PlaymoFriends

Creative => How-To => Topic started by: core on January 17, 2008, 06:51:15

Title: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: core on January 17, 2008, 06:51:15: First off, I am embarking on this project (hey I did order the 12 candles already!) - no promises as to the pace of progress though ;)

Secondly, I'm posting to get your generous input, so type away!

I picked up a box of flickering LED candles via ebay (dozen for ~$14 shipped), runs on CR2032 3V, and easy to take apart. LED is 3mm variety.
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: core on January 17, 2008, 06:56:37: At the moment these are some of the Playmobil open flame items I intend to convert. To keep it authentic I would like to use existing (an currently available via DS) Playmobil items to use as battery holders - for eg, barrel (will fit LR44), chest (fist A123 and N, AAA barely), and under rockies - any other suggestions?
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: core on January 17, 2008, 07:26:35: These are a couple of issues I'm considering at the moment (in no particular order):

Lamp Type
The candles already come with the 3mm LED and works quite well (boys and I had fun putting it around all the castle/ships, and turning the room lights down - had plenty of light to play and night scene!), but I will also be sourcing some grain-of-rice bulbs 1.5V which are 1.4mm diameter. I can also power the grain-of-rice bulbs as steady glow lights and it would be the easiest method. I'm trying to decide where steady lights would come into a medieval setting (Victorian's easy, gas lamps ;)).

Wiring
Going to use 30AWG wire along with 80-pin ATA ribbon cable (computer HDD). Issue here is how much centralized power source vs. power-at-each-light should I go with. For eg, a campfire or torch with no back-wall, I can use a barrel to house 2x LR44's to power it via a short lead. Inside/outside a building, I can have several leads running into the chest that houses the batteries. For power-at-each-light for eg, I mount the LED assembly under the 2x1 roof/floor piece, I can also mount a CR2032 holder there to power it directly.

Battery
I'll try a mix of LR44, CR2032, A123 and AAA and see how it goes. Any idea how I can make/get a holder for 2x LR44's?

Misc Thots
Although it might not be very 'authentic', I've found that mounting the LED's inside of a roof piece (eg, 2x1 flat, conical, square, etc) works VERY nicely to illuminate a room.

The pirate ships have great potential for lighting, and much easier to mount a battery case and switch, and route the wiring. (2x main deck light, cabin light, and perhaps one or two from the mast with a lantern).

If I can't drill the flames out to accommodate the LED's, I might go with making some replacement silicon flames.

I'll be ordering a chandelier from DS and try to install 5x grain-of-rice bulbs on it.

Finally, this last picture is at least what I'd envision for standalone lighting; I should be able to fit 2xLR44, the PCB into the barrel, and then wire up the LED to the torch flame. The puzzler here is getting a small battery holder for the LR44's.
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: Richard on January 17, 2008, 13:51:05: Hello, Peter ...

This is a very ambitious undertaking!

Lighting Playmobil lamps, candles, torches, etc. is something that probably many of us have only thought about doing.

I think that quite a few PF members will be very interested in your results.
Hopefully, your results will be simple enough for us to replicate ... :)

As I'm sure you know, Playmobil has offered a "flickering" fireplace as well as lighting kits.
see attachments
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: Sylvia on January 18, 2008, 08:21:29: What an exciting project! I'd love to hear if this works and see photos of the end results. 8-)
Lighting the flames on these accessories will really bring your dioramas to life.

Little Jo has had some experience in this area, so he might be able to give advice or make suggestions, if needed. :)

http://www.jr-x.de/playmobil/projekte/crip.html (http://www.jr-x.de/playmobil/projekte/crip.html)
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: playmofire on January 18, 2008, 10:33:50: This is certainly a topic I'll follow closely, even though I don't have the nouse or skills to replicate it.

I think a German member has done something like this before as I remember seeing a photo on the internet of a mediaeval town with working lights.
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: core on January 19, 2008, 09:10:48: A quick update! (not that I'll be working at this rate ;))

1) I'll be ordering some battery holders and misc. items this weekend from Mouser and All Electronics.

2) I'd really recommend just trying out some of these LED candles in your layout as-is - you can sticky-tape/blue-tack them to ceilings, roofs, etc, or place them inside houses, barns, ships - even as out-of-scale as they are, the lighting effect is quite nice, and you can somewhat hide the bulky 'candles in a corner somewhere. Try it out! (the easiest thing you can do is remove the outer case with faux flame and shell to reduce overall size).

