The pre-wired LEDs greatly simplify things, but they tangle very easily and searching through the jumble for specific ones gets old really fast. So to make life easier, they were all bagged separately. It also keeps them safe until needed.
https://flic.kr/p/2dWKDt1]
[/url]K’tinga-11 by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr
I did a light test of the rear torpedo launcher, at first without any mods except for painting the LED clear orange.
https://flic.kr/p/2f3Ekyg]
[/url]K’tinga-17 by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr
And here is what it looks like with the reflector cone (inside painted chrome) borrowed from the forward torpedo launcher.
https://flic.kr/p/2f3EkHe]
[/url]K’tinga-18 by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr
So the plan is to fashion a new cone for the rear launcher. BTW, none of the LEDs fit snugly into their sockets; they are mostly really loosey-goosey. Definitely not Bandai level here.
The impulse engines were mocked up to address any problems. The right bay was quickly painted with the Molotow chrome pen. There were lots of misses due to the shape of the pen tip, but I will touch up later on using a brush.
https://flic.kr/p/2dWKDD1]
[/url]K’tinga-12 by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr
The LEDs were painted clear red, and the red lenses from the lighting set were used for the test.
https://flic.kr/p/2f3Ejfz]
[/url]K’tinga-13 by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr
The right bay definitely has more distributed light, but I think painting the insides of the exhaust fairings chrome will bump it up even more.
https://flic.kr/p/SUwyAC]
[/url]K’tinga-16 by N.T. Izumi, on Flickr
Some paper was cut to fit inside the exhaust fairings to act as light diffusers, but the reduction in brightness was too much. The orientation of the LEDs is important to get the best out of the light output; for the test they were just pushed through some slit tape on the backside of the bulkhead so they ended up pointing every which way. The LEDs are 3mm whereas the holes are 5mm. Again, not Bandai.
Frosted translucent material will be tried next.
As a side note, my opinion of this kit so far is that it is a really good kit that could have been a truly great kit. There are odd choices like the LED colors, loose mounting sockets, weak light distribution in certain parts (bridge windows), fragile locator pins and too-tight sockets for the hull, instruction errors, sub-optimized integration of the lighting set instructions to the kit ones, and PE details from the accessory lighting set that just don't work well. Normally these would really put me off a kit, but Polar Lights gets a pass because the plastic parts make it the best Star Trek kit ever IMHO.
I still feel really good about the kit despite any bumps, and I'm liking it more every day! Now THAT is the most important quality of a model kit.