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Project Jubilee (a.k.a. Leander, 54mm Warhound Titan)

Started by MarcoSkoll, January 23, 2012, 08:30:28 PM

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Koval

I don't think that vulcan megabolter shells are anywhere near 50mm calibre -- I'd assumed something more like 30.

MarcoSkoll

I could go for that, but a to-scale 30mm calibre won't actually be very impressive on the model.

Still, that would make for a longer lasting ammunition capacity - about 2,400-2,500 rounds per hopper at about the 30x173mm used in the GAU-8. It's plausible with the multi-fused ammunition as well - the 30x173mm exists in air-burst variants for the Mk44 Bushmaster.

I guess, at 30mm, very squat rounds could make about a total 14,000 rounds possible with odd magazine design, but it wouldn't have the kind of velocity* and destructive power I'd imagine from a titan weapon.

*For the version I have in mind, I'm thinking about 1,250-1,300 m/s at the muzzle, boosting to about 1,600 m/s after the rocket gets it to full velocity.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

MarcoSkoll

Semi-update: I mislaid all the LEDs I needed, but my reorder has arrived, so I can actually finish assembling some of the parts that needed LEDs installed before they were done.

I settled on two battery boxes, as rewiring them into four parallel sets of two rather than two parallel sets of four will reduce draw on each cell and the necessary current limiting resistance. Add in a cutback on the number of LEDs used (particularly if the ones in the torso are turned off when they can't be seen), and battery life might be as much as 30 hours straight.
In any case, definitely be more than enough to run the LEDs throughout an entire event day (and quite possibly an entire weekend).

If the torso needs more counterweight, there are more efficient places to put it than where there's actually room to put a third battery box.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Gideon

Marco, this thing is brilliantly mad. I am glad to see you are still working on it! I'd seen it before while lurking elsewhere, but thought you must have consigned it to the dustbin...
In nomine Imperator Dei!

MarcoSkoll

No, it's far from in the dustbin - it's just seldom top priority on the to-do list.

Right now, it's waiting so I can get my IGT characters done and dusted; hopefully I'll get a clean run on it after they're done.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Gideon

Oh good!  ;D I look forwards to seeing more on the Leander soon then...!
In nomine Imperator Dei!

Cortez

I've always liked the LMS Crimson Lake livery, should look great on a 54mm scale Titan. Glad to see that you're making progresss on this.

Seargent Maxwell Forest

WOW :o I am so looking forward to seeing the finished thing.
"What happens to the Imperium should it realy achieve peace?"

MarcoSkoll

After some months, I'm trying to find time for this girl, in the vain hope she might be ready for an Autumn event (if there is one).

No pictures yet, but I'm trying to see if I can reduce my reliance on milliput for the upper body, particularly the head area, and thus cut the weight of the upper body. So, at present, I'm trying to remake the head armour from plasticard.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

MarcoSkoll

An update - a small one for now, but hopefully to grow.

Firstly, some old work you guys haven't seen yet:


