Hi,
I got my delivery of parts 45 to 50 yesterday and as I now have all four wing lasers built I thought I'd see what they'd look like in the dark all on at the same time.
The newest built one looks epic with the full emitter glowing red from the flashback suppressor to the tip, the other three older built ones though there was barely a hint of red light from the very tip and the emitter tube wasn't lit at all.
My first thought was the led's themselves, but surely they can't lose strength so quickly after less than a handful of tests each.
So I stripped the outer tube off one and to my surprise found that the clear optic fibre had gone a weird yellow colour along most of its length and the light from the LEDs was barely making it further than an inch from the exit hole.
I found the same with the other two, so I'm calling it a light propagation issue especially as the newest fibre lights along its full length on all four LED's.
The only thing different about them is that the first three I did the painting of the led housing interior with some matt black Humbrol enamel I've had lying about for a while whereas the one I did yesterday was done with Tamiya acrylic I'd recently bought for my Falcon.
All I can assume is that during the initial off-gassing of the Humbrol paint for the days/weeks after it had been painted on the chemistry of that has affected the light bearing properties of the supplied optic fibres and made them go a weird smoky yellow colour too.
I've now ordered a 2 metre length of 2mm diameter optical fibre from Amazon and am hoping that replacing the fibres will fix the issue and it not happen again.
Just wondering if anyone else has come across this kind of thing before on other builds and whether my assumption is a good one or not.
Keep safe out there peeps.
Barry
Built - R2D2, Thunderbird 2, X-Wing / WAS Building(Ha!)- Bailed after eight months without pack 15 - Millenium Falcon
US
