Lead Adventure Forum
Other Stuff => Workbench => Topic started by: Connectamabob on January 31, 2015, 08:54:46 AM
-
http://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg
Hey, that's not a proper entry!
Sorry about that. The song was just for calibrating the punning engine I don't actually like that song, it just had the right title.
Anyway: my entry is a solar system for space ship games, with a stellar black hole in place of a star.
Erm... okay? But where's the fire and/or ice come in?
This black hole has a very "healthy" accretion disk. As matter spirals down towards the event horizon, it passes the Roche limit for the individual atoms, creating a corona of fission, with accompanying polar jets. There are also two planets: the inner one parasitically formed from accretion disk material and still early in its cooling, the outer made of swept together comets and is deep cold.
English, MFer: do you speak it?!
Y'know how some planets have rings, right? This black hole has a big kinda/sorta ring... the inner 1/3 of which is lit up like a forest fire.... a NUCLEAR forest fire. Some of that gets pulled/spun away from the ring and over the black hole by gravity/spin, forming matching jets (like giant acetylene torches made of concentrated super-deadly radiation) over the black hole's north and south poles. The inner planet is basically a giant glowing gob of magma. The outer planet is basically a giant snowball.
-
Good to see you've gone for something simple! It does sound cool. Are you going to go for a full 3D effect?
By the way, I got that airbrush!
-
Fully understood that :? ;) looking forward to seeing it in progress.
-
Are you going to go for a full 3D effect?
That's the plan. I've got a semi-fancy 3D idea for the accretion disk, though I'm not sure how easy it will be yet. Depends on how cheaply/easily I can source the key material. I'll get into that when the WIP gate opens.
For the planets I'm planning something a little different from the typical styrofoam balls on sticks, but it'll be be simple enough (though hopefully will look better), and I've already got the materials.
I'm thinking about incorporating LED lighting, but am not yet decided on that. Mostly it comes down to, again, sources and prices for parts. The work itself would be easy.
I also need to get or make some ship minis to help showcase the project, as don't currently have any. I'm open to suggestions on that. I don't know of many other than BFG and Star Trek Attack Wing, and I don't really care for either of those (not into the GW aesthetic, and the ST:AW minis are kinda crap looking to my eye). There was a company called Ninja Magic a few years ago that made some nice ships, but they seem to be gone now. Some nice designs on Shapeways, but I'm not sold on the print quality, especially for the price.
By the way, I got that airbrush!
Which one ? The HP-CS?
-
Sounds like an ambitious but pretty cool plan.
I got the Iwata Revolution CR with a Studio Sprint Jet compressor. It was a surprise for a biggish birthday from my family. I'd obviously banged on about it!
Not had a chance to try it out yet.
-
Good to see you've gone for something simple! It does sound cool. Are you going to go for a full 3D effect?
By the way, I got that airbrush!
Simple depends on his scale! If he's going 1:1.......WOW! :o
-
Simple depends on his scale! If he's going 1:1.......WOW! :o
Are you joining us ;)
cheers
James
-
Oh that is brilliant :o :D
Not 1:1 though, it'd collapse onto itself and suck LAF in.
-
Oh that is brilliant :o :D
Not 1:1 though, it'd collapse onto itself and suck LAF in.
No worries: I can't afford that much material anyway. :D
I got the Iwata Revolution CR with a Studio Sprint Jet compressor. It was a surprise for a biggish birthday from my family. I'd obviously banged on about it!
Rockin'. Don't prang it, and it'll last you forever! If you ever want to upgrade it, the .3 tip from the AR/BR Revolution models will fit it, as will the tall trigger from the "Kustom" CH (though making a trigger pad with Green Stuff will be cheaper and get you more personalized ergonomics), and the cutaway handle from the Eclipse line. I'd recommend the Eclipse handle anyway: handle cutouts let you pull the needle back further than the trigger alone allows, opening the paint flow up as wide as possible for flushing, so it'll save you a little time/effort in cleaning.
