Pt 27 Lower Hull Lighting & Wiring

In this post, I'm going over the lighting done on the lower hull section. 

Well over a year ago I decided I wanted to add the little red caution lights seen around the bottom of the Falcon.  So using a diagram of the Falcon, I located the areas for the lights on my model and drilled tiny 1.5mm holes to poke fiber optics through, which would be lit by a red LED.

While this looks totally fine, I want the Falcon to look as close to the real thing as possible.  So you can see in these photos below that the caution lights have a gray housing with slits around the circumference that the red light shines through.

So I wanted to figure out how to make mine look like actual housings.  I came across some very small 2mm wire ferrules that had roughly the correct shape, and I though I could remove the center pin, cut them in half, and then drill tiny holes around the outside and use those over the fibers.

While it did basically work, I just couldn't get them as clean as I would like.  Drilling so small it's extremely difficult, and the plastic would raise and be uneven and such.   So by fluke, while searching for references online, I came across someone who had create 3D printed housings that were to scale for the DeAgostini Falcon.  So I ordered a bag of them.  I was concerned they'd be too large and not quite to scale, but to my surprise, they were completely screen accurate and even slightly smaller than the wire ferrules, making them more to scale as you can see in the photo below.  You can also see how the plastic of the wire ferrule would tear and raise when drilled.  Not very clean.

So I sprayed them with a coat of black to completely block any light from shining through the plastic, and then a coat of primer over the black.  And the primer color is pretty accurate to the color of the actual housings, so I left them as is.

I then expanded my previously drilled holes slightly to accommodate the new housing's base...

Put a little superglue around the inside of the hole...

And secured the light housing.

Next I cut lengths of 1.5mm fiber and inserted them into the housings.

securing them with regular old Elmer's glue.  Super glue can corrode the fiber and hot glue can melt it.  I just need just enough to hold them in place.

And a test lighting of the red LED caution lights.

If anyone who follows my blog is doing this model themselves and is interested, here is a link for the caution light housings.  https://www.shapeways.com/product/DLY...

Couldn't be happier.  Very much like the real Falcon.

I then got this wire holding tabs which I used to secure the fibers down internally in the model

I next needed a way to power my red LEDs.  The model comes with a power board to power some lights that they supply, but I'm adding many more.  So I made 2 more boards of my own using the same connectors found on the model board which I got online.  One board will power the red LEDs for my caution lighting, and the other will power the 4 landing lights which come with the kit.   I then cut some length of small tubing to make little stand offs for the boards to sit on and soldered wires to the connectors for power.

 And glued the 2 boards in place with hot glue next to the kit power board.

Next I installed the 4 LED landing lights which came with the kit.

 Connected the landing light wires and my red LED wires to my new boards, as well as little power cables I made which use a port from the main board to send power to my boards.

And another test light with the caution lights, ramp, and landing lights all attached.

And the final piece of lighting for the bottom hull is the sub light engines.  Again, this is some lighting that came with the kit.

 And they have included LED strips for lighting...

 HOWEVER, you will notice in this photo below, that the LED strips provided do not stretch all the way from end to end.  You can see the gap on the right of both sections.

So when placed together, there is a gap of lighting in the center, which can be seen as a bit of a dark spot.

So I happen to have some extra LED strip lighting around and cut a length of 3 LEDs which perfectly fills the gap between the 2 housings.  So I cut a groove in the housings...

And attached my 3 LED strip in the center...

Giving my nice evenly lit lighting completely from end to end.

The kit also came with a diffusion piece that has a mock up print job of the engine grill work.  I DO NOT plan on using this diffusion.  I'm going to be getting some photo etch grill work which I will be attaching to give it an authentic metal grill system, then using diffusion material behind that of solid white with just a glow of blue around the outer edges, like in the film.  But here's a test of the lights with the kit included diffusion.

So that about completes the lighting and wiring for the bottom hull of the Falcon.  I'm finishing up my mandibles right now and that will most likely be my next post.  Then there will be adding in the interior hold and siding of the Falcon.  Getting very close to the end.


So stay tuned.  MUCH MORE TO COME....