Part of the reason there's so many wires is the ridiculous number of actuators and servos, but also lights. I like lights. A lot.
There's some spotlights by the winches
And then another wider beam pair at the end of the crane
They're just operated by your usual RC switch on an aux channel of the TX -- no need to overcomplicate and drive with the ESP32's. Another RC aux switch does the headlights and cab lights up front.
However, the turn signals and lightbars, that's where the Arduinos/ESP32's/whatever shine, so to speak. Programmable lighting means that color and brightness are changed in software. Turn signals are off and then blink on, unless the headlights are on, in which case they act as markers on and dim when blinking. Side markers are orange except the rearmost are red. Want to change something? Just change the code, the hardware stays the same.
Lightbar patterns are pretty much limited by your imagination, as the ESP32 has enough memory to do anything humanly possible, and the Neopixels are red-green-blue, so any color.
They are, however, fiddly to solder. This is one of three light bars with front and rear lines and then a single on each side.
Assembled, they look like this.
That's four pieces; the legs are one, top and bottom two more, and then a translucent frame for the lights to shine through.
The side markers are strung like Christmas lights, one into the next.
The one beef I have with the Neopixels is that a 5mm LED with four pins can be a pain to solder, especially when in close proximity, as opposed to strung like above. These are the rear turns and side markers.
The center two pins of the four are the hot and ground, so go from one to the next. The outer ones are "in" and "out", though, so the out from one has to go up and over to the in of the next, thus the diagonal crossover.
Cab lights are as on the Frobe, printed bullet housing with LED inside, running to RC switch on the headlights channel. Again, no need to overcomplicate.
LED is actually orange, so matches the translucent printed end.
And actual Tamiya horns again because why print and reinvent the wheel when they're cheap? Scale isn't quite right, but anybody going after my work with calipers will be beaten and disparaged.