Case Mod - In Progress Battlestar Galactica Mod: Complete!

Thanks, everyone!

I've been working more on the led strings, and did some testing. I decided to do all six led's in series,
with a 10ohm resistor. Here is a shot of the medallion string soldered together and in place:


Since I haven't painted the bird yet, I threw some masking tape over it to give you kind of an idea of how it
will look with the backlight. So disregard the faint bleed through! Although it does show you where the leds are. ;-)


And here is a shot of the other dummy LCD screens all lit up:


Starting to come together!

8)

 

man this thing is really gettingt there now bod, it's looking brilliant

 

can't believe I hadn't noticed this up til now, looks fantastic, I love BSG and this case is turning out really impressive, as said your attention to detail is second to none, theh LCD control panel is a brilliant idea, glad you done that (and yes, I just read through 31pages... 30minutes well spent!)

Gav

 

you said it Gav, 30min well spent.

 

Thanks guys! I hope the read was entertaining as well as informative!

Should have another update for ya soon... I've been working on the third string of led's, and this one is more complicated (15 leds!) so it is taking longer. It's gonna be cool, trust me!

 

I've been working on more led's. This time I'm wiring up the running lights that will blink sequentially
on the landing deck. Now I'm no electronics guru, I think I've mentioned that before. About all I'm good
for is determining positive from negative, and basic soldering. So since I can't make up a custom circuit
that will make the led's blink in sort of sequence, I found one online!

Here is the landing deck as I am drilling holes for the leds.


A closer up shot of the front.


Qkits sells these led kits in many forms. This one in particular has 15 leds in a row that blink sequentially from the center out.


The kit is really quite simple, it just requires you to solder all the components onto the circuit board.


After about an hour of soldering, I got all the pieces mounted, with the exception of the leds. I will be
replacing the red 5mm ones with white 3mm leds. The resistors in the kit should make them a bit dimmer, but thats ok.


Now obviously, I won't be soldering the leds onto the circuit board, as they have to be relocated to their
respective places on the landing deck. To accomplish this, I will be using a spare floppy drive ribbon cable.
It has 34 wires, but I only need 30. So I simply slice off the remaining 4.


I soldered one end to the kit's pcb where the led's would have gone.


Done!


Now with the led's in place, I can cut the individual wires to length and solde them up. This kit has 15 leds,
and runs the lights from the center out. So I will be putting the first led up front under the power button, then
the rest down both sides so it will blink in pairs into the landing bay.


I also made some rails out of styrene to hold the pcb underneath the landing deck. You can see them in the last pic.
Hopefully I can finish this thing up tonight and do a test run.

8)

 

Awesome this is some serious work. I love how you did the cables.

Now lit us see that Airport in action with the IDE Cable Good job my buddy

 

Oooh thats coming along very nicely...

You know, in 17 years of making and breaking electronic stuff, I never thought to use the ribbon cable from an old floppy drive... I would have just had a lot of read and black electrical wire everywhere.... I guess you're the innovator for a reason

My ability to design circuits is also rather poor... so I'll be sure to check out Q-Kits when I can.

The five LCD's will just be the cherry on the cake really...

 

Video would be sweet though

 

Amazing work Boddaker! An inspiration to modders everywhere.

 

Thanks everyone.

Well, I just tested the circuit after soldering up all the led's and.................. it works!! However, I'm too tired to get a vid of it right now, so you'll have to wait til tomorrow, sorry. Til then!

 

awesome stuff, this is going to look impressive!

Do the resistors dim the LED's a fair amount? I was thinking this would probably better actually, if they are too bright it would be crazy distracting.

 

Thanks MG. In doing the math, the resistors should have dimmed the lights a bit. But after powering it up, if the led's are dimmer, I can't tell! They seem pretty bright to me. However, they're only really bright when looking straight down on them. At any other angle they are fine, and that's ok because since they are on top of the case, and the case will be sitting on the desk, I won't be looking straight down onto it at all.

Video has been taken, I just have to upload it. Will post in a few with the linky!

 

Cool. Thanks for the link, BTW.

 

Ok, finally got the vid up! So, withour further ado, here is the testing of the running lights:

 

Haha - brilliant! That is super cool

 

Brilliant!! I liked the sound effects for when you were bring the camera in to land

Awesome dude, it just looks awesome!!!

 

When i load this page, i got lots of username/password windows in FF. I cant see the pics.

 

I've said it before and i say it again - the detail level on this mod is astonishing.

 

ridiculously cool m8!!
Got to love those "Come 'on home boy's lights" !!