Turning a hobby into a job

If, as a small boy, you were already crazy about model making, building bricks and electronics, the logical step is to turn your childhood hobbies into adult hobbies – and a career. Alexander Ehle from Stuttgart is now a master when it comes to illuminating models made of building bricks. But this is anything but child’s play! This is delicate, modern electronic engineering at the heart of brightly coloured functional models made of small, timeless plastic bricks. In addition to steady hands and an inventive turn of mind, he needs various small and medium-sized tweezers and pliers for his work. We spent some time with him in his workshop.

Components from all over the world

With a steady hand, Alexander Ehle shows us how he builds the miniature electronics into the tiny models and dioramas. He holds tiny components with the cross-over tweezers and carefully lets the solder flow. He bends back the connections neatly with the flat nose pliers and cuts the thin wires with the diagonal cutters. The smells are familiar to him from his grandfather’s radio and television workshop. He obtains the components from model shops, electronics shops and directly from the manufacturers. A lot of things that are difficult to obtain on the European market (such as coloured heat shrink tubing in 0.8 mm) and most of the LEDs come from China.