It's great to see the teacher holding class again. I will definitely do the E again with your method but I will also try it with my AMT 1/537 Reliant. Can't wait.
When I used the fibre for the nav lights, my saucer simply wouldn't go together properly. I scrapped it and went with the 0402 SMD's and had a much better result. The port and starboard saucer navigation lights are actually 2 lights side by side. One red/green (depending on the side) which are constant on, and one white that flashed. It's a tiny detail that's easy to miss on screen!
Thanks for this series. I've had this kit sitting on the shelf for years but never wanted to bother with the windows. Tonight I scuffed the hull with steel wool. I'm going give it a try. Keep up the great content. Big fan of the channel.
I ordered my kit for this today and found this video by chance. Seriously love your work and attention to detail gonna use the scrape method for my Windows.
Looking great! Seems like a great alternative to drilling which I did on my build. It was so tedious and broke so many bits I gave up multiple times out of frustration.
For light blocking I've had good luck just covering the SMDs with black electrical tape. Works faster than paint and only need to superglue the edges after to make sure it doesn't peel up. The tape also works great to make some windows look a bit dimmer, so they don't all look equally bright.
Excellent work on this so far. I like the methods you're using. I mainly like how you're keeping it simple. I've seen too many builds where the process is too overthought and unnecessarily complicated.
For the bussard lava effect, I'd go with yellow leds, rather than orange for the fading/stiring. I found that orange leds didnt have enough colour contrast to permeate through the solid reds so the effect was almost invisible
You got me to reorder this kit! I've been itching to build an Enterprise but I'm not doing another D till the 1/1000 kit drops so this is perfect. I'm liking that some of your windows are off, a lot of people just light them all up and it never looks "real" When I did mine I applied thinned transparent colors on a lot of the windows to vary up the color, too. The Ent-D had differently colored windows, sure, but the E had backlit photographs of the interiors built into the windows, so that color variation is a really prominent part of the ship's look Do you think that this many layers of paint will obscure some of the finer details, like the phaser strips?
Not sure if you want to try this or not Boyd but to keep the deflector from washing out I used a little cotton from a cotton ball. I also stuffed the nacelles with it and it diffused the light great and kept it a nice cool color
I even painted the led strip blue and put the cotton over it and that way it kept the chiller clear instead of blue when it's turned off. It looked surprisingly good
Looks great. I know these are old videos but do you have any plans online that someone could follow to do a similar build? Do you have a list of all the lights/leds you used and where you got them from? Thanks.
I'm building an old 1:1400 D fiber optic model. I didn't like the look of the fiber optic lighting so I'm drilling out the windows and filling with clear canopy glue instead. It is quite a slog and the results don't come out nearly this clean.
Hi Boyd, awesome videos!! One of the things that caught my attention was how you used your power supply to apply volts for the lights. I was curious what settings you used on the power supply?
The voltage was set to 12 here but the model now that I have it together only needed 9 volts to be bright enough. The current knobs I just leave set in the middle. The lights will just draw what they need. Typically less than an amp with these lighted starships.
For my clarification Boyd, the dupli color your talking about for sealing the paint, is that just the same stuff i can buy at AutoZone? Dupli color clear matte or gloss? And it sprays smooth? Like other brands have sent globs over the model and its nessed up the finish. Thanks ,just trying to understand
Hey, Boyd. When lighting a model, what do you recommend doing first? Lighting it, gluing it together, then painting? I've been painting first then putting the lights in so I don't have to worry about painting over the lights but I haven't had too much success doing it that way.
I wonder if this light scratch method would apply to the older Enterprise-D kit? That thing has hundreds of windows and the Polar Lights clear version is out of production now.
Oh how I wish, but I tried to do that a while back and the pigments are just too strong. No matter how many lights you shove in there you can't get any windows to look white, only shades of blue and lime green
I wonder when there are already SMDs involved why even bother with fiberoptics? Just put tape the outside of the 1mm hole, put some solarez and the smd on the inside, dry it and remove the tape on the outside. No real need to install a fiber anywhere and a bit quicker as well.
