Painting the Clearance Post and Lamp

Well, I painted two posts again, the first with two coats of black and then white and the second with silver, black and then white.

It seems that either is sufficient to hide the glowing light from the LED so I think I will recommend two coats of flat black and then the final flat white coat. There did not seem to be any difference in light between the silver and the black painted posts.

Flat or matt paint should be used for coverage as the matt effect is caused by the pigment protruding through the surface of the paint and diverting the light rays in all directions. A gloss paint just has a nice smooth surface and as such does not have as much pigment.

While the paint was drying I went to Jaycar and bought a selection of 1/2 Watt resistors in 2K Ohms, 3K Ohms, 5.1K Ohms and 10K Ohms. I made up a 10K Ohm resistor by putting several in series.

The end result of swapping the resistors around gave the following effects.




1K Ohm resistor - Light flare from lens

1K Ohm resistor - Light shows in 'daylight'

10K Ohm resistor - No light flare from lens

10K Ohm resistor - Lamp appears to be off in 'daylight'

I will recommend that the modeller chooses which resistor to use depending on the preferred effect.

I prefer the 10K resistor as the lamp appears to be off although it is actually on. So back to Jaycar to buy some of the 10K Ohm resistors that I didn't get today, oh well, that's how it goes.