5.21. Car with Headlights

While organizing my prewired LEDs, I came across some unused warm white 0201 SMDs. These are the smallest commercial discrete LEDs made, and I really wanted to put them to use. Why not a car with working lights? I've done it often enough, except in this case the vehicles are early 1930s, so the headlights are all freestanding—a bit more challenging than normal. So, on 3 July 2021, I had at it.

I started by bonding a pair of LEDs to the faces of the headlight fixtures (above)—not ideal, but there weren't many options. Then I drilled #72 holes in the fenders for the wire leads, and bonded them right to the undersides of the fenders (below).

The single rear light is a red 0201 SMD LED (below). I had to special-order these from Germany.

Next, I wired the LEDs together with their resistors, so that I only had two wires leaving the car (below). The resistors just barely fit inside the car body.

With all of that done, it was time to test the little guy.

Obviously the last step is painting the car, and that may prove more challenging than lighting it, given my shaky hands. One thing I did to improve the process of painting wheels was make a micro-turntable.

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