Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A with Challenger STS-6 (1:144)

[whulsey]

Manfred, thank you for taking us along on your amazing modeling journey.

[spacerunner]

Thanks whulsey for your nice compliment,
I'm happy about every participant, stay tuned, the journey is going on ...

[beckychestney]

I'm not going anywhere!

[spacerunner]

Thanks Becky my faithful companion and keep on watching.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

then let's go into the 10th year with fresh courage!

And you won't believe it, but the Crawler lighting still won't let me go, so whether we like it or not, I have to come back once again to the STS-28 photo.

In addition to the red circled lamps at the front and back of the JEL Cylinders, there were still a few others that I have not yet followed up.


Source: flickr.com/photos/nasacommons

And that concerns in particular to the lamp marked blue next to the lamp marked red. The lamps circled in yellow do not belong to the crawler, but are located on the Pedestals, as I have seen on other photos and could possibly be added as a LED circle into the Pad Lighting, if the power bank could still cope with it.

So I've gone into the matter of the blue marked lamp again more exactly and found it on this photo of the STS-6, as one can see in this photo, albeit only blurred.


Source: forum.nasaspaceflight.com (jacqmans)

That's why I've traced the STS-6 track further and also watched the Rollout video again. And there I came across this Sequence (7:46), on the screenshot of which one can see the blue circled lamp next to the red circled lamp on the front of the JEL Unit, which is located on the side wall.



Much more precisely one can see these lamps on photos in the Crawler Report (HEAR FL-8-11-C), as on this Photo (JPEG (334 kb) here,


Source: Library of Congress (HAER FL-8-11-C-9)

if one knows that there is also always a HiRes. (TIFF (38.9 mb) for all photos in this report, which one can study in detail to your heart's content, as I did first of all for the front corner Corner A.

And on it one can see both the lamp on the front of the JEL Unit (the same lamp is on the back too) and the lamp on the side wall to the left of the ladder.



And at the rear corner Corner D with the driver's cab one will find the same arrangement of the lamps, as well as at the corners Corner B & C.



As a result, 4 more lamps are added to my previous Inventory, which brings me to a total of 44 lamps, but which would exceed the maximum possible number of the designed Crawler electronics of 42 lamps.
Therefore I've decided to modify the lamp distribution as follows:



This now results in the following final Crawler lighting, which contains 42 Lamps + 2 Beacons, which are distributed on the following 6 LED circuits:

Corner A-D: each 7 = 28
Side 1/2-3/4: each 7 = 14 + 2 Beacons

And it will stay that way. Rien ne va plus - Nothing works anymore!

[sreinmann]

I need to reread some of your posts, Manfred, because I'm suddenly curious if your design is anticipating lighting "washout" with all those lamps. I wonder if you have sourced LEDs which are sufficiently low powered or if your circuit board has control dip-switches to regulate the voltage.

This project is like a kaleidoscope that keeps giving. Just when you thought there wasn't another joy to behold, Look, another thing to wonder at.

[spacerunner]

Thanks for your nice comment and your thoughts you are making.

But don't worry, these things were all taken into account in the concept of the mighty Multi Current bank by my friend Arno (McPhönix), who is an aircraft electronics technician.
This Power bank is well-designed for approx. 58 Constant Current Sources (CCS) each with up to 8 LEDs for lighting the whole Launch Pad and Diorama.

The current in each circuit can be regulated by regulators (1 kOhm) in the range of approx. 0,6 ... 6 mA, which enables a moderate brightness, which I've tested before.

Since I use LEDs SMD 0401/0603 Sunny white as well as Pure white, even individual areas of the Launch pad can be illuminated with different brightness and colouring.
So much in brief for your reassurance, my friend Arno will go into even more detail in his article soon.

[spacerunner]

Hello everybody,

now that the number of LEDs for the Crawler lighting is clarified, I wanted to get things straight concerning the size of the lamps to see whether it's possible to scratch them ever.

And for this I've found this photo (JPEG, 334 kb) in the Crawler Report (HEAR FL-8-11-C), on which one can see the outer Truck lighting, which consists of three lamps.


Source: Library of Congress (HAER FL-8-11-C-13)

However, I will only scratch the larger, downward-hanging lamp, as three LEDs in a confined space would otherwise totally flood this place with their brightness, which would only be seen as one light spot anyway.

From this direct photo I might determine the dimensions of the lamp, for which I would, as always, need a Reference dimension, which I determined from this NASA drawing of the truck, which is also included in the Crawler Report.


Source: Library of Congress (HAER FL-8-11-C-32)

And with the height of the truck body (14 mm) as a reference dimension, I have determined the dimensions of this lamp from the HiRes. image (TIFF, 38,4 mb) of this photo, which shows how tiny it should actually be, especially since I also would still have to somehow place the LED-0401 (1,0 mm x 0,3 mm x 0,5 mm) ...



For this the smallest ferrule (0.5x6), that I have, would come into question, with Ø 1,4 mm (sleeve) and a small shade (Ø 2,0 mm),



what would be almost too big, or a brass tube with Ø 1,2 mm, possibly slightly widened in front.

Maybe I can come across with something better ...

[luro1964]

Look up Evans Designs. They now have Z-LEDs
at 0.65mm wide by 0.36mm height by 0.4mm height.

[spacerunner]

These LEDs should be similar to the LED-0401 (1.0mm x 0.3mm x 0.5mm) that I will be using.

Have you a link for me?