I have the 2017 edition of the Lego Millenium Falcon and ~7500 pieces took about 30 hours without being super organized or focused. At that rate, this is almost 50 hours of assembly but I'd wager there's a ton of duplication in this one, likely speeding things up.
And yes, for these sorts of sets, you put them on display. I added LEDs to mine:
Ha! This set it designed to take 114 years to construct and for maximum verisimilitude, Lego will run over your foot with a Lego tram after only a few decades of trying to build it.
I'd love to see the back of that if you actually integrated the LEDs into the main engine (and I apologize if you did post other photos, I have X mostly blocked so I can only see the directly linked post.) I've been hacking at adding some lights to a few sets that I thought would look great with actual lighting on them, and my biggest challenge has been the routing of all the wires in a way where the lights actually look like they're integrated into the set and not just randomly sticking out of places.
I don't think I have pictures of the back specifically but the route was:
Started on one side of the engine framing, all the way across, inside through the body then around the round section holding the bottom gun turret, then along the front bottom edge, back into the body and around the top round section of the gun turret, back into the body into the bridge and across the ceiling ending there.
The LED string itself had adhesive backing, so I'd put it in place, remove a section of the adhesive cover, attach it, then do another section. It was probably 3-6" at a time, so not fast or easy. I had to take off a bunch of the ship panels - super easy - to get at some of the portions. My goal was that you couldn't see the LEDs directly from most viewing angles and was mostly successful
The LED string was ~$60 and it was a silly amount of work but I have it sitting over my left shoulder during conference calls and people ask about it constantly so it was fun.
Other pics: https://x.com/CaseySoftware/status/1757069749501018411
Edit: Just realized you can see the string here: https://x.com/CaseySoftware/status/1980269018511794422
Ah I see. What I've been trying to do is integrate the LEDs into specific pieces instead, so I've mostly been using individual ones rather than strips. I was actually inspired by a Lumibricks set for my method of routing the pieces. Currently I'm trying to add lights to the modular Cinema set, which I think would be great, and I've had to resort to cutting out parts of bricks to get things routed around.
> The LED string was ~$60 and it was a silly amount of work but I have it sitting over my left shoulder during conference calls and people ask about it constantly so it was fun.
My first experiment with adding lights was to the Technic Porsche set, and interestingly, in meetings it doesn't get blurred as much as the rest of the background (probably due to the lights I put in it) so I often get asked about it as well.
Thanks for sharing!
That adds up. I have the Tower Bridge, Grand Piano, and Lighthouse that were similar. Tower Bridge was 4200 and 20 hours, Grand Piano, 3600 and 15, Lighthouse about 3000 and 12.
I pre-ordered this, though!