He really likes his lighting to be in scale. A raw SMD would be a whole lot of light, enough to look out of scale and probably push a lot of color into the surrounding windows, too
Penny Gadget agreed. But Boyd has put 0805 smd’s directly over the predrilled hole on his 1/1000 reliant and enterprise in the battle of mutara nebula diorama. He definitely has a reason for doing it though.
In this case I had to mount the SMD's in spots that were clear of any of the window groups on the outside. Otherwise if I painted the light blocking black over the SMD's the windows around them would be blocked as well. I've done it the way you suggest when there isn't any nearby that I'm worried about.
@@TrekWorks SOunds reasonable, but I think that can even be done with windows in the vincinity. First step would to drill out the hole, then applying light blocking on the inside and the hole as well (thus preventing light spill through the cut section. Then, the SMD gets secured on the hole using a very precise amount of resin. Since the SMD is very small this small amount of resin might just suffice. Also, some pencil markings on the inside indicating the window location might help to navigate around the window areas.
It's great to see the teacher holding class again. I will definitely do the E again with your method but I will also try it with my AMT 1/537 Reliant. Can't wait.
You can also use liquid black tape
Can't wait to see the finished product 🙏👍✌❤👊😁
If you use 1 pulsing led in series with 1 regular led, they will both pulse in sync. Nice build so far!
Yes, I've used that method before. It works great for certain things and you won't need a control board to keep everything synced.
I used to do that as a kid lol.
Looks like the new lighting approach works well! 👍
When I used the fibre for the nav lights, my saucer simply wouldn't go together properly. I scrapped it and went with the 0402 SMD's and had a much better result. The port and starboard saucer navigation lights are actually 2 lights side by side. One red/green (depending on the side) which are constant on, and one white that flashed. It's a tiny detail that's easy to miss on screen!
Thanks for this series. I've had this kit sitting on the shelf for years but never wanted to bother with the windows. Tonight I scuffed the hull with steel wool. I'm going give it a try. Keep up the great content. Big fan of the channel.
The kit is coming along very nicely. Love the lighting in the saucer section.
Boyd thanks for the update the lighting looks awesome looking forward to the next update have a great day.
I ordered my kit for this today and found this video by chance. Seriously love your work and attention to detail gonna use the scrape method for my Windows.
Looking great! Seems like a great alternative to drilling which I did on my build. It was so tedious and broke so many bits I gave up multiple times out of frustration.
For light blocking I've had good luck just covering the SMDs with black electrical tape. Works faster than paint and only need to superglue the edges after to make sure it doesn't peel up.
The tape also works great to make some windows look a bit dimmer, so they don't all look equally bright.
I like the way it's looking, I'm definitely going to light it like you're doing it.
Love to see Pt-2 I have that same model kit still in it's box. I love your ideas. Great demo .
Excellent work on this so far. I like the methods you're using. I mainly like how you're keeping it simple. I've seen too many builds where the process is too overthought and unnecessarily complicated.
Awesome! Boyd, I have been watching your videos for some time now and you rock! I have learned much from you. Thank you for the education.
Nice electronics you're installing.
Once again, more useable tips that actually work. Thanks!
As always the master Boyda is getting it done perfectly. :) Nice nice work senor.
For the bussard lava effect, I'd go with yellow leds, rather than orange for the fading/stiring. I found that orange leds didnt have enough colour contrast to permeate through the solid reds so the effect was almost invisible
You got me to reorder this kit! I've been itching to build an Enterprise but I'm not doing another D till the 1/1000 kit drops so this is perfect. I'm liking that some of your windows are off, a lot of people just light them all up and it never looks "real"
When I did mine I applied thinned transparent colors on a lot of the windows to vary up the color, too. The Ent-D had differently colored windows, sure, but the E had backlit photographs of the interiors built into the windows, so that color variation is a really prominent part of the ship's look
Do you think that this many layers of paint will obscure some of the finer details, like the phaser strips?
