Ben Quadinaros and Otoga-222 Action Figures

This is the first podracer I've bought (not including Anakin Skywalker), I do plan to collect podracers eventually but because of the whole Kyle Newman/Forcecast petitioning for this figure I decided I had to have one.

Ben Quadinaros looks cool as a figure, but doesn't work well as one, he has almost no articulation and doesn't even have a 'peg hole' in his feet (in the first photo you can see I've had to use sticky tac to make him stand).

Also included is this equally unarticulated figure of an Otoga-222 Maintenance Droid. Was nice of them to add another figure to the pack to make up for how basic the main figure is, but I'll have to be honest I had to look up the droid cause I didn't recognise it all, according to wookieepedia though they are fairly prevalent around Mos Espa in episode 1 so I'll have to keep my eyes open in future.

Display Upgrade part 2

Continuing on from last week's post about my plans to add a new set of LED lights to my action figure display. Above you can a photo of the LEDs in action, just as test of the LEDs and the power supply I soldered the power supply directly to the strip. I was glad to see it worked and my research payed off and the LEDs themselves seem to be bright enough for the job.

Here's something I only considered last week, my display is made up from a bunch of different shelving units and tables. So in order to be able to add more light in the future, and to be able to still move the different units separately if needs be, I've picked up these. They're sold as connectors for batteries but I'm going to use them to connect the LEDs between my shelving units. I have the circuit all finalised on paper now and have started to solder together the connectors but have nothing really to show just yet.

Also this week we've completed the switch, very simple idea here, the switch is spliced into the extension chord so I can plug all my lights into it and have one switch to turn them all on.

"Did I miss something?"

Only a very quick set of photos this weekend, just some fun shots of Anakin, Obi-wan and Palptine escaping down the elevator shaft in ROTS. If one or two look a bit odd, well that's what happened in the movie.

Yarua Action Figure

Another figure I picked in Dublin a couple of weeks ago, Yarua the wookiee senator from episode 1, as a kid Yarua was the first wookiee I was aware of after Chewie so was happy to add him to the collection.

Nicely sculpted but a little lazily painted, not quite sure where those eyes are supposed to be looking.

As is customary on this blog now, when photographing any senator I like to put them in the pod for a shot.

Finally this week, a group shot my slowly growing wookiee collection.

Display Upgrade part 1

Most of the time on this blog we're talking about buying action figures so I thought it might be fun to do a series of posts looking at the other side of this hobby, displaying them. This is my action figure display as current. As you can see it's grown a lot over the last year and I've had to add several sets of shelves (and cheap tv stands) to make room. However its now out-grown my old lighting system. The lights I have currently are very good in the spaces I have them however are very expensive at £30 (approx $47) for a set of four and there are a lot of dark patches to fill.

Introducing this under-cabinet lighting, at just over a pound a meter I'm hoping it'll be a cheap way of adding a lot of light to my display and at the same time make it simpler to add new shelves and lighting in the future.

Looking at it more closely you can see its a strip of LEDs already wired with resistors in a protective plastic bubble. The strip can be cut every 5 cm and wired to another section of the strip which should allow me to run this all around my collection, lighting the dark areas and supplementing the existing lights.

So I've been doing my homework, trying to recall Technology lessons from over thirteen years ago and have done a bit of shopping. So far the spend has been a good deal lower than if I'd simply bought more of the existing lights.

Also as part of this upgrade I'm planning to add this switch. I'm going to splice it into an extension chord from which I'll run both the existing lights and new LEDs. I'll then attach it below the bottom shelf and I'll have one switch that turns on all the lights in the display (something my eccentric side is very excited about).

It's going to be a quite a big bit of work and so far all I've managed is these couple of excel sheets calculating how much LED strip can I use in each section and how much wiring I'll need. I'm a little nervous about doing all the soldering, it is over a decade since I've used a soldering iron so fingers crossed I don't screw it up. I have plenty of wiring on its way to me so I just have to be careful when soldering on to the LED strip.

Here is a video I made last August to try and convey the scale of my collection then but it'll also give you an idea of the shelving set up and a better look at the existing lights. Of course as part of this upgrade I'm going to have to take down all my figures. Which is a good opportunity for a well needed dusting but more importantly a new setup video for 2012. Check back over the next few Tuesdays and see how I get on.