"Anyone use LED lights in wargaming?" Topic

For terrain or diorama building?

I am considering making some Sci-fi boards with LED lighting, but I don't know where to start.

Thanks, Xin

I wanted to fit blue led lights under my chariot

Yes, I've used the small LEDs target sells during the christmas season.

I taped over the LEDs with clear tape that I colored red with a sharpie.

Then I put it inside of a ruined building I had, the random blinking made it look like the interior was on fire.

I quite like it, and when I put it on the table people always like it.

I'd also always thought about doing a landing pad using in sequence LEDs… one of these days!

Yes.
I have took one of those cheap winking tea light ones and put it inside smoke markers, buildings, even under clear terrain.

There are several kits for modding your 40K vehicles, but I cannot seem to remember the companies name right now.

those cheap winking tea light ones

Yeah, those are great. You can hack them apart pretty easily and put them into lots of stuff: camp fires, wreckage markers, spooky temple braziers, etc.

Important to remember an LED has specific current limits, and you need an LED AND a resistor.

Such as:

link

Check out:

link

link

Not sure what Radio Shack/Source still has for tools and components but lots of stuff on line. Google basic LED circuits.

Its not as intimidating as it may seem. ;) Rob.

If you're snagging existing LED rigs like those electric tea lights, you don't need to worry about building a circuit.

I really want to find a source for UV LEDs, so that I can have my troops actually glowing on their light effects (I use fluorescent paints on any exposed cybermusculature).

And for the record, Radio Shack is the expensive way to buy components.

Belly Lights.

Warlord games sells volley fire lights that are esentially repackaged "belly lights".

Funny you should mention this…

Just the other day I was looking at an Xmas window hanger we bought – already discounted to $4 USD, multi-coloured LEDs in it.

But then I got thinking the real value is the transformer – takes 120 VAC and knocks it down to LED voltages. If you'd rather plug them in than run on batteries.

Have to get back to the store and grab one or two.

A friend used one of the lights to light up the entrance to a crypt area. You can see it in the last picture in the AAR
link

The background of the photo was photo-shopped, but the blue door way wasn't.

I had an idea but never had the time to work on it. You can create a modular city board and wire it to a power supply using copper tape to make traces like on a PCB. Layer them into the board and add connectors to all your buildings and lamp posts. Buildings could just be wired for contact and set on the exposed tape but the lamp posts would need something like a phone jack on the end to contact the two layers of the tape. You could easily make a board that was generic (or modular) enough to make anything from WWII to Scifi. Make recessed areas for the roads and swap them out for the various periods. All the buildings plug in so those are easy to swap.

There are also some pain on circuit stuff that I worked on to try and see if it had uses in this market. The only stuff I found useful was the really expensive silver paints and those required heat curing. The idea was that you could base coat a figure. Paint on a layer of conductive. Seal it and paint the next layer. Scratch the sealer off to make SMD pads and solder on small leds that light up for gun barrels or goggles. Lots of cool stuff and no wires just some clever layers of paint.

Crafters use copper tape to make stained glass windows. It is also used for making your own slot car tracks. A local craft or glass store may have it.
And yes Radio Shack may not be the cheapest place to go. But short of seeking out speicaly electronics supplier, they do (ore used to) have some components readily available, such as 555 timer chips. And we're talking a buck or so for the components when they are pennies at a specialty shop. Rob.

I'd also always thought about doing a landing pad using in sequence LEDs… one of these days!

Did that exact thing, not that difficult actually:

link

YouTube link

Cheers

w.

My Aliens project from a few years back was designed to be played in the dark so the complex was internally lit with LEDs and there was a lit landing pad outside.

There are some photos of a game over at LAF

link

Steve (aka Silent Invader at LAF and elsewhere)

I found this inspirational:

link

running lights using LEDs:

YouTube link

I was working with an electronics guy here in my office to open source some very basic board designs which can light LEDs in patterns. Perfect for various applications. We have a prototype but I have not had the time to throw it into my Tau vehicles yet. I'll book mark this discussion and add to it when I can get those designs. It would be a worthy 2014 project to make a video showing anyone how to do it.

You could also get an Arduino board and make it do 'interesting' things…

thegrinningskull.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/the-black-dog-salvage-co-finished-at-last

I use small self contained LEDs from novelty lighters and cheap fingerlights so there's no wiring needed, and can either have the batteries replaced or just replaced with a new one (like my 15mm UFO)

thegrinningskull.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/how-to-create-a-ufo-for-15mm-invasion

I wanted to get an LED to flash quickly after a delay of 10 seconds or longer but I couldn't get it to work. I am pretty incompetent when it comes to electronics. Programming is beyond me. Using a 555 timer and playing around with the capacitor or potentiometer and resistors changed things but I did not get the length of delay I was after.

I wanted to hide the LED(red)in cotton wool at the front of a single artillery piece (ACW) so it was important that it not look like a machine gun firing.

Many years ago, some of my friends played a large Tolkien-inspired game, with LEDs on a fortress wall, and very poor light in the room (and sometimes no light at all only the LEDs). Not practical for playing, but very nice to look at.

Poweredplay had a successful kickstarter with their modular LED lighting setups this year (it's all plug and play, no soldering required – because most gamers are apparently lazy :D )