Custom Medieval Madness dragon mod
| This page will hopefully describe in high enough
detail, how I modified my dragon to have glowing eyes
and mouth using LEDs. |
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| Tostart with, I needed some products to build the
dragon's mod. Below is a picture of a regular computer hard drive cable.
I just stripped off wires individually and used them to connect LEDs to
power etc. |
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| In the next picture, I am showing a group of small LEDs I bought
from Ebay. These are the small 4mm LEDs that will fit into the eyes of the
dragon. I also used these for the eyes of the castle skulls in another project. |
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| The next picture illustrates the repro dragon I used
for this project. I bought this repro dragon at
www.bayareaamusements.com. I kept my original so
that it could be re-installed if needed in the future.
The repro is a lot harder to work with since it is not
nearly as flexible as the original. |
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| Pictured below is me using my Dremmel tool to drill the eyes. I used a
very tiny drill bit. I don't know the size because it was not labeled on
the bit. But, I tested each bit I wanted to use on some Lexan I had and
then test-fitted the LEDs in the hole. I finally came up with the size I
needed. Here, I am holding his head very straight and trying to drill
straight down into his neck. This task was not easy at all! Getting the holes in the eyes
to go far enough through to the hollow portion of the neck was a real
challenge. The dragon is also much less flexible than the original.
Therefore, bending the dragon's head back was really
causing stress to the neck |
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| Below I show the dragon after drilling his eyes. After drilling, I simply did a test-fit of the 4mm LED's
in the dragon's eyes. I took the LEDs and used a sander on my Dremmel
and ground down the ridge that is on the LEDs so that they would fit
into the hole easier. Once ground down, they went in fairly well. You
definitely want the holes small but that makes getting the LEDs in there
a little tougher. As you can see, I got them in and things were starting
to take shape! |
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| This following picture is my attempt to illustrate how I ground
down the wide-angle LED for the dragon's mouth. LEDs
typically beam their light straight out the top. I used my belt sander
and I ground the LED into a multi-faceted surface. That way, the light
will be refracted in multiple directions and not just out the side if I
grinded it flat. |
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| The following pictures are to show a before and
after shot of the LED used for the dragon's mouth.
The first picture shows the original LED and the second
shows the LED after being ground into a multi-faceted
surface. |
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| The picture below is a much better shot of the red LED with it's
faceted surface. It was quite a challenge to get the macro setting
adjusted correctly to show the LED in detail. This one finally captures the surface
contours of the LED. |
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| In the next picture, I tried to illustrate what
the dragon will look like when lit. This was the
first test of the LEDs that worked. I had a few
false starts initially due to wires breaking off of
the LEDs. Now that we see it works, the next section
will investigate how the LEDs were installed and wired in the dragon's
body. |
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| The picture below shows the process of taking the computer cable and stripping off wires. I
ran two wires for each LED through the body and twisted them together in
preparation for connecting them to the LEDs. |
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| In the picture below, I tried to illustrate how
I kept the wires labeled. I had to keep the LEDs in order so I used some
stickers and labeled each wire to indicate which LED it was connected to
and whether the wire was negative or positive. The polarity matters so
you have to keep track. Once the LEDs are installed and all you have are
wires sticking out of the belly, you will thank me for telling you to
label the wires. |
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| The LEDs are going to tap off of the same power
source underneath the dragon (flasher).
Therefore, I connected all the negative wires together and all the
positive wires together from the LEDs, (please see photo below). Next I
soldered the wires together. I then put a dab of hot glue on them
to act as a strain relief and to keep them from shorting. |
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| The following picture is not of a prop from the
movie, "Thing," but rather the wires all connected to the LEDs as well as the
labels to keep track of the LEDs. I'm sure you can come up with your own
labeling system but I simply labeled the positive
side of the first LED as 1. The negative side was 1
with a circle around it. I did that for 2 etc. For
the mouth, I just labeled it mouth+ and mouth-. I will admit that I had to put
electrical tape around the LEDs to keep them from getting shorted. In
hindsight, I could have put a dab of hot glue on them as an insulator.
Putting the LEDs in the head and mouth was rather difficult with the
wires and solder to deal with but I got it done eventually. Again, with
this part, have patience. |
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| This next picture shows several items. It shows
the resistor I added for current
limiting, the wires soldered to the flasher socket, and a piece of
electrical tape I used to keep things from shorting
out. I used a 560ohm resistor and that worked fine in the final results. You
want to connect the resistor to the positive wire on the flasher socket
under the dragon. If you look closely, you can just see the tiny grey computer
wire soldered on the right side. If your LEDs don't work, look at
your wires. It is easy to connect them in reverse. In the final mounting, the positive wire from the LEDs goes
on the positive wire (with the resistor), of the flasher socket and the negative wire
from the LEDs goes on
the negative wire of the flasher socket. Pretty simple hookup. |
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| The next two pictures illustrate the dragon
mounted and all the wiring tucked under his body. |
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| That concludes my tutorial on how I modified my
Medieval Madness dragon. I hope I put enough
information in here to allow you to attempt to
modify your Medieval Madness dragon. It is a
fantastic addition because he lights his eyes and
mouth during several different times in the game.
Two instances that I can recall are when you go up
the Damsel ramp and when you are ejected from the saucer
in Merlin's area. The ramp flash is a drawn out
animated flash and the Merlin flash is quick and
repeated. Really great effect! |
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