3a) I've got at least one concept partially done - the campfire! To drill out the hole in the flame, I used a pin vise (no power tools here, just do a look at any online hobby store). Closest drill bit I had on hand is a 7/64" 2.8mm. I also used a 1/16" 1.6mm bit to hollow out as much as I could to the tip of the flame (this bit's just to try and get the brightest light output). I'll *try* and post a small video clip or animated GIF, but for now the picture shows the lighting in an almost darkened room - the flickering effect is really quite nice! FYI I had to use a dremel and drum sander to trim off the bottom ring edge around the LED, and widen the holes trial-and-error with an xacto blade.

3b) Next up is to hollow out the bottom of the campfire logs so that I can fit the PCB under it, with only a pair of wires leading out to a battery source - for the moment it will be a barrel - anyone care to recommend any other playmo prop that would *be* near a campfire? ;D

3c) This has been a straightforward mod, and I suppose with some creativity I could just use the setup as-is and hide the battery base under a false ground, or build up something around the campfire - no need for wires leading to power source.

3d) A slightly easier modification (imo) would be using the Knights Superset (older version with Blacksmith) and Viking Superset - There's enough space UNDER the landscape to house a decent size battery holder :) (fwiw I have some ideas for a major lighting spectacular for Rock Temple setup ... after I get these other initial lighting up and running).

Richard - yup, I'd looked at Playmobil's modern interior lighting before, and I have the StarShip3 (3080) with blinky LED set for reference ... just a little too modern and bulky for my intended purpose!

Slyvia - I'll admit Little Jo's diorama has been an inspiration for me to get this project going every since I cam across the page months ago.

Thanks much again for all the encouragement, and I hope to report back soon!
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: Richard on January 19, 2008, 11:45:52: Even without animation, your campfire looks very convincing, Peter!

This is a wonderful project that you've started!

Eagerly looking forward to your next post,
Richard
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: Little Jo on January 19, 2008, 12:25:00: Quote from: Sylvia on January 18, 2008, 08:21:29
What an exciting project! I'd love to hear if this works and see photos of the end results. 8-)
Lighting the flames on these accessories will really bring your dioramas to life.

Little Jo has had some experience in this area, so he might be able to give advice or make suggestions, if needed. :)

http://www.jr-x.de/playmobil/projekte/crip.html (http://www.jr-x.de/playmobil/projekte/crip.html)

Yes, indeed I had been messing around with some self-made lightning stuff in one of my very early projects after rediscovering Playmobil for me as a hobby again.

(http://www.jr-x.de/playmobil/projekte/crip-1.jpg)

Now Sylvia is mentioning it explicitely I made some detail pics.
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: Little Jo on January 19, 2008, 12:31:24: I didn't used LED but normal "micro" bulbs bought in a electronic supply store. They are also operated with 3V. I used for this two normal 1.5V micro AAA batteries which I placed in a suitable batterie holder (cf. pic; also bought in the electronic store) which conects the both batteries in series to reach the 3V. All the wireing is placed inside the tavern building. At the back of the building I placed a little switch (yes, you guessed right: also bought in the electronic store) to turn the whole scenery on/off.
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: Little Jo on January 19, 2008, 12:41:56: As you can see in the result pic above I lighted the tavern windows, the stable, Joseph's lantern, and the camp fire.

In crip_6 you can see in the background the bulb which light the windows. Behind each window I placed one bulb on a small wire; the curtains a made from thin wrapping paper where the light shines thru.

The stable is lighted by a single bulb (like seen in crip_1 above) mounted right under the stable's ceiling so the scenery inside the stable is lighted too.

For Josphe's lantern I drilled the original hole in the yellow lantern piece larger so that the bulb fits inside and the light was able to shine thru the plastic in a brighter way. The lantern hold by a typical klicky ends just above the floor so it wasn't an issue to hide the power-supply cables in the floor sand of the scenery. To hold the bulb in place fixed it with some hot adhesive to the lantern.

In the same way the cables are also hidden for the camp fire. For this I just drilled out the pin from the fire and made a suitable hole in the fire rocks. Due to the loss of the pin I fixed the fire to the rocks with some hot adhesive; and in the same way here too: to hold the bulb in place fixed it with some hot adhesive to the rock.
Title: Re: Medieval/Victorian/Flame Lighting ideas ...
Post by: Little Jo on January 19, 2008, 12:50:02: One aspect I didn't finished/included in the original scenery was a lightning for the star wand the angle is holding into his hand. I already prepared the wand and fixed the bulb into it, but never finished this and wired it to the power supply installation -- as you maybe can see there is already some rust on the wires of the bulb indicating this piece has been laying around quite a while in the basement :-[

Edit: Ups, forgot to attach the pic.