What percentage of your electronics spare parts have been salvaged with the hopes of using them someday. I began to see that putting the rest of the lights on Spinax was going to be an opportunity to rummage for items to use.

I wish I could remember how many years ago I walked into a casino and was given a gadget. Pull the tab and a number would be back lit. If the number as a match, you could have won $$$$. (I would have remembered the amount if I had won.)

When I got it home and pried apart, I found that I had won a very nice blue LED.

This was mounted in the Spinaxs head cavity by drilling a hole in the support that held the fiber optics for the eyes and pushing the LED into it. The hole was small enough to hold the LED without gluing.

Two thin strains of wire was pulled off a ribbon cable. These were quite small and flexible. A length of 16 in. was soldered to each of the LED leads and will be connected to the power.

I simplified the lights along the back spine by running light from LEDs to a small plastic ball to defuse the light using fiber optic filaments. It was not likely that both sides of Spinax would be seen at the same time so both sides of the spines are light using the same LED. Several methods were tried but found this to be the better option.

I shopped the dollar store for some clear plastic beads to diffuse the light. A hole was drilled halfway into the bead perpendicular to the string hole. A 030 gage fiber optic strand was glued into the hole. 16 required.

The 8 LED lights were salvaged from an old USB hub. The LEDs are small and I am hoping they can be powered by the Logic circuits I want to build. (If not Ill have to add a driver chip.)

The tips of LEDs were filed flat and 2 fiber optics were glued on the surface. It should also be mentioned that small holes were drilled between the spikes on the back and the fiber optics was run through the holes before they were glued.

Gluing the small filaments to the LEDs was not an easy task. Super glue and plastic model cement was tried. Not sure which worked better but it was a weak bond at best.

Handling is breaking the bonds and have started using shrink tubing to attach the filaments to the LEDs. A small piece of shrink tubing for the led. Then a couple of pieces of wire insulation from some solid copper wire in the other end. Run the fiber optics into the wire insulation and use a piece of copper wire to clamp in place.

I was able to cram all the cables along the back and under the tail. A couple of LEGO pins were added to help hold it in place.

Only took a couple of tries but it fit together and will work on the interface circuit design.