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This week we bring you a special project from Dave Hackett. This material was
originally posted to the CultTVman SF Modeling Forum on Hobbytalk and is now presented as an On The Bench presentation
While this kit is not perfect, it's way clear that massive thought and attention to detail have been put into it. I'd like it to
be bigger, but I'll go with it anyway because it looks so well done. In my opinion, this looks like the best Enterprise A out there. It looks good from both a design standpoint, and being
pre-azteced.
But those 6 bulbs have to go. I doubt they will be bright enough anyway. White led's and what else.....? The nacelles project a light onto the lower hull and that is also in my plans as well as the blinking nav lights. I LOVE lighting things, that brings out the life in a kit more than anything else.
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I would say hull modifications like I am doing are going to be easier than expected. The arboretum lights are my big thing right
now, and if you didn't know it, you'd swear the kit came like this. I'm going to mix up some custom acrylic paint to touch up the inside edges of the windows where the plastic is black, but I pulled all
this off with not one scratch to the paint.
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The paint is tough enough it seems to handle quite a bit. I am putting masking tape over the hull where I am holding it so
I don't push my luck. If I'm reading my directions correctly, the ambient light from the stock bulbs may be enough to light these windows. All that would be needed is a piece of clear blue acrylic behind
the windows. I have to say, I was expecting it to be WAY harder than this. Nice to be surprised in a good way once in a while.
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Masking tape is totally harmless to this kit. I have put it on and off several times and nothing has happened. A perfect paint
match is Liquitex unbleached titanium and a touch of black. It's spot on perfect. Here's a better picture of the finished result. To me this will be a huge difference in the appearance of the kit.
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Here's pictures of the arboretum windows. Now that I have my blue clear windows in, it looks pretty much like I wanted it to.
After a night of fiddling with the arboretum lights I have what I think is a good solution to lighting them. (pics forthcoming) The ambient light in the hull is enough to illuminate them,
but not brightly enough for my liking, plus there is some minor sanding to do on the side clear light reflector, but not much, and it in no way diminishes the light from the surrounding windows. It's
just a clearance issue with the modification I made. The windows glow cobalt blue like they should, and look pretty neat. This light transfer system they have is really neat.
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By the way, I have a mold curing of the torpedo launcher I am going to cast in clear epoxy. That really needs to be lighted!
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Ok here is what I have so far. The hull lights are in, and the clearance is tight, but it all fits in there. The only place in
the hull where there is any room at all is right where you need it to be to light this sucker up. The parts used are 2 white 3200mcd leds, and 2 100k resistors, and couple of 1/4" lengths of
1/4" styrene tubing. As I stated before, the clear blue windows are just clear styrene and blue Tamiya paint, no big deal there.
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The lengths of tubing are glued inside the hull with the led and resistor all hooked up and working. The characteristics of an
led is that it has a very narrow viewing angle, so what I did is aim it at an angle, so the light path was an elliptical shape, and covered all the windows. Because it's only 1" or so between the
led and the end of the last window, there's no degradation in light transmission. In other words, it's lit evenly side to side.
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The side light reflector needs minor trimming on the lower half to keep it from glowing right into the window. With the
resistors soldered on the + side of the led, you can use the 4.5 volt stock setup and have no worries about mixing voltage. Easy as pie. The pictures are pretty self explanatory.
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Don't let anything intimidate you with this. If you can solder, yo can do this for sure. Even if you can't solder, you can do
this. You need 2 white 3200 mcd leds (5mm size) from eled.com and order 10 at a time because you get a price break. You need 2 100k resistors from Radio Shack.
Part #271-1311. Package of 5 100 ohm resistors. You need 22 - 24 gauge wire, you can get at Radio Shack as well. And you need styrene tubing that is the exact size inside diameter as the led outside diameter, so it fit's snug inside.
Look at my picture of the inside of the hull. You can see how I have the wires bent, and the resistor is clearly visible as well. There is 2 leads on the led. Long and short. The long is
the + lead, the short is the - lead. You have to solder the resistor to the long (+) lead. Also the leds are polarity sensitive. You have to have the power + to + and - to - or it won't light up. But
that's no big deal. Order the leds and then while your waiting for them to show up, you can get to work on the hull. That's the first order of business anyway.
