Again, with respect, gentlemen, do you have any evidence?
This Starlog article by Jeff Szazly goes into some detail about how they replaced the Christmas tree lights in the starboard nacelle when the model was loaned to Golden West college. If you read the article carefully, the description isn't really compatible with the idea that the lights were on more than one circuit.
In the Datins' book, this appears to be quoted directly from Richard Datin himself (although there's no reference to who he was originally talking or writing to):
"I purchased two, 7 inch Plexiglass domes at a cost of $15.00 and had them finely sandblasted by Abrasive Art to be translucent for another $2.50. Then I contracted with Crescent Metals, a metal spinning firm to have two domes-shaped metal spinnings or shells made for a diameter slightly less than the inside diameter of the Plexiglass domes. The metal was most likely aluminum. Two flat disks were fabricated to which a set of miniature Christmas tree-type lights were attached. I believe the bulbs were white or clear, (at a later date
Craig Thompson spoke of multicolored Christmas lights in each dome, I do recall seeing it on the third year's episodes herein it seemed that the light source behind the nacelle domes were multicolored. To me it seemed 'cheesy')."
"On the spinnings, I cut a series of slots radiating from the dome's center. Each dome was powered by a heavy duty commercial type display motor embedded under the disk (which rotated in opposite directions) inside the nacelle pod and when powered, achieved the 'spinning lights' effect under the frosted but translucent, Plexiglass surface. The lights remained stationary while an off-camera stage technician controlled the speed of the rotating slotted dome to simulate whatever amount of energy needed to illustrate the degree of warp power Roddenberry sought, as well as the intensity of the lights controlled by a transformer and rheostat similar to a lamp dimmer switch".
I've been quite careful to check that I've quoted this text exactly verbatim, with the exception of making Craig Thompson's name a hotlink. One would think, given this detailed description, that if the lights were designed to blink, Mr Datin would have mentioned it. Obviously, he's mistaken in his belief that the lights were only multicoloured in the third season (perhaps he bought a new TV set in 1968?), but if it is true that the lights that he installed were clear or white, then they must have been replaced by somebody, just as Jeff Szazly later replaced them at Golden West. Look at this picture:
View attachment 802613
To replace the lights, you just take a fresh string of Christmas tree lights, wrap them around the tape covered pins, and connect them to the (
only two!) wires.
The blinking is MUCH slower than the effect caused by the blades.
Consider:
The apparent rotational speed of the vanes depends on the speed that the camera is running at (see the
Wagon Wheel effect).
The speed that the vanes rotated was variable. The vanes may not have all been equally spaced (see below). If the model, the camera, or both are in motion, then the angle around the shaft that corresponds to a vane obscuring a particular light from the camera lens will change. All of this could give rise to an apparent blink rate which might seem entirely divorced from the rotational effect of the vanes.
Bear in mind that we don't really know what the aluminium spinnings looked like. The dark areas that we see "through" the nacelle domes may not actually be the vanes themselves, but rather the shadows cast by the vanes (even when the internal lights are off, which it looks as though they might be in three of the Golden West pictures, a certain amount of ambient light would still enter the domes and reflect off the mirror shards, casting shadows from the vanes back onto the domes.
Here's a video that Doug Drexler made for the restoration team to study. It doesn't feature every single shot of the Enterprise, but it's a good start. It's surprisingly difficult to even count how exactly how many vanes there were. Pick any ninety degree segment, and it almost always appears to be divided into three wedges by the vanes, giving an obvious answer of twelve. But are you sure that you were actually looking at
ninety degrees? I suspect that there may actually be thirteen, and there's a discernible variation in the angles between them.