If the compressor's loud, get one of these to replace the intake filter on the compressor:
http://www.amazon.com/Parker-EM50-Series-Sintered-Muffler/dp/B003Q6CBPC/ref=pd_sim_indust_8?ie=UTF8&refRID=04D86Z97M5J30S1SF6RA
Not that exact one, but one like it matching the size of the Sprint's intake port. The size figure refers to the inner diameter, so take the fiber filter insert to your local hardware place and see what size male pipe fitting has an outer diameter that matches.
It'll noticeably reduce compressor noise, and it's washable, so unlike the fiber filters you'll never have to replace it.
And if you experience air pulsing, take the regulator off, and put a length of coil air hose between the compressor and the regulator. The coil hose will add just enough "tank" volume to buffer out the pulsing.
Get some cheap liquid watercolor from the craft store to practice with: it doesn't require thinning, and won't gunk up the brush if you don't clean it fully.
That's enough OT for now on my part. Sorry to all for the the digression.
-
A new model of black holes?
You do realise that even when you complete the project we, as observers, will never quite see it finished..... :D
-
A new model of black holes?
You do realise that even when you complete the project we, as observers, will never quite see it finished..... :D
Or the whole solar system will be sucked into another dimension! lol
Snitchy sends.
-
Thanks for the airbrush tips! Appreciated :)
-
English, MFer: do you speak it?!
Any project that begins with a Samuel L. Jackson quote is off to a promising start.
(added 24 hours later...) Also, for anyone who grew up in the 90s, this:
http://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg
-
No worries: I can't afford that much material anyway. :D
You know, if we collected all the lead piles of LAF into one location...
-
You know, if we collected all the lead piles of LAF into one location...
Some things should not be attempted..the risk is to high
-
First pic!
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_04_02_15_1_58_20.jpg)
These two plastic spheres will become the two planets. The larger one will be inner planet (fire), and the smaller one the outer (ice). The cutouts will become flat bottoms on which the planets will sit on the tabletop. They will be unbased, basically. My thinking is that this will be more visually immersive than based and/or "onna stick" planets, and will also make it so based ships sit closer to equator height, at least for the larger one.
On the far left is a weight made from washers, which will go inside the smaller planet's bum so it'll be stable and won't knock over or roll. Currently the plan is the larger planet will be weighted by the electronics block for internal LED lighting.
The black hole will take a few days to start, as I need to acquire materials and do some fabrication tests. My plan for that is to cut a large clear plastic disk for the accretion disk, and thermoform a dimple in the center. A black bead will be mounted on a bit of vertical wire/rod in the center of the dimple so it "floats" with its equator level with the plane of the disk. The idea is the dimple surrounding the bead will sort of visually represent the gravity lensing around the event horizon of the singularity. The disk will be slighty elevated above the tabletop by a ring of plastic card underneath, both to account for the dimple, and to provide enclosure space for potential LED Lighting of the "burning" part of the accretion disk.
-
Ooo, exciting 8)
cheers
James
-
Looking and sound real cool.
Snitchy sends.
-
This is truly different and sounds amazing. I'm looking forward to seeing this developing.
-
This has to be the largest object represented as a gaming model yet :D 8)
-
This has to be the largest object represented as a gaming model yet :D 8)
Or the smallest depending on the physics. lol
Snitchy sends.
-
Or the smallest depending on the physics. lol
Snitchy sends.
Heh - if you mean the black hole itself, you're right!
-
This is not a terribly informative pic, but gotta keep up appearances, y'know?
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_06_02_15_12_01_22.jpg)
This is the smaller "ice" planet. About a tablespoon of five-minute epoxy was mixed and poured into the sphere, which was then upended over the weight on a polyproplyene cutting board. The epoxy then flows down the inside of the ball to submerge/surround the weight, imbedding/casting it in place. Once it kicks off, I use a sharp-pointed scraping tool (wax carver in this case) to peel off the wee ring of excess that squidged out around the base. During the first few minutes after the epoxy kicks off, it has a sort of weak rubbery consistency not unlike stiff rubber cement, so overflow/flashing from epoxied joins can be cleaned up easy-peasy this way.
Almost nothing really sticks to polypropylene, so PP cutting boards make ideal pallets and work surfaces for epoxy of both the glue and putty variety. Once this epoxy has fully cured, the planet will just pop cleanly right off the board, and will have a nice perfect clean flat bottom. If you squint at the pic, you can see the epoxy pooled in the bottom of the sphere.