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This is what can be done with the warp engine lights. The picture on the right is stock, the left is modified. I still have to
put the stripes on the clear plastic so it will look correct. The top dome of the nacelle glows blue too right? That's next, then the spotlights (still waiting on the leds).
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I just replaced the light supplied with the kit with a 3600 blue led. But here's one that took a bit more work. My nacelle tops
now glow blue like they should. Forgive the photos but my digital camera hates lit stuff. One of the shots is of the nacelle top unlit, and you can see it's clear now. One more 3600 blue led
underneath does the trick.
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Here's the lounge. Is there anything else that should be cut out and lit I missed? These windows are a bit harder than the
arboretum because they are sort of oddly shaped, and the plastic is thicker.
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My leds arrived and I'll be seeing what I can do with the spotlights. I tried some large diameter fiber optic strand and it
sucked, weak light travel and no where near bright enough.
Getting these spotlights to come out right is roughly the same as trying to put toothpaste back in the tube. If your one patient
modeler, you can do this, but I mean REALLY patient. First off the 5mm white leds are too big. The 3mm leds are too dim. Fiber optics suck totally. So now what? Plan B. Ok.....What's plan B?
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Solution, outside the box thinking. Take one 5mm led, and one 3mm led. Cut the 5 in half right above the element. Cut the 3 in
the same place. Take 5 minute epoxy and glue the 3mm top to the 5mm base right above the element. Hybrid 3/5mm led. 5MM brightness with a 3mm top.
This is one ugly Frankenstiened led. Before you start getting excited here, the truth is this model is just too damn small to really do this right. I wanted the spotlight right on the Starfleet symbol on the hull. Fat chance. I had to settle for getting a fairly bright spot right above the little hatch in the middle of the hull (geek tech term inserted here) and be done with it. As I have stated before, this model's size is the limiting factor when it comes to accuracy, and this is really true here.
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Here's the spotlight. The old digital really doesn't do this justice, the spotlight is more pronounced.
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The white leds throw a PERFECT spotlight. One that I'd like to use in the Bandai kit, but can't due to size limitations. If you
guys really want spotlights, get the 3600 mcd white leds, and a larger scale Enterprise, and have at it.
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Here's a shot of what my Frankensteined spotlight on the nacelle of the Bandai kit looks like. This is in a lower light level
situation obliviously, but it's not too bad. The real trouble is aiming. I don't want some dorky looking huge hole in the nacelle to facilitate a good spotlight. So this aimed a but farther back than I
wanted will have to do.
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Ugh! This was not fun by any means. Digital camera's don't like the blue color of the leds. The nacelle grille and top
light are deep cobalt. 4 led's are about all that will fit in there, trust me. Talk about gaps, this kit is so full of them it's ridiculous. I'm using acrylic matte gel medium to fill them. It dries
clear, and you can sand it with 400, and drybrush on whatever your using for the base color of the ship. It seems to work good. These gaps have to be worked gently or they'll be so glaring, you'll see
them a mile away.
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I thought some of you guys may want to see what the inside of my nacelle looks
like before I close the other one up. You can see how much of the end cap I cut away to get the blue led in there. The angled led is the chopjob I use for the
spotlight. There is a blue led at the end of the transparent engine part, and the little led at the end is another chopjob to get the top end nacelle light to work. With
wiring in here, it's just plain hell.
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This whole thing I'm doing is about figuring out how to make a great looking kit that much better. I have a really good handle
on the spotlights I think and that is one of the biggest things that sets a kit apart.
My intentions were to run fiber optics to the saucer to get the nav lights and such to work. I drilled the
holes and ran the fibers just now and hooked it all up to a white led. I slightly flared the ends of the strand to get a mushroom shaped end on it so it would seat down nice and snug. I then tried both
lightly sanding it (to get a frosted and what I thought would be more even glow to it) and leaving one non sanded. The result is basically not much difference in appearance. So what's it all come down
to? If you look at the lights from the top, great, looks awesome. Any other angle, and you may as not even have lights at all. The peripheral light transmission is nill. I mean none. I think it would
look rather stupid to have that kind of a setup in a model kit that every other light is looking really sharp and bright. Again we have the small kit size limiting the mods you can do successfully.
Insert favorite four letter word here _ _ _ _ !
All that is left now is to build the stand for it. The stock stand looks ok, but I want another style. Modifications galore in this thing, and I
don't want to try this again.
Final photos will be found in the Modeling Star Trek section.
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