Servoed Hammerhead: Windshield and Lighting

Next, I dug out the windshield as a side little project, since I was going to light it as well.

Its going to have an amber backlight, but needs a window that will let a glow out, yet not let anyone see the servo thats directly behind it.










Someone reccommeded the perfect sort of translucent material to use as a windshield: milk bottle plastic. Thats ust perfect, aint it?








So, with the batterypack made, I wired up the LEDs, and made a little terminal block (the white thing), to make its a clean and as organized as possible.




Next came the difficult problem of mounting the lights, and making a light trap to keep the light from bleeding out through all the panel gaps, and even through the plastic at the top of the wing. The solution I finally came up with was this Ballast putty I had. Its kindof like playdough, but is the consistency of warm cheesecake, never dries, and comes off clean. Its not very sticky, but makes for a good gap filler, and will be the perfect solution to themany problems I would normaly have placing, mounting, and aiming the leds just right.







The ballast putty is the whie stuff, and I plced two globs of it in the area where the headlights would be.

Then I just squished the belly plate into place, and let the putty shift and ooze.. wherever. The great thing about this stuff is:





The belly plate pulled away clean, leaving me two perfect molds that filled all the areas where the light may peek out. The bumps visible match the pits on the bellyplate, showimg me where the light channel actually ends (it was very difficult to position/line up everything before: as the placement was completely out of sight as the pieces were put in place. The putty mold made it eas for the next part



I had to aim and place the bulbs of the LEDs just right. Not only did they have to point directly out the slits (focused directional beam), but also needed to be tilted slightly 'ground-ward' to make the light beams of the headlights perfect. The putty made it relatively simple. I just smashed them in place, letting the putty shift away... then I squished it back into the area, so that when I pressed the bellyplate in place one more, everything was filled in and final.



Then I dug out all the putty that was in the way of the beams of light. Presto! Now the bulbs are in precisely the perfect position and angle... something that would have been very very difficult to arrange any other way. The putty that was removed was combined and placed centerline, to solve another difficult problem: the cockpit light, for the windshield



The trick of the windshield light is that the bulb has to be indirectly lighting the area, and out of line of sight of the window. This simulates backighting from an illuminated cockpit control panel.. or something like that. Dim, yet definately lit is the objective. The putty made it simple to place where you see it, where otherwise it would have been tricky, with all the curved angles and such.

Next came routing the wires, and preparing the terminal block for connection. I used the channel trips of styrene to make a couple of wire trays to pin the wires in place, out of the way. Looks nice, huh? Can you tell that I'm an electrician by trade by looking at that?

Here the wiring is made permanent by soldering, and the servo system is put back in place. You may notice that the wires for the amber LED was not permanently connected. This was because the amber LED seems to be a lower resistance than the blue/whites, so that when they are all wired up in parallel, the power took the path of least resistance, leaving the white LEDs dead. Good thing I tested everything before making it permanent.

Isnt it neat how all those little gizmos are crammed into the nose area? I plan on leaving everything in the top half of the tank, so I can pop the bellyplate off to show off all the goodies inside.

Heres a reality check, on just how tiny all this stuff is, so: a Quarter. No thats not a gimmick giant sized quarter. Isnt that shocking?

Now that its all complete (except for the windshield itself) in this front section, its time for another movie, dontcha think?

And there, Whew! All caught up! From now on further updates will be about current events.