The hangar bay has two exits, that in the current model just exit to empty space, but apparently in the SD, would lead to another section of the hanger. I'd seen a youtube video where the author design a really cool extension that was lit up and provided some extra detail. So i thought it would be cool if I could get something like this to work.

These two exits should show something more interesting...

At first I was going to scratch build the new section completely from scratch. But that turned out to be overly optimistic, ha ha! But once I got the new upgrade kit, I realized that I already had a starting point...

Why not just use this as a starting point? Cut this into a smaller form...

Voila! A new hangar bay extension...

The light would come from the top, with a little "roof" piece:

Painted up:

Now to test how it looks...

OK it works!

Fiber optics...

I made bundles of the fiber, and then used a plastic tube and glued one end in place with CA glue, and then later on will glue the LED into the other end and then light seal it so it doesn't leak light.

Looks awesome.and cool.project. I will.be following.

Very cool!!! 

I love the expanded hanger- great idea!!! 

Very impressive, I hear the music in my head when I see the kit.

Beautiful job!  I love your fiber obtic cable management :-)  Great idea with the magnets as well; make updating and maintenance a breeze.  Looking forward to your next post!

Cheers

Thanks guys. Currently working on finishing up the painting of the hull. Got the fiber optics pretty much done.

Built a light box for the main hanger and the extension

Prepped for it

Test fit:

Added the LED strips

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you too sir!

Love how she's going, I see her thundering over my head shooting at that pesky blockade runner when I look at your photos.

I know sound doesn't travel in the vaccum of space but it sounds so awesome!

New light box working

More painting, getting close to finishing this up

Lightened things up

Some detailing

More weathering, using panel wash made from scrath

Oil wash 

Rubbed off, still working on finishing this

Oh wow that looks sooooooooo good!!! 

Would be cool to see you done by the end of the year! 

Wow, your work on the Star Destroyer is fantastic.

Omigawd!

     That looks like my model of the Titanic before I closd her up! Good job there

Amazing. That lighting alone is an art form.

Thanks, I'm stuck on the electronics, really kicking my butt, I'm still learning how to do this part of it.

Ok some progress finally,

Breadboard test of the first circuit, had to scrap it because I couldn't get my code to supply the LED's with enough power, they were always too dim.

New design uses NeoPixels for the 30 LED fiber optic light sockets, easier to control and less hassle circuit wise.  So here's the new circuit board:

Not the most elegant soldering, LOL, still learning on that...

The input cable that will supply the power and data from the arduino Nano that will eventually run this.

LED plugged in

This is the board hooked up to the arduino to test that it actually works.

This shows the it plugged into two of the command tower LED sockets. Just 35 more of these cables to wire up!

Oh wow! That's a lot of wiring! Looking forward to seeing how she comes out. 

A little more work last night and today.

Lighting test after putting together a few more LEDs

 Put together the engine circuit board, that's separate from the main LEDs, but it shares a connection to the main LED circuit board

Connected together

Then made a test with the LEDS hooked up to the engine housing

 And a test run with the Arduino

It works!

Oh wow, she's really lookin' good!

Engine lighting done! Only thing left would be to possibly tweak the timing on how the lights ramp or or the color pulsing.

Engine running

Looks good! I like the neat look here, so many the fiber optic cable and wiring look like an explosion in a spagetti factory. 

Got some more work done! The last lighting circuit board:

With the IC mounted (TLC 5940NT for those who are curious):

This is going to drive a set of SMD lights, which I spent the weekend mounting and wiring up. These are a joy to work with since the wires for them are 0.2mm thick. Yeah....

This is where one of them get's mounted in the model

Close up after mounting

It works!

JST connectors where the tiny SMD wires will be soldered to, and then use reasonably sane wires that I can actually work with (without worrying about them evaporating into thin air at the slightest touch) for the rest.

Soldered...

Wired up and ready to go...

It's alive!!

That is mind blowing!

Ive wired up a couple of small kits, but this is by and LARGE the coolest build I've ever seen lit up.

Fanfreakintastic!

Yeah, she's looking amazing! 

Cool!

So you used the TI chip for doing shift registers and controlling blocks of LEDs?  I've read about that but not tried it.  How challenging was it to program on the Arduino?

PhoenixG

So you used the TI chip for doing shift registers and controlling blocks of LEDs?  I've read about that but not tried it.

Yes. I have a total of 28 leds for main body (upper and lower halves) & tower, 7 more SMD lights in the lower body, 1 light box for indirect lighting of docking bays, 7 for the engines, and 1 for the tower garbage chute. So thats 44 total. The main body and engine LEDs are driven together (they are neopixel LEDs). The 7 SMDs, garbage chute, and lightbox are driven by the TI chip. 

Both sets have code that instead of simply just turning them on or off, gradually ramps up to full color intensity over the space of about 300-500 millseconds (and in the case of the engines actually flickers the color over time as they are on).

PhoenixG

How challenging was it to program on the Arduino?

Pretty easy. The Arduino IDE works great in terms of seamlessly uploading your compiled code to the actual Arduino hardware. The IDE is simple, but then again the programming is crazy complex either, so it's OK. 

Got the lights for hte tower wired up, simple test...