Pt III Finishing the Cockpit

I have decided to light my targeting computer for my Luke Skywalker pilot.  First thing I've done is to paint the targeting computer as close as possible to the computer seen in the film.

After painting, I drill out a little section in the computer screen area where I can mount a 0402 SMD LED to light my targeting computer screen.

A hole is drilled through the side of the computer to run my LED wires through.

I then printed out a scale photo of the targeting computer screen which I recreated in Photoshop to glue over my LED to be illuminated.

In the film, there is a coiled cable coming from the targeting computer.  So I will wrap the 2 wires around each other and paint them gray to simulate the coiled cable seen in the film.

It was then on to more lighting for the front of the cockpit.   You
can see in this photo here there are red and yellow lights running down the gray strip in the cockpit front section.

So I carefully drilled holes down the gray stripe that I had previously painted, so that I could then run some fiber optics into the holes to light.

I then began to glue in red and yellow fibers with Elmer's Glue to hold them in place.

I bent some of the fibers at the end so that when placed in the cockpit, they would bend back toward the LED that would be illuminating them.

I also painted the inside of the cockpit white the help reflect the LED light through the photoetch at the front of the cockpit.

And a quick test of lighting with the photoetch and the fiber optics run.

I then ran 2 more red fibers to 2 holes which would be blinking.

It was time to finish the side consoles of the cockpit.  I glued pieces of styrene around the area to create a light box, to contain all of the light and reflect through the photoetch.

Small holes were cut in either side for my 0402 SMD LED light to go inside.

And the boxes were then painted with a dark gray for light blocking, so that no light would be seen coming from this area, except through the photoetch.

At this point, I cut out a small portion of a breadboard to attach to the underside of the cockpit for all of my wires to run to for power.

The 2 side console LEDs were put in place and then soldered to my breadboard.

To accomplish the blinking of the 2 fibers in the front of the cockpit, I purchased some flashing 0606 SMD LEDs.

The LED was then placed in a small piece of shrink tube which I then shrank around the LED to seal it in place and leave an area for the fiber optic to run into and receive the light from the LED.

My cockpit was then assembled by placing the front portion of the cockpit together with the LED housing, putting it in place in the cockpit and running the 2 blinking fibers through the floor.

I then drilled a hole in the back of the cockpit to run the wires through for the targeting computer and put the computer in place with the pilot.

The flashing LEDs were then glued in  place on the underside of the cockpit on each side.  And all remaining LEDs for the cockpit were soldered to my breadboard to provide them with power.  The 2 blinking fibers were also run into the flashing LED on either side for illumination.  I also soldered on 2 connectors to my breadboard.  1 connector is to provide power for the board, and the other is power out for the engine lights to come later.

So what I love about what I've done here with the cockpit, is that it's completely self contained.  Just plug in the power connector and the entire cockpit lights.

I then placed the cockpit in the bottom of the X-wing body, and attached the upper portion around the cockpit to just get a taste of how it would look fully assembled.

So that's my completed cockpit.  Next I'll be working on the electronics of the kit to incorporate my electronics in as well.


So stay tuned.  Much more to come...