Not sure if you want to try this or not Boyd but to keep the deflector from washing out I used a little cotton from a cotton ball. I also stuffed the nacelles with it and it diffused the light great and kept it a nice cool color
I even painted the led strip blue and put the cotton over it and that way it kept the chiller clear instead of blue when it's turned off. It looked surprisingly good
Thanks for the great tips Boyd.
Looks great. I know these are old videos but do you have any plans online that someone could follow to do a similar build? Do you have a list of all the lights/leds you used and where you got them from? Thanks.
Everyone who builds this kit from now plus going to use that scraper method for the windows.
I'm building an old 1:1400 D fiber optic model. I didn't like the look of the fiber optic lighting so I'm drilling out the windows and filling with clear canopy glue instead. It is quite a slog and the results don't come out nearly this clean.
Hi Boyd, awesome videos!! One of the things that caught my attention was how you used your power supply to apply volts for the lights. I was curious what settings you used on the power supply?
The voltage was set to 12 here but the model now that I have it together only needed 9 volts to be bright enough. The current knobs I just leave set in the middle. The lights will just draw what they need. Typically less than an amp with these lighted starships.
@@TrekWorks Thanks Boyd, much appreciated.
When you used the transparent blue did you paint both sides of the pazzard collectors or just the top or underneath the clear piece?
So why did we use fiber optics for nav lighting as opposed to placing small led below and filling hole with resin to build up the light?
For my clarification Boyd, the dupli color your talking about for sealing the paint, is that just the same stuff i can buy at AutoZone? Dupli color clear matte or gloss? And it sprays smooth? Like other brands have sent globs over the model and its nessed up the finish. Thanks ,just trying to understand
Get the Duplicolor matte finish for wheels. It's excellent and dries smooth.
@@TrekWorks thanks so much. Will get this and and am gearing up to tackle this project
Hey, Boyd. When lighting a model, what do you recommend doing first? Lighting it, gluing it together, then painting? I've been painting first then putting the lights in so I don't have to worry about painting over the lights but I haven't had too much success doing it that way.
Do you mean the light blocking painting? If so yes I paint that first.
@@TrekWorks No, the entire process. Do I light block, install the lights, assemble the model, prime, then paint?
Love this method! Are you using both 3528s and 0805s? Thanks
Do you think that scraping technique will work on a D that's not clear?
😃👍👍👍👌
What is the best way to strip a SMD for soldering?
Are you skipping the registry lighting? I was planning on doing a Raytheon effect for it and an SMD for the faux spotlight
do you have a link for the aztec decals you plan to use for this build?
I wonder if this light scratch method would apply to the older Enterprise-D kit? That thing has hundreds of windows and the Polar Lights clear version is out of production now.
Oh how I wish, but I tried to do that a while back and the pigments are just too strong. No matter how many lights you shove in there you can't get any windows to look white, only shades of blue and lime green
I wonder when there are already SMDs involved why even bother with fiberoptics? Just put tape the outside of the 1mm hole, put some solarez and the smd on the inside, dry it and remove the tape on the outside. No real need to install a fiber anywhere and a bit quicker as well.
I actually wondered the same thing actually. But after watching many UA-cam clips from Boyd, he definitely has a reason for everything he does
He really likes his lighting to be in scale. A raw SMD would be a whole lot of light, enough to look out of scale and probably push a lot of color into the surrounding windows, too
Penny Gadget agreed. But Boyd has put 0805 smd’s directly over the predrilled hole on his 1/1000 reliant and enterprise in the battle of mutara nebula diorama.
He definitely has a reason for doing it though.
In this case I had to mount the SMD's in spots that were clear of any of the window groups on the outside. Otherwise if I painted the light blocking black over the SMD's the windows around them would be blocked as well. I've done it the way you suggest when there isn't any nearby that I'm worried about.
@@TrekWorks SOunds reasonable, but I think that can even be done with windows in the vincinity. First step would to drill out the hole, then applying light blocking on the inside and the hole as well (thus preventing light spill through the cut section. Then, the SMD gets secured on the hole using a very precise amount of resin. Since the SMD is very small this small amount of resin might just suffice. Also, some pencil markings on the inside indicating the window location might help to navigate around the window areas.