Polar Lights 1/350 scale K'T'inga lighting kit p/review

[Steam235]

First Impressions.

First off. This is a good looking lighting kit. I'm going to compare it a bit to the last lighting kit I've used..the Lighting kit for the Bandai perfect grade MF. I think this is a better lighting kit. They both have the same basic idea, LED strands that plug into a circuit board with easy connectors. This has more LEDs than the Bandai, it has some which strobe, which the Bandai doesn't, and on this kit actually has accurate lighting, where the Bandai was just lighting some things to light things. (There aren't lights on the landing gear on the falcon.) So I wouldn't have guessed that I'd be starting off by saying that Round2 has done better than Bandai!

27 Leds. some of which will strobe. All of the strands have a nice connector that fits into the circuit board and each one is labeled so you won't have any problems getting the right one in the right port.



Red clear parts. Now when R2 made the TOS kit the model kit had opaque parts and you could only get clear parts by buying the lighting kit. At first glance it looks like these parts in the kit are clear, but not tinted. The lighting kit replaces some of those with red tinted parts.

I was also pleased to see that the lighting kit comes with photo etch for a lot of the windows. It's well packaged and should be safe from being bent by accident.

The heart of the kit is a circuit board and battery pack. It's all meant to be hidden inside the model.

The way they've done it looks like it will be pretty easy for average modelers to fit everything together.
At first I was a surprised that they didn't enclose the battery pack and circuit board in one box. but if an advanced modeler didn't like the idea of batteries, they could remove that battery pack and connect the circuit board to an appropriate wall adapter.

[Tesral]

A long, long way from the old lights in the old AMT Enterprise kit with two grain of rice bulbs and a battery box integrated in the secondary hull. You turned the deflector housing to turn it on.

[Steam235]

I was a little disapointed to find out that I'd have to modify kit parts to make the lighting work. The windows in the front of the ship need to be opened up and widened for lighting. After pulling out my pin vise I got to work and it was pretty easy and quick, maybe 40 minutes to do all of them. After thinking about it I think they did make the best decision. If they had made those parts clear without detail and just put photo etch over it, it wouldn't work well for people who weren't going to light it. And I don't think injection molding can make the window openings better than they did.

[Steam235]

Round2 did a great job on the instructions. They're very clear each strand is labeled and they show you where each strand goes and in what step of the kit's instuctions you should be installing them.

[Steam235]

I'm working on that K strand from the step above.

The top bulb just fits into the red clear part, the other four bulbs fit into standoffs

Superglue all the bulbs to their holders.

And here's strand K lit up. NOTE: IN THE PICTURES ABOVE AND BELOW, THE LEDS THAT FACE OUT THE BACK OF THE BULB ARE NOT CORRECTLY POSITIONED. THEY SHOULD FIT ENTIRELY IN THE MOLDED SPACE.

Here are the LED stand offs for the lower bulb Strand F

[Jedi Dade]

It seems well engineered - but I'm not sure I'm digging the blue-ness of the LEDs chosen.

I'll reserve Judgement though until I see it completed

Jedi Dade

[Steam235]

I think it will benefit from having the inside painted even though it doesn't need it for light leaks.

What do you guys suggest white paint or silver foil tape?

[137th Gebirg]

I've always been partial to lining the inside of models with tin foil myself. Blocks light leaks effectively and, back in the days of incandescent bulbs, helped protect the plastic from the heat. I guess now that everything is LED's that isn't as much of a concern. I, too, am not all that thrilled with the blue temperature of the lights. I always preferred a warmer yellow tint to the white. I also prefer using 9v DC adaptors over batteries. If batteries sit unused too long they can leak and corrode, potentially ruining the circuitry. I might just custom build my own harness for this one.

[Steam235]

I added some silver paint inside the hull to defuse the light a little. Then I very very lightly scuffed the clear parts. I wanted to make it look less hollow.

Compared to the pictures in the post above I think it looks better.

And here's how it looks with the front detail added. Photo etch will be ontop of this to give the windows the right shape.

[patrickivan]

The kit looks fabulous overall so far.

But those windows look massive. Way too large... That's unfortunate.

How well is the black preventing light leakage?