I've been playing with the Moebius Iron Man kit and here is some progress.
The main power wire runs through the right leg and into the base where a 9 volt battery and switch will be housed.

The paint process is time consuming. The model must be sanded as smooth as possible before the gloss black primer is laid down. Any imperfections found at that time must be fixed and re-primed

Then the Alclad gold is put on and now more little imperfections show up. There was one spot on the upper leg that had to be filled and sanded three times before I could make it go away.

Once the gold is complete and hardened then it can be masked off and four coats of Alclad clear red can go on. After this has hardened for a couple hours the masks can be removed including the mask on the hand impulse unit.

The interior of the hand was coated with thick acrylic black before the LED was installed then hot glue was overlaid and more black paint applied then tested in a dark room to ensure no light leaks. Pictures of that will be along shortly but trust me when I say it was really cool looking.
I started to black out the interior of the torso when I came across an article on lighting kits that talked about brass light tubes to prevent light leaks. I simply picked up a 10cc syringe, cut the end off, painted it with two coats of black, cut off another section and installed it in the chest -- tested perfect.

It is secured with superglue then that was painted with the thick acrylic paint. There's plenty of room in the chest for the main board and all the wiring.

Well CosmicJ, that is one reason I choose this kit to light up, it is my first light job with LEDS and puts me on the learning curve. First, with LEDs you need to reduce the current from the battery with a resistor or you will burn out the LED. A very basic rule of thumb is to take the voltage you plan on using, divide by .02 and there is your resistor value. I'm using a 9 volt battery which gives me a value of 450 so I can use any resisitor of 450 ohm or GREATER. The greater the ohm number the dimmer the LED. I'm using 470 ohm because that was easiest to find. Each LED gets a resistor between it and the battery.

Next is perf board, this is the little IC board you solder everything to. All it does is hold things together and keep things in order. You can buy these cheap at Radio Shack or from All Electronics.com.  Now just solder everything together testing at every connection, keep in mind that current flows only one way through an LED, not both like through a light bulb.

The next big thing is light leakage. These little LEDs are bright and will shine right through your plastic so coat the interior with a high density black paint, maybe a second coat of white or silver or glue foil inside the body to reflect the light back and check your work in a darkened room. After that it's basic model construction and painting. This is really simple stuff compared to lighting a starship which takes a boatload more of your time but the same basic principles are in effect. For flashing effects add a divider/counter chip like a 555 chip to your board but that is a little more complex discussion. If you want it fast and easy and don't mind paying the price then Federation Models or VCSHobbies carries a variety of lighting kits to name just a few.

Once I do the build feature for this kit I'll include more details of what I have done.

Nice job in this one, Swanny ... and you too Roy. Swanny, you're attention to detail REALLY shows in the paint job. What you've got thus far as inspired me to put this one on my "to do" list. I have worked a few lighted kits before, but not completed them as they are a little slow to get together, but I think this one is simple a perfect "first" kit.

Again, nice job thus far. We'll keep watching this one!

Wow Roy, That's really impressive. I noticed the casting errors also but am only fixing one on the helmet. I tried to paint the torso the other day but the humidity levels were so high the Alclad gold wanted to fog up. Have to wait for things to dry out before continuing.

I used the VooDoo Fx lighting kit but really this is pretty easy to do on your own. I changed the chest LED and should have changed the head LED. The chest was changed over to a 5mm LED and I should have put a wider viewing angle LED in the head. The 30 degree viewing angle on the kit provided piece is not that great for lighting the eyes.

I'm almost done with this one, just have to do the eye lenses, fix the helmet and fix one paint issue on the back and this baby is ready to present.

Most cool ! I can imagine that the kit would look fantastic lit up at dusk. Very nice job on that one !

bilbirk wrote:

Nice work to all of you. It makes me want to go out and buy one of these kits

Yes, listen to the voices .... buy more model kits!

Do you have a list of materials you use to light the kit.  I am lighting a viper and I am at a loss on what type of batter/LED/Risistors I need.

 Thanks,

Jon

Put a 9 volt battery in a base to power the model. Use 5mm bright blue LEDs for the engines and a 5mm bright green for the main instrument panel. If you are going to light any side panels then look for 1.8mm LEDs for the two right panels and maybe a 3mm ultra bright white to light drilled out buttons. For each LED you will want a 470 ohm resistor or greater. The higher the resistance number the dimmer the LED. Basically you need to place one resistor between the battery and each LED. You could power more than one LED through one resistor but they start getting dim if you do that. Can be useful if some instrument lights are too bright and you want to tone them down a little. Take a look at the build feature on my website for the Iron Man kit where I discuss these things in even more detail.

That is so awesome! I love the paint. Alclad works wonders...