Ummm, ok, where to start? Well, I for my part am in the progress of my first lit model as well (Look at my signature). I'm a mechanical engineer and electronics have never been my favorite, but I eventually got around to liking to wire up stuff to light things. What's probably best if you know nothing about LEDs and the likes is to look around the net for information on them. There are lots of sites out there that give you basic wiring diagrams that you can play around with. A very interesting site for noobs is
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/index.htm
You can look around to get information on basic components of electrical circuits and try their simple examples. They also provide you with a variety of formulas you will need when using LEDs. Don't worry, it's fairly easy. After you read around a bit, get yourself a bunch of LEDs and resistors, a 9V block battery, a soldering iron and start experimenting around. Don't worry if you burn out a few LEDs, it happens
Then, for the Defiant... she is on my to-do list as well and I bought DLMs after market kits, too. What you'll need to do (well, not need, but should) is to first opaque the model so that light won't shine through areas where the plastic is rather thin and you don't want light to shine through. Simply spray-paint the entire inside black. On top of that, put a layer of white as to evenly distribute the light on the inside, as you won't be putting an LED behind every window, but still want all of them lit evenly. When done, you need to find places where to put LEDs. I think you'll need about 4 or 5 white LEDs to light the interior for window lighting. Next you need blue and red LEDs for the warp engines, bussard collectors and if you want to, the impulse engine. When putting the colored LEDs behind the colored parts you got from DLM, be advised to put a box around them to prevent blue and red light to go into the main hull or you will end up with red/blue/white windows (if that's what you want though, go for it
). Then, you need to decide whether you want blinking nav and strobe lights or static ones. I'll probably try and do mine with blinking lights and use a 555 timer chip for it. Again, the site I've linked to above has quite some useful information on that chip as well. Very versatile and fairly easy to handle. Well, then put everything in place, reassemble her, repaint and redecal. Done.
Don't forget to do light checks every now and then so you won't end up having her glued together and realizing that she doesn't light up anymore
There are others around here who actually already have built that ship and could give you more specific advice on it as I can. Though I hope, this little text of mine is of help to you
Let us see some progress pix, when you're working on her!
Cheers
JC
btw, I think your avatar is just a bit oversized. I think 80x80 was the maximum, but Mods, correct me if I'm wrong
