A Newbie Working with LEDs for Model Kits

[@stevethefishdotnet]

I appreciate this because straight up you admit that you admit that you are new to this. Watching you do this is more reassuring than watching an expert, I think. I've been watching your videos since I discovered your Reliant build and I like the fact that you aren't afraid to show your mistakes. You're like me in that respect.

[@jej2371]

YEAH! So nice to see someone else as clueless as I am with this stuff! Gotta start somewhere.

[@Nibenonn]

Man, this brings back a lot of memories. I can't remember if I was as excited as you are?

[@yambam26]

Ive done some Led work, im yet to venture into lighting one of my model cars, I would recomend using a metal clamp/ pliers near the end of the LED to stop the heat traveling into the diode as the heat from the soldering iron can kill the led. Hope this helps :)

[@ericarrison7381]

I think this video was very informative I am also a basic electrician and sometimes I still run into difficulties with the differant types of amps and diodes and resistors. So this video was informative thanks and keep them coming.

[@thehitchslap]

Awesome!!!! I am about to get into this hobby and I must say you have the best quality and most informative videos I've found on youtube. Thanks!!!

[@patrickdoyle8377]

Thanks for the vid, I too, struggled a bit hooking light up to a model I scratch built. If you use more light within a 1.5V variant, you will not need a receptor because all the Volts are being used. I found a chart which showed which color Led uses which Voltage. I used a 9v battery and no receptors. Works fine as long as you use all 9V or close to. I used a series circuit method

[@seniorpz1969]

you're so like me..thats all I do is feel my way through anything. good stuff!

[@superdupergaming7831]

I'm working on a 1/25 scale camaro as a test before I start a 1/25 mitsubishi evo x and I'm definitely gonna try doing head lights and tail lights on the camaro thanks for this video

[@ModelManTom]

switch and resistor can go on either leg. In series, if one led dies, none light. In paralllel, only one goes out. that req's one resistor each led. you can cut each fiber from the main body as needed. You can run the positive wire down one leg and negative on the other into the feet and into a diorama base. You could run a hundred leds off that battery if each led gets its own resistor.

[@patmacrotch5611]

When you were told "it doesn't matter which end of the resistor" they didn't mean of the LED they just meant that there is no positive or negative on the resistor. Current going in the resistor will be less going out no matter which way the resistor is oriented. However you need the resistor between the flow of current and your LED. Current flows from positive to negative. (When talking about current practically) So you need the resistor connected to the positive end of the LED. The way you have it with the resistor in the middle...had to seem obviously wrong. The current comes from the battery, into the first LED, THEN through a resistor, then into the second LED. Hence your LEDs are getting different current.

[@Matt-Guest]

been looking for this kind of video for a long time. thanks a lot. cant wait to light my tos enterprise.

[@rericelliott]

The copper braid is de-soldering braid. Place it over a soldered connection, app,y heat and it sucks the solder off the connection.

[@ModelManTom]

That wire cutter will loosen over time. (or machine oil) Blk and red is good decision for your level. 26-30 gauge stranded is good. You, personally, can't put enough power thru that included wire, so no worry on that. See that email i sent you for more math clarification. leds: burn bright, die early. Burn 'dim', live much, much longer. Congrats on the 1st led! it is an exciting thing!

[@ThePaintingClinic]

@77ExarKun We'll see about the BoP. I have to figure out if there is a way to cleanly run the wires down into the base. I really wanted to keep all the wiring in the model, but since I want to build it landed and with the new ramp down I may have to scratch build some interior which really cuts into the space allotted.

[@wellywanderer]

I’ve always thought it would be cool to power a mini with a button battery in the base, and run some fibre optic cable through it for spell effects, or just use an LED for a fire effect.

[@cameronallan5624]

In case this helps here is how i remember which leg is positive and which is negative on an LED. A + sign is made up of two - signs crossed over each other.so a plus sign is - -and - - is longer than - so a positive leg is longer than a negative leg.

[@thegreatnative]

I'm about to create an LED circuit for my 1/350'scale titanic model. It will have a 9v battery supplying power to 16 LEDs wired in pairs in 8 parallel series with a resistor per series. I'm new to this as well it was helpful watching your video cheers

[@ThePaintingClinic]

Just FYI, the 9v will likely only last 2-3 hours with that many leds.

[@themilkman1188]

ah, such a small world. same reason I'm here haha. im enjoying the kit so far. drilled all the port holes out and debating following through or not on the lighting.

