# Interior lighting kits for the J2



## Darkhunter (Dec 17, 2003)

I know Voodoo FX offers a complete interior lighting kit for the Moebius J2. Are there any other companies out there offering interior lighting kits?


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

Have you considered simply buying all the leds and stuff yourself? It is very likely far cheaper in the end. The wealth of info on this forum should be enough to get you through the toughest times. Even with kits, you (usually) still have solder and wire everything yourself. Just a thought.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

I bought a set of bright, pre-wired, pre-strung, hooked up LED's with a battery box and switch off eBay. The seller was from Hong Kong and you could get two complete 10 light sets for something like $1.75. Shipping was cheap and the whole thing was only $5. The lights run off two AA or AAA (I forget which) batteries. There is more than enough room for several of these in the Jupiter 2. You can string them under the freezing tubes, behind consoles, etc. If you shop around too some of the sets come with blinking LED's.


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## Opus Penguin (Apr 19, 2004)

I plan to build my own. As impressive as Voodoo's is, I am too poor to purchase it. Also, I am nervous if I screw up the soldering of the parts then i would be out the money I spent. In any case, I have a bunch of different color LEDs from previous kits I built so should have plenty to do this. The only thing I bought was the fusion core and dome lighting kit from TSDS which I am happy with.


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## m jamieson (Dec 18, 2008)

I thought "Just an Illusion" had one coming but I haven't seen anything on it in quite a while.


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## Darkhunter (Dec 17, 2003)

Model Man said:


> Have you considered simply buying all the leds and stuff yourself? It is very likely far cheaper in the end. The wealth of info on this forum should be enough to get you through the toughest times. Even with kits, you (usually) still have solder and wire everything yourself. Just a thought.


Yeah, it will be much cheaper to do it myself.
My biggest hang up at this point is figuring out what resitors to use.
I plan to string the LED's in parallel and power them with a 4-AA power pack.
Suggestions?

What is a good site to buy LED's and resistors?


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Theres a lot of good info on the model lighting board here as well...


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

There is a site devoted to automatically calculating the resistor you need for your leds. Just google that. It gives exactly the same results as calculating by hand, which is no big surprise. What is a surprise, to me at least, is that I can never get my leds to work using those values. 
Not a big issue tho as I never use fixed value resistors in my models. You can never tell how bright your led is going to be and if you're trying to match brightness between two leds, often leds of the same specs have noticeably different brightnesses.
To my mind, the biggest goof modellers make when lighting their models is that they fail to take into account the scale of their model. Turn on a 60 W lamp in your house somewhere and put your eye as close as you can to the bulb. Okay, so no one in their right mind would do that. You'd blind yourself, right?
Put the lamp in a window and go out into your yard as far away from the lamp as you can get and look at it. No so blinding now.
So many modellers put the equivalent of 60W bulbs in their models and then can use their models to light rooms. Unless it's an actual searchlight, your model shouldn't be lighting up walls. Think of how far the headlights on a 1/32 scale car would light up a 1/32 scale road. 36"? How far did the light from the Jupiter 2's main viewports cast even soft light on the planet surface? 50' tops? That's about 18" in 1/32. If you can use your Jupiter 2 to read, the control room is too bright. 
I use 5-10K ohm variable resistors to control and match the brightness of each of my leds. You can get a lifetime supply from ebay from the orient pretty darn cheap. Leds, too. Takes all the guesswork out of calculating, and you can set the brightness exactly where you think it looks best. You wire them exactly as you would fixed resistors, one for each led on one side or the other of the led.
Only thing to remember when soldering leds is that they are heat sensitive. Use an metal alligator clip or something as a heatsink between the head of the led and the soldering point. Don't let the led itself get hot.


