# World's smallest motorized TOS nacelle effect



## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

Not sure if anyone has tried this before but I am close to making it a reality.
Lets face it, the chasing LED nacelle affects look good but there is nothing like duplicating a motor effect like, well a motor.

So after some wire wrap microsurgery, I am close....

http://galaxyphoto.com/ent_1000/tos_1000_nacelle.jpg

Here is the effect on video, I may still adjust the timing and intensity of the LEDs but its looking pretty good...






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-Jason Ware

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My Other Hobby....High Power Rocketry
http://www.galaxyphoto.com/rockets.htm


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## Hoostas (Jun 7, 2011)

That is awesome. Where did you find a motor that small?


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## drmcoy (Nov 18, 2004)

OH SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!!

Sweet...very sweet. That has to be one of the coolest upgrades I've seen done to that particular model.

Please share more info -- off the shelf motor or did you modify it?

And more pics once you get finished.


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

This is off the hook! I've motorized an 18 incher but doing it in 1/1000 is absolutely remarkable! Please share where you got those motors!


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## KUROK (Feb 2, 2004)

You have my attention!


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## fluke (Feb 27, 2001)

Thats it.....I give up.....I'm gonna start playing with leggos and lincoln logs!

Good bye! LOL

*Dude! My hat is off to you sir! *:thumbsup:


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

Here you go, I am running it at 4.5vots. 
I had to do some thinning of the plastic and
trimmed off the edges of the gear box and it
BARELY fit...

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1096


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## CessnaDriver (Apr 27, 2005)

Stunning. I would thought it not possible.

How noisy is it? Seems it could drive any scale TOS E nacelles.


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## fluke (Feb 27, 2001)

Thanks for the link! NICE SITE Lots of goodies! I think I will find the right drive motor or motors for my mini micro Chariot.

Yes...Good question CessnaDriver....I'm sure that this method will work on larger kits as well?...ya?

BRAVO!! :thumbsup:


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

!!!!!!!!


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

Its extremely quiet, almost silent when free running. Once in the Nacelle it soundboards and you can hear it just a bit but in a larger kit you could insulate it from the plastic and you would never hear it.


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## CessnaDriver (Apr 27, 2005)

That was exactly my thinking. Small enough to sound insulate. And also on a larger kit, it means you could make the whole assembly servicable.

Does reversing the voltage reverse the direction?


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

Says it will handle up to 9 volts. I could see running it on a 9 volt system and incorporating a rheostat switch into the deflector dish so you could turn the voltage uo or down thereby varying the speed of rotation; slower for crusing at low warp and faster for higher warp speeds. If it's anything like the motors I bought for my 18 incher you should be able to reverse the spin by reversing the polarity.


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## CLBrown (Sep 8, 2010)

Trekkriffic said:


> Says it will handle up to 9 volts. I could see running it on a 9 volt system and incorporating a rheostat switch into the deflector dish so you could turn the voltage uo or down thereby varying the speed of rotation; slower for crusing at low warp and faster for higher warp speeds. If it's anything like the motors I bought for my 18 incher you should be able to reverse the spin by reversing the polarity.


For DC motors, there's a direct relationship between voltage and speed. Run it at 9V, and it'll be a lot faster.

Ideally, you should pick up the "motor controller" board for each of them (scroll down the page and you'll find them). This way you can actually dial-in the speed that looks right to you.

My only issue with this effect is that the LEDS are way too distinct... the real ship didn't pulse multiple colors in that fashion, obviously, and it looks "bad" to me. The FAN element of this works wonderfully.

So, basically, someone needs to make a little PCB with some tiny colored surface-mount LEDs... so you can really get a good number of LEDs in there... something you need to get the effect right.

Something like this, along with a multi-layer PCB to make all the connections, is what you'd need... arranged in basically a "flower petal" fashion.
http://www.advmicrolites.com/L196.htm


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

CLBrown said:


> So, basically, someone needs to make a little PCB with some tiny colored surface-mount LEDs... so you can really get a good number of LEDs in there... something you need to get the effect right.


Fiber optics wouldn't do? The application is small enough ...


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

SteveR said:


> Fiber optics wouldn't do? The application is small enough ...


Interesting idea to use Fiber. I have had an idea for awhile about using 1.5 mm LEDs, the kind you get on those XMAS tree light strings at Target, placed one behind the other in a stack inside the nacelle separated by styrene "bulkheads". Use blue, orange, red, and green LEDs and run say 3 strands of fiber from each forward terminating in a round bulkhead at the front of the nacelle. Stagger them so you have an even distribution around the disc giving you 12 lights. Place an amber LED in the center and paint the inside of the dome white with a second dome with 12 strips of aluminum foil tape to make the fan blades placed inside the outer dome but back just a litttle so it casts shadows of the fan blades on the inside of the outer dome. This would be a static setup but in photos might look pretty close to what we saw on screen. Anyway, sorry if I got OT but I find this thread very interesting and my mind gets going sometimes.


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

But where are you going to run the fibers to? That motor is going to block passage between the nacelle cap and everything else. 

Very cool demonstration. I'm definitely interested as well


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## fluke (Feb 27, 2001)

I don't know about you guys but after seeing this I'm having a blast drawing with crayons and chewing the lead paint off the walls! :tongue:


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

BlackbirdCD said:


> But where are you going to run the fibers to? That motor is going to block passage between the nacelle cap and everything else.
> 
> Very cool demonstration. I'm definitely interested as well


As I stated this would be a static display. No motors. Really something that would look good for still photgraphy.