Had a minor scrambley moment when the epoxy started kicking off, and I suddenly realized I hadn't drilled a vent hole for the expanding hot air inside (heated by the epoxy's setting/curing). I had to dig out and chuck a micro drill bit into pin vise with one hand while I held down the ball with the other to keep the internal pressure from lifting the ball on an inflated epoxy membrane and ruining the whole effort.
Tomorrow I will begin painting the "Ice" planet, and if I have time, will start sorting out the socket for the electronics in the "fire" planet's base. I've done a lighting thing highly similar to this once before (built a glowing apple prop for a church theater production), so I have a very solid plan for that.
I have a nice big sheet of clear PETG on order for the accretion disk, and that should in theory arrive in just a couple days. LEDs will be ordered this weekend.
-
This is the one project I can't predict on the final look - I'm lovin' it.
-
Looks like a Death Star 8)
cheers
James
-
Mo' pics! Finally! Sorry for the long delay. I have to get most of my supplies and tools online, so that holds things up. Finally had everything in hand around Wednesday, and so could really get rolling.
Disc!
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_21_02_15_6_29_40_0.jpg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_21_02_15_6_29_40_1.jpg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_21_02_15_6_29_40_2.jpg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_21_02_15_6_29_40_3.jpg)
Thick clear PETG (almost 1/4"), thermoformed using a heat gun, with an epoxy-filled ping pong ball half as a buck. Then I marked out a circle by placing it on a baking rolling board, and tracing the outermost pie crust circle marking. Cut it out using a spiral cutter bit in my Dremel tool.
The initial thermoforming left the disk a bit wavy due to uneven heating (impossible to heat anywhere near evenly with a heat gun), so once the disc was cut out I put it on a baking sheet and stuck it in the oven to let it droop flat. That didn't go as well as hoped: air or humidity got trapped between the plastic and the tinfoil I covered the baking sheet with, creating these patches of texture where tiny bubbles had formed between the plastic and the protective film, which pressed themselves into the softened surface to make fields of tiny pinholes. A little disappointing, but I can probably incorporate it into the painting as cloud texture.
Reason for the excessive thickness is because I was inspired by pics of the "planet from orbit" matt paintings done for the original Star Wars trilogy. Matt paintings back in the day were all done on glass sheet, and for the planet matt paintings for Star Wars, the artists painted the ground on the back of the glass, and the clouds on the front to create a sense of depth. I want to do something like that.
Despite my hiccup with the wee bubbles, I liked working with PETG. It was very very easy, and I can see it being very useful for other projects.
Electro!
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_21_02_15_6_51_52_0.jpg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_21_02_15_6_51_52_1.jpg)
This is the electronics block for the "fire" planet. 4 LEDs, wired in parallel so I could use a single compact 6-volt camera battery. Used Lego pieces for the structural elements, 'cause the same things that make 'em good construction toys also make 'em a good off-the-shelf engineering solution for stuff like this. 8-peg is a battery compartment, 2-peg is a switch compartment, and the 4-peg is a housing for the 4 resistors and scaffold for the 4 LEDs.
Soldering the resistors and LEDs was a bit of a white-knuckle PITA, as my only on-hand soldering iron is a butane type. The joins are a bit ugly as a result, and the plastic a bit melted, but the components are in their proper places, and the circuit works. I still have to install the battery contacts, but that's no biggie.
-
While you have been dormant for a while - a flurry of activity is good to see (and it looks promising!).
-
I'm baffled and bewildered as to how this is going to end, but I'll just sit here and watch while the project unfolds... o_o
-
Also intrigues. Can't wait to see the final result.
-
I really like where you are going with this.
-
Clever use of Lego 8)
-
I am intrigued to see this model finished.
Tony
-
I really must say I think your entry is the wild card, it is just impossible to tell how this will turn out.
However it will be the best x-wing board out there! I'm really liking how this is coming along, it is just so unusual. 8) 8)
Best of luck
Matt
-
I'm not dead! Yet!
Just tossing out some quick pics to show I'm still here. Got sidetracked sunday and monday building a pair of Star Trek style space stations to use in the final pics with it, and that cost me. Today is gonna be a bit of a marathon to finish in time, but I'm workin', and provided nothing goes horrible wrong (Lighting! Over here! RIGHT HERE! DO IT, I DARE YOU!) it's still possible.
