Question regarding TU 8600 power side

All--

I pulled the ALPs pot from my TU 8600 to make it a stand alone amplifier.

Now that I have a hole in the front of my chassis it's time to fix that! I have a nice VU meter that will fit almost perfectly in the spot where the ALPs called home.

I have a nice little PC board with a voltage regulator that converts AC 120 to 6, 9, or 12V to power things like my VU backlight.

Which would you do?

Option 1: Run a separate AC mains power cable from the outlet to the VU meter and the PC board (this works in my tests).

Option 2: Tap the AC line in on the Elekit to feed the VU pc board to pull off 12 volts to run the light.

Option 2 would be cleaner in that I don't have to have a second power plug going into the Elekit, but I'm not sure about whether it would be taking juice from what the amp itself needs. The load is small, but I defer to the experts.

THANK YOU!!!