So, I'm practically done with the lighting of the Falcon now. I still need to add a bit of felt to the edges to block it from seeping through, but otherwise I'm done. Now I just have to paint the thing. I ended up gluing magnets onto the engine panel and small strips of aluminum onto the diffuser. I attempted to make it a straight magnet to magnet interface, but kept failing at that. I originally used the solder gun to melt a hole in the diffuser for the magnet, and then attempted to line it up on the engine panel, but due to its curve, it didn't want to stay glued. So I decided to go in the opposite direction and glue it to the panel and then find where it lined up on the diffuser. This worked better, but the magnets are a bit too strong and would break the hot glue hold and rip out of the diffuser. So, the end result was just gluing an aluminum strip on. The magnets don't actually touch the strip, but there's enough attraction that it holds the engine panel in place. This also allows the engine panel to sit flush and how I cut it out instead of being held up by the magnet tower.
And since the magnets aren't making direct contact, my plan of carrying the electric current through them and using the removal of the engine panel as my on/off switch kinda failed. So I have setup right now where I just manipulate the wires to complete the circuit. It seems to be working fine, but we'll see how that holds up throughout games and travel.
And with the lights dimmed a bit it looks even better.
Now I have another YT-1300 that just arrived in case I broke this one... and it requires a lighting system too. I might try a different diffuser method though as this one ended up taking quite a bit more space than I wanted / had available.