So i had this 3d printing file of balrog for a while now and i didnt know what kind of project to make with it until i saw the Hot Glue competition. That’s when i got the inspiration to make the flames on the back of the balrog glow from flexible LEDs filaments and use silicone glue to shape the flames. The balrog model is holding a flame sword and i modified the file so that the balrog will be holding his glowing flaming whip which we can also use the flexible LED filaments.
In order to power all the LEDs, im going to modified the balrog base and put a powerbank with a switch on it. As usual all modifications was done using Tinkercad and 3d printed. This time i’m using a mix of normal FDM 3d printer and a DLP resin 3d printer. Im using DLP resin printer cause the model is only 18cm-ish and the detail will be lost if im using FDM printer.
3D Printing
The body i 3d printed using a DLP resin printer (Mono X) while the base is printed on FDM printer (ENDER 5Plus). you can print all the parts using FDM or DLP whichever your preference.
Once all the parts are printed, you’ll need to cleanup all the supports.
Assembly – Wiring
In this step we’re gonna feed the wires through the channel i made on the body parts.
Before we do that, see the diagram for the wiring of the LEDs to the battery powerbank. Both flexible LEDs will be wired parallel to the USB lithium converter.
There are 3 body parts that will need wiring running throught them
- Tail & body – AWG24 or AWG18
- Right hand – AWG24 only
You can use AWG24 wires to run all the channel but you cant use AWG18 since the wire is too big to feed into the right hand.
When you wire the body to tail to powerbank, make sure to have a lot of slack for easy wiring later on.. i added like 15cm extra wire that came out of the tail..
Run a set of wires from the right hand to the back of the body and run another set of wires from the tail to the back of the body. The right hand channel is slightly small so you’ll have to wiggle the wires until it runs though the channel
The wire that comes out of the tail needs a lot of slack so it can go thought the base and connect to the powerbank.
Assembly – Wiring base powerbank
Making the powerbank is quite straight forward.
Base on the picture you should be able to understand how i wired everything.
Make sure to solder all the wires connected to the USB charger first before anything else.
The rocker switch should be last.
I glued everything down using silicone glue to keep them in place.
Once done.. charge the lithium battery and test the wiring and flexible LEDs
I also started to paint the top base in red color to make the lava ground standout later
Assembly – Wiring LED on body
Once all the wires are run though the parts, its time to supeglue the leg tail part to the upper body and the right hand.
We need to glue these parts first cause we will need to tighten the wires for the LEDs and cut the excess.
Now we can start soldering the wires to the Flexible LEDs on the back of the body. Remember that both LEDs need to be parallel wired.
Once all the wiring is done, we can now pull the wires slacks on tail and the right hand.
Behind the neck of the balrog there is a hole that connects to the mouth of the balrog. We’ll need to gently insert the flexible LED filament into the hole and stop just before it reaches the mouth. This will give the balrog’s mouth a glowing light from the LED.
P/S – Its best to frequently turn on and off the flexible LED to make sure the wire connections are working
Now we’ll start using the glue gun to create the shape of the flames on the back of the balrog. Shape the looped flexible LED on the back of the balrog to look like a spine on his back and start glueing it to shape.
Assembly – LED flame shaping
WARNING – BE CAREFUL OF HOT GLUE
Once you got the shape of the flexible LED filament in place you wanted, start building up the silicone glue on the back of the balrog and shape it like a flame. You’ll need to do this little by little cause the hot glue will melt and not stay in shape. Turn the LED on after a few layers to see the light shining through the silicone glue. repeat until you get a full flaming back on the balrog.
Tips on how to shape the flame using silicone glue
- Build up the silicone bit by bit
- When it start to harden, use your finger to shape it (careful of hot silicone glue)
- You need to use gravity to flow the molten silicone glue to the shape you want
When you are satisfied with the shape of the flame at the back of the balrog, you’ll need to test the LED to see if works.. having a lot fo wire slack at the bottom of the tail works great here to connect to the powerbank.
To smoothen the rough flame silicone, we will be using the mini torch for that. torch the silicone flame bit by bit to not fully melt it out of shape. heat it up enough to smoothen the rough areas.
Painting
When you finish the hot silicone glue flame on the back of the balrog. its time to airbrush the flames and head.
You will need to use clear red and yellow color airbrush paint to color the flames. we’ll use clear color paint so that the light still can shine though the paint. You can also use normal color paint but it needs to be very thin layer to not block the light totally.
Use the clear yellow paint first as a base layer for the flames and the head then use the clear red paint to shape the flames.
When you turn on the LED on the back of the balrog, there should be residual lights shining though the head of the balrog. we will want to use this glow to further enhance the flames on the head. we’ll need to cover the glow on the body by using black primer paint..
P/S – Its best to frequently turn the LED on and off to see the color effects when the lights shine through
Once you got eveything done its time to superglue all the body parts together and start painting the balrog. since im using airbrush on the flames i continued using it to color the whole balrog.
Assembly – Wiring flaming whip
WARNING – BE CAREFUL OF HOT GLUE
To make the whip, we will need to use the tinned copper wire to shape it into place from the balrog right hand and whips it to the ground. make sure to cut the copper wire at 26cm long as its the same exact lenght of your flexible LED filament.
Once you got your shape ready its time to start soldering the flexible filament to the copper wire. since the copper wire is tinned, you will need to scrape the end of the whip shape copper wire. by scraping the end of the copper wire, we are removing the tinned so we can solder it to the LED filament. i use a knife so slowly scrape the tinned of the copper.
Next we will start wrapping the flexible LED filament around the shape of the copper wire and start hot glueing it together. i dap little by little onthe copper so that the LED filament would stick together.
You’ll need to test the whip again with the balrog hands and make sure everything fits. if the copper wire is longer than the LED filament, you might want to cut the copper wire long enough to insert it into the right hand channel.
Now you are ready to fully cover the copper wire and the LED filament in silicone glue. make sure to thinly cover them together and not make a huge blob. we dont want the flaming whip to look bloated.
Color the whip and test the flexible filament to see if it glows..
Wiring – the whip
Once you finish coloring the balrog and the base, its time to fully wire everyhting to the base powerbank and close up and screw everything down.
The last step is soldering the whip to the right hand and hot glueing the whip to finish it off.
Before soldering the copper wire, we need to scrape the tinned off it. once you done that, insert the copper wire into the right hand channel and put the shaped whip into position.
Now you can start soldering the the copper wire to the wire from the channel of the hand and the LED filament. make sure you get the positive and negative of the wires correctly.
Test out all the lighting, and now to close the wiring with some silicone hot glue. shape it to follow the flow of the whip as a whole. Also add a little hot glue on where the whip contacts to the ground to keep it stable. Color everything up and you are done
Conclusion
I have been playing with combining flexible LED filaments and hot silicone glue on my projects before but this is a whole another level. Shaping the silicone glue was a challenge but it looks so cool with the glowing LED filament in side it.
Making this project was so much fun. I think im gonna go titan level next with maybe Godzilla next.
Have fun making the project and happy 3d printing.
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