the axle and between the contact strip and the mounting nut-
bolt-washer combination.
Lights
If I’m building my own lighting kit into a car, I prefer LEDs. They
may be surface mount (SMD) LEDs or 3 mm or even 5 mm,
depending upon the space available. Enclosed LEDs, such as 3
mm or 5 mm devices, frequently focus the light in a column so
I tend to use SMD units whenever possible, as they frequently
provide a broader area of illumination.
The large scale car that I’ve been featuring throughout this
column (8) used two strips that had three SMD LEDs and a
dropping resistor designed for 12 Volts. I bought them at an
electronic surplus store online. They came with blue-white
colored LEDs. While these make a good “fluorescent” look, they
8: Lighted passenger car from figure 1 with the roof
off, showing LED packages installed
8
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