Imperial Creative Engineering > Models, Scratch Builds, and Miscellaneous
Clonehead’s Slotcars lighting up a 289 Cobra
Clonehead:
So I got this new hobby, the whole slot car thing, which has taken hold of my current passions. I have been having a lot of fun working on the track and have learned a lot about power and lighting along the way. During a period when I was working on model train stuff, I delved into lighting up moving cars and locomotives to more customize to my preferences. Tedious stuff those trains. After frying a couple of decoders and countless led lights, I started to get a handle for what not to do.
Here is a Carrera 1/32 corvette stingray that has a factory digital chip but no lights as is customary with the newer release cars. This mold has been around for a while and seen a couple of releases as an evolution, “analog” car.
I started out drilling out the painted taillights in the rear panel with a pin vise. I have a couple of options here how to illuminate and a couple of screw mounts in the way for easy fiber optics. I have an led array from another chip already wired I may try here.
For the front fog/driving lights, I could run fiber optic line but would have to make room for he front wheels so I drilled the lights out and reamed out the back to give more room for a turn.
Clonehead:
I needed more room for the front wheels where the fiber optic line penetrated the inside of the fender. The stuff is only so flexible. I can’t remember the gauge but my largest line was about perfect for my hole size and I had the idea that you could possibly heat and bend this stuff like pvc conduit on the jobsite and possibly it would still hold onto its total internal reflection which is how it contains so much light along its length.
Using a soldering iron, I made some custom bends to lead the fiber away from the inner wheel and up towards the upper firewall where I will light the two strands from a woodland scenics stick on orange led.
Third shot shows strands in place and covered with heat shrink tube. This is to contain the light to keep you from seeing it during its trip from led to fog light through the body of the car anywhere.
Clonehead:
Sorry I’m so pic heavy. I need to hurry and dump them before the cloud holds them hostage on me again.
Here is the stick on led with a larger ldiameter piece of shrink tube glued to contain it and then the receiving pieces of wrapped fiber optic with their ends jammed up against the led face. I glued the ends of the larger shrink tube piece around the smaller ones to contain light again.
Last shot shows the rear fachia piece with the led boards superglued in place.
Tamer:
Hey, thanks for sharing your tips. Lighting things up is great. I will follow this thread closely.
Time to take it to the front pages.
Clonehead:
But you will miss the good pics
Got logged out during my post and lost it.
Here are the last three shots
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