Light Kit Installation Guides

Revell Millennium Falcon - Fibre Optic Version

This is a great little light kit featuring more fibre optics than the original set.

As with the first light kit, it fits both the original Revell and the re-packaged Force Awakens version.

To save covering old ground in this guide, the following parts of the light kit are installed in exactly the same way as the previous instructional:

The cockpit fibre optics & warm white uplighter.
The central upper and lower clear section lights.
The ramp warm white.
The two front cool white headlights.
The blue booster led strip.
The power leads (models makers choice depending on how the model is to display)

The main difference with this set is a new landing light layout, and red lights for the side sections.

Above is the new lighting layout on the underside of the model. See below to find out how to achieve this lighting pattern.

Drilling the underside of the model...

To install the new landing light layout, you will need a 1mm, 3mm and 5mm drill. To make marking the positions of the lights easier, again its advised to use the small dot stickers as per the previous guide. The fibre optic positions were marked using a fine liner.

To ensure that the drilled holes will miss any important structural part of the model, its advised to hold the base up towards a light source eg window, or light box if you have one, so that you can see through the panel.

Step 1

Start by positioning the marks for the four 5mm warm whites, two on either side of the model. These need to be drilled with a 5mm drill

Step 2

Now its the same marking method for the four 3mm warm whites that are on the underside rear of the model. These need to be drilled with a 3mm drill.

Step 3

Now its time to mark out the positions of the cool white fibre optics. These are positioned as shown towards the outer edge, with five strands in each quarter of the circular base. A fine liner pen is ideal for marking the location of each strand, again using a light source to check everything is correct.

A good tip to get equal spacing of the bunch of five holes is to pick one quarter of the base, mark hole 1, then hole 5. The middle between these gives hole number 3, and the middle between these holes number 2 and 4.

Take your time marking out the fibre positions and always double check that they run inside the model shell, and not through any jointing clip sections. When you're happy with the layout, drill using a 1mm drill.

To ensure the starting point of each group of five holes align, its worth placing a straight edge across the model to make sure that everything is level.

Step 4

To complete the drilling process for the fibres, the two red underside front lights need to be drilled, along with the four corners of the two side panels as shown.

Step 5
With the prep work completed, the leds and strands for the underside can now be fitted. Its helpful to install them in this order for ease of fit:

The four 5mm warm whites.
The ultra violet led for the central clear panel.
The four 3mm warm whites - centre rear of base.
The cool white fibre strands.
The red front underside strands (the two strand unit)
Both of the side panels with the four strand reds.

Continue to build the model and incorporate the light kit as per the previous guide. When 100% happy with the fibre fit, put a blob of glue on each one on the inside of the model shell to secure. Let this dry fully, and use flush cutters to trim the strands to length.

Step 6

Admire your work.... :)

Back To The Future - Delorean Time Machine

(Polar Lights 1:25 Scale)

A great cost effective light kit, the use of which transforms a good quality model into a superb representation of the iconic movie vehicle that it tuly deserves to be...

Step 1

The paint prep work. As is the case with most modification processes to any model, its sometimes necessary to work out of sequence on the build. I started mine by doing some basic paintwork to the model shell. Painting the black areas inside and around the front and rear bumper & light sections are the important points here.

It's necessary to paint the front and rear black trim, even if only roughly at this stage. You can see where I've nibbled away at the near side rear light to experiment with different lighting layouts :)

Step 2

This is the cool bit where we can save a lot of work, and at the same time obtain a better finish on the model. With your light kit, you'll find some printed paper inserts containing the front and rear mid-sections of the car. We will use the lights from these instead of the chrome plastic light section parts supplied with the kit. Carefully cut out the area around each printed light unit. Leave plenty of excess on the cut, and then offer up the part to the light housing so you can trim to a better fit. Take your time and trim off a small amount only each time until you get a decent size fit for each insert. Leave enough so there isn't any light bleed from the edges of each piece. There is also a spare for each provided with your light kit, in case you do make a mistake on one :)

When you're happy with each cut section, place a small blob of pva glue (only use pva for this job to prevent discolouration) on each side of the light housing. Push the paper inserts into place - use a scalpel blade to do this ideally.

Step 3

Consider how you'll be displaying the model, and where you think it will be best to run the power lead to the light kit so that it is hidden from view. I always fit mine to the front of the car, drilling a 3mm hole as shown in the apex section of the chassis.

Step 4

We now need to look at modifying the car interior. In order to do this, clip together the interior base and flux capacitor back-board as shown.

The first modification required are two 3mm drilled holes in front of the two seats, where the two UV up-lighters will be positioned.

Four fibre optic strands are used to illuminate the flux capacitor. With the car backing fitted to the interior, use a 1mm drill to create holes as shown on the flux capacitor. A single 3mm hole is then also needed behind this back-board as shown, to allow the fibre strands to be routed from underneath the car.