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## skinnyonce (Dec 17, 2009)

Darkhunter said:


> I know Voodoo FX offers a complete interior lighting kit for the Moebius J2. Are there any other companies out there offering interior lighting kits?



below is a nice resistor calculator,I got one that will design your circuit also (need to find it though) ebay has a good supply of leds/free resistors.. (china mostly) check there score. and check out "modelman's" videos on you tube he does some led work also, I bought a voodoo kit and it is top of the line, but its been a while since i did any soldering. I will have to practice on some minor stuff first to get re-aquainted..before I do the voodoo kit..
And ""search"" the forum for "lighting" it will probably turn up a sheet load of info... led's and wire are cheap, solder station fair price, I would do it myself and have FUN, and learn something, and save $$$$$......



http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz


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## JeffG (May 10, 2004)

As much as I don't want to pay for an expensive lighting kit, for me at least, the cost of experimenting and figuring out everything and the time involved far exceeds buying a kit which is completely or even partially assembled. Were I more electronically inclined, it might not be a big deal, but I'd rather concentrate on making the kit look as good as I possibly can from an artistic standpoint. Fortunately we have plenty of options these days.


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## Darkhunter (Dec 17, 2003)

starseeker said:


> There is a site devoted to automatically calculating the resistor you need for your leds. Just google that. It gives exactly the same results as calculating by hand, which is no big surprise. What is a surprise, to me at least, is that I can never get my leds to work using those values.
> Not a big issue tho as I never use fixed value resistors in my models. You can never tell how bright your led is going to be and if you're trying to match brightness between two leds, often leds of the same specs have noticeably different brightnesses.
> To my mind, the biggest goof modellers make when lighting their models is that they fail to take into account the scale of their model. Turn on a 60 W lamp in your house somewhere and put your eye as close as you can to the bulb. Okay, so no one in their right mind would do that. You'd blind yourself, right?
> Put the lamp in a window and go out into your yard as far away from the lamp as you can get and look at it. No so blinding now.
> ...



I have been trying to find a good supplyer of variable resistors and cant seem to find one.
Can you give me a link?


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## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

In addition to scale brightness of LEDs, the other thing most modelers overlook is the color _temperature_ of the LEDs used for model lighting. Most of the so-called "white" LEDs out there are far too blue. Most model interiors should be lit with "warm-white" LEDs to simulate the much warmer look of tungsten lighting as used in the original studio sets and models.


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

Darkhunter said:


> What is a good site to buy LED's and resistors?


I get all mine off ebay. Search "100 pc leds". Usually they are asian based sellers, but there's on in NY that's got decent prices and some of the only warm whites around. Just check they're feedback. If it's 98% or higher, and the few complaints are lame out of hundreds or thousands of positives, you know you are relatively safe.

I just picked up a thousand pack of leds (w free resistors) for $45 shipped. You choose how many of which color you want. So I got 200 each of blue, red, amber, green and regular white. That's 4.5 cents each! I could blow out 990 of them and still have paid less than buying leds at an electronic store. 

The free resistors, you simply tell them what voltage your power supply is and they do the math for you. In this case, I chose "12v resistor", the strongest they offered. Using that resistor on a lesser power source will dim the lights to better levels.

---
As noted, few modelers seem to be aware of brightness levels. I'm glad that was mentioned. Color temp too. Warm white leds beat the pants off regular white. But be aware that warm white can cover several color ranges -from flourescant white (greenish) to incandescant white (orangish).


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## total victory (Jan 5, 2010)

http://www.littlebrightlights.com/site/1435548/product/AC-100W this website has lightset that run on batteries, some might be able to be adapted for use in the j-2, youll have to modify them probally, hope someone can use this.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Thats exactly what I got off eBay for about $5. I think they will work fine for basic lighting needs in the Jupiter 2 and other kits.


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## Richard Baker (Aug 8, 2006)

Target sells them during Christmas- I stock up then.


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## richlen2 (Apr 2, 2009)

Just type in Pre-Wired LED into ebay and you'll get tons of choices and colors including assortment packs. A pack of 20 pre-wired LEDs will run about $7. They come from China so they take a couple of weeks but are worth the wait. Make sure they are rated 9-12 Volt. 12 Volts works fine with 9V battery.


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## Peacefield (Jan 22, 2008)

This thread has been very interesting to me as I can't afford the $'s for the J2 specific lighting kits but I'd like to do something with lighting. That said, I'm a real neophyte. I know how to solder and that's about it; I know nothing of resisters, etc.

