Hello

I decided to have a crack at sticking some LEDs into the Falcon the other day...

I didn't have many parts, so I ripped open a wind-up torch light to get to the LEDs and the switch. I had an old coin battery laying around so I used that inside a coin holder...

As you can see from the pic below, I chose to open up the falcon from the bottom aft section. It took a while as I was nervous about cutting into my only YT-1300!!

As you can see my soldering is awful, and I tried out a couple of LEDs to see which one had the better effect. For some reason I thought maybe a white LED covered in blue paint would have a better diffused glow...

Then I drilled a hole for the switch to fit through... (very nervous juncture...)

Once that was done, I glued the switch into place from the inside...

And here it is in place, functioning properly...

And then I pretty much just threw all the LEDs into place inside the ship and shut it up with some mitre fast (I'm a tradesman so I always tend to have some around)...

...and with the lights off...

There is a lot of light leakage from the hatch I made from the bottom. I stuffed a whole load of tin foil into the ship to block it out. Then I sealed the hatch up with some milliput.

I couldn't figure out a way to block the leakage from the switch area...

But it's very minor so I went with the lazy option of ignoring it...

There are three LEDs in total inside the ship, and even though it is plainly obvious from this next pic, in normal light conditions it actually doesn't look too bad. The hot glue stick that I cut up to use as the diffuser does work quite well...

Here it is again with a little bit of extra paint and the turrets on the top and bottom turned around slightly...

After a couple of days of holding the Falcon in my hands and making "whooshy" noises in my room... I decided to have a go at sticking LEDs into the Lambda shuttle...

As you can see the paint job is rather lacking. But ever since I bought it, and opened it, I've hated the paint job fresh out of the box. I decided to hide a lot of my cack-handedness by painting it dark colours...

I know engine glow should be white/blue on the shuttle, but I wanted to use a red LED... it matches in better with the paint-job.

Here is where I put the push switch... It was the only place I could place it without it sticking out like a sore thumb... It makes a very satisfying "click clack" noise.

So that's my two ships done up with nice lights...

They look awesome on my desk...

Apologies for the lack of progress photos in the construction of them. I tend to just muddle my way through the process, when I should take the time to document it better...

But let me know what you think

Loving it, I need to get around to doing the same but my massive pile of Warhammer stuff makes lighting seem so unimportant on the totem pole.

I love it!!

I'm going to keep my eye out for some LEDs as I'm out and about so that I might copy your idea.

Awesome!

Not only are these (and other) lighting mods stupidly awesome and I'm totally jealous, I also wanted to thank you for putting the [Lighting] tag in the thread title...everyone should do that and make it easier to find things on this forum.

Very nice.

Really nice!

i've been wanting to do that for some time now. I just need to find small switches.

Man, not only they really work awesomely and you did an amazing job.

But you have man balls for cutting through those ships. I can't even dare to come close with a cutter to them.

Excellent!

AWESOME!!! I really like the contrast on the Lambda with the red/orange and the darker hull!

Absolutely amazing work, the Falcon looks great and I really didn't think that would be possible with the shuttle.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I SO want to try doing something like this, but I know it would en up going horribly, painfully, maybe even explosively wrong...

How did you cut the bottom portion off?

Awesome dude!!

Looks great!

I have a Lambda that I’ve been wanting to modify into a Mu-class Shuttle, but I’m at a loss for where to go to get information on how to open up these models and to make mods to them.

Any suggestions?

Could we see the guts of the shuttle? I'd like to light mine up, too.

I will buy another Falcon if you would modify it for me. Would you accept my first-born son? I've ran out of virgins to sacrifice as I've given them all to the dice gods.

Hey you did an awsome job.

How did you cut the bottom portion off?

I just used a scalpel and a stanley blade. Scalpel just to get the scored line in and then the stanley blade to actually get the panel off.

I have a Lambda that I’ve been wanting to modify into a Mu-class Shuttle, but I’m at a loss for where to go to get information on how to open up these models and to make mods to them.

Any suggestions?

This link has a photo breakdown of how to remove the parts of the shuttle : http://empireofghosts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/tutorial-how-to-really-fix-x-wing.html

Hey you did an awsome job.

Thanks!

I also had a go at lighting up the firespray and a B-Wing...

Here are some pics!!

Here is the components of the firespray...

Then drill out the hole bits...

Cut out a hole for the switch...

Here is the smd led thing that I used... I had to solder them to wires which is not an easy task!

I just used blobs of hot glue to fill in and diffuse the light from the LEDs...

Then in order to fit the batteries inside the ship I trimmed some of the plastic out of the centre strut bit...

Here is the last photo before I just clipped everything back into place. The ship is made so well, that I didn't bother glueing it back together as this way I can change the battery whenever I want.

All three of my large ships lighted up on my desk!

And here is a few photos of trying to light up the B-Wing ...

I put the battery on the bottom of the base. The switch is just a push to make switch. The smallest one I could find.

I used some nano LEDS I found on a model making site. I drilled out the inside of the engine ports and glued the LEDs to the inside... But as you can see from the photos the light zaps through the engine bits. The LEDs are extremely bright for their tiny scale. Also the stem is fixed into place, as the wires are permanent. So I was forced to make a choice of pilot for this ship! I chose the ever reliable blue squadron pilot, as I almost always use one in my lists.

I really wanted to see if I could put LEDs into a small ship. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but I learnt a lot from trying to do it.

Hope you enjoy the photos

Oh my God. Oh. My. God.

That's just incredible work.

looks so pretty cool ;-)