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“Fit two more deck panel assemblies to the upper saucer skeleton and connect more lights to the saucer PCB.“

Contents

Parts

Materials: The Deck Panel U1-06 is metal and the rest of the non-electrical parts are plastic in this stage.

Build

Assembling and Installing Deck Panel U1-06

Step A

Carefully remove eight (8) Escape Pod Covers, five (5) Clear Windows and four (4) Dark Windows from their sprues and fit them into the back of Deck Panel U1-06, as shown.

Reminder: I sanded all of these windows down already. See The Windows page for more details:

As before, I used pieces of black electrical tape behind the Escape Pod Covers and Dark Windows to reduce light leak:

Fit Reflector Panel U3-06-A onto the back of Deck Panel U3-06, covering this half of the windows as shown:

Slide the single LED of the longer Deck Panel Light cable into this notch of the Reflector Panel.

To allow this panel to fit into the skeleton better, I gently bent the leads of this LED up away from the panel, as shown:

Slide the LED on the yellow/green wires of the shorter Deck Panel Lights cable into this other notch of the Reflector Panel.

Because the second reflector needs some room to fit, the leads of this LED should gently be bent away from the panel, as shown:

Secure this Reflector Panel to the Deck Panel with four (4) DM screws.

This is your friendly reminder to try using 3-in-One Oil on all screws going into metal:

Fit Reflector Panel U3-06-A1 onto the back of Deck Panel U3-06, covering the remaining half of the windows as shown:

Slide the second LED of the Deck Panel Lights cable into this notch of the Reflector Panel.

You may notice I gently bent the leads of the LED away from the panel so it would fit between the reflectors better, but we will adjust these leads one more time here shortly:

Secure this Reflector Panel to the Deck Panel with four (4) more DM screws:

Gently bend the leads of the two center LEDs up so they are both at a right angle to the Deck Panel.

While test fitting this panel, I found that gently bending the leads of the red/black LED down between the reflectors worked best:

Step B

We can test these new window lights by connecting the two new Deck Panel Lights cables to the PCB and Battery Box:

Step C

Retrieve your Upper Skeleton assembly from the previous stage and thread the two Deck Panel Light cables of this new panel through these openings, as shown:

Position Deck Panel U1-06 down onto the Upper Skeleton.

Be sure these three tabs along the lower edge of this panel slide underneath the outer panels first, as shown:

Note how the center Deck Panel Lights cables we adjusted fit up through the skeleton here:

While holding this Deck Panel against the skeleton, secure the panel into place with two (2) BM screws:

Connect the plugs of the two Deck Panel Light cables to these sockets of the Saucer PCB 1.

The two-wire Deck Panel Light plug fits into this socket:

The four-wire Deck Panel Lights plug fits into this socket:

The instructions say we can tuck any excess wiring underneath the PCB. However, I will wait until more wiring is installed then clean everything up.

Installing Deck Panel U1-07

Step D

Retrieve your Deck Panel U1-07 assembly from Stage 32 and thread the Deck Panel Lights cable down through this opening:

Position Deck Panel U1-07 down onto the Upper Skeleton.

Be sure these three tabs along the lower edge of this panel slide underneath the outer panels first, as shown:

If you find that this Deck Panel does not want to sit flush, it is likely because your Deck Panel Lights cables are caught between the panel and the Upper Skeleton frames, as shown:

I found that routing the wiring like this allows the Deck Panel to sit down quite nicely:

While holding this Deck Panel in place, secure it to the skeleton with two (2) BM screws as shown:

Fitting the Right Neck Rear Windows

Step E

Retrieve your Battle Section Neck assembly from the previous stage and fit the Right Neck Rear Windows to it, as shown.

These windows are not secured in place just yet, so just keep these parts together until we attach the reflector panel in the next stage:

Thoughts

While we did add some lights to the Battle Section Neck here, it is more exciting to see the two large Deck Panels attached. This progress also marks the completion of the entire forward upper surface of our Enterprise D saucer section!

Next Up

Stage 41 – Deck Panel U3-04, Windows/Reflectors/Lights, Escape Pod Covers, Photon Torpedo Launcher