Don't like being fleeced...

[ausf]

I eagerly blew the $120 on the Polar Lights Enterprise since I've been waiting a long time for it's re-release.

I then paid a bit much for a small PE fret that includes the bridge and hangar bay detail. I'm going all out on the lighting of the kit, how could I not do the consoles, etc on the bridge as well as all that detail to light the Galileo?

I picked up a bunch of motor/gearbox combos to power up the bussards and am knee deep in LEDs, so I learned enough Arduino to be dangerous and started the research.

Polar Lights sell a lighting kit specifically designed with the model itself, very attractive but actually more expensive than the base kit itself.
Sure it'll be more work to solder everything, but the Arduino will give me great control to customize it however I want.

So tonight I started planning out the bridge lighting, how cool would it be to have the 'red alert' lights flashing on the wall as the /350 Kirk is in the chair, Spock's face lit blue?

As I look over the sprues, I can't find the clear bridge, only the solid grey one. It's right there next to the hangar bay parts on it's own sprue. Uh oh. Yep, after digging through the box, no clear bridge/bay sprue here.

I can hear the guys at Polar Lights: 'Ya want the clear sprues buddy? Sure, just buy the $140 lighting kit and we'll include 'em.' :vmad

 

[moon puppy]

Dang...that's rough. Can you cast the part in clear?

 

[ausf]

Nah.

Clear resin is really tricky to pull off, pretty nasty compared to regular stuff in toxicity and expensive. By the time I molded, etc, it would be as expensive as the lighting kit.

In all fairness, the lighting kit is pretty nice, a full wiring harness of 95 LEDs, all made to fit in clips on the kit, the motors and colored clear parts, etc. It would be much easier than going the route I intended and the small amount I would have saved doing it myself would be displaced by hours soldering, etc.

But still, why even cast the bridge/bay sprue in opaque plastic at all? The kit is cast in multiple colors of styrene and a huge chunk is clear, it wouldn't be much of a reach to shift this one tiny sub-sprue into the clear column, unless you're sticking your thumb in the eye of the modeler who doesn't want your lighting kit.

 

[jknaus]

That's rotten. One of the things that has turned me off the Polar Lights is the cost. They look nice, just too expensive.
Best of luck.
James