My third soldering iron finally met with success!!!

The tip still doesn't heat fully everywhere but most of it heats now. I think I will buy another tip for it and see if that helps. Regardless, I was able to solder up my first string of LEDs!!!
I wired them up to the euro-terminal which held the resistors and wired all of that to the 5v line on an aux 4 pin molex on my PC. It wasn't the prettiest soldering but the shrink tubing hides all that anyways


After a month of cutting/sanding plexiglass, cutting hardboard, lining everything up, working on the wiring, etc. I was thrilled when the LEDs fired up and I was even happier to see the panel light up the way I had hoped it would.
I tried several methods LEDs all on top, all on the bottom, spread around.
The lights all around just didn't do as good of a job lighting the panel:

The lights on the bottom worked well I thought but unfortunately I don't have the physical space on the CP below the panels to run the wires up.

I think this is the route I will go, all four lights on top. In this photo I put a piece of my scrap artwork on top of the lights to see how bad the bleed there is. And there is some, I think I can take care of that with a thin piece of plastic, or maybe electrical tape like I did on the far right light. Overall I will say that these photos do not do the final product justice. The hot spots on the panel are FAR less pronounced on the actual panel. My phone camera just isn't that great and my good camera is somewhat out of commission.

Another round of big thanks

to all of you guys. I was so happy to see this look as good as it does.
Next up is for me to line up the exact holes for mounting these in the CP and cut out slots for the LEDs in the hard board. My one remaining challenge is that the LEDs are a bit thicker than the hardboard, so I either have to recess slightly into the CP for the LED (and worry that I lose some glow) or I try to grind away part of the LED. I saw one video online of someone that did this to make the LED thinner.
If anyone has any thoughts/warnings/technique suggestions on that topic I am very open to them.

PS. I'm cheering a lot here, because last night, when I was super excited to see a months worth of work result in success, my wife came into the basement. I tell her "Look!!! It works!", her response, "meh, whatever...

" She tolerates my hobby, barely, so I come here to share my excitement!