I am building the Academy 1/700 Titanic model, hoping to change the LED string that came with the model; they’re too bright through some portholes, too white, and the electrical conductive tape that connects them is unreliable. I bought a LED strip from Railway Scenics that seems just right, but a tiny COB light from them is about 50X too bright, so bright that you just can’t look at it when it’s on. It would be easier to glance at the sun on a clear day!
I am a rank amateur when it comes to electricity and electronics, so I have this question. If I shortened the LED strip, would it causer the remaining LEDs to brighten or would they retain the same luminance. (I understand that the total amount of light would be reduced because there would be fewer individual LEDs.)
I am hoping to use either AAA or AA batteries to power whatever lights I end up with.
Bob
P.S. This is the first time I’ve revisited this forum since the changes. It certainly seems to have been greatly improved.
Welcome back!
The LED string is most likely wired in parallel vs. serial. Trimming/shortening the LED string won’t affect the brightness/luminosity. LEDs are controlled by the amount of voltage and current.
Putting a resistor inline might reduce the brightness, but without seeing how the LED string is wired, this is just pure speculation.
Thank you, veedubb67. That was what I expected to hear. But I’ve found another LED strip that wouldn’t even need to be shortened:
It’s exactly the right length (and the same design as the two longer ones I needed), and if were too bright I could trim it, or apparently paint the LEDs with clear very light yellow acrylic to darken them slightly.
Bob
Welcome Bob! That’s an interesting project you’re working on. Would like to see your wip photos as well as the finished model.
I love using LED tape! One of the nice things is that you can cut it very inch or so. Most of it runs off 12 V, but using 9 V reduces the brightness to an acceptable level for starship lighting.
@veedubb67 — I was using 3V, and the lights were still very bright, but the main problem was the colour — bright white. The LED strips I ordered (and I just ordered some more) are warm white, more similar to the electric lights that Titanic would have had.
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Yep - the Warm White LEDs should do the trick!
I expect that short pieces of that short strips of conductive tape used sparingly would be OK. I got in trouble when I tried to seal the tape using Tamiya clear acrylic, which caused the LED contacts to rust. At least it looked like rust. And the connections were anything but solid, resulting in flickering even without apparent movement of the wires. Since then, I’ve stuck to soldering, though everything I know about soldering I learned from my dad when I was about ten years old, and Dad didn’t know much.
Bob
