Excellent review.
Quoted from Mike_J:Do all versions of Hobbit have a plastic apron?
My Smaug LE came with a steel apron (but no illumination), and an inoperative left diverter. The diverter issue was due to a connector that had separated, easy fix.
Quoted from DCFAN:Why not put something like a piece of translucent tape over the translite LEDs to make them less bright so they would not wash out the art so much?
One of the first things I noticed upon initial start up was that the translite was not only washed out, but bluish in color. This is due to the factory using a very cool white LED in the 6500k+ range. I immediately replaced the factory LED strip with a strip of 3100K warm white LED. This better showed the warm colors of the translite artwork, but it still has a bit of a washed out look as the LEDs are just too bright for the artwork. I'll be adding a potentiometer to the wiring so that the translite brightness can be adjusted depending on room lighting conditions.