This is the start of a replacement for the original head armour. The original version was balsa and milliput, which meant it was both textured and heavy. In future, I'll be trying to keep balsa parts hidden, and minimise weight in the model's head.

~~~~~

As far as the present day... after finally having things sorted enough I actually had the space to pull out all the large project boxes for this, I'm hoping to get the basic shape of the plasma reactors in plasticard over the weekend.

As a start, this means sorting out the battery boxes, which will be built in behind the exhaust vents (they'll be part of the counterbalancing for the upper body).

So, I looked at the parts I mentioned back in December 2012, wondered why I'd ordered several rectifier diodes, started modifying the battery boxes to work as four parallel 3V batteries rather than one 12V battery, plugged in some batteries, attached a multimeter... then realised what the diodes were for and had to go back and put them in:



Past me is apparently smarter than current me. He'd spotted this problem before I'd even had it. The issue with a parallel power supply is that each set of batteries actually makes a completed circuit for the others, and the sets all want to equalise by discharging through each other. But with each set separated off behind diodes, it breaks that circuit.

Hence some rechargeable NiMH AAs should result in something like an 8000 mAh 2.4V supply, which should last much better than a 2000 mAh 9.6V battery. 50mAh per LED (they're quite high power LEDs, they need to be visible in a well lit room) times maybe a dozen will be an average drain of about 300 mAH. So 8000 mAh would last about 24 hours (whereas a 9.6V battery would have to waste loads of power in a voltage limiting resistor).

That's obviously more than is needed to keep it stood and fully lit as a centrepiece for an event day, but it is enough that I could theoretically still visit the idea of motorising the mega bolter.
That's not a promise, but it would be nice to do (along with building an oscillator circuit into the blastgun's LEDs so its glow pulses).
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

MarcoSkoll

An excess of sleep and housework has lead to less progress than desired today, but nonetheless, some has been made.



On the right, the styrofoam mock-up that's serving as a reference. On the left, the backbone of one of the reactors, built on the same honeycomb approach as I've used elsewhere - strong, but also reasonably light. I have however left open some options for where I can shove more ballast if the upper body needs more balancing than just the battery boxes.

(However, no matter how well I can balance the body or brave the players may be, it's looking like it probably still won't be smart to try and balance models to duel on the carapace. Even if it would be incredibly cool, and almost a cinematic requirement to try to have it happen at least once, I think it'd need some stand-ins - particularly for metal models).
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Radu Lykan

good to see this being worked on again, been looking forward to its completion since you started working on it, shame about the non-titan-top-dueling carapace but like you said, some stand ins and it will all be ok.
good idea with the honeycombing of the plasticard, havent made anything big enough to need it yet myself but stashed in a folder for future reference

Alyster Wick

It would seem a little against your attention for detail, but you could consider constructing certain parts of the titan graded to make it secure for models to stand on. You could also add on some texturing that would make it less slippery. Regardless, it'll probably be difficult to make it 100% secure. Some scaffolding would do the trick though, but I believe you actually mentioned that earlier in the thread (if memory serves). That's an entire project unto itself though.

Anyway, glad to see you working on this again! It'll make a nice centerpiece some day.

MarcoSkoll

#58
I'd love to have the option of models being able to ride the carapace*, which admittedly the squarer shapes of the Lucius Pattern would have been much more suitable for**, but the danger isn't really with regards to "what if we knock models off?"

The issue is that the waist joint on the Warhound is fairly far back on the torso, making it naturally head heavy. Now, the feet are large enough...



... that with generous ballasting, I'm not too worried about the whole thing just keeling over. However, the joints will all be poseable***, and making sure the hip joints have enough grip to balance the torso may be interesting enough even without the extra challenge of trying to make two or three heavy metal models safe up there too.

I am hoping to make it a safe environment for models, even if it will come down to things like building an acrylic safety rail that can be added if models do get up there, but I'm working on the assumption that it won't be.

* It would probably involve some deliberately tall buildings for characters to try leaping from though. It's not called a Titan because it's short.
** And easier to build. But I prefer the Mars Pattern, and given the project was beyond insane either way...
*** It's something of a practicality concern for a model this large. Having it rigid would severely limit where it could stand on many tables.

~~~~~

Anyway... it's taking a little longer than hoped, but I do now have a lot of the basic shape of both reactors:





They're just blu-tacked in place for now, and there's a bit more of the honeycombing to do, but after that it'll largely just be about giving them a skin. However, some of that will have to be left until after I've run the power cables for the LEDs in the weapon arms.

So, that probably makes the arms fairly high up the list. The basic shape of the mega-bolter is fairly complete (with just the question of whether I'll adjust it to include motorised barrels),  but the blastgun barely even exists in blueprint form yet.

Another tempting goal is to get the skeleton of the legs completed so I can have it freestanding for the first time. The caveat to that is that the parts for that were cut more than two years ago and left entirely unlabelled, so what I have is a jigsaw puzzle.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Alyster Wick

That's a lot of progress!

Your explanation of the challenges of having models run across the outside of the model make a lot of sense. By way of a practical suggestion, you could try having pins in the join so that you move the model, then insert the pins to absolutely secure various poses (like changing weights on a weight machine, only more complicated). This could get difficult to do and would somewhat limit the range of poses, but it would help you be confident that the model will stay in whatever pose you choose.