For Joe it was a disaster. After the visit of this japanese tourist group that was taken out for hospital, nobody of his usual guests visit him again. He was in deep depression sitting with his old friend Luigi, his former tomato deliverer around one of the last bottles of Californian Red. And Luigi told him about his family and that they make crazy money in a total different business. Joe was convinced, no pizza's anymore. Thats for the story. For those who dont know this kit I found a few pictures that gave me idea how to proceed My search was first for the neon-panel. It should take part of Joe's house wall so that the truckers and passengers could see it from the highway. I finally found between the products of Miller Engineering (Micro Structures) an animated window sign for HO, that could fit the wall.
But it was still hudge and "Paradice Club" was not the desired name for the new business. Even when the transparent part is cut out, it wouldnt fit. And I dont wanted to cut the rest in half, with high risk to destroy it. So I first milled hole for the girls shape and then milled down half of the wall thickness from the inner side to hide the "Paradice Club" part. After I fit in the hole an acrylglass panel that stick out about 1mm on the outer wall side. The illusion works well. The 4 walls are standing. Still a lot to do, but I have just time on the weekends for the moment. But weekend not yet over.
Looks like you've got the hardest part done. Always neat to have pictures of the real thing to inspire you!
Coming to the light story, I couldnt use the planed 5mm led for the illuminated sign, there is no place. I found some time ago a thin foil with 5 small leds and every is about 0,5mm large and simulate perfectly a neon tube in Z scale. The dealer is in Germany but like items are small, shipping is low price. http://www.ebay.de/itm/30x-MICRO-5-...dellbau_Modelleisenbahnen&hash=item4ac89e664c Best in all this, you can cut the tail so to get the needed length. To have the effect I cut about 0,8mm slot in a piece of acryl milk glass and glued it to the back of my sign. The effect ist astonishing. Concerning the Pizza used fonts, I found them on internet So I adapted the text on the sign to the new starting business. Just necessary to paint the part behind the sign in black to avoid bad light on the wrong place. A small part of the bottom is kept free from painting to illuminate the entrance door under the sign.
Next light story are the "working room(s)" Some windows should be illuminated by discret light, very apart from the rest of the rooms. To archieve limited illumination I milled a polystyrol box, and this should work well, anyway it is not the first time that I use such device. 2x 0603 purple leds provide a cozy atmosphere. An acryl milk glass cover assure diffused light. The illumation story slowly comes to the end, just missing a 3mm golden-white led inside for the rest of the windows. But this will be next week.
ROOOOOOOOOOXANNE! u don have ta put on de red-a-LITE! Hahahaaaa..... I love this. In N scale we get those Noch sexy people kits with a brass bed and everything! The wife cracks up at those things. Keep us posted!
Roxanne, haha, thats funny :cute: I have even a picture from her, because as last thing yesterday I redecorated the front windows. So, to avoid any eysight damage in Z scale, :teeth: just here with some better resolution.
Armand, please remove the picture of the woman. This is a family forum, and the picture is inappropriate for young kids. I can deal with the silhouette, but the real picture has to go.
Ok John, but I dont arrive to delete the attachement, perhaps you could do it. Anyway, I cannot understand because also in the States, kids run around on the beach and there they see much less dressed womans compared to the girl on my picture. :question:
Armand, It looks real nice. Good lighting takes a bit of effort in our scale but well worth it. Please post more pictures and tips. I love to see these kind of work. Kim
Hi Kim, good to hear from you. I suppose that job also takes you some of your precious Z time away. After all this years I always appreciate to spend some weekend time over Z or T or... It burns daily stress in moments. I am not really satisfied how Miller Engineering flash this EL-Display, just flickering. They now use small Pic uP, so no way to change the flickering with no access to the program. So I will try to intercept the control line and do it with an second attiny uP my own way.The inner values (the most important) are on the schedule next.
I usually take my kids to family oriented beaches like Dania/Hollywood beach, and go to our community pool. For people that are older, I suggest South beach, that's where Lebron took his talent to.
Today I arrived to work a little on the "Stripgate", I fixed all the illuminations. Four should be enough for the moment to loose the overview. :cute: Coming to the EL-Inverter, I sit some time over this and tried to adapt it to my need. Historical the old versions from Miller Engineering where analog devices, and it was existing a special board to join for flickering and animation. Now, it is digital, much smaller so that it can be put in the house. But the bad is that you have a PIC uP (12F629) that control the inverter and no way to access it. The original 3 position switch was for ON / OFF / Blinking. The blinking is too fast and not very good made. So I took away the switch, soldered the board to steady ON and found an additional circuit to control it from an Attiny13 uP as I wanted. I will have the IRLML2502 only next week. A small additional board will be attached for the Attiny13 and the rest of the connections. Like the EL-display will have probably the smallest lifetime I will switch it through the Attiny13. So the Atmel Attiny should : 1 - Switch EL-Display by Toogle-Pushbutton ON or OFF 2 - When ON illuminate the EL-Display with desired pattern 3 - Randomly switch on and off light in Roxanne's "office"
In between I finished the Avr-Program and if you could use it for other purpose (as Christmas tree illumination) you have it here. I also shoot a small free hand video to see the effect. [video=youtube;AYNEUqa_DCs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYNEUqa_DCs[/video] For now, I have to burn the program on the small Attiny13 SMD version and to solder the additional board. But all this is slowly coming to an end.
Replacing the connector on the EL-Inverter board was the easiest way to fix the new Atmel board piggyback on it, as volume is limited. Just to note that for all the Attiny uP's, an SMD version exist and they all have the same specifications as the big bug. Not just the Atmel processor, but also the EL-Inverter needs about 5Volt stabilized to drive them. I found a fine way do this when also a button for switching is needed and I already made this device a number of times. You have at the end of this push-button a full working power-supply that need no special fixations and has small size. It works up to 30 Volt AC or DC and provide 5 Volt stabilized to the circuits behind. Components are just one S40 (Diotec) bridge rectifier, 2x 0,33 uF ceramic capacitors, and one LM78L05 standard voltage regulator. The schematic is visible on the picture. With a 3 pin connector if ground wire (grey) is the middle pin and push-button (yellow), positive (red) on the outer pins even with wrong plugin there will be no flames.