Installing Lights to the Millennium Falcon

Another thought, give lots and lots of time to considering what you want to light up and where the LEDs will live, and how you will get wires to them. A single 5mm wrapped in a tube, can probably light up 50+ strands of 0.5mm fiber optic cables. 

Consider getting some 28 or 30 AWG wires, the 30 AWG is thin, but it takes up less space as things progress. This is what I should have used for my Star Destroyer.

Also you will need to seal things snugly to prevent light leaks. So you'll need to prime the innards in black ( I suppose any color will work, but that's what I used). 

If you want to have flashing lights without an arduino or other microcontroller, then you can build circuits with a combination transistors, resistors, and capacitors to do this. For example if you wanted to light up the MF cockpit area, you could use several small LEDs, maybe with different colors, and have some with the transistor/capacitor circuit to be flashing, and others to remain a steady glow. YOu can search for YT video on this or check this out

https://blog.jongallant.com/2015/01/simple-blinking-led/

Agree with the comments here, you're gonna be spending some money... :)

Getting a good soldering iron definitely helps, I went with a Hako 888D, been really happy with it.

Get some breadboards!

Another thing to get is a DC power supply. You plug it into your AC socket, and then it lets you choose the DC power output in Volts, and then some let you control the current (Amps) as well. You can also see the total current your circuit is drawing while it's active, which is great if you're going to go with a battery setup and need to know what your power requirements are (yes you can work all this out on paper mathematically but it's really nice to get it confirmed in the real world with this).

One question you'll want to ask, if you just want some lights (of a single color) to immediately turn on, and then turn off when you flip a switch, then that's relatively easy to set up and design the circuit for. But if you want the lights to "power up" , i.e. gradually increase in brightness, then that's a more complex design. If you want different colors as well, then that's also more complicated.

I learned by watching a bunch of youtube videos on electronics basics. Ultimately I went with using neopixels because you got color control, and intensity control all in one thing and you could buy them individually as single LEDs and then just wire them together and hook them up to a microcontroller. Since I write software for a living it wasn't hard to program the arduino to handle this.  

I have a FineMolds 1/72 MF kit waiting for the same treatment! Curious to see what you come up with!

Some links from my personal list of stuff that I used

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSRe_4TQbuo&list=PLvOlSehNtuHtVLq2MDPIz82BWMIZcuwhK&ab_channel=EEVblog

https://www.youtube.com/@EEVblog

His channel is great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poWJTSV4Yio&list=PLowKtXNTBypETld5oX1ZMI-LYoA2LWi8D&ab_channel=BenEater

https://www.youtube.com/@BenEater

Another great channel, does a great job explaining

Like so many things the answer varies depending upon the desired end result.  This seemed like a decent intro to using LEDs and lighting model kits.

https://www.instructables.com/LED-Lighting-in-Plastic-Models/

There are even LED strips that are premanufactured so you don't have to do any of the calculations.  Just cut off the number of LEDS you need and add power.

https://www.monstersinmotion.com/cart/model-lighting-c-17_600/

If you are planning on soldering, before buying an Iron I highly recommend these videos.  These videos got me soldering with confidence. Before watching them I couldn't solder to save my life.

The first video is an excellent intro to soldering iron $$-performance.  As well as an excellent primer on good soldering basics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAvnQw5wIRY

Next step in building soldering skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ndHYeFa-pQ

Hopes this helps.

These guys are pretty good for ready-made lighting kits and other assorted Star Wars and sci-fi kits.  I have their lighting kit for the Bandai 1/72 Falcon and its a pretty cool setup...easy to set up and get working...now I just have to finish building it some day.  I actually have a degree in Electronics Engineering, but I just didn't want to deal with the hassle.  LOL

https://www.falcon3dparts.com/collections/all

The only real advice I can give if you want to undertake putting together your own lighting solution is:  Don't cheap out on a soldering iron.  I have a Weller WES51, which was a little pricey, but it works flawlessly.

Don't know but will this help?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e98xUFW6mmk