Now that i am coming to the point where i need to start adding stuff that cannot be canged anymore I needed to lightproof the hull and superstructure.
Good oldfashioned aluminum duct tape works best imo. It also helps keep the heat of the leds away from the 3dprinted stuff even though the specific abs type used is chosen for its high heat deformation point.
The Yazi - Venator build was made with fiber to led couplings exclusively. But that is just such a big work and keeping the fibers in place a real pain in the butt. So i went for a led strip inside a reflective chamber for the Kraken.
By using the aluminum tape the only way out for the light is through the fibers adding to their brightness. Another way of thinking is that i can lower the power draw of the leds (and thus their generated heat) to make them a little less bright.
This test block of the greebles is now a 2 part piece. They will be joined into 1 unit to allow for less drilling of the holes for the fibers. By letting them stick out a little at the back they get more light and do not move anymore when aligning the greeble block to the ships hulls (a major pain with the yazi)
The superstructure will be done with seperate led and fiber couplings as there is less room to play with.
A lot of light bleeds above and below the greebles block but thats because the 2nd part is not in these pictures. Look closely and you will see 1.5 mm and 2mm fibers uses. Also many variations in heigth giving it another dimension. I have ordered blue and red micro smd's to be mounted inside thrusters and other area's to make the whole less uniform. Many hours will be spent before getting to this stage though ...
All lit up !
Ready for more?
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