I'm looking at LED lighting "kits" on eBay. For instance:
http://cgi.ebay.com/10-x-LED-5mm-PR...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad7c3f70e

Is this the type of thing where I can place these lights where needed, string the wires together and attach them to a 9v battery pack? Resisters and such confuse me.


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## skinnyonce (Dec 17, 2009)

Peacefield said:


> This thread has been very interesting to me as I can't afford the $'s for the J2 specific lighting kits but I'd like to do something with lighting. That said, I'm a real neophyte. I know how to solder and that's about it; I know nothing of resisters, etc.
> 
> I'm looking at LED lighting "kits" on eBay. For instance:
> http://cgi.ebay.com/10-x-LED-5mm-PR...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad7c3f70e
> ...


as some what of a novice myself I would say your safe with these just place them where you want and connect the colored leads to the proper terminal of a battery,, resistors seem to be already in place.. put a switch in line of course, and your good to go


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## Flatlander54 (Feb 24, 2010)

Skinnyonce, I know how you feel, I would like to ight my J-2 as well but I know absolutely nothing about electronics. May try one of the lighting kits later on. The J-2 so far as I can tell...looks modular enugh to add lighting later when my know-how of it increases.


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## Moonman27 (Aug 26, 2008)

I bought a set of led string lights at Target (also at Xmas time) for this very reason. They are a string of 18 LEDs,spaced about 5-6 inches apart,powered by 4 "AA" batteries with the switch built-in to the batt. box which measures about 2 3/4" square. Made by Phillips. Cost: $6.99,plus the price of the batteries. I plan on mounting them into the soffit piece somehow,and hiding the battery box somewhere behind a wall. I guess I can't seal the two hulls together tho,since the batteries will need to be accessed,unless I cut an access hatch in the bottom hull piece.


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## skinnyonce (Dec 17, 2009)

Flatlander54 said:


> Skinnyonce, I know how you feel, I would like to ight my J-2 as well but I know absolutely nothing about electronics. May try one of the lighting kits later on. The J-2 so far as I can tell...looks modular enugh to add lighting later when my know-how of it increases.



Flatlander54, 

I've been following this build from a guy in japan and like what hes doing to his j-2, take a look to see if any ideas interest you,, and remember if you want to light later you may have to plan for that during the build now,, by adding light boxes or pre drilling holes etc. etc,, at least make/keep your floor removable from the lower hull, by magnets or velcro etc, etc..so wiring can be done later on.. 

skinny......

add babelfish to your tool bar and you can translate these pages 

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/external_drive


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## jwrjr (Oct 31, 2003)

VoodooFX has a package to do this, and it is not cheap. But what you get is - everything pre-calculated and also Randy will guide you through the process as needed.


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## Flatlander54 (Feb 24, 2010)

skinny....thanks for the link...I was planning to leave the floor unglued for now to facilitate lighting in the future. Thats going to be quite a ways down the road if it does happen. Its been so long sinc I done any modeling that Im floundering around trying to get back into the swing of things. My soon to be over 40 eyes and shakey hands arent helping matters any.


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## PF Flyer (Jun 24, 2008)

I'm pretty much a novice when it somes to lighting models, but I got a more than passable job on the Seaview by using battery-powered LED Xmas lights. Came in a string of 20 for about 10 bucks, battery case, switch and all. I just kept messing with the string until I got the lights in the proper places, taped off what I didn't need, and used flat black to guard against light leak. Then I hid the case inside the back of the sub. Steve 123 put me onto this. You can find a source by googling "battery-powered led Xmas lights." Just be sure you get the LEDs. Regular Xmas lights were too dim.


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## Peacefield (Jan 22, 2008)

Thanks for the insights everyone. I'd love to have something more custom tailored to the ship, but I think battery operated Christmas lights it is!


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## Peacefield (Jan 22, 2008)

A side question on using Christmas lights, or any lights for that matter. How do you deal with access to the on/off switch? Is it just the non-guled and magneted approach or are people making the light switch somehow otherwise accessible?


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

There are lots of kinds of switches and lots of ways to use them. 

