Seeing the mini FT Cruiser behind Josh Scott in the latest episode about flying in the Alps motivated me to add to my existing FT Cruiser build:
I experimented with a few ways to snake LED strips in. I have the smaller 3528 sized strips. The most effective way was to solder the wires on one end, tape one end of some fishing line to the adhesive backing closest to the wire and tie some washers to the opposite end of the fishing line. I then dropped the washer and fishing line down along the wing spar towards the wing tips from the opening in the fuselage and center of the wing where the servo and power wires come out. I then stick two rare earth magnets to the end of the strip without the wires (one on each side) and drop it down after the fishing line/washer. I then stick a long, thick piano wire (landing gear gauge) into the wing tip, and let the magnets attach to the rod. I can then pull the strip through carefully, without pulling the wires all the way in. Once I see the strip end at the wingtip, I slide the magnets off, align the strip using the music wire, and finally pull the fishing line through to remove the backing to the sticky backed LED strip. Again, I use the music wire to press the strip adhesive into the wing spar.
The fuselage strip was a bit of a pain because it's so long, and requires a longer wire if you want to LED to go from tail to the end of the fuselage (not including the removable nose section). In this case, I taped the washer/fishing line to the end of the long white strip's backing paper only, drop it into the tail, use a thin solid wire with a hook to snag it from the small openings in the tail, and pull the line through. attach the strong magnets to the end with the wire, stuff that in, and use the music wire from the bottom of the nose to connect with the magnets and pull the rest of the strip down along the bottom of the fuselage and to the end of the fuselage towards the nose. I then remove the magnets, tape the piano wire to the backing for the sticky tape, and push it down the fuselage carefully until it pokes out of the rear. I use the fishing line coming out of the tail to keep things taut as that helps. Oh, and as the tape backing is removed, I started tacking the LED strip down from the front towards the nose.
I used three different color strips: red, green, and white, and soldered 22ga wire to them before installing them into the plane. after they were inserted, I then soldered them together along with some additional wires that went into a crimped JST male connector. This way, I can either plug in a separate 3S battery with JST leads, or use a JST -> 3S balance male connector that I have and connect it to the balance port of the flight pack.
Anyway, hope this helps anyone who tries to add lights to their builds after the build is completed.