RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Have you thought of using Fibre Optic Cable instead of an LED?
I got fed up faffing around trying to light up a rear Notek on a Panzer 4 so I plugged a Pre-Wired Green LED into the rear light socket of the control board (Depending on the control board you can wire the LED to a JST or a Futaba plug) and taped it to the inside of the rear panel of the Tank then attached it to one end of a length of small bore sheathed Fibre Optic Cable and ran that into the back of the Notek
I get lots of useful LEDs with and without attached wiring as well as Fibre Optic Cable of different bores both sheathed and unsheathed for very little money from ----
http://www.microminiatures.co.uk
A very speedy turnaround of orders and nice people to deal with.
A side advantage to using Fibre Optic Cable is that you can use a larger LED inside the Tank Hull/Body with less fragile "Legs" and of course it is much more tolerant of voltage variants.

Hmm. Definitely something to consider. Especially for the rear convoy and brake light. I’ve got a big bag of small pre wired yellowish LEDs that would like to use in the headlights. The front Notek has a pre wired light already in place.
I will search YouTube for fiber optic installations and see if it’s within my skill set.

Jimster wrote:Thanks! Now the fun part begins (I don’t like sorting out electronics). Detailing and weathering is my favorite aspect of this hobby. I need to figure out the best way to gain access to the light buckets for my LEDs. Thinking I might remove the wheels and drill up from below and poke it up from there. There’s already a little hole underneath the fender to guide my drill bit. I’m afraid if I attempt to remove the light bucket that I will break something. Any advice will be seriously appreciated. Will?
The Notek light installation should be a fairly straightforward job.

The headlight is hollow to allow light to go up inside. If you remove front wheel you can carefully drill up from wheel well.
I would also recommend fibre optics, but for front you should be able to poke up a little 3mm or smaller led. You may find it breaks off, but solventweld orsuper glue it back on. The rear light would be right pain,best Forbes oprics and small drill bit

Thank you! That’s just what I’ll do.

jarndice wrote:Have you thought of using Fibre Optic Cable instead of an LED?
I got fed up faffing around trying to light up a rear Notek on a Panzer 4 so I plugged a Pre-Wired Green LED into the rear light socket of the control board (Depending on the control board you can wire the LED to a JST or a Futaba plug) and taped it to the inside of the rear panel of the Tank then attached it to one end of a length of small bore sheathed Fibre Optic Cable and ran that into the back of the Notek
I get lots of useful LEDs with and without attached wiring as well as Fibre Optic Cable of different bores both sheathed and unsheathed for very little money from ----
http://www.microminiatures.co.uk
A very speedy turnaround of orders and nice people to deal with.
A side advantage to using Fibre Optic Cable is that you can use a larger LED inside the Tank Hull/Body with less fragile "Legs" and of course it is much more tolerant of voltage variants.

Sorry my friend but I disagree here in almost every point.
Optic fibre gives very little light and it almost only looks cool when simulating machine guns, like tamiya tanks do. You cannot compare it with the light a normal led gives you. For headlights I usually use 3mm or 5mm (short version) leds, and both fith almost everywhere. But if the led legs are an issue, then go for SMD.


One of my tanks is using some of those 0402 leds which thanks to God you can also order them prewired.
And about the microminiatures shop, it is good to support local comerce and fast shipping is great, but prices are 6 and sometimes even 10 times higer of what you can find in aliexpress. If you are poor like me, you really feel it in your wallet short term.

I tried that optic fibre route when I got my tamiya sherman and did some tests along the time and just did not like it. Besides you also have to be very carefull because if you bend the fibre too much it cracks and the light wont go.

If it helps, my Panzer IV has a 5mm short led for headlight, a 3mm led for my invented brake light, but one SMD led for the front notek and 2 SMD leds for the rear notek. I must say, when placed those 2 leds in the rear notek, it really works like the real thing. If you look too close to it, looks like 4 bulbs. two meters away, like 2 bulbs, 6 meters away, like one bulb.


Uops, at this point I realized maybe I go a tad too far with my toys, LOL.

Well, I guess the more info, the better.

EDIT: I must also mention having true working headlights is (at least for me) super satisfactory. To be able to safely run in absolute darkess is a pleasure. With the optic fibre the headlights will look cool, but there wont be light beam, making not able to do night misions.

Speaking of SMDs, I have a spare brass early rear convoy light but I need the SMD. It’s just like the one on my Tiger. I’ll have to order some of the correct size (thanks for the chart,Rad) which is very small but I need pre wired.
I also need to see how to hook all these lights up to the Benedini and assign my radio switches to control them. It always seems like a chore to get through all this electronic work!

Rad my experience of rear convoy lights is that they are supposed to be very dim,
The following driver knows if he can see it he is close enough and if he cannot he is too far back.
I painted the inside of my Rear Notek Light with a Liquid Chrome Molotow Pen which acts as a reflector then I pushed the end of a 1mm diameter sheathed Fibre Optic Cable into the back of the Notek light and glued it in place,
The cable that comes from the inside of the Tank to the Notek I painted in the same way as the light cable on the prototype.
I am not sure a Fibre Optic cable would be much use as a headlight but as markers and side/parking and tail lights they are not too bad.
Do remember that 30s/40s vehicle lighting even in civilian vehicles was poor at best and almost never bright.
A combination of worn fan belts 6 volt electrics and clapped out generators (NOT Alternators) guaranteed poor lighting.

jarndice wrote:Rad my experience of rear convoy lights is that they are supposed to be very dim,
The following driver knows if he can see it he is close enough and if he cannot he is too far back.
I painted the inside of my Rear Notek Light with a Liquid Chrome Molotow Pen which acts as a reflector then I pushed the end of a 1mm diameter sheathed Fibre Optic Cable into the back of the Notek light and glued it in place,
The cable that comes from the inside of the Tank to the Notek I painted in the same way as the light cable on the prototype.
I am not sure a Fibre Optic cable would be much use as a headlight but as markers and side/parking and tail lights they are not too bad.
Do remember that 30s/40s vehicle lighting even in civilian vehicles was poor at best and almost never bright.
A combination of worn fan belts 6 volt electrics and clapped out generators (NOT Alternators) guaranteed poor lighting.

Sure, the convoy lights must be dim. If it brighs too much it does not work as expected. With some tank electronics you can adjust the intensity of the light, but for those where you cannot it is a matter of fitting the propper resistor.

This is not the best pic ever, but when carefully placing the SMD leds in the correct place looks like there are 4 bulbs instead of 2. I think it looks great. In the case of the rear tube nokets I guess Id try to fit the leds like I did too.

About the use for the optic fibre as headlight, I said that because is what Tamiya expects you to do with some of their tanks and also what a lot of people do. Sure for some side markers and so on the optic are ok but definitelly not for headlights.

And you dont need to look back to the 30s lol. I remember my father used to have a seat 600 and it was almost not possible to drive it at night.


Don't know, I guess I just love lights in my toys and to be able to call Batman with them when needed.

This model is a joy to modify. The headlight bucket came off cleanly with a firm but gentle hand and the hole in the bottom is almost perfect to install my LED. The front headlight cover opened up with the twist of a chisel blade so that I can paint the inside of the headlight assembly. I also got the front Notek light mounted.
I need to fabricate some rear view mirrors and I need to represent a folded down canvas top.



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Jimster,

You're a far braver man than I could be with that little gem! Love the Panzer Commander skull, I wonder where we will eventually see that?

Cheers,
Eric.