Lighting the Tower

After messing about with the different colours for the tower illumination i needed to figure out a way to fit the lighting effectively. I had decided that I wanted to use a blue coloured light as it would a nice effect in a dark room.

I looked first at using Led's in a similar that the tower is lit in real life. I found that although they would be cheap i most likely have to wire them up myself and fit the wiring inside the tower. I realised that this would create a headache as i could only fit soo much wiring inside the legs of the tower, this way would also possibly not work very well. Led fairy lights would not really be an option as as they too wouldn't fit up through the tower very well.

I also loooked in to using fibre optics for the lighting as they were slim and would be easy to fit up through the tower. The type of lighting i needed to use would have to be no more that 3mm in diameter as it would have to slide through the rung of the tower. I came to the conclusion that fibre optics wouldn't that beneficial as i could find any that were suitable. The lighting needed to be bendable and for this reason fibre optics wouldn't be great. Although fibre optics bend i couldn't guarantee that the light wold make right to the tip of the fibre. It was worth taking the risk.

After extensively trailing the internet for a lighting solution I came across some neon tubing on ebay for use on cars and motorbikes. I realised that this would be the best solution as it only had a diameter of 2.5mm, was just over a metre long and was a sealed unit with a 12v power supply. Another great characteristic was it was very bendy which it was ideal for feeding through the legs of the tower. The tubing came in an extensive range of colours including blue. I ordered it from Hong Kong and arrived within a week which was ideal.