Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Thunderhawk... kind of

So I've got the Paperhammer Thunderhawk built. And now I'm working on the next phase of the plan, preparing to build the plastic one. Now as I've said I want to build in a series of LEDs to the model to light it up in various ways. Well, I've never really worked with electronics before so I've been reading up on them and learning how to build simple circuits to accomplish what I want. I'm not ready to begin laying out the Thunderhawk circuits, but I am moving in that direction. One of the best tutorials I've found for setting up simple circuits can be found here ==> TerraGenesis.

Now first off: I am never ordering parts from Radio Shack again! There are a couple reasons for this. I placed an order for 56 various parts (LEDs, switches, Battery clips, ect). Last Monday I received a package. Consisting of 5 of the parts I ordered. I contacted customer service to ask about it. Turns out Radio Shack  does not use a central clearing house for it's online orders, instead shipping orders out on a first available basis from several warehouses. What does that mean? Well instead of getting 1 package with all my parts in it, I received a series of 7 packages spread out over the week.

The second thing, in the order I ordered 1 unit, of 5 9-volt battery clips. What did I receive? 5 units of 5 9-Volt battery clips. So... not only does Radio shack use a piss poor system for filling orders, but they can't even get the orders right. Wow, just total fail!

Anyway, I got the parts in and made a first effort to accomplish installing the LED into something:
Shadowsword cannon... fire!

2 comments:

  1. That looks like it's going to be a great project!

    Radio Shack should be renamed Cell Phone Shack... they are a thin shadow of what they were 20 years ago. Terrible...

    If you need help with the electronics parts I'm happy to furnish it. I've been into robotics/electronics for about 15 years. Just ask!

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  2. You're not kidding about the Cell phone shack, GSI. They are pretty bad as far anything that isn't a cellphone goes.

    As for the Electronics help, I'd greatly appreciate it. Computer parts and website coding I know. Passing electricity through a selected medium to achieve a specified end result... eh, lacking the experience in that field. drop me a message at myke_bim2003 (at) Yahoo.com

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