First Look at the LeLightGo LED Light Kit for the Town Hall 10224

 

Hey brick fans!  Welcome back to my blog!

Today, I'll be reviewing a new LED lighting kit for my Town Hall modular building.  It's from an established company called LeLightGo.  They have quite an expansive collection of LED light kits available for your Lego and Lego compatible brick sets.

Thanks so much to LeLightGo for providing this kit for me to review!

• Set/Kit:  LeLightGo 10224 LED light kit for Town Hall modular Building
• Lego Compatible: Yes
• Instructions: Downloadable from the LeLightGo website
• Price: $39.99 USD (before discounts)

Here is my Town Hall modular building for which I will be incorporating the light kit into.

Unboxing

The LeLightGo light kit comes in a compact box with a sticker on the outside to identify the light kit.  The SKU matches the Lego id for the Town Hall which is 10224.

Inside we find a pouch containing several small resealable bags of parts.

Here's the contents.  Some of the seven bags are numbered and some are not.   Note that there are no instructions or other pamphlets like other LED light kit brands.   The instructions for each set can be found directly on the LeLightGo website as PDFs which can be downloaded to your computer.

Here are the all the components from the unmarked bags.  There's a USB connected battery box that uses three AAA batteries (not included) with a USB power cable and 6 port expansion board.  The LED lamppost came in an unmarked bag, but I believe it should have been marked as bag number 1.

Here's the contents of bag 2.  These are all the lighting components that will be used for the first floor of the Town Hall.  

Bag 3 contains a thin light strip that will be installed inside the arch over the front entrance.

These are the lighting components in Bag 4 to illuminate the second floor interior and exterior.

Bag 5 contains a similar set of components to light up the third floor of the Town Hall.  Additionally, there is one more light strand that will light up the bell tower.

LeLightGo was also very kind in sending me three sets of wireless connectors.    The wireless connectors make it a lot easier to separate the floors in a modular building.   I'm going to look at these wireless components in greater detail in a separate review. 

Testing the Lights

Once everything is unpacked, it's advisable to test all of the lighting elements before installing them into your building block set.  To do this, you will need to connect the USB plug to one of the expansion boards then, attach each of the LED lighting components.  Then it is a matter of connecting the USB plug to the battery pack and turning it on.  Visually verify that the light strands, and each of the lighting components are working properly. 

The User guide provides some information, but it could be improved to provide more detailed information about how to connect the wires to the expansion boards for those who are new to LED lighting kits.

In the majority of cases, the lights should all work fine, but if you run into problems, simply contact LeLightGo as per their website.  "If your kit doesn't work please contact us on support@lelightgo.com or via Facebook Messenger or Instagram. We will immediately solve your problem."

Alright, everything looks good, so it's time to light up my Town Hall modular building!  We will download the lighting instructions for the Town Hall here.   I'm looking for the set number which is 10224.

There are just pictures in the instructions and no words, so you just have to follow along.  The pictures of each step are pretty straightforward on how to take apart some of the bricks  in order to install the lighting elements.  The first action to perform is to replace the existing lamp post with the LeLightGo version.  This should be from Bag #1.

For the next step, we take the three connected 1x2 bricks with leds and attach them to the underside of the windows and front entrance of the main floor.  The light strand is from Bag #2.

From the same light strand, we connect the Led light to the rear lantern.

The original instructions have the three 1x4 LED light bricks attached to the first floor ceiling (ie. the underside of the second floor).  I decided to do a bit of customization by adding a brick that spans the entire width of the main floor.   I then attached the LED lights to the underside of the span.   

Returning to the exterior, we attach the long led strip from Bag #3 to the underside of the front arch.

All the components from Bags 1, 2 and 3 are all connected to the same expansion board as per the instructions we downloaded.

The second storey will have it's own expansion board where we plug in the 5 exterior lights and two interior lights.  All the components are grouped together in Bag 4.   Now, use one of the black lead wires to chain the second floor expansion board to the first floor expansion board.  This is easy because of the open atrium between the floors.

Here's how it looks from the inside.  I'm leaving the ceiling light strips free hanging for the moment but normally you'd attach them to the underside of the upper floor.

Repeat the steps for the third floor using the contents of Bag #5.

And here's what the third floor interior looks like.

The final light strand from Bag #5 is used for the light above the clock and the bell tower.  The process is fairly straightforward as per the instructions.

I must say that the LeLightGo LED lights are quite bright and makes the Town Hall modular building shine!

Summary

Because I'd had some exposure to other brands of  Lego lighting kits, LeLightGo was very easy to install for me.  It took me a total of about four hours to fully integrate the light kit into the modular building, basically one morning, and the results are excellent.

When plugging the wires into the expansion board, I noticed that they felt very secure, and not too loose.  I plugged and unplugged the wires from the boards quite a number of times, and the wires held up well to all of my handling.

I would like to see the instructions improved to show the new light kit users how to plug the wires into the expansion boards, but that was my only nit.

The cost of the lighting kits that I found on the LeLightGo website are very competitive with the other lighting brands.   I also liked that LeLightGo still has lighting kits for many of the older Lego style modular buildings, because similar light kits are discontinued on other LED lighting websites.

At the time of this writing, LeLightGo has a special promotion Buy One, Get 50% Off using the code Mar50 at checkout.   You can also use my discount code ITSNOTLEGO to save 25% off anytime.