I was going to run the power down the legs and put the switch between the diorama and the wall. However I recently got some magnetic switches, so while the power will still come down the legs, the switch will be inside the hull behind a solid wall. The pass of a magnet will activate/decativate the power. Very elegant. 

If you went over-the-top complicated, you could even rig an old tv remote to fire up your ship. Lots and lots of ways to do it.

Of course, the ultimate switch is simply unplugging the socket from the wall.


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## kimba32003 (Dec 17, 2008)

Model Man said:


> There are lots of kinds of switches and lots of ways to use them.
> 
> I was going to run the power down the legs and put the switch between the diorama and the wall. However I recently got some magnetic switches, so while the power will still come down the legs, the switch will be inside the hull behind a solid wall. The pass of a magnet will activate/decativate the power. Very elegant.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I've got an old tv remote that fires up my lighting system, I can sit about 15-20 feet from the ship and it arcs up, looks cool !


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## bert model maker (Feb 19, 2002)

kimba32003 said:


> Yeah, I've got an old tv remote that fires up my lighting system, I can sit about 15-20 feet from the ship and it arcs up, looks cool !


How did you set that up ? I have wanted to do something like that but don't have any idea where to start or what I need.


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## Peacefield (Jan 22, 2008)

Model Man said:


> However I recently got some magnetic switches, so while the power will still come down the legs, the switch will be inside the hull behind a solid wall. The pass of a magnet will activate/decativate the power. Very elegant.


Now THAT sounds cool!!! So many possibilities out there and I'd never know about them without you guys and this forum. Thanks!


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## MonsterModelMan (Dec 20, 2000)

richlen2 said:


> Just type in Pre-Wired LED into ebay and you'll get tons of choices and colors including assortment packs. A pack of 20 pre-wired LEDs will run about $7. They come from China so they take a couple of weeks but are worth the wait. Make sure they are rated 9-12 Volt. 12 Volts works fine with 9V battery.


Ok..so say you buy these pre-wired LED's 
http://cgi.ebay.com/20-x-White-LED-...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a58d414ff
and get yourself a 9V battery clip with + and - leads...how do you wire the LEDs? In parallel? Same colored wires all connected together? How many can you use with a single 9V battery? Anyone have a simple sample sketch to show this? Not a schematic...something basic with colors would be better...its been a very long time since I've read schematics...

MMM


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

The ad doesn't say, but they probably suck down 25mA each. So if your 9v battery is, say, 1000mA, divide one by the other and you get the hours. #leds x 25mA / battery mA =hours of life. 4 leds 2 25 =100mA = 10hrs of battery, 1 led = 40hrs, 10 leds =4hrs. 

Roughly speaking, that is. Your results may vary based on battery, leds, luck, time of day, alignment of Mars, how many chickens you sacrificed and if the deity was pleased or not, and so on.
A

As each led has it's own resistor, the positive of each led goes to the pos terminal on battery and all negs go to the neg terminal. If the leds shared one resistor, then it would be + battery to + led#1, - led#1 goes to + led#2 and so on back to - of battery.

Have a glance over this thread. It's a ground-up look at a simple lighting job.
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=264145


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## MonsterModelMan (Dec 20, 2000)

Thanks Model Man. I just ordered a bunch of these pre-wired LED's that I'm guessing have the resistors already on them...
I want to make this as easy as I can and not burn them out.
So I now need to find a 9V battery clip someplace...and some wire. 
Dumb question...can I wire 1 LED to the 9V battery to see that I am doing it correctly without burning it out instantly? I'm guessing that the resistor will protect it. Then add another LED...I'm guessing that for the J2...I will need like 14-16 LED's...I don't care if the battery can only run for a few hrs...I won't leave it on very long anyway...

Is this the safest way to do this for a lighting rookie?

MMM


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

If the led is individually resistored, as is likely, each one is protected up to the 12 or 14v rating the ad stated. That is parallel wiring.

You can add one at a time, or tangle all the positives of all the leds together and attach that to the battery. Alll you are doing at that point is draining the battery life, not risking the led. 

If none of the leds had resistors, then you would ahve to bundle them 3 together. Battery(+) to Led1(+), led1(-) to Led2(+), Led2(-) to Led3(+), Led3 (-) to battery(-). That is serial wiring. 

