Custom Replicas 66" TOS E

Thanks Sean, I'm still at it.
How did you get the motors to work?

Just for the heck of it I tried to see if they would work, they didn't. I'll be posting my solutions later. Sean you'll like how I'm doing the windows, it's a lot faster than what's prescribed.

Custom Replicas sure made that kit a lot more difficult than it needed to be.

nice kit wish i had space for something like that

Your alignment jigs are wonderful, great engineering. Thanks for sharing!

I posted this up on my blog.
http://the-grey-ghost.com/the-custom-replicas-66-enterprise-or-be-careful-of-what-you-wish-for/

I haven't got this far on the blog, but I have some things I want to show you guys.

I refined the armature.

They are in essence the same as before, except I allotted for some of the detail parts. I added a rail for the top of the nacelle jig, so the parts will keep a consistent spacing.

I changed the length of the base rails. Why have extra length you don't need.

Here is something else I did(and replaced).

Please note the greenish/tan bussard disks with the LEDs.
I junked them, your supposed to mount the supplied motors to them. These were not done very well, vibration could reek havoc on the electronics, and I had one bolt sit on the lip of an LED(I wish I had a pic of that). That's not very good for it shows poor planning, and to fix the issue could cause even more problems.

The Tamiya motors will be much better in something else. But some of the parts supplied are useful. I found the motors were not stable enough for the application. The supplied spinners(domes) were to big, no matter what I did they would rub on the outerdome. The instructions didn't say a thing about how to stabilize the shafts. There is another issue on top of this that compounds the spinner problems. That is the bussard housing/mount, since the part is cast it can deform during the casting run. Depending on a variety of factors. The existing parts supplied with the kit required more precision than the kit can deliver. Then there is the noise, something sure had to be done.

So I decided to go a different route, I changed it all.

Here is the changed bussard with a replacement spinner. The spinner is one half of an acrylic ball you can get at most craft stores. It's smaller than the supplied spinner, but not by much. But it will give enough space to safely run the spinner without damaging the outer dome(just remove the lip of the acrylic dome).


Here is my first try at the making the spinners. I used 1/8" pin striping, and I frosted the dome afterwards, the effect worked very well. But I wasn't happy with them, I drilled the center hole by eye(that can be real hit and miss). That didn't go so well.
In the pic is one of the new spinners, I used my router to drill a 1/16" hole in the center. Here is the jig with a spinner.

If you notice there is two holes in the center. The other hole is to accommodate an offset pin used in the opposite spinning spinner. When I put it on things were moving much more smoothly.


In the jumble of wires is the 12 volt gearmotor. It spins at a max of 50 rpm, since the manual says it supposed to run at 30 rpm, I figure I'll be fine. I can use a resistor or a pot to control the motor speed. Which is what I wanted to do.

Why all of the wires?
For all of the leds, I even put in the running light on top of the bussard.
This pic shows how I mounted the motor, I used some of the parts supplied with the model to mount the spinner. I figured why make all new parts, When the ones supplied with the model were fine. I selected the motor on the basis of it's shaft size, which is the same shaft size as the supplied motor. I made a plate for leds, and a center hole to allow the spinner shaft to pass. Why all of this effort to replace this mechanism, I'll show that in the future.

Any questions/comments?

Looks great and I follow both of your Enterprise build threads. One thing I noticed is that on your inner domes; the "pinstripe" should not be a straight line but actually it should taper towards the center and widen out towards the back of the dome.

Looking grand and I love your attention to detail.

feek61 said:

Looks great and I follow both of your Enterprise build threads. One thing I noticed is that on your inner domes; the "pinstripe" should not be a straight line but actually it should taper towards the center and widen out towards the back of the dome.

Looking grand and I love your attention to detail.

Click to expand...

The funny thing is when you turn it on, you can't tell. I'll have to run more tests to be sure, I keep thinking the spinning motion would create the illusion of a taper.
These projects have really made me wonder about these models, and how much of these details are really necessary.