That said, you might be able to do it if you mounted the motor behind the LED stack and ran the motor shaft thru an outer sleeve running thru the center of the 4 bulkheads with the LEDs mounted off center. Still it would be very tight. You'd need to get really creative using 28-30 awg wire for LEDs.


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## CLBrown (Sep 8, 2010)

Trekkriffic said:


> As I stated this would be a static display. No motors. Really something that would look good for still photgraphy.
> 
> That said, you might be able to do it if you mounted the motor behind the LED stack and ran the motor shaft thru an outer sleeve running thru the center of the 4 bulkheads with the LEDs mounted off center. Still it would be very tight. You'd need to get really creative using 28-30 awg wire for LEDs.


The use of fiber optics isn't a BAD idea, but it's very hard to get bright light from a fiber, except as a very directional ("spotlight") effect. You don't want spotlights inside the nacelle front, you want point lights that almost seem to be "local ambient" lights.

These little surface-mount devices work very nicely for that. And you could easily stack 16 of them in a "flower pattern" on even that tiny little PCB area. The PCB would have a hole in the middle for the "fan shaft" and all the LEDs would share a common "ground" in the form of a loop inside, but each would have a unique "source" connection.

You could connect several in parallel, if you wanted... or you could use a 16-output driver chip to drive each one individually, in some form of preprogrammed pattern. You couldn't have anything but the lights on this tiny PCB, though. But having sixteen lamps in that tiny of a space would be... well... awesome.

The trick is, someone has to lay out that little PCB, get it fabricated, and get it populated with LEDs (using a reflow solder process to surface-mount the LEDs). Not terribly complex, from a "production product" standpoint, but from a hobbiest standpoint... well, I could never do this stuff by hand, could any of you?

Basically, we're talking about someone doing this as an after-market kit, and selling it at a price point that would justify the up-front investment.


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

CLBrown said:


> The use of fiber optics isn't a BAD idea, but it's very hard to get bright light from a fiber, except as a very directional ("spotlight") effect. You don't want spotlights inside the nacelle front, you want point lights that almost seem to be "local ambient" lights.


There may be a way to use fiber and avoid the "spotlight" effect you refer to. It would involve using "fat fiber" and heating the fiber just enough to end up with a "mushroom" at the tip. Then applying a coat of fluorescent white acrylic paint such that the colored light would shine ambiently against the back of the white coating. The beaconing effect would be greatly reduced using this method;I know because I've done it. Perhaps I should do an experiment to see what that would look like. 
Ahhh what fun!


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## galaxy_jason (May 19, 2009)

All good ideas. I probably wont change any of the hardware on this build but I did discover I had the wrong resisters on the always-on red so the blue/green was over powering. I think I can tweak the brightness a bit and get a nice display, even if its not a perfect reproduction. 

Hey, its only 1/2 inch after all!


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## Chrisisall (May 12, 2011)

galaxy_jason said:


> YouTube - ‪Polar Lights TOS Enterprise 1/1000 Nacelle effect‬‏


Wow.:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## Chuck Eds (Jul 20, 2009)

Very cool effect! There are smaller motors out there, I have a couple of those mini r/c helicopters. The tail rotor motor is only 7/32" in diameter x 1/2" long. The main rotor motors are about 1/4" in diameter x 1/2" long. 

You'd still need a reduction drive, but those things are tiny! More than small enough for model applications like lights, antennas and such...


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## KUROK (Feb 2, 2004)

CultTVman (Steve) told me a few years ago that it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to do a spinning nacelle effect in this scale. He was right!


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## RossW (Jan 12, 2000)

I've been thinking about how to do the spinning nacelle effect with an actual motor, and to replicate the look of the 11' model I think you'd have to have a number of sub-miniature LEDs blink randomly (reds, yellows, blues maybe) plus a number of steady-ons (reds, yellows, greens, blues); combine the two with the spinning fan blade and it could work. I was also thinking of gluing small broken mirror pieces in and around the LEDs to reflect the lights somewhat unpredictably.


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## Chuck_P.R. (Jun 8, 2003)

This is an incredible thread!

Very interested to know how the final model came out.

Looking for ways to light a set of 1/600th nacelles.


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## colhero (May 18, 2006)

Ha! too cool... Mr. Ware strikes again


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## Grumpy Popeye (Apr 5, 2002)

Lol, I just came to this exact solution for making spinning blades in my JJ-prise DVD case modification! Right down to the motor and gear set!

Incidentally, if you look up "N20 geared motor" on dx.com you'll get the same thing but much cheaper, plus free shipping!
http://dx.com/s/N20+geared+motor


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## Richard Baker (Aug 8, 2006)

DX.com (Deal Extreme) has some great bargains, just do not be in a hurry. It typically takes a number of weeks or more to have an order arrive. I have been buying from them for over a year and love that site (the night vision navigation video system in my car came from them)...

I truly an in awe of your spinning bussards on the 1/1000 built- spectacular!


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I believe the exact motor can be had here, also with free shipping:
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Metal-Micro-Gearmotor-150-1-/221245501006?
They also sell motors of different speeds. Some of the stores motor descriptions have tables that tells you what speed the motors will run at, at different voltages.


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## TrekFX (Apr 15, 2004)

I used a similar N20 in a 1/1000 TOS proof-of-concept way back... must have been like 2004. The metal endplates of the gear mechanism are problematic at 1/1000. The square corners caused fit issues in the nacelle. They can be machined or filed down but overall they still are bulky and need to be installed as far forward as possible, making the lighting aspect a bit tricky!

With more working room at larger scales, they are pretty effective, as in the 1/350 TOS E.


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