Chances are each white led is about 3v (~3.5v). So 3v x 3 leds = 9v battery. 3.5v x 3 = 10.5 which is clsoe enough to 9v that it shouldn't matter. 2 leds at 6v or 7v total would burn out. 4 leds at 3v would not fire, (unless you used a 12v source 3v x 4 leds = 12v power.)


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## MonsterModelMan (Dec 20, 2000)

So with that math...I could not connect 10 LED's to a single 9V battery correct? If that is true, then I guess I will need multiple 9V batteries to get 16 LED's lit up...correct?

MMM


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## skinnyonce (Dec 17, 2009)

MonsterModelMan said:


> Ok..so say you buy these pre-wired LED's
> http://cgi.ebay.com/20-x-White-LED-...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item3a58d414ff
> and get yourself a 9V battery clip with + and - leads...how do you wire the LEDs? In parallel? Same colored wires all connected together? How many can you use with a single 9V battery? Anyone have a simple sample sketch to show this? Not a schematic...something basic with colors would be better...its been a very long time since I've read schematics...
> 
> MMM




MMM,
throw caution to the wind and go for it LOL!,, no but seriously I played around with these before I joined this forum, bought 20 plus pre wired led's, and hooked all the red leads to the pos and all the blk leads to the neg, used a 9 volt batt they all lit and nothing bad happened, its so simple even I can do it,, just wire in a switch.. play around with them, as cheap as they are you wont hurt them.. once you get the idea of how many and where to place them you'll be fine.. have confidense,dbl check- cut once...


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## skinnyonce (Dec 17, 2009)

MonsterModelMan said:


> So with that math...I could not connect 10 LED's to a single 9V battery correct? If that is true, then I guess I will need multiple 9V batteries to get 16 LED's lit up...correct?
> 
> MMM


I hooked up 20 plus[white] to a 9 volt battery no problemo,, not sure how long mr. battery will last, maybe an hour or two...


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## MonsterModelMan (Dec 20, 2000)

SkinnyOnce,

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm not too worried...it's just that its been a long time since I've used a solder iron. I used to know this stuff off the top of my head but 25+ years later...it gets lost in the cobwebs. LOL!
I've ordered some of these pre-wired LEDs as this J2 just BEGS for lighting it up!:thumbsup:

And honestly, if it really is that easy..."edited for content".... there I said it!

MMM


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

MonsterModelMan said:


> So with that math...I could not connect 10 LED's to a single 9V battery correct? If that is true, then I guess I will need multiple 9V batteries to get 16 LED's lit up...correct?
> 
> MMM


You could hook a thousand resistored leds up to a single 9v. It comes down to how long those will light. At 25mA each, that would be 25,000mA. If your battery is 1000mA, you get 1/25,000th of an hour or .144 seconds of lighting. 

-As i understand and have experienced it.


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## Model Man (Oct 1, 2007)

MonsterModelMan said:


> So with that math...I could not connect 10 LED's to a single 9V battery correct? If that is true, then I guess I will need multiple 9V batteries to get 16 LED's lit up...correct?
> 
> MMM


If you are referring to the sets of leds under the serial wiring, then you can still hook up a thousand leds. But in that case, they would have to be in sets of 3. So you'd have 333 sets of 3 leds connected to the battery terminals instead of 1000 individual wires going to each terminal in the parallel lighting scenario. A quick diagram might help to show the diff between parallel and serial in this case, but I am at work for a few more hours.

The main difference between serial and parallel is that in serial of one 'bank' of lights goes, they all go. In parallel, you only lose one at a time. So in serial you'd lose 3 leds instead of one, even though 2 of those leds lost is likely good. Like old xmas lights, one light goes and the whole chain goes until you find the one bulb that blew.


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## MonsterModelMan (Dec 20, 2000)

I'm ok between the difference with what serial connections and parallel connection mean. I was just getting confused when you started calculating voltage instead of mA.
When I get the LED's...I may ping you offline if I get any more dumb questions. I don't think that this is as complicated as it sounds...

Thanks!

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

MMM


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