Walz Guitar - Archtop LED Mod

A couple weeks ago, I found myself watching a series on youtube about a guy building a custom JEM guitar. That got me looking around into guitar mods. That led to LED lights. One thing led to another. I made an LED light insert for my archtop. The same one that's part of the logo here.

The plan: attach a battery pack under the pickguard, run a solid wire into the body that would hold 2-4 LED lights, solid wire will support the LED lights inside the body without significant weight or permanent modification, the wiring will have the lights in parallel.

Parts: 1 triple AAA battery holder $2 RS, 2 jumbo LED (red) $6 RS ($3 each), 1 10 ohm resistor (bought in a mixed pack, cna get for $1 RS I think), 1 spst switch (had one already, around $1 RS), 2 pair of velcro stickers (pack $2.50 WM), 24" solid double wire (two wires side by side, had around the house), 2 AAA batteries (had around house, get something that'll work)
RS = Radio Shack (http://radioshack.com)
WM = Wal Mart (http://walmart.com)

Tools: soldering iron, solder, drill, drill bits, needle nose pliers, wire cutters/strippers, screwdriver for pickguard

Steps:
1- get parts, tools, supplies; measure area under pickguard to make sure batteries will fit, make sure you have enough solid wire and wire that's sturdy enough to go inside the guitar body
2- drill holes for switch and for solid wire, this why I used a triple battery case for only 2 batteries (more on this later)
3- modify battery case wiring; I removed the red lead and pulled the black lead through an existing hole
4- solder a lead to the switch, solder the resistor to the other lead on the switch, mount switch
5- attach solid wire to battery case, solder one end to the other battery pack, I soldered it to the negative end (-) of the freed battery bay on the battery case, solder the other end to the resistor
6- the tricky part, strip a bit of the wire that is long enough to fit inside the body with some moving room, this is for the light closest to the batteries, I folded the wire and pinched off the wire's insulation until I could pull it back, the point of not cutting the wire is so that there's continuous solid wire support for the lights
7- test the LED (by holding it to the wires) to make sure the wires from it are going to the correct lead, the solid wire I used had a red stripe on one side, trim the LED lead (I left one longer to help keep it straight), solder to bare sections of solid wire
8- test the LED, trim the LED leads, strip the end of the solid wire and solder on the other LED, make sure everything works
9- remove the pickguard or prepare the area for the velcro stickers, mark the area and put one set of the velcro stickers on, I put the soft side on the pickguard in case I remove the battery pack and it sits on the body while I mess with it in the future--less scratches, I put the stickers on the top center of each skinny side
10- put the matched velcro stickers on the battery case and attach to pickguard, snake the solid wire into the guitar body
11- adjust the position of the wire and lights inside the body, the light near the controls seems to automatically point where you want it--since it's slow to the batteries and doesn't get as twisted, the light on the other side will take some adjusting, I used an unsharpened pencil's eraser end to tuck the wire out of sight and help position the light, it moves around still (more on that below)

Photo Album (this got mangled but if you click an image it'll take you to the album)

Guitar Mod - Lit Archtop

Afterword
I originally wanted to use three AAA batteries but gluing the switch didn't work. Lowering the resistor value helped maintain adequate brightness. Three batteries would be much brighter though... The way I modified the battery case I could change to this if I wanted.
The case is a little thick. It's not too cumbersome, but some filing, Dremel use, belt sanding, or Sawzall would help it be less noticeable. (The Sawzall was a joke.)
I considered doing this with a dual AAA holder and four less bright LED lights. I chose 2 lights instead of 4 for simplicity.
Also, in hindsight, I'd use a shorter amount of solid wire, The amount I twirled inside was overkill. A shorter solid wire wound be much easier to deal with. I planned that I could make a big 8 or pretzel shape that would wedge inside and give the far LED better support. That was hard to attempt once the wire was inside the body.
Overall, was fun, pretty easy and makes my rock, ROCK! :)