Hello everyone... I'm new to the forums, but I've been looking around here for a little while. I'm thinking of doing a mod on my guitar, but I need some expert advice.
My guitar is a metallic blue ESP F-200
http://www.espguitars.com/html/f200.html
I was thinking of installing some kind of blue lighting system to shine out from below the bridge (big black thing on the left.) The light could be powered by a rechargable phone battery, and have a hole on the back to recharge. The light could be wired on to light up when the guitar was plugged into an amp.
Any comments, criticism, ideas would be very appreciated.

sweet guitar!

I like your idea about adding lights. You could also paint it. Give it a sort of theme. It is crying out to have an Icey, Viking, Icelandic and blue sort of theme.

I was thinkin blue CCFL but i don't know how much room there is in the back of a solid-body electric. Blue LEDs could work ... like the phone battery idea but how much circuit board are we talking here pimps? Could Blue LEDs be powered direct from phone battery? Would you add a switch? a sound activated one? Dontcha think there's already a guitar ready kit to do all this he could maybe emulate - I dont know ....

Thinkin out loud
-MF

careful with CCs and EL tape/wire/panels. anything with an inverter or drive electronics will cause huming since the pickups and preamp are so sensitive.

very true- dont use a CC it get alot of buzz on the amp- you got pleny of room in an electric guitar for a mini atx system- well maybe- but LEDs deffinetly- with a fairly sizable pcb- though you musnt be afraid of chopin up that guitar- it shouldnt effect tone too much if you take a huge chunk out anyway- it did nothing but good on my bass- speaking of which i should do some more serious mods to it!- as for the switch thats should be quite easy they make guitar jacks that have built in switches that turn on when you insert a plug- should be easy to find and cheap- led aray i would suggest using something like this- its rather simple though a bit long- it would be hard but if you widened the area under the bridge- theres that large acccess from the back- by removing the bridge itself and drill or something the sides of the inner chamber in the area directly under the bridge- without comming out on the front side of the guitar- accually you may be able to get at it from the front- i should draw a diagram and post it for you- it would be pretty easy either way. (note: floatingtrem stands for floating tremlo- the type of bridge on the f200)

okay- forget how ugly it is
i think this may work- it should for most floyd-rose setups- its shows holes to be cut (how- i coulf figure it out if i had to- so you can to) in order to fit in that led light and allow for it to look as if the bridge glows from behind- you should coat the inside of that impression with perhaps aome sort of silver tape so that the light get reflected alot- also sheild everyhting you can- go into you're electronics cavity and coat all side in sheilding tape- make surre the cover for the nook is sheilded- sheild all wires on the LED assembly- and sheild the battery- just to maek sure you get as littl ehum as possible

Thanks for all the advice everyone
Also, I changed the pickups to emg-81s, which are extremely high gain active pickups, so what floatingtrem was saying about shielding will be very important. There is enough room to route the wiring from the led array to the electronics compartment, where I could put the pcb, and battery. The only problem I see is that I'd like a uniform glow, but the frontmost part of the bridge is flush with the body, and no light escapes there.
On a side note, I was thinking it'd be nice to glue the pickup casings on, and replace the 4 screws on them with led lights, and run the wires along with the pickup wires. Do you know if the leds would cause interference and buzzing?

yeah- i would not put the batteries and wires in the same compartment as the other wire unless WELL shielded- i fyou notice on the cut out design- i have a section cut out of the front for light to come out the idea is that its just past the front edge of the bride (its only attached on the sides) this does mean though- that there wont be light on the two corners were the screws are- as for the LEDs make sure you sheild the wires seperatly form the the pickups- when electric curren t runs through wires parralel to another set of wires it creates a current in the other wires headed in the oposite direction- so make sure you sheild every god damned wire seperately in that case- or you could fry a pickup