LED-Lighted Deadwood Instructions

[Nyarlathotep]

By Request, here are the instructions for lighting an Impact! Deadwood's eyes while retaining the Skull-Pile.

Disclaimer: I work for the only company in the U.S.A. which actually manufactures their own LEDs. The LEDs which I used were scrap from the production of automotive turn signals. You might not be able to find a source of LEDs which provide the equivalent light.

Disclaimer part 2: My Deadwood had the LEDs wired "in series", you will want to check your LED supplier to see if your LEDs will need to be wired "in parallel". If you do need to wire in parallel, you'll need to run a wire from your power source for each of the terminals on your LEDs - make sure you can get the complete bundle of wire through the holes you'll be drilling.

Directions:

Deadwood comes in several parts - Legs, front, left, right, and back torso, left and right arms, skull pile, and a vulture. The main parts I needed to modify were the legs and the skull pile.

First - the legs. I drilled a hole through the right leg from the bottom until the bit came through at the top near the hip. I filled that hole with epoxy putty (green stuff; or in my case, procreate putty) later, just before painting.

Then I drilled an angled hole from the center of the hip area to the previously drilled hole in the right leg. Aim is important here, but you can use a rather large diameter drill bit to ensure the two holes meet if you're worried about it.

Second, I assembled the front and both sides of the torso. Pinning the parts and gap-filling with epoxy putty is not optional - The deadwood needs the added support. Take your time here to ensure that the skull pile and back will fit into place neatly when the front and sides are attached to the legs.

When you're happy with the fit of the torso to the legs, it's time to turn your attention to the LEDs.

LEDs will only light up when the current is flowing in the direction it likes. If you're running them in series, they both have the current flowing in the same direction or neither will light. If they're wired in parallel, if one is backwards that one will not light up, but the other will. If I were doing this again, I would wire the LEDs in parallel. A lot of LEDs have one terminal slightly longer than the other. That's the negative side. There's a fair bit more information about LEDs here.

For my purposes, it was enough to figure this out by trial and error. Using a 9-volt battery and leads, I simply touched the leads to the terminals of the LEDs to see when they'd light up. Then I painted a little dab of red to the side with the red lead and a dab of black to the other so I could identify them later.

Then it was time for the trip to the local Radio Shack. I purchased the following items there:


30 gauge wrapping wire
2x CR1220 battery holder
SPST Switches
2x CR1220 batteries

I think I would use a slightly thicker gauge wire if I were going to do this again because this wire is solid, not stranded, and I had some problems with the wire breaking while I was working with it. I would also try to find a battery holder which holds more than 1 battery at a time and a smaller switch package to minimize the stack under the base of the treeman.

LEDs want to have a resistor in the circuit to prevent them from burning up under the current. I was lucky and had the right resistors packaged with my LEDs on my scrap circuit boards. You'll want to check out this calculator to determine which resistor you need to use:

LED resistance calculator

Ok, enough theory.

The next step is to assemble the wires to the LEDs. I soldered a wire between the black marked terminal on one LED to the red marked terminal on the other. Then I soldered a long wire to each of the other terminals.

I primed the interior of the torso (don't forget the back - do that too!) and painted the interior. This isn't too important, there isn't much of the interior you can actually see, but you'll want to paint the upper portion of the interior and the area around the mouth and eyes now to avoid going near the LEDs and skulls with paint later.

Then I superglued my LEDs behind the eyes of the treeman.

While that was drying, I whipped out my jeweler's saw (You do have a jeweler's saw, right? If you don't, go buy one. You can thank me later.) and sliced off the section of skulls in the lower portion of the skull pile, just below where the "eyes" are.

I drilled this section through the middle, so the wires could be fed through. Then I primed and painted the skulls.

Meanwhile, the LEDs had attached to the torso. So I fished the wires through the lower skull section and glued that section to the base of the torso. Make sure you don't put the skulls right up against the mouth opening, because then the light won't illuminate them in a nice eerie fashion. I didn't want light leaking all over the place, so I painted the backs, sides, and top of the LEDs with black paint to minimize that. The stray light from the bottom of the LED makes the skulls visible within the Deadwood's mouth - an effect I really liked.

Find the base you want to use - I used the GW 40mm round base because it's a little taller than the Heresy 40mm base - and drill a hole through it. This hole can be fairly large because the Deadwood's roots will cover it. If the base you're using has "holes", the sticking out round things on the underside of the base, you'll want to cut those off now. Glue and pin the Deadwood's legs to the base, making sure that the hole in the bottom of right leg is visible through the hole in the base.

Then fish the wires from the torso through the legs and glue the torso onto the legs. Attach the back of the torso, pin, and gap-fill. When that is all set, pin, glue and gap-fill the arms to the torso. Remember to fill the hole in the top of the right leg where you drilled through.

Next, take the jeweler's saw out again, and cut through the skull pile just above the "eyes". This will remove the material which the LEDs replaced, allow room for the wires, and (hopefully) prevent short circuits.

The next step is to make a ring of epoxy putty above the LEDs for the top of the skull pile to sit on. This doesn't have to be pretty, it's just there for the support of the skulls. Then hook the LEDs up to a battery and put the skull pile in place. If the LEDs go out, you're touching metal to electrified metal somewhere and shorting the circuit. Add more epoxy putty above the ring and try again. When the LEDs don't go out, superglue the skull pile in place and gap-fill around it, taking care that no light escapes through the top. I had to add a few extra bones from some GW Zombie & Skeleton sprues I had lying around to get the top of the pile to look full.

Finally, I soldered the ends of the wire to the battery holders, soldered the positive end of one of the battery holders to the negative end of the other, and the switch and resistor into the circuit. This may need to change if you wire the LEDs in parallel.

Then I glued everything including the wires to the bottom of the base. Since the battery holders and switch were so tall I was forced to fit them into another 40mm base inverted below the other. I think I would like to use plasticard to build up a nicer base if I were going to do this again.

Remember that when you're painting the Deadwood that his eyes will be hidden if you paint over them. Use a brush-on primer and take care with paint around the eyes.

Good luck with your own LED projects!
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What Would Nyarlathotep Do?
Kilo Delta Eight Lima Delta X-Ray

[GalakStarscraper]

If you go to GenCon ... I'd love to see this guy!

Tom
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http://www.impactminiatures.com

[Stout Youngblood]

It was an amazing figure with the glowing eyes. I can't believe no one took a picture of it.
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RCN - (initiate) Willing to bring the 'light' to all.

Frank is either broken or Nuffle Incarnate! I will go with Broken.

[solarflare]

It was at the "best painted" table, and I saw at least two people got a picture of it there.
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We have a blind date with destiny, and it looks like she's ordered the lobster...

[valdric]

Nyar has a pic of it - and after reading that, I'm glad that he won the legacy team as he put the most work into it!

[Nyarlathotep]

[solarflare]

[quote="Nyarlathotep"]

[wesleytj]