A double spiral of clouds , relief ground into the underside of the plastic using the Dremel. You can faintly see a layer of interference powder I rubbed on (red on one half, blue on the other, to half-arsedly imply Doppler shift) and sealed down with Future:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_27_02_15_1_16_39_0.jpg)
The underside painted, still need to add some wisps and swirls to the top to get the full 3D "pop". Used reference pics of hurricanes from orbit, and Jovian/Saturnine clouds, as the only pics I could find of accretion disks were artists interpretations. Well, except one pic, but it was an itty-bitty low res-image from a tiny corner of a high-res telescope field, so it basically just looked like a 50p wide water ring.
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_27_02_15_1_16_39_1.jpg)
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_27_02_15_1_16_39_2.jpg)
One of aforementioned stations. I made two: a wee Regula 1-ish station (pictured), and a larger proper starbase. Ironically, I doubt they'll be in the final entry pics they were built for, as I doubt I'll have time to paint and base them now. I'll post them in the Sci-Fi boards after the contest though.
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/20/3269_27_02_15_1_16_39_3.jpg)
EDIT: Hadn't noticed the deadline change. That's super cool. Gives me way more breathing room that I thought I had. Should have zero problems getting done before then, including the space stations (and the FASA Romulan Gallant Wing I found in my lead pile, score!). Also maybe a better space mat than this plain black felt I've got right now. Rockin'!
-
That disc is amazing, it looks real.
-
That disc is amazing, it looks real.
What he said! :o 8)
-
8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
Very smooth.
Cannot wait to see how this one turns out.
Cheers
Matt
-
This is great....
-
Great progress. I look forward to seeing even more.....
Tony
-
Impressive!
-
Well cool. I am impressed.
Snitchy sends.
-
All night solder party:
LED pallet for the disc:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/3269_12_03_15_12_41_43_1.jpg)
It's a plastic plate from the dollar store, which I drilled holes in to the mount the LEDs and restors to via their leads. This will go under the disc, and will serve as both the LED rig and the base for the disc. Still needs vertical spacers for the disk to rest on, and the LEDs will be masked and the base painted white to act as a light bounce.
Here's the underside, where You can see how everything's wired together:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/3269_12_03_15_12_41_43_2.jpg)
I threaded the leads through drilled holes and "crocheted" them together in a double ring (triple, if you count the LED/resistor connections) to form a big parallel circuit. Technically I had to break it into two parallel circuits which were then themselves ganged into a single meta-parallel circuit because some of the resistor leads came up too short to connect to their fellows (see more below).
That's twenty LEDs at 20mA/3V each, twenty 750ohm/1W resistors, two 9V batteries, 95 holes drilled, and 68 soldered connections. Took two nights to assemble (somewhere between 6 and 8 hours total).
Apparently I had this in the garage the whole time:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/3269_12_03_15_12_41_43_0.jpg)
Think I must have gotten it at a garage sale at some point, then forgot about it. Wish I'd found/remembered it when I was doing the fire planet electronics, as it is way, WAY better than the little butane iron I used for that.
Made some mistakes along the way. Resistors should have been arrayed in a sawtooth/spiral radial pattern rather than a straight radial pattern, as with the straight radial pattern the outermost leads turned out to be very nearly too short to chain in a circle like that. Battery wiring is both too simple and too complex, as I made a couple goofs and had to redesign on the fly. Originally I intended there to be a switch, but I goofed the wiring on that, so for now it's turned on and off by removing/replacing one of the batteries.
This project is only the second electronics/lighting thing I've ever done. There's a number of things I'd do differently if I had to do it again, but it works, and is relatively clean. Yay, learning!
-
Oh wow.
Really good stuff - really looking forward to seeing finished article
-
This is looking great!
You should still be able to add a switch but I recommend being careful with the painting/gluing; I had to change the switch twice on my build after paint/glue went into it and it stopped working properly.
-
Well it looks impressive. More so that it's something you haven't done much of.
