Hello!

My name is Vik & I'm also building the De Agostini HMS Victory boat!
Thought i would share my work on this site as well, as I've been reading A LOT on this forum and already took many good advise from you fellow builders: Thank you all BIGTIME for that!

Basically my build is the standard kit provided with the weekly issues, but then with added lighting/electronics.
The idea implemented is having full control on the lighting once the build is finished: Through computer serial port i'll be able to issue commands to the boat:
- program the brightness of each LED individually
- Let the boat shoot a salvo (using white flash LEDs)
- ...
etc. Most commands/functionality still needs to be written in code so the possibilities are endless. Just need to download the new software inside

Hardware electronics are fully present inside the boat, but maybe i'll add a sound generator too..

Ideas at the moment:
- Place upward lighting towards the masts as well
- Fully work out the back castle (with the windows) with wood & lighting, so one can look inside
- No black painted gundecks
- Use of lanterns on the top deck by using modified LEDs
- ...


Here's the status now of the build:




Underside of the ship with the bolts protruding (power & communication -> base/stand later on)


And the wiring on lower gundeck:


Been working on it since Oct 2011, and running behind about 16 issues. But I don't mind , as long as it's done right I'm happy with any finalisation date.

I'll be posting 'old' photo's later on as well.

Best regards,
Vik

Hi Vic!

WOW! A lot of electronics in your ship! Fantastic! Can't wait to see your other pictures mate!

Darron

Ok so here we are on the update since start of the build:

One of the anchors, but i'll redo it later on as i'm not happy with the thickness/gluing of the brass bands


The small boat... also going to redo it as i will go for the non-painted version of the boat (thanks to Darron's progress seen that paint is waste of the beauty of the wood itself). If anyone in Belgium can use this small boat, let me know


The base framework... added a lot of additional fixes just to make sure it won't bend/twist like my Cutty Sark did a few years ago causing me to stop that build



Bit obsolete picture, as i changed the yellow light to SMT version instead of throughhole LED 3mm. The higher the gundeck, the less place you'll get what would rend the 3mm LED unusable


SMT version instead (yellow LED & 180E in series):



The solution presented within the issues on providing support for the middle deck seemed a bit bad to me, made some studs instead & distributed those on the surface


Couldn't help myself in wiring the leds to the powersupply once one side was finished


The electronic cards, own design though very simple schematic. Uses PIC controllers from Microchip. Each controller can directly drive 15LED's each, 3/card, 5 cards = 225LEDs possible. Controllers talk to eachother using I2C protocol. Code is written in C language



Added the Flash LEDs (5mm throughhole, 5Cd each )


Once the boat is finished, i'll need to power the whole thing & communicate with it. Didn't want to have wires visibly running in the display later on, so after a few tries this seems to be the best solution + gives me fixation possibility as well to the base!



These are the wires that should go into it, wasn't sure at that time if i would have place enough. Luckyly i did :)





After hours of *testing* the whole hardware side of the electronics, i finally decided to close it all up. Afterwards most of the wiring isn't accessible anymore, but the necessary signals are fed through the wood towards the middle deck: Remainder LED drive signals, power, communication & all PIC programming pins (4ea). So i'm still able to update the software



Pre-sanding. Stuffed the whole hull up with balsa blocks. Thanks to dad for cutting all the pieces!!


After the rough sanding & cutting work..


After the finer sanding




Then i saw that i'd need a lot of brightness... and went for reworking the bottom of each gun compartiment to have bright strips on the bottom instead of the dark planks. Is a lot better. Also added reflective aluminium foil to the bottom of the middle deck. I think it will be needed to 'isolate' the planking so the light won't shine through it. Perhaps black paint or something, not sure yet what to use. In the dark you can see the LED through the outer planking strips.. too much powah - hehe



Both sides with full power on software on all outputs


Added the front compartiments as well.. i'll leave the doors of them open instead. And a yellow LED ofc. No white one as there is no cannon here


Now i'm doing the gun support drilling, using the calibre depiced here in a Google Sketchup drawing. Dimensions are full courtesy of Son of Bulwark :p (thanks!!)



So that's it at the moment, hope you enjoyed it.
It spans Oct 2011 - early May 2012. "Lost" a lot of time on the electronics & testing of it.

Regards,
Vik

Hi Vik, thank you for showing all your hard work I too like to add balsa wood to all the Hull, it makes planking so much easier. Well done Regards Mike

Hi Vik
Your Victory looks very good
A good idea with the lights

wow,speechless

Welcome to the forum and its nice to see a diffrent build from the norm nicley done
regards
Andy

Hi Vik, another good days work on your build Looking great Regards Mike

No idea Peter... it's a strange thing.

Regards,
Vik

Here's another update!
Been working mostly on the 2nd level of lights, but i need to re-write the code for lighting the LEDs contstantly. They're all working but are now flashing randomly.

In the mean time i started to make some planks 1mm x 3mm x 74mm for planking the 2nd deck.
Drilled 0.5mm holes in each side & marked them with a small pencil. then started to plank the deck itself with it, unfortunately not in the correct fashion. Luck is a bit on my side as the deck won't be THAT visible in the end & i'll correct the pattern on the decks above.