[Robotaleem]

Originally Posted by Lex

Thanks for the support there guys. Having to work on the electrical system sure slows everything down. Well, that is almost done now.

The LED for the exhaust is wrapped in a paper unit to facilitate attachment, then the unit is inserted into the engine as a whole. Because the orange light is reflected twice by the turbine blades before being seen, I opted for this very high powered LED and it is ridiculously bright when viewed directly. Thus, the interior of the engine is given plenty of light insulation in the form of metal foil or metallic paint, and then closed up. You can see 4 pieces of exposed copper from the completed (not quite, still a lot of superficial details remaining) engine. The two knobs are the actual electrodes on which I will attach the power source, and will be the only pieces of exposed wiring on the final model. The other two lead into the fuselage and will be buried inside an attachment structure to not be seen, they power the remainder of the lighting system.

This complete unit is then dry-fitted onto the fuselage. You can see how I hid the electrode conveniently in a crevice designed to accomodate the auxiliary motor (I believe). It turns out that this crevice, simply a dark area on the kit, needed to be made sunken in order for the engine to be attached in the correct place at all. It's only by chance that I decided to add this detail at all, thankfully it saved the project.

There is enough space around the intake on both sides to fit a pair of button cells each. I buried magnets below the bulkhead so the battery pack(s) remains in place without needing anything to hold them. The entire engine will be covered up by the removable housing, so this battery pack will not be visible when in use. When displaying with the cover removed, I can simply disconnect and remove the battery pack, leaving the two inconspicuous electrodes that are barely visible. On the actual engine, there is even a similarly sized ring in this place to hand start the motor.

Brilliant work, mate