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Hi guys, I'm spending way too much time in front of this machine so I decided to go out and get a fun project to do. I use to love building star trek models as a kid, so I'm reverting a bit to my childhood with the 1/350 scale Enterprise NX-01 Polar Lights model. Alas "polar lights" is a brand name so it won't light up as it is. It's going to take a creative bit of eletronics, lots of LED's, many tins of paint, and weeks to do it properly. So I've started at the very beginning. Opening the box!



YouTube video of model

This guy basically had wires sticking out of the back of the warp regulator (yeah, sorry I know what it's all called). I want to take a different approch and replace the stand spikes with metal rods and use these to discreetly transfere power into the bottom of the ship, so whenever it's put on it's stand it will light up, and when it's not, there's no obtrusive wires hanging out the back of it. It would be easy enough to rig up a supply to power it off stand as well. I might stick and extra jack somewhere, like a docking port, as an aux power source (I've broken stands before!).

anyway, anyone done this, wanted to do this, or go any idea's? I'm looking at LED's at the moment, and plan to use:



For the engines. Should keep the lighting consistant. I'll paint the transparent bits so being white won't matter. I also want to use:



For the bassard collectors, if I paint it with a little shadow it should produce a nice plasma effect.

I'll use:



To light up things like the ships name and various markings. And I'll use:



For navigational lights, they flash on their own, so it will reduce the need for additional circuits.

Wow, so much for the Geek Culture! Apparently no one here is a true Geek at all.

Well, though I am not a Star Trek fan, or a fan of building plastic models. This does sound cool, with all the LEDs and all.

I like building plastic models, but I always prefered cars. If I had a good source for electronic parts I'd have model cars driving themselves around the house.
Cool project, do it slowly and don't forget to post a few pics when its done!

People who do their own custom construction projects (like this or computers or cosplay) that really looks amazing are great people. Not a lot of people have the skills or patience required for such a project and it's hard to get things to look really good.

I wish you good luck and I'm looking forward to see the final result.

I get most of my stuff from www.maplin.com or http://rswww.com/ if you need to build anything electronic one of those two generally have the parts needed. LED's are pretty simple circuits though, it's basically just the basic diode and resistor circuit, with an on, off switch.

Oooo... do they ship to Brazil? Maplin apparently does if I contact the sales team. That 80 LED kit is tempting.

I want step by step photo updates.

You should have made it in a modeller anyway.

I received my first shipment of basic tools today, a file, pair of tweezers, cutting pilers, and a knife. The file is double sided rough and smooth so I should be able to do a decent job separating the pieces from their plastic runs. I also received my Ravell glue. I always go for the professional stuff, because it's long metal nozzle is more accurate, not bad for 88p as well. It's soooo easy to put too much glue on these things. So it's going to be this stuff, the nozzle and a pin to spread it around.



I forgot the paint! Of course I can't glue until I've painted everything, so I've just put in an order for bushes, paints and brush cleaners now. I was going to go spray or airbrush but the kit is rather expensive and messy. For now I ordered Aluminium which I intend to cover everything I with as an undercoat, then I'll purchase steel paint later on, and some masking tape to add the Aztec patterning to the hull. They recommend on the instructions, a combination of aluminium, gun metal, and steel. But I've been reviewing the textures on 3D models for games such as Bridge Commander, and Star Trek Legacy, and I can't see a trace of gun metal on it, so I'll try and follow the patterning on these textures as best I can, they look the closest to the TV screen model used. I also ordered clear red and clear blue. Engines warp coil panels and bassard ramscoop. I didn't get clear green because that only really applies to some of the running lights. I'm deciding if I should replace the small model parts and use the auto blinking LED's I found. At very least I can use a glue gun and let refraction do it's job. So there's no point in painting them I feel. Not when there's only six of them, and three of those are red.