SeaQuest LED

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  • Vaportrail
    Ensign
    • Jun 2018
    • 6

    SeaQuest LED

    I've been rolling my new 1:300 SeaQuest over in my hands, making a plan for it. I'm pretty sure I want to do internal lighting to optimize it as a display piece, but I don't want to have to slice the hull in half to do it. That's gonna take some planning.

    I've not done too much with lighting, just hooking EL wire to a battery, but that's not the part I think I'll struggle with. Rigging it to stay in place will be the trick, possibly having to feed the lights and wires through holes I'll drill in the docking back support arms.
    I'll have to draw a diagram of where I want to put these, but for now, I'm just looking at references.
    Click image for larger version

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  • RCSubGuy
    Welcome to my underwater realm!
    • Aug 2009
    • 1768

    #2
    The SeaQuest kits are hollow and white resin, so light will reflect around in there really well. I'd just put a few high-powered cool white LED's shining into the cavity and be done with it. The tricky part is going to be drilling out all of those windows. They're not circular, they're triangular, narrow at the top and long. They're also annoyingly tiny (maybe 1/8" tall?).

    Be sure to post progress up here! I'd love to see what you do with the kit!

    Bob

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    • Vaportrail
      Ensign
      • Jun 2018
      • 6

      #3
      I'm going to order a soldering iron with some swappable tips. A fine point should be able to melt out the windows, or at least deepen them a bit. I might want to rub some clear epoxy in the holes so it's still sealed.

      After some Googling, I'm not sure a battery pack exists that will fit through the docking back doors, so I may have to feed a wire through the display stand and have a connector clip embedded in the hull somewhere.
      I'm so hesitant to cut unnecessarily, because it's important to me to keep this baby as seamless as possible.

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      • RCSubGuy
        Welcome to my underwater realm!
        • Aug 2009
        • 1768

        #4
        Would be no problem to put a connector in there, though mounting it through the sub bay doors will require the dexterity of a rectal surgeon along with special tools.

        The soldering gun was actually used to make the window outlines, but I don't think it will work at all for opening the holes. Don't do it. The hull is thick enough that you'll just melt a huge hole where you want the tiny window to go.

        My thought: small drill bit followed by a micro file with a triangular profile.

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