Today, I changed my mind and decided that this point in the build would the best place to engineer the LED lighting effects. All of the components that will receive the treatment are easily accessible.
The initial step consisted of finding the features that would be the easiest to modify, then tackle the tougher ones later.
The first parts are the two vertical openings to the left of the trans red disc.
The original parts consist of two 1x1 'lantern' elements with trans light blue 'dome' elements inserted in the back.
These trans blue are simply replaced by a pair of 3mm blue LEDS. Some 22 guage wire is soldered onto the leads prior to attaching to the model.
The LEDS are a slightly loose fit into the holes of the LEGO pieces, so a drop of CA is necessary to keep them in place.
I'm usually averse to using glue on LEGO unless it's absolutely necessary.
I'm good with it here since this set will remain assembled and on display.
It must be noted here that I am designing the lighting system on the fly. Once all of the LEDS are in their respective places on the model, I will then decide what kind of power supply I want to use, as well as a switching arrangement. A small circuit board will be built to accommodate all of the limiting resistors needed for the individual LEDs. These resistors must be selected to not only provide protection for the LEDS, but to also set their overall brightness level.
For the time being, here is a quick functional test on one of the LEDs:
Cheers...!
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