Hey guys, here's a short-ish DIY guide for the TIE Phantom LED cloak mod!

This is the effect we're going for:

Step 1: Gather parts and tools!



From left to right:

• CR-2016 battery holder
• 2 short pieces of wire
• ~1 ohm resistor
• A small blue LED
• A reed switch

Not pictured:

• Battery
• Magnet

Here's a digikey order with all the needed parts, except wire: http://www.digikey.com/short/3m93br

Here's some yellow wire from Digikey: http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?keywords=55A0111-24-4-01-ND

Here are the tools I used:

• Dremel with a bit like this one
• Soldering iron
• Hot glue gun
• Wire strippers

The next 2 steps are to fix a problem I had fitting the battery holder in the ship's base.

The problem is that the battery holder, while being the thinnest I could find, didn't quite fit under the base of the ship. Here's a comparison of the fixed version (left) and the first attempt (right). You can see that the corner of the right one is off the table by about a millimeter.

Step 2: Modify the battery holder

The first part of the solution is to modify the battery holder slightly. We need to dremel out part of the plastic on one end of the battery holder to expose the metal pad that is normally underneath - this way, we won't need to solder a wire under the holder (which would add extra height).

Step 3: Modify ship base

The next step is to remove some of the plastic from the under side of the base. I drew an outline of the battery holder and threw together a little jig with some foam-core and this dremel accessory to be able to remove a constant depth.

Keep in mind we want the battery to be in the front left corner when the base is right side up.

This means it goes in the front right when the base is upside down!

Just be careful not to go all the way through the plastic!

Test it to make sure you took off enough! It should sit perfectly flat on the table.

Step 4: Solder everything together!

This is the layout we are aiming for:

The order is:

Positive end of battery holder (the non-modified end) -> resistor -> Reed switch -> wire -> Anode of LED* -> wire -> negative end of battery holder

* The anode of the LED in the digikey cart I linked to is the side without the little triangle. Check the datasheet of the LED you're using!

The Reed switch and resistor are not polarized, so their direction doesn't matter.

Be careful to point the LED towards the ground! The whole thing is going to be mounted upside-down under the base, so the LED will the be facing up!

Step 5: Test it!

Make sure everything works! Put a battery in and bring the magnet near the reed switch - the LED should turn on!

If it doesn't, recheck your soldering - especially the LED's and battery holder's direction.

Step 6: Hot glue into base

Make sure your battery holder in well seated in the hole we dug for it earlier.

The reed switch should be in the back right corner when the base is right-side up. This way the cloak token doesn't hide the pilot skill on the base chit!

Step 7: Marvel at your epic creation!

Good luck!

For the cloak token, just dremel out a hole in the cardboard token (without going all the way through) and glue the magnet in the hole!

This is awesome. There are so many talented people on these boards. Love this.

Now you need to light all your bases with matching lights, and when the cloak token is added to the base it turns the LED off, "cloaking" the unit

But seriously, that is so cool.

Wow. I'm almost at a loss of words, but I'm still typing so that's a good sign. Excellent work! I'm looking forward to trying this DIY mod you created!

Love this. Amazing.

Wait so you guys don't just throw a towel over her every time she cloaks like me?

weird!