Installing Briksmax Light kit into my modular building (Part 2)

Hello brick fans!   Welcome back to bricksandfigs.blogspot.com!

This is the second part of this series on how to install the Briksmax LED light kit into my modular building.  In my previous post, we had wired up the first floor of my Detective's Office and got it lit.   

We encountered some defective parts, which were quickly replaced by Lightailing.com.   I was surprised at how responsive they were and how fast they shipped out the replacement parts.

Here's the replacement parts complete with a little Captain America minifigure as a gift.

Let's start with a recap of what's lit up already.

The first floor (previewed in my previous blog post) ...

Here are the street lamp, barber pole and lighting above the sign (that's actually part of the second floor).  The street lamp comes wired up as one piece, whereas the barber pole consists of three individual LED lights.  

 

It takes a bit of work to secure the barber pole lighting and wires but the end result is worth it.  Al's barber shop is nice and bright too, so customers can appreciate Al's hair cutting talents.   The interior light is supplied by a very bright LED light strip.

The pool hall outside canopies are lit up by 2 LED lights, and the interior uses another bright LED light strip.

Even the entranceway between the barber shop and pool hall is lit up.  No dark alleyways here.  See how bright this LED light strip is?

Let's move onto the second floor now.

The most prominent feature of the Detectives Office is the big POOL sign.  You can see that it is lit up on both sides.

This is perhaps the trickiest part of installing the LED lights, because you have a total of 8 LED lights and wires feeding into the edge of the window.  If the Briksmax light kit came with blinking LEDs on the POOL sign, it would make it even cooler, I think!

In my modular building, the Detective's Office has vacated, hence the removal of the furniture inside.  I plan on relocating the contents of the office into a larger modular MOC that I'm working on.  But you can see that the second floor is lit up nicely by two more LED light strips.

There's still lots of the light emanating from the windows at the rear of the building. I'll explain a little later why there is an expansion board out back.

The third floor is actually lit up from underneath the roof top, hence no wiring was needed here.  I also relocated one of the light fixtures, which you will see in the next picture.

And top floor is lit up courtesy of another light strip.  Here is how it looks all lit up from the rear.

The Detectives Office modular building all lit up!  Normally, this is where most LED light kit reviews would end, but here at bricksandfigs.blogspot.com, you always get a few more details and pictures about my builds and modifications.  

Disclaimer:  This is where my modifications deviate from the instructions supplied by Briksmax.  I'll explain why as I go.

Third Floor mods

We will start from the rooftop and make our way back down.  Here's how I lit up the third floor.   The LED light strip is attached to the underside of the rooftop.  The LED light over the doorway is attached to the light strip and loose wiring is secured by a random 1x2 brick part.  The cable that supplies the power for third floor lighting is attached to the other end of the light strip.  

Here is my deviation.  Below is the picture of the original Detective's Office.  Notice the location of the lamp.

To me, it makes more sense to have a light fixture over the door than to have it over the window.  It also makes it easier to light the third floor since all the wires are consolidated to under the rooftop. 

The rooftop and third floor can be separated easily from the rest of the modular building now.  No wiring is necessary for the third floor as a result.  A reminder that this is what I did, but the Briksmax instructions will work as well.

Second Floor mods

Here is how I have wired up the second floor.  Again a major deviation on my part from the Briksmax provided instructions.  Most lighting suppliers will attach the LED light strips directly to the underside of the floor above.  I decided early on, that I wanted all lighting to be contained to its respective floor.   

You may or may not notice, that I actually raised the height of this floor by one layer of bricks.  Can you see it?  Here's a picture of the original Detective's Office for reference.

image source: brickset flickr page

Basically, I disassembled the second floor and rebuilt it by adding an extra row of bricks to the second floor.  This gave me the headroom to install a crossbeam to which I could attach each light strip.

I had to source some spare parts from my brick stash to find matching colours for each section, like baby blue for the washroom and brown and nougat coloured parts for the detective's office.

And Finally, the first floor mods

The first floor has sufficient headroom to support another beam I made that spans the width of each section, ie the pool hall, the barber shop and the alleyway.

The modifications I made make it simpler to test the lighting of each floor without requiring the other floors to be attached.

Here is how my modifications all come together.  I have a separate cable that extends from each floor to connect to a six port expansion board.  Theoretically, you could attach the expansion board to one of the floors with the Briksmax provided adhesive strips but I chose to leave it hanging freely at the back.  If I need to detach a floor from the modular building, I simply disconnect the wire from the board, and it's done.

