Introduction
My most ambitious LED project to date. A lot of thought went into this, as I had to figure out where to hide the switch and the battery, and how to lead the wires through it all.
Obvious precondition: have the Chimera in subassemblies, finish all magnetization tasks.
Placing the switch
I decided to place the switch on the underside of the Chimera. This will make it easily accessible. I measured it against the tracks by dryfitting, and it looks like it won't hang out.
Mark the contours of the piece to be cut out using the knife.
I drilled through with my power drill. I was then able to cut through the connectors with the snippers.
Smooth out the sides, then superglue in the switch.
Reinforce with green stuff.
Adding the LED to the searchlight
This is the lamp face from the kit. Drill through the middle with the power drill, then use the knife to widen the hole.
I did not want to risk clouding the LED, so I applied minimal amounts of superglue using a toothpick. Then drill through the back of the searchlight, widen the hole with the knife and make it more an ellipse than a circle so the two connectors can comfortably come out through the back. Superglue in, as I did not want to possibly damage the LED with plastic glue.
Painstakingly insert duct tape into the opening so as to separate the LED connectors.
A 3mm hole in the turret is enough for the wires.
Dry fit to make sure that the wires are long enough.
Solder on the wires to the (shortened) connectors, then wrap them in duct tape. Superglue the duct tape so that it will stand the test of time.
Plastic glue the searchlight to the turret. Pull the wires through the hole. Superglue the hole from the inside.
Reinforce with green stuff.
Drill through the lower turret connector.
Glue all the pieces of the turret with plastic glue.
Back door
I initially considered having the battery holder in the underside just like the switch, but decided against it as it is quite fiddly to get the battery out. Instead, I decided to make the back door workable so that I can hide the battery in the inside of the Chimera and pull it out through the door. It has hinges so a magnet should be enough to hold it closed.
I secured a large flat magnet using green stuff to the upper half of the body. I left it overnight in a safe position by propping it up using whatever available.
This proved to be sub-optimal as the very slight movement this sub-assembly experienced already made the green stuff warp. So the next day I assembled the carriage.
I then secured the magnet back with superglue, added more green stuff as reinforcement, and dryfit the top plate and the back door. Leave it overnight.
Final assembly
Lay out the circuit and test the components; at this point I just twisted the wires around the connection points. This is an important part; for example, here I found out that the superglue got into the switch and the button is glued shut. Sigh.
Improvise, adapt, overcome by adding a new switch to the circuit. A soldering stand like this helps a lot.
Add duct tape to the connection points. As before, superglue it shut.
Test fit the carriage to see that everything works, then glue it in using plastic glue.
Snap the back door in place and its finished.
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