.
Having decided on the circuits and power the final main decision was how to get the power to the removable items such as the bridge and the aft accommodation units. I have always particularly disliked the idea of trying to disconnect wires from connecting blocks to enable parts of a model to be removed and have recently tried the method of plugging cables into a socket located within the model but for this I really wanted the complete convenience of being able to remove and replace the parts of the model without having to become involved in the lighting at all. The only way I could see this happening was by using a plug and socket connector unit with one being permanently mounted in the removable unit and the other being mounted in the model. I eventually obtained some very neat little six pin plug and socket units and set about how I was going to mount them in the model. I only used the centre four pins as I only needed two circuits to be completed so the connectors were wired up and mounted in holders ready to fit. First the unit was fitted in the removable aft accommodation section and, when set, the plug was assembled.
Then the accommodation was placed on the model and the other side of the plug glued to a mounting inside the aft coaming. It actually proved to work very successfully with the circuit being made when the accommodation is dropped in place which can also be removed without worrying about any of the lighting circuits. The two circuits were then tested and the accommodation lights and the aft anchor light worked fine from the two switches in the main hatch.
All that remains is to fit exactly the same plug and socket unit below the bridge for the two circuits in that piece!
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