She's coming together nicely. If Kharnvor hadn't convinced me to wait for these blinking LEDs, she'd be all set. Instead, here's a sneak peak of the top half.

I just randomly drill it out. I did the same for the Gozanti. As far as I'm concerned, all of the work I do is designed for the table top and to hang from my ceiling (yeah, I do that... gotta a problem with that? Didn't think so), so having specific areas that are "windows" doesn't really matter. Now if you were doing the Titanic or something where there's a difference in the hull for the various windows, yeah, you have to be careful where you install the FOs. But when you're looking from 3+ feet away, only the overall lighting effect matters. And it's more important to make sure it doesn't look like a pattern instead of making sure they're drilled for windows.

Don't restrict yourself to just hanging models from the ceiling. When Christmas roll around, some of my X-wing collection can be found hanging on the tree! It sure beats those silly glass balls.

Where did you get that cool Cylon battleship? Oh, that's your Raider! That looks awesome. Almost makes me want to switch from warm white to red for the bridge light. Great job on the guns too. I hope it's tabletop performance does justice to it's looks!

Man, I really hope the LEDs I mentioned work out!

Where did you get that cool Cylon battleship? Oh, that's your Raider! That looks awesome. Almost makes me want to switch from warm white to red for the bridge light. Great job on the guns too. I hope it's tabletop performance does justice to it's looks!

Man, I really hope the LEDs I mentioned work out!

Haha, it's got me thinking that I need to order a set of red ones for the gun batteries, but I figure I'll wait until I see the blue ones first. I might break down and put the batteries on a 555 timer anyways to get them to blink if these LEDs don't work as intended.

I don't know how I feel about the red. I think by itself it looks great, but I'm a bit concerned that with the laser batteries it might be too much. But man it does look menacing.

You.... you drilled out the gun batteries? My God. You have my undying respect.

Wait, Imperial Lasers are green.

RESPECT WITHHELD.

You.... you drilled out the gun batteries? My God. You have my undying respect.

Wait, Imperial Lasers are green.

RESPECT WITHHELD.

Herm... good point. That might resolve my dilemma over the red bridge + red lasers......

It'll be Santa's Raider decorated up all red and green!

Not helping, am I?

Sorry for giving you a hard time.

Oh yes, these blinking LEDs will do just fine. Yes they will.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzgz2ZaG15o-Y3RhUzN4aFRuaW11NEVvZWlpVHdFT3B5bnVR

That said - I don't think they'd work for the laser batteries. Time to wire everything up for good and close her up!

Awesome!

I was kinda hoping for a slower, less contrasted flicker (highs and lows closer together), but it looks good as is. Can't wait for my LED order to arrive.

I'd think you'd want more of an on/off blink for the lasers rather than a flicker anyway, so maybe the 555 timer would be best. If you felt like rewiring, of course. It looks great now, though.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product. Fantastic work.

Awesome!

I was kinda hoping for a slower, less contrasted flicker (highs and lows closer together), but it looks good as is. Can't wait for my LED order to arrive.

I'd think you'd want more of an on/off blink for the lasers rather than a flicker anyway, so maybe the 555 timer would be best. If you felt like rewiring, of course. It looks great now, though.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product. Fantastic work.

To be fair, this is with 3 LEDs put together in a flower arrangement, so you don't see each individual flicker. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised that they are random flickers even within the same LED. Here's a single LED on just a breadboard for your information:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzgz2ZaG15o-bVZFTHd0ODROZHJ4MGZocTVuM1Y3X0M0TUFz/view?usp=sharing

To be fair, this is with 3 LEDs put together in a flower arrangement, so you don't see each individual flicker. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised that they are random flickers even within the same LED. Here's a single LED on just a breadboard for your information:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzgz2ZaG15o-bVZFTHd0ODROZHJ4MGZocTVuM1Y3X0M0TUFz/view?usp=sharing

I know, I could kinda see when one LED showed significantly brighter than the others, the light seemed to rotate positions but otherwise it had a nice random increase and decrease in intensity. Cool effect.

Now just imagine 11 of these on your CR90!