-
Unfortunately due to a one-two combo of past procrastination and current Murphy's Law density, this will not be ready by the deadline toady. It will still be finished, and soon, but it will have to migrate to the "future wars" board.
Could go into detail, but it's late (well, technically it's well past late and is now early), and I am tired from spending all night wrestling with one thing and another. Will post again after I've had some sleep and am back to firing on the proper number of cylinders.
-
All the best and sorry to hear. I hope to see this beauty done soon.
-
Sorry to hear that. :( I was really interested in this.
-
Sorry to hear. This was a very worthy entry that I enjoyed following. Still, will be very nice to see finished.
LB
-
Hokay, so what happened was basically a paint issue. Long story short: the only model paints I can get locally are Testors Model Master brand, which turns out is completely unreliable crap for airbrushing. The flat black I was trying to spray as a light mask refused to behave to a positively trollish degree, and I eventually ended up having to do a full tear down on both my airbrushes at 3:00 in the morning on Saturday.
I'd had some issues with the colors I'd used to paint the disc (the tans worked OK, the blue was borderline, and the red-brown was total pre-clotted crap), but I was unprepared for how sadistic the black would be. Seemed OK in the pot, thinned and strained OK, but then when I went to paint it went crazy: watery one moment, heavy the next, clogging on literally every other trigger pull. Could not get even remotely consistent lines to save my life. Instead of being able to control what I was doing and paint what I'd planned, I had to just hope if I kept adding random lines and painting over the webby splotchy bits it'd turn out passable to the untrained eye. When I turned the LEDS on to check my progress, I discovered it had absolutely no opacity, so the whole thing just looked like crap when lit up. I had no options at that point. No time or money left to get better paint, or on-hand ways to fix things.
When I went to clean the brushes, I found the stuff rapidly turning gummy inside, so I had to do full tear downs and very intensive cleaning. Man, I thought Stynylrez primer was tenacious, but this stuff was like tar. And one of those ABs I've only used for watercolors before, so it's not like there was any stray chemicals in there for the acrylic to react to or anything. This was just what the paint itself was doing to itself by itself. I will never even look at Model Master paints again. The huge inconsistency between pots was already damning enough, but this was just... wow.
Good news is nothing's been seriously damaged or anything. I'll just strip the fire planet and redo it once I've got hold of some decent AB-able paint, no worries. And the disk never got touched by the back tar, so that's still fine. It was only the last minute time aspect that forced me to bow out.
-
:o what a nightmare. I'm glad the whole things not ruined!!
Hope you can finish it at some point.
Matt.
-
Oh I'm happy there's a semi-happy ending there!
-
Damn. That's rotten luck of the worst degree.
-
Hokay, time to get this flywheel spun back up again. Here's what the fire planet looked like at deadline time (thumbnails should be clickable to enlarge, if I've got my stuff right):
Unlit, under normal room lighting:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/thumb_3269_21_04_15_7_11_04_0.jpg) (http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/3269_21_04_15_7_11_04_0.jpg)
Lit up, under normal room lighting:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/thumb_3269_21_04_15_7_11_04_1.jpg) (http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/3269_21_04_15_7_11_04_1.jpg)
Lit up, with room lights turned off:
(http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/thumb_3269_21_04_15_7_11_05_2.jpg) (http://leadadventureforum.com/gallery/21/3269_21_04_15_7_11_05_2.jpg)
Just Tamiya clear orange, then Model Master black in these pics.
With time to think, I decided it's salvageable with some work maybe. That transparency I was lamenting might enable this. So I've got some Tamiya black (which sprays MUCH better than the Model Master stuff), and am in the process of refining it. Not pic worthy today, but getting this thread updated is my way of kicking myself in the pants.
-
Well, it sure looks good in the pictures. Much more like something from a planetarium than I was expecting. 8)
Keep at it and watch out for space litter. ;D
-
Wow. That DOES look good. :o 8) 8) 8)
-
Great! 8) 8) 8) 8) That really looks the part!
-
That looks the nuts 8) 8) 8)
Glad you're carrying on with this :)
cheers
James
-
Same - keep at it.
-
Looks pretty cool!
You know, if you were to attach a black shop vacc hose to that hole in the disk, with/without a working remote switch to turn it on, you could have a working black hole.
;-)