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Project Notes

#600 The Red Eyed Space Marine

Inspired by all the mad miniature skills out there these days, I delve into the world of space marines. Since my novice paint skills are not going to rock the world, I bring some special magic in the form of eyes that glow - no wires or batteries.

Build

Here’s a quick demo..

clip

Notes

My first miniature - starting with a classic Games Workshop Space Marine thanks to a freebie from a local hobby store. I’ve always been intrigued by the miniature scene, but never really indulged my curiosity. Perhaps getting into the Small Subjects podcast finally pushed me over the edge.

It doesn’t take long to realise that miniatures require a whole new set of mad skills, and the standard of work out there is absolutely incredible. I bindged to a range of miniature artists on YouTube to get the leg up I needed - especially @lyla.mev and @trovarion.

So I know my painting skills are not going to be the best right out of the gate - but there is some special magic I can bring to the table. The goal here is a space marine with glowing eyes - and no wires or batteries.

The Kit

This all started at HobbyMate - a local hobby store that is superb for all manner of materials and paints. The owner was kind enough to give me a free sprue of a basic Primaris Intercessors aka a free bag of crack?

kit_sprue

The Electronics

This uses the simple wireless power transmission circuit I’ve tested earlier in LEAP#597.

The power transmitter is a 1.5V oscillator similar to joule thief circuit. As a I discovered later, the device sense protocol of wireless charging mats also powers the circuit beutifully (flashing rather than continuously on).

Schematic

Breadboard

Build

Head carefully hollowed out and an 0402 red LED inserted, with wires that will go down through the body.

build_01_head

First test - wireless power transmitter below the base build_02_first_test

Relatively complete: some of the detail still petty crude and should be tidied up a bit. Enough contrast - maybe?

build_03a build_03b

On a wireless charging mat. The device sense protocol is probing for a device to charge - this is enough to power the space marine and blink the eyes;-)

build_04a build_04b

Credits and References

About LEAP#600 scale modelsCraftWirelessLED
Project Source on GitHub Project Gallery Return to the LEAP Catalog

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LEAP GitHub repository.

LEAP is just my personal collection of projects, usually involving an Arduino or other microprocessor in one way or another. Some are full-blown projects, while many are trivial breadboard experiments, intended to learn and explore something interesting (IMHO!).

The projects are usually inspired by things found wild on the net, or ideas from the sources such as:

Feel free to borrow liberally, and if you spot any issues do let me know. See the individual projects for credits where due. There are even now a few projects contributed by others - send your own over in a pull request if you would also like to add to this collection.