To be fair, this is with 3 LEDs put together in a flower arrangement, so you don't see each individual flicker. I will say that I was pleasantly surprised that they are random flickers even within the same LED. Here's a single LED on just a breadboard for your information:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzgz2ZaG15o-bVZFTHd0ODROZHJ4MGZocTVuM1Y3X0M0TUFz/view?usp=sharing

I know, I could kinda see when one LED showed significantly brighter than the others, the light seemed to rotate positions but otherwise it had a nice random increase and decrease in intensity. Cool effect.

Now just imagine 11 of these on your CR90!

Yeah, the CR-90 is looking kinda plain these days. *sigh. That's the problem when you are constantly adding new things to each project. Well, the Raider is unofficially done now - it's all wired and packaged, I'm just going through my 24hr burn in before I seal it all up. I'll have the finish product uploaded by this weekend.

Meanwhile, I got a commission Gozanti torn apart, and I'm right about to dig into the Shadow caster. Gotta stay busy!

One thing I don't think I saw in your pictures was how you wired everything to the battery (if you've gotten that far).

You only have one set of wires out of the battery, correct, unlike the CR90? So do your recharge wires come first in the circuit?

I'll look at the Gozanti pics to see if it's there, but I wanted to get this question down first in case I can't find it.

Would a separate charging port make things a little easier? https://www.amazon.com/BTG-700mAh-Rechargeable-Battery-Hexacopter/dp/B016C3VXMW/ref=sr_1_29?s=toys-and-games&srs=8252419011&ie=UTF8&qid=1475256820&sr=1-29

I'll snap a picture tomorrow before I close up the Raider for good. But if I can explain it, I cut the connector off of the battery lead and expose some wire (note when you do this - cut one wire at a time, otherwise you'll short the battery through your metal pliers! Don't ask me how I know that..... <__< ... >__>). I solder the charger lead wire as well as the wire to the LEDs/switch (so it's a 3 way junction). And then the rest of the circuit is all dependent on whatever is in the model. I will say that I've never bothered to try to charge + turn on the lights at the same time, but theoretically there's no reason this wouldn't work.

Thanks!

I was kinda hoping to keep the connectors to minimize my rewiring efforts so was hoping a battery with a charge port and a discharge port (like your CR90 had I think?) might work, like the ones I linked.

Still, it doesn't sound like it's that much of an issue.

I'm not too sure what you linked... one of yhe connectors has 3 wires, thr other has two. So I'm not convinced one's a recharge cable. Plus it doesn't make sense for the intended application (flying a drone).

And the Raider is finally finished!

And for those interested, here's a short video of the rear engine.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzgz2ZaG15o-YUFGejN5WWRYY1E

Up next I have a commissioned Gozanti along with my own Shadowcaster.

I'm not too sure what you linked... one of yhe connectors has 3 wires, thr other has two. So I'm not convinced one's a recharge cable. Plus it doesn't make sense for the intended application (flying a drone).

I saw other batteries by another company that looked exactly the same and said they had the two ports, one for charging the other for operation. Just assumed they were the same. I'll figure it out.

The Raider looks awesome. Great job!

Awesome! I've been trying the same thing on smaller ships. It's really hard so well done for the neatness. How do you go about pulling yours apart so neatly?

Awesome! I've been trying the same thing on smaller ships. It's really hard so well done for the neatness. How do you go about pulling yours apart so neatly?

It's all about covering up the FUBARs I typically scour the internet beforehand to see what I can find as far as others opening them up and any lessons learned from them, though this isn't always available. On the GR-75 I couldn't find anything and was having one heck of a time separating it, so I actually ended up using a scope to help peak inside to guide me to each post - that shouldn't be necessary now that I've provided pictures of the inside though. The freezer helps quite a bit, and just doing it a bunch has stopped me from flinching every time I hear a crack - It's almost always been the glue/post cracking apart, not the ship itself.

I could point out a bunch of the areas where I damaged the ship when opening it, but unless you know where it is and you're looking for it, you'll never see it. And that's really what it comes down to, I don't let the small scuff marks make me sad. And with a bit of paint touch up, it's as good as new.

Wow.

Just finished up another commissioned Gozanti.

And flying in formation with mine:

I like the one with the lights in the cockpit better... but nice work on both.

I like the one with the lights in the cockpit better... but nice work on both.

The side by side comparison makes the FOs on the new one seem a bit light. But when they're not side by side, you don't notice that the edges seem a bit light. It does have the advantage of having them in the front/back which is something that the cockpit-lighted one doesn't, and the rear FOs look really cool!

Ohhh, shiny!!