I'm curious if anyone knows where good sources for LED lights would be. Obviously it very much depends on the specific application but I'm looking for like a site or database with lists of different types, colors and sizes that can be used to modify Transformers. Things like something that could be dropped in to a barrel of a cannon, etc.
There were these LEDs meant for fishing bobbers that Magic Square incorporated them into their designs. https://magicsquaretoys.com/product/xin-daus-energy-led-cr311-battery-set-5pcs-orange/ They are using pin-type lithium batteries by this manufacturer Primary Batteries There isn't a database but the batteries have a standardized naming system that indicates their dimensions: The problem is that the LED caps that go onto these batteries don't follow a standard.
Check TCP's video above, around 40s in for a straightforward demo. As for what I mean about the LED being non-standard here are examples taken from battery maker's site The LEDs are embedded in the light up parts of all these applications. That makes designing around the LEDs themselves difficult, so you might want to mod or design your toy based on the battery instead since these pin types DO follow some convention (and seem to be all from the same supplier). I.e. The CR311 battery would simply require a 3mm diameter hole, maybe about 5mm deep. Then leave ample clearance for LED tip so you don't need to worry about sourcing some exact model.
I was hoping for a source of simpler and smaller ones with common batteries. The things that make me ask is seeing things like these 3D DIY Weapon Upgrade Kit LED Hand Cannon For MPM05 Barricade MPM03 BEE | eBay Shockwave Lab SL-155 LED Blaster Upgrade kit For MPM-3 BEE Weapon Accessories | eBay
I've bought a lot of small LED units in various sizes and colors from this seller on AliExpress and both the seller and products have been excellent. I buy the mini magnetron units. Landscape Model World Store Landscape Model World Store - Amazing products with exclusive discounts on AliExpress
This is exactly the kind of thing that I am looking for, thank you! Do you have some examples you can show of how you have utilized them?
This is probably more a topic for the creative section of the site, fyi. Paging @songrobin. Dude always did amazing things with LEDs so I'm sure he'd know a good place to get them as well as some other tips.
Too true. I actually completely overlooked that section. I saw the radicons customs section but it required pictures and I just totally missed the creative one. Thanks. As for the LED's, I did see some wireless induction ones that could be promising.
I have those. They're nice but somewhat problematic. They're pretty small but not infinitesimally so, which means you'll be limited in where you can place them in/on your figures. And the induction field is kind of spotty. It basically forms a torus around the coil in the base and another around the coil in the back plate. Anywhere within those two toruses will work great but not so much anywhere else. That also means there's a dead zone right in the middle. Also the induction works best if the LED unit is parallel to the induction coil which means you pretty much need them to be facing straight up to receive power from the base or straight forward to receive power from the back. There is some wiggle room and you can get away with larger angles is you're closer to the coil, and some of the LEDs seem to struggle with angles more than others, but the end result is it looks pretty damned cool... when you can get it to work. Zeta Pioneer actually has his own built in LEDs but I don't like dealing with batteries with my figures so I pulled them all out and replaced them with induction LEDs. You can see he's right up against the backplate because anywhere else, some of the LEDs will either not light or just be really dim (his passenger side headlight is noticably dimmer but it was the best I could manage while getting all the others to light). The red taillight on his calf there was particularly problematic (as was its twin which you can't see in this pic) because it needed to face up but it was pretty high off of the base. I think I recall putting it at a slight angle inside his leg so that it would catch the electric field but enough of the light was still going on the direction I wanted. The other drawback is it's expensive. $70 for the kit plus $20 for extra LEDs and I could only fit one Transformer in the thing.
I watched a couple of YouTube videos showing them off and noticed the limitations you mention. From what I gathered in the videos, those limitations are significantly less with a much larger coil. It's one of those things where I love the idea of having all wireless LED eyes for most of my figures and I could flip a switch to engage the whole shelf worth of them, but even with a large coil it sounds like it will be pretty hit or miss and that's not including the modifications I would have to do to each figure. The latter not being as much of a deal with those that already have LEDs with batteries of course. As for price, I was seeing them on Aliexpress. For the smaller LEDs, they were pretty cheap. https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...eT80j1MD&utparam-url=scene:search|query_from:
I didn't know that kits like that were available. With something like that, you could hide multiple coils behind/inside various parts of a diorama. There's probably some cross-interference when you put coils near each other but that could be experimented with until you get desirable results. And the LED units come as small as 3mm - that's still gonna take some modification/creativity but it gets a lot easier to stuff them inside open spaces in a figure the smaller they make them. You could just kind of stick one on the back of a light piped head with blue tak or whatever and have the figure's eyes glow on your shelf and then just remove the LED when you want to mess with the figure. And you could make DIY blast effects and just build them around the LED units. Now I kinda wanna get a bunch of those and mess around with them.
Lol, you basically echoed my thoughts exactly. The biggest limitation would be the figures that don't have existing light piping or LEDs. I'm kind of an all or nothing type with that so that would be something to think about, do I want to try to take apart heads and drill out sections and eyes and all that.
It's daunting to be sure. @songrobin used to do that to all his MP figures. I think he might've done a tutorial or two back in the day if you want to give his name a search in the creative section. He was installing wired LEDs though, so the process would be a little different if you wanted to stick with the induction coil thing. Another thing you could do - it's not completely necessary for the coil and the LED to be in the same place. You could run a short wire from a receiving coil to an LED. That would allow you to place a coil somewhere with more space and just have a little wire running to the LED. Of course that means planning your wires so that they don't get in the way of articulation and transformation so it's not something you could take to any real extreme, but it'd make it a little easier to get tiny LEDs into eyeholes while having the coil deeper in the middle of the head, for example.
These are mostly from my bloated modding thread: Pintype batteries: Heavy/Scratch: - Various mods (of mods), custom stuff Heavy/Scratch: - Various mods (of mods), custom stuff Magnetron LEDs: Heavy/Scratch: - Various mods (of mods), custom stuff Heavy/Scratch: - Various mods (of mods), custom stuff General Upgrade Kits Thread Wireless: Heavy/Scratch: - Various mods (of mods), custom stuff If you search for my threads with 'LED' or 'magnetron', you can find a lot of examples. I haven't done traditional (soldering) wired ones in a while, although have a few examples of those buried in the thread.