I have encountered one problem with the dome. That is the center looks odd with the screw in the center(through the frosted dome). I was thinking of making it black.

Exceptional methodology...the work and accuracy of your approach almost rivals the tooling and the finishes of the model itself. Makes me feel a bit like a caveman...but my covetous envy is also a testament to the amazing work you're doing on this model. Bravo sir.

Feek,
I'm with you on the taper. I'll plot some tapered shapes with my cutter when i get to this stage

Atemylunch said:

The funny thing is when you turn it on, you can't tell. I'll have to run more tests to be sure, I keep thinking the spinning motion would create the illusion of a taper.
These projects have really made me wonder about these models, and how much of these details are really necessary.

I have encountered one problem with the dome. That is the center looks odd with the screw in the center(through the frosted dome). I was thinking of making it black.

Click to expand...

I know what you mean. The shadowing effect also adds to the mystery. When I did mine for the Galileo shuttlecraft build I did a while back (I duplicated the warp effect from the big E) I tried several different stripe configurations (including different colors, lol) and the tapered to me appeared correct. I will look forward to your progress as always and I'm sure whatever you do will look grand.

INSANE thread...I love it!

OMG this is awesome! :thumbsup

I wonder about the evenly-spaced LEDs, compared to the haphazard application of christmas tree lights in the original. Is there a danger of them looking too uniform?
Also, are you going to install some equivalent of the broken mirror fragments?

Can't wait to see this lit up!

Adding the broken mirror fragments is an insanely cool idea. But weren't the chrsitmas tree lights evenly spaced on the original and just the fragments that were haphazard?

Feek61 I'll follow that, mine looked good when it was on. But since you played with it I'll go with what you did.

No the Christmas lights were not evenly spaced. I think everything in the bussards was more or less haphazard(but the amber lights were in a loose star pattern). They were going for what looked good on screen. I have the same type and colors of Christmas lights used on the original. That was one of the reasons I switched out the supplied leds. I wanted a pink led in there.
On the SS E I want to do something completely different. After what I've been learning on this model.

I did think about following the pattern, I could make out on some of the screen caps. I've seen enough different patterns to make it really confusing(that might be because of the glass). So I thought the heck with it, I'll do what's easiest. But if there is anything definitive I can match that pattern. On thing I do know is the domes were not tinted orange as some have claimed. They had 5 amber bulbs in there, that's a lot of light.

I was thinking of using aluminum tape in the place of glass, but the white plastic I used will reflect quite well. The leds are real bright, I used scotch bright on the tips of the leds to diffuse the light(that worked well). I'm going to dim the leds down, but I'm not going into how I'm going about it(I want to make sure it will work, so I can tell you guys how to do it too).

Well I think the key was not that the mirrors reflected, but that, due to being shards, there were multiple reflections, adding complexity to the sci-fi technical whatever going on in there. I can't think of any way to replicate that without just doing the same thing. (However, I realize there's economy of scale here...might not make much difference in the end...)

You used scotch brite on the LED's to diffuse the light? Is that a scouring pad? Please elaborate.

trekriffic said:

You used scotch brite on the LED's to diffuse the light? Is that a scouring pad? Please elaborate.

Click to expand...

They make those as well(they are a subsidiary of 3M). What I'm using isn't a scouring pad, they are used for cleaning and finishing. They come in fine(purple) and ultra fine(grey), and are much bigger than a scouring pad(4"x8").

Great job Max. Hard to say more. Well clean, neat and a lot better than before it came out of the box.

Steve

Atemylunch said:

They make those as well(they are a subsidiary of 3M). What I'm using isn't a scouring pad, they are used for cleaning and finishing. They come in fine(purple) and ultra fine(grey), and are much bigger than a scouring pad(4"x8").

Click to expand...

Ahhhh. I think I know what you are talking about now.
I have some sheets in very fine grits for polishing paint finishes (mostly intended for model cars I think) and they sound like the same thing. I use them for smoothing between primer coats mostly and for smoothing final coats before decaling and final clear overcoats.

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