[@angelhernandez7159]

Doctor Faust's Painting Clinic I would like to know can you used a 5mm led for a 1/25 scale model kit? The reason why is that I want to make my model car of Christine 1958 Plymouth fury and I'm using a 6 X 5mm leds. The leds I am about to use is 5mm led that are 12v to a 9v battery so can it still work and can it fit? Thanks

[@Armorcreations1]

With a 9 volt battery, check the voltages if the leds you want to use. Make sure they add up to about 10 volts and you can take the resistor out of line. You can also find leds in almost any voltage level as well. . I think you can do the bird if prey using 3 volt pancake battery a ultra bright 3v led and fiber optics. Thinking windows and marker litghts. Ant the batt in a custime compartment. Have fun.

[@cameronallan5624]

later in the video you refer to a complicated mathematical equation. it is very simple in fact. as long as the LED voltage combined when in series is less than that of the battery the LEDs will still work. so with a nine volt battery if your LEDs run on a =9voltage of 1.5 volts you could have 6 LEDs, 1.5 multiplied by 6=9.for a parallel circuit it is different.hope this helps

[@da-madmodler4692]

What size 9 volt wire should I use when re-wiring my house with LED pliers? 220 0r 221? HAHA HA sorry I could not help myself, but am saving to favorites to help when I start lighting up my models. Thanks for the videos you have helped me a lot.

[@jamesmyer2331]

You can get LED's prewired (much easier to work with) Resistor already soldered in 1.4 mm size. also 3 and 5 mm's too. I'm on my 6th car (for me this time) 5's are only good for certain apps like focused lights (the right size) headlights or fiberoptic sources.

[@johntakacs9441]

There is an LED resistor app which is free. Just plug in your info and it tells you what strength resistor you need.

[@58Kym]

I am using timed led strings connected to battery packs. I don't want to be turning my leds on and off so the timer comes on fir 6 hours and then goes off til the same times the next day!

[@MarcFraley]

@ThePaintingClinic Here's a thought for concealing your wiring and power source for a landed BoP diorama. Hide the battery box beneath a scratch built piece of AGE equipment or cargo container and disguise the wire harness as fuel lines or external power connection. Just an idea! :-)

[@MarcFraley]

The copper braided material is desoldering wicking material. You use it to remove solder.

[@rericelliott]

Remember Ohms law. E/IxR where E = the voltage drop you need, I is the current in amps and R is your resistance

[@Archeopterix2680]

the flat 'copper braided cable' looks like a desoldering wick. You place it on top of a solder connection of a component you want to remove and heat it by placing the tip of a soldering iron on top of it. When the solder liquifies it's soaked into the wick just the way wax is soaked into a candle wick. You can then remove the component. At least that's what it strongly resembles without looking at it up close.

[@77ExarKun]

Let there be light, my friend. I'm also a noob with this but i'm looking forward to lighting my first kit. Good luck with yours, too bad it won't be the bird of prey, though.

[@badgrendels]

5 mm is the width of the head of the led. As for the switches, if they don't click, then they don't stay on, they are momentary on switches. The black box with the buttons is probably a battery box, ripped from a remote control toy. The buttons probably allow power through the different wires coming out of the box. ma is milliamps.

[@ModelManTom]

Those last switches are 'momentary' The braid is' solderwick' for wicking excess solder. The last box is a fwd/back switch for the motor from a dollar store toy. lets see... Yup all contents are listed on sheet. Those resistors are good for almost any normal power supply you can throw at it. But try to keep it under 12v (and however many mA you need. Thats the more important #)

[@TheHikingReader]

That's awesome!!! Call me crazy or a dork but I actually got excited when they finally lit up as well! LOL

[@ThePaintingClinic]

@fraley1701 I thought of that, but I don't want to block view of the model by stacking boxes around it. Also to be anal, in the beginning of IV when all the boxes are there it's the daytime and there are no lights on the ship. I have to wait till I start building it to see if there is a way to run them down. Maybe I can either rebuild the landing gear with hollow tube or hide them under the landing ramp.

[@sacredtrustguild]

I would love a kit like that, I can just imagine all the stuff I could do with it!

[@MTPatriot1787]

I am sure someone has mentioned this by now, but the resistor should be on the positive side. Great videos though!

[@ThePaintingClinic]

@ww298kscope Yes, but you run the risk of them comming apart after time.

[@sirrober]

you could always use heatshrink to connect the wires if they won't be moved

[@horrido666]

The dollar store has a battery operated string of mini LEDs with a slide switch. You get a battery box with switch, and about 9 LEDs for $1.

[@SpamOfCan]

Do you have an Android device? If so, look up the app EveryCircuit. Sure, the Pro version is like 10 dollars, but SO MUCH WORTH IT. I knew I'd have a wall socket adapter to 12V power supply, and I knew how many LEDs and what colours I needed. Hooked them up in the simulator with a switch. Flipped the switch and every LED burned. So I added a default resistor and restarted the simulation. LEDs didn't burn, but didn't shine either. Oh, the resistor is 1kO by default, gradually turned it down (in real-time while the simulation is running, you can see you the current flows, look at videos here on youtube) and suddenly the LEDs started giving off dim light! Lowered the resistor down to 33O and now the LEDs all shine bright, and the circuit reads 302 mA which won't kill the adapter either. Woohoo!

