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Solar roadways seem to be going viral on my corner of the Interwebs. Who knows if they'll actually work any time soon, but in the future world of Infinity they seem like a perfect way to demonstrate the sci-fi glits and hexagonal-tasticness that makes the world of Infinity sexy.

So I think I want to build them into my terrain and bases, but I'm not sure how to do it. Some kind of hex plate will probably be my starting point, but how to convey the circuitry and solar panels? The only thing I can think of maybe is getting some kind of clear plastic sheet with a rough texture on it (no idea if this product even exists) and then sticking under it a color print-out of solar panels and circuitboards- but maybe that's cheating.

Also I've come to this decision after buying a set of Micro Art Studios' Urban bases, painting them, and gluing them to my starter sets. I love the sidewalks, I love the litter, I'm just not sure how to use the street part of the bases without radically converting them. Maybe not all roads in Infinity's future actually use solar panels?

well they had that underneath so they sort of just appear as hexagonal glass tiles with lights to show markings, so unless its ruined I wouldn't worry so much about showing the circuitry. But then I'd say from a modelling point of view it's probably going to be almost the same as tiling normally would be, it'd be up to the lighting effects to try to bring it away from that more.

Firstly I'd say try to find a hexagonal punch to make the tiles from card rather than trying to find the pieces obviously.

How about old/damaged curcuit boards for the circuits, ones with smaller chips/resistors would probably scale quite nicely

EMA does corrugated clear styrene sheets

http://www.ema-models.co.uk/index.php/sheet-materials/clear-sheeting.html

They also do a range of coloured translucent sheets. I quite like your idea of doing a printed underlay. I've seen it used to great effect on scenery so it would be intersting to see if it works on model bases.

I've done a few comparable projects (one almost identical) over the years...

To speed things up - spend a bit on some laser etched acrylic. Doesn't need to be too thick (I normally use 1/16 inch for this type of work) - just something clear that you can put a surface pattern on. You won't find anything off the shelf (well - I haven't looked recently...but likely won't). However, it is simple enough to use a vector graphics program to put together your design of hex tiles and have a service like Ponoko do the work for you. Can even have them cut the final shape as well so that you can focus on the "hard stuff".

Layout which areas you want to have lit up and which areas you just want to leave opaque. Cut a stencil that leaves the lit up areas exposed. Use an Air Eraser to give those areas a frosted texture (from the backside...not the front side). Remove the stencil.

Use a graphics program to create your "chip" texture. At these scales, you can forgo the actual circuitry for the most part - but give it the look of a bunch of little solar cells. Print that at a high resolution and cut out the areas which you have previously frosted (plotters work wonders to speed that up). Laminate that texture sheet to the bottom of the acrylic. To laminate it - I normally will use the optically clear double sided sheets they use for mounting glass on cell phones. It isn't too expensive, though you will need to source it only. Alternatively - you can apply the texture to the MDF below.

Get a sheet of 1/4" MDF or around there - notch out small cavities that align with the frosted areas (forstener bits work quite well) and rout out chases which run from cavity to cavity for running your wires through. Paint the MDF a darkish color that sort of is in line with the main color of your solar cells.

Wire up your LEDs. You can use colored LEDs, chasers with controllers, flashers, whatever floats your boat. Mount the wires and LEDs on the MDF and place the acrylic sheet over it to give it a test (better to make sure your LEDs are bright enough now as opposed to once everything has been sealed up).

If everything is working as you want it - consider how you will power things. If you are doing modular work, each tile can have its own power supply (hidden inside a building, dumpster or other terrain feature). You can also daisy chain several tiles together in a number of different ways (I usually use spring contacts with plates mounted in the side of my base tiles...but for more ideas, you can take a look at how the modular model railroad crowd handles their power issues).

Attach the acrylic to the MDF board using a secure (but removable if you need to) method. I like double sided tape myself. Just a few small squares in the corners.

To dress things up the rest of the way - cut some curbing out of 1/8" and ease the edges slightly. Match the curb to the outline of your roadway (so it bumps up to it - not sits on top of it. Mount the collect sandwich to 1/2" MDF (optional - I use 3/4" base boards as the standard substrate for my work...so I will build everything up to that level).