Commission build for 1/850 Bandai U.S.S Enterprise NCC-1701.
Simple review of the kits, kinda surprise Bandai have such kits, i do admit my scale model knowledge still very shallow.
This kits come out in 2003, it come with bulbs, soldered to extra long wires, also with conducting metal parts for the stand and battery holder. Some of the parts still attach to frame, all painted (except for the base) even have aztec pattern pretty awesome, just some minor part need to touch up on the paints. Bandai even use undergate to hide the nub marks, but still some parts can’t be avoid, but just touch up with some acrylic paint will be good enough.

The clear part are used to transmit the light throughout the kits. Only single color bulbs were provided, which is yellow color, they using colored clear part to change the light color. Which is kinda clever, if the light source is white will be more accurate.

Start this kits by changing the bulbs to LED which will last longer.

Using white 5mm LED, you can even paint it with clear color, and it will emit light with color you painted. In this case i paint with clear orange and clear blue. Pay attention when solder the wires, set your polarity with the color of the wires., example Red for negative white for positive.

The circuit for this project is simple, the power source i replace with DC adapter which provide 9V of voltage, so need to reduce it with 220 ohm resistor, and the LED are in parallel. Well, it’s doesn’t look that clean in real thing. :p :p

Add extra mini LED just for the deflector, suppose to be in blue instead of orange.

To prevent it from ‘color contamination’ due to different color LED, i drill a tiny hole just enough for the LED to fit in, paint it with silver follow by black to block other light source from enter.

The power source, i use the adapter as shown above. The connector (jack) need to purchase separately, and i glue it to the base (cutting and sanding needed).

 Finally add panel line with tamiya panel line accent (gray), follow by shading with dark grey pastel, apply with cotton bud. The completed gallery http://www.beckycustomizer.com/completed-works-gallery/#3158