Having installed the LeLightGo lighting kit for the Town Hall modular building, I can say this is a quality product which I'd recommend to anyone who wants to light up the buildings in their Lego city.

Thanks again to LeLightGo, and thanks brick fans and modular building enthusiasts for reading my blog post!   Bye for now!

Review of the Briksmax LED Light Kit BX483 for Boutique Hotel

 

Hey brick fans, welcome back to Bricks and Figs!  Today I'll be reviewing the Briksmax LED light kit for the Lego Boutique Hotel.   As you can see from the picture above, the hotel looks amazing with all of the interior and exterior lighting.

Briksmax provided me with this awesome light kit to review so I wanted to share with you some behind the scenes shots of what goes into lighting up a modular building.   Check out their huge assortment of light kits on the Briksmax website.

Power Supply

If you've never lit up a Lego set, you might be wondering where the power comes from.

Briksmax provides a USB plug and battery pack (3 batteries required, but not included) to power all the lights in the kit.  If you don't want to use the double A battery pack, you can attach the USB plug directly into a USB power source.

The boutique hotel has an unused area in the corner, so I took the opportunity to make a small cubby to hold the provided battery pack and one of two first floor expansion boards.  This isn't required by Briksmax, but I thought it would make all the wires look less messy.  

Hotel Lobby, Art Gallery and Outdoor Bar

On the lower level I used a total of three 6 port expansion boards:

1.  for the streetlamp, hotel lobby ceiling and the upper floors of the hotel.  

2. for the room keys light and front entrance lights

3. for the adjoining art gallery and outdoor bar lighting

I placed one expansion board under the stairwell inside the first floor and the other sits outside behind the art gallery.  The boutique hotel came with a dumpster behind the art gallery, but I decided to remove it from my set so that I could accommodate the battery pack and expansion board.

Briksmax provides step by step instructions in the provided manuals, but I decided to freestyle my lighting runs.  In the pic above, I used my own 1x2 technic hole brick to feed the connecting wires from the power supply into an expansion port inside the building.  I did this to avoid crimping the wires under the bricks.

At this junction, power is distributed three ways:

1. Feed wire to the El cubo Art gallery expansion board and hotel main floor lighting expansion board (see the powers supply pic).

2. Feed wire to the wireless contact point between the first and second floor (see pic above).  I deviated from the instructions by placing all of my wireless contact pads for each floor in the hotel stairwell.  The wireless connectors supplies all of the power to light each floor of the hotel.

3. Exterior street lamp connection.

Briksmax provides a light-up streetlamp to replace the standard one that comes with the hotel.  The wiring for the street light is connected to the expansion board under the stairwell.

The wireless contact pad provides power to the art gallery ceiling light and it's dedicated expansion board.

See how the colour changing LED light transforms the static sculpture into a vibrant work of art.

The lighting for the El Cubo sign is a bonus add-on by Briksmax.

Here's the ceiling light strip for the art gallery ceiling. All the wires to light the outdoor bar terminate at the expansion board pictured above.

Here's the underside of the first floor ceiling.  The wireless connector feeds power to the light strip and then upwards to the next floor.

Hotel Second Floor

In their lighting kit, Briksmax provides LED lights for the desk lamp and bedside lamps (see orange circles), but I chose not to apply them, since my focus is just having the general interior lit up from the ceiling lights.

It's not pretty but here is the ceiling lighting for the second floor of the hotel.  Power from the wireless connector goes to an expansion board that connects the main LED light strip and three other LED dot lights.  In addition to the light strip, I put a dot light in the stairwell, the small bedroom and in the entrance to the larger bedroom. A wire feed will forward the power to the third floor.  I used my own circular gray pieces to hold the wires in place, but it's probably a cleaner look if you hide the wires under the long white plate pieces as per the Briksmax instructions.

Hotel Third Floor

The third floor wireless connector will power the ceiling lights and the light in the spire on the roof.

Briksmax provides led lights for the TV and bedside tables but again I chose not to use them opting only to use ceiling lighting.

For the third floor, I've placed dot lights on the ceiling bathroom, in the ceiling rotunda and in the stairwell, and the larger strip light all terminated to the expansion board.  The spire light on the rooftop also feeds down into the same expansion board.

The orange pointer shows you where the LED light is situated.

Summary

So here is a complete list of all the Briksmax components I used to light up the boutique hotel modular building.

- battery pack

- usb plug

- 5 expansion boards

- 4 strip lights

- 13 dot lights

- 1 colour changing dot light

- 1 light standard

- 4 sets of wireless connector pin/pads

Briksmax provides some substitute Lego parts to use as well.  I also supplemented these parts with my own to make it a bit more custom, but you can achieve the same results by just following the Briksmax instructions.  I can make use of the unused lighting parts in future building block sets.

As you can see, there's not a lot of exposed wires showing for the viewable areas.

Here's a few more shots in the dark around the hotel.

I didn't have any defective parts in my kit but if you did, Briksmax will send you free replacement parts if required.  I've used other LED light kits before Briksmax, but find that they give me the most flexibility in choosing what I want to install.  Their instructions are easy to follow as well.

If you missed my Briksmax lighting kit unboxing post, you can find it here.

Well, that's it, hope this post helped you to decide whether Briksmax is the right kit for your Lego lighting needs.  Bye for now!