Today I uploaded two new videos. One, where I finish the little bits and pieces of the armor, that are left over. And the second one of the LED Lighting, that goes into the armor.
You can check them out here:
Iron Man Mk 39 #004 Finishing Touches Timelapse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8z-Imet3L0
Iron Man Mk 39 #005 Torso Electronics Timelapse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSJ4TcB3nWo
For lighting the jet engines, I took some 10mm frosted acrylic and cut it into shape. The plan was to put LEDs only in areas, where you cannot see them directly, so that in the end you will have a very even lighting. This is also possible, because the frosted acrylic is diffusing the light very well. I had drilled the black PVC pieces (as seen in the video) with the various holes before, so I knew where I had to place my LEDs. I marked everything and went over to a friends workshop to drill the holes. He has a drillpress, which is much needed for drilling clean holes into acrylic. The acrylic drilled like butter but you want to make sure not to force the drill into the material, give it some time and maybe drill one hole in 3 steps instead of one. After about two hours i was done with drilling and everything looked like this:
Back at my workshop I glued in all the LEDs which fit perfectly into the holes. ( 5mm LEDs fit perfectly in 5mm holes
) Superglue was my good friend when it came to gluing. After that it was already time to solder the LEDs together. The before mentioned friend gave me a tip, that I could just bend the legs of each LED and connect them that way. What a brilliant idea, saved me a lot of time and soldering.
NOTE: Having a father who is an electrical engineer, he approached me afterwards and told me that I need to solder in resistors for each LED. Not knowing what current I will be powering the LEDs later, I have not done this yet. But just to let you know, each LED needs 3,5-4Volts and consumes 15-20mA. Depending on the source of electricity, you need proper resistors or the LEDs will die quickly, or even instantly. Connecting a LED to 12Volt fries it in seconds, for example. Just keep that in mind, maybe I will give you guys an update on this later.
I glued on the cover plates for the big jet engines and glued everything into the torso, and man, would you just look at that beautiful lighting. It turned out great and exactly how I imagined it to be. In the future, the LEDs will be controlled by an Arduino and glow if certain events are triggered.
I wish i had a good camera to get some crispy photos, but for now this has to be it. Maybe I can find a real photographer to take some photos of me in the future.
That has been it from me for today guys, Im happy to hear your feedback, and now its back to packing hahaha!
