Wow, I just watched through the slideshow, this thing is seriously awesome. Good luck with it, I want to see where it's headed.
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Wow, I just watched through the slideshow, this thing is seriously awesome. Good luck with it, I want to see where it's headed.
Thanks everyone, the praise is encouraging! This has been a lot of work the last couple years - there have been MANY instances where my initial design didn't work, or I decided/had to re-do something I already finished. the back section and the lighting are the latest in that category...I just moved, but will happily post more pics as soon as I get back to work on it (hoping to do that this weekend, once my new apt. is put together). Stay tuned...
PS - miraculously, it survived the move just fine. It barely fit in the front seat of my truck. I must admit, it was interesting having a sandcrawler riding shotgun to the new apartment LOL. As a final step I think I'm going to bolt it down to a base piece of wood that'll be done up with little sand dunes and rocks. I discovered during the move that it's much easier to carry if it's on a flat piece of wood - I grip that instead of the crawler. And it'll look cool. :D now all I need are some jawas...
just ordered 120 5mm 2V yellow LEDs and 30 1ohm resistors...now to run to Radio Sha....er... The Shack :rolleyes: to get some bare twisted wire, pull out the ol' soldering gun, and away we go! In the meantime, hope to finish re-doing the back section and some roof panels this weekend.
Congrats!!!!! Check out your feature here.
whoa.... going :banana: right now :D thanks so much guys, that really means a lot to me!! Your support is helping keep me excited about the build - believe me, it's easy to lose enthusiasm when you've been doing and re-doing the same darn thing for 7 years (off and on). More updates hopefully this weekend!
BTW - I noticed a lot of you post pics of the tools you use. I've done this entire build with a jigsaw, utility knife, metal ruler (used as a straightedge), plastic ruler (cuz the measurement markings on the metal one wore off), pencil, calculator, Adobe Illustrator, drill...and a soldering gun. Oh yeah, and lots of superglue :D maybe it's time I go get my first dremel...
I see R2-D2 has commandeered the crawler...is he selling the Jawas now?:D
I LOL'd at all the door panels...are you going to detail them all like the cockpit?
Everything looks awesome so far. +rep
yep, that's the plan. I was inspired by the excellent cutaway diagram Star Wars vehicles book from a few years ago, and while my design will differ significantly from what's shown in there, it did give me the idea to do an interior. I even have an old necklace chain that belonged to my girlfriend:
me: "Hon, you don't want this locket anymore right?"
her: "No..."
me: "So I can throw it away, you don't care about it at all right?"
her: "What part of the sandcrawler is it going to be?"
:D
that chain will be dangling down inside the loading door for the loading crane I plan on putting in there...someday LOL. lots of detail....that's what I want. hopefully I can do my ideas justice.
ok guys...off to rewire them pesky lights and watch football...sounds like a perfect Sunday to me! pics later! :D
Bwahahahahahaha! She's got your number down man...might I suggest an anti-abduction helmet hand crafted by Oneslowz28? I hear he adds an extra layer that prevents mind reading...Quote:
Originally Posted by artoodeeto
ok...promised pics. this is rather momentous - it was for advice on this rewiring that I joined TBCS, so thanks to all who answered my initial posts, you made this possible!
before I started rewiring. doesn't look bad, but they're all parallel wired, no resistors, and the section on the right/foreground all blew out on me.
little baggies of LED goodness :D amazing to think there's 120 in that bag. looks more like 30.
new LEDs in place, note the sharpie marks I made so I wouldn't forget which side was which.
all replacement LEDs in place.
my "helper". she spends most of her time sticking her nose in the middle of things and being a pest. but cute at the same time. Lucky she didn't get burned on my soldering gun.... oy....cats....
soldering started. I didn't do the final wiring today, gotta finish the back roof to stabilize the back section, then stand it up on its back so I can access the wiring underneath and then run the new wiring.
doesn't look all that pretty, but then I can't really access the cockpit lights and since I'm pretty sure I don't need to replace them, I didn't want to risk breaking anything in trying. I *did* desolder them and rewire them in series instead of parallel.
last replaced section.
note white wires coming from cockpit section - I added 4 LEDs above loading door area, so that each set of LEDs in the cockpit would be 6 instead of just 5, so I wouldn't have to go buy new resistors. More LEDS, didn't have to buy more stuff....good stuff :D
not pretty, but it won't be visible so who cares :)
there were 2 LEDs left over in each of these sections - I decided once the roof panels are installed on the back (to the left of this photo), to add 4 LEDs on each side back there, and so get 6 LEDs on each of these strands.
my other helper...luckily he's not as destructive.
there were 4 LEDs leftover in the front section, but then in this removeable roofpiece I had 2 LEDS, so it worked out quite well to solder in a plug and add these 2 LEDS in the middle of the series strand and get 6 on there instead of just 4....once again avoiding having to buy new resistors. life is good :D
That, sir, is a ton of LEDs. I guess you can't show pictures of it working because it would blind us, right? :D