[@sacredtrustguild]

just one more comment now I watched the whole thing. Since you have fiber optic cable, all you really need is 1 LED of each color you want to work with and run fiber optic cable to the points you want to emit light. Also, the switch can be on either the positive or negative lead as either way, if the switch is open, the circuit is not complete and wont work.

[@gaets04]

That's funny . I always put my resister in series to the long leg which is the positive side.

[@Takunrsx]

that "copper braided cable" its for de-soldering

[@cameronallan5624]

I I appreciate the way you admit that you do not really know what you are doing. Just to help explain how volts (also known as potential difference) and amps (a milliamp is 1/1000 of an amp) (amps is also known as the current)work i have made you an analogy.Think of an electrical circuit being a food delivery system to a person(component e.g. an LED) . The positive side of the battery is where the delivery vans fill up with food at the grocery store. The delivery vans can be though of as the electrons. The roads the delivery vans take to get to the place where they drop off the food and return back to the grocery store can be thought of as the wires. However the delivery vans do not necessarily deliver all their food and will sometimes depending on the person( component) they are delivering to will return to the grocery store (negative side of the battery) with food (voltage) remaining. So to put in a real circuit if you have 2 LEDs which each use 1.5V and you have a 10V battery, the voltage of the wire coming from the positive end of the battery will be 10V and the voltage of the wire going in to the negative end of the battery will be 10-1.5-1.5=7V. We can therefore calculate the voltage across the wire coming from the positive end of the battery and the negative end of the battery to be 10-7=3V. The voltage is the amount of food each van carries, and the number of amps is the number of delivery vans that arrive at the person in a second. If the voltage is very high than the current (amps) can be low as a person will not become hungry if they receive a large delivery once a week for example, this would equate to a large voltage but a small current. Or they could a receive a small delivery very frequently resulting in a small voltage but a large current. sorry it is quite a long explanation.

[@badgrendels]

Also be careful different colors of led's take different voltages. Yellow and Red LED's tend to be less than 3 volts, and Blue and white LED's tend to take more than 3. Also, I would not run LED's in series, if one burns out, then they all do not light. You will also notice that they get dimmer when you run them in series. If you run them in parallel, they won't get dimmer.

[@jamesrae404]

Thanks for posting!

[@Porth15]

Very interesting to a fellow newbie

[@RangerChris61]

mA is milliamps, which is a measure of current. Voltage = Current * Resistance, You might want to read up on Ohm's Law for help figuring this stuff out

[@mopic8560]

copper cable is to be used as solder sucker. You suck excess solder up using that copper braided cable while you are soldering. Also, running LEDs in parallel works better I think.

[@rericelliott]

You can never supply too many amps current is drawn

[@ThePaintingClinic]

@fraley1701 Thanks!

[@heros670]

Hahahahaha. ""Im so excited, I know you're not ""

[@MarcFraley]

May I also recommend this Web site; LED Center. (I can't type in the URL here, so PM me if your interested) It's an LED wizard that allows you to plug in your values and it figures out everything for you (does the math). It will even create a schematic of your circuit for you. :-)

[@kurtfrohlich7100]

What's that ?

[@InsertDisk2]

Screw reading! ;D

[@j_holtslander]

I literally burst out laughing @3:11 ROFLMAO!!!

[@JoelHudson]

Ahhh, making light of Electronics, with LEDs

[@dennisbonner9708]

The more LEDs you have on 9 volt battery the less resistance you need. You have to do the math.

[@tomgrover9639]

do americans not do this in school we do in the uk

[@KevnKalifornia]

+tom grover Science is being phased out in American schools to make more room for teaching the bible and prayer in the classroom.

[@naryrokobs1847]

i can say I went to a Magnet Program middle school with a basic electronics class and then went to an Aviation High school where i took another electronics class and now im getting my A. S. Degree in Engineering Technology and yet again i have another electronics class. But i know that i live a very good life and was lucky to get into these nice schools.

[@bishop51807]

Electronics is not mandated in American schools. School administrators mostly just try to push you into college or a trade school then let you worry about skills. As a matter of fact, trade classes in public schools have to constantly fight to keep their funding. When I was in high school, my computer science class had to justify their funding every year.

[@krylissnorwind7528]

@@bishop51807 Because classes that require you to actually think with your brain have a lower success rate overall, which means lower scores on average, which means less federal money coming into the school. Schools only care about funding so they tend to push away the "hard" things.

[@rannopaul4711]

Oh Boy ..please learn some basic electrics before you start...also get some flux..

[@bishop51807]

and where do you do that ass hat?