hey thanks for your kind posts guys - very much appreciated. I am posting the same WIP on another couple of forums but none of them are as engaging as this one, which makes it all the more worth while when people actually respond.
Frank, no I'm not an engineer of any kind. I'm actually a fraud investigator for a bank. I'm just applying some practice - that's all :)
Brian, I have bought LED's from Jaycar, and I recently purchased another 5 from them but choked at their prices. I mean, aside from me, who would pay $5.95 for a single 5 MM LED?!?!? I deserve the title of "perfect consumer - I'll pay what ever". When I got home that arvo, I went onto eBay to find my pink LED's and bought 10 of them for
$1.80 and no postage coats from China - which is where they're all made anyway.
I also buy my pre-wired SMD's from the same store to for dirt cheap (20 SMD's for $15.27 & free postage). I have found another store that sells SMD's that isn't on eBay:
http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/smd-chip-leds.htmlThe ribbon connector is an easy mod to do - I just laid down and soldered a section of LED leg across each side of the connections so that the electricity would run down the entire side of each polarity (-/+)
As for the Galactica - no, no where near finished. I haven't touched that for about 9 months now. I really should get my A into G and get it done, but I have just lost interest in it. I might get some mojo back to finish it after this. However, I am very excited about building the BR-52 loco after this, so maybe it'll have to wait until after that's done
I hope to have this done for Expo next year. I won't get to work on this much over the Xmas break as I'll be up north in NSW for 5 weeks but it should be do-able. Painting is going to be the greatest challenge as I am not 100% sure on what the correct colors for this are. I'm just going to wing it and see how it goes.
I'll update this again soon. I think I'll start detailing the front section now and decide on whether or not I close the 2 rear sections up now or wait until I have the pink LED's in hand first. I think I'll be able to get away with closing them up now and work within the tight confines of the section.
MH