A reminder that the expansion board can then be attached to either a battery pack or USB cable (both parts supplied in the Briksmax kit).

In Summary

My intention is to make the lighting that I install into my buildings as modular as the building itself.  Hence, the goal is to make it easy to separate each floor of the modular building.  

If you are an experienced builder and have spare bricks that you can use,  you can try to make your lighting as modular as your buildings, otherwise I would recommend that you simply follow the detailed instructions provided by Briksmax.  Either way, the result of the lighting in your modular building will look fantastic.

Again, a big thank you to the kind people at Lightailing.com for sending me this Briksmax kit to evaluate.   Please be sure to check out all their other Lego lighting offerings.   If you buy anything from Lightailing.com using the links provided in this post, I will receive a small commission, which will help me to buy more light kits from them, so thanks in advance!   Thanks for reading and Bye for now!

How to install a Briksmax light kit into your Modular Building (step by step)

Hello and welcome/welcome back to Bricks and Figs, my little place on the Internet where I showcase my  Lego and alt Lego creations.  I also do reviews of new alt Lego sets on my other blog It's Not Lego.  Please feel free to check it out if you get a chance.

Today, I'll be looking at how to install a Briksmax lighting kit into a Lego or alt Lego modular building.  I'll be using my Detective's Office modular building, but these procedures could apply to any modular building you have.  So let's get started!

Full disclosure:  While Lightailing.com was kind enough to send me this kit to review, I've endeavoured to provide an honest evaluation and unbiased opinion of the product.   

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For all my blog readers, you can get 20% off all led light kits until the end of December 2021 by using code at checkout:  itsnotlego20

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Unpack the Contents of Your Kit!

If you have already received your Briksmax Light kit, unpack the box and make sure you have received everything in the kit.  The kit may include power supplies, such as USB plugs and/or battery packs, LED light strips and bulbs, expansion boards and connecting wires.  There should also be a user guide, instruction manual and service card.  I did an unboxing of my LED light kit in my previous blog post which you can find here.

Study the User Guide and Instruction Manual!

The idea is that you want to familiarise yourself with the process and understand what needs to be done before you start.  The instruction manual provides a lot of pictures but it can still be daunting if this is your first time to assemble a light kit, as it was with me.   

The manual shows you which led light bulbs or strips to use.  Be careful as there are different styles of light (warm and bright) and different lengths of cables attached to the the lights.  The manual also depicts what parts of the modular building will need to be disassembled in order to install the lighting pieces. 

Anyways, I must have gone over the instructions at least two to three times, to fully understand the task at hand.

Test Everything!

 

These LED lights are very delicate so I strongly recommend that you test each part of the kit to make sure there are no defects. I encountered a problem with the USB plug and also an expansion board port problem not responding.  

How to Test?

Initially, at a minimum you will require 3 components to test the lights and accessories in the kit.   You will need a power source (ie. battery pack or usb plug), an expansion board, and an LED light.   

Testing from the battery pack

First make sure you have fresh batteries for your battery pack.  Mine takes 3 AA batteries, but your pack may differ.  Insert the batteries into your pack and turn on the power switch.  Take any one of the LED lights in your kit and plug it into the expansion board via the attached connecting wire, as per the user guide.  Then take the connecting wire from the battery pack and plug it into the same expansion board.  You should see that the selected LED light comes on.  If not, check your connections, try a different led light or different port on the expansion board.  Contact the Lightailing.com service number or email for more assistance.

Test each light and expansion board

If you successfully connected the light and it comes on, continue to plug in different led lights to each port on the same expansion board.  This effectively tests all the lights and ports on the selected expansion board.  Repeat this test with every light in the kit, then repeat the process using each expansion board, making sure you test every port of each board.   

Testing from the USB plug

If your kit includes a USB plug, repeat the above tests but replace the battery pack with the USB plug.  The plug will have a connecting wire which you attach to the expansion board.  Plug the USB connector to your own USB power source such as a USB hub or power bank.   If you successfully verified that all of your lights and expansion boards are working, this test simply swaps out the battery for the USB plug and therefore your expected results should be the same.

Troubleshooting problems

During my testing, I encountered a problem when attaching an LED light to a specific port on one of the expansion boards.  All the attached lights would turn off, when I tried to plug in a light to a specific port.  Normally I would just expect that the LED light was bad and not turn on, but in this case, the actual port was bad.  

Another problem I encountered in my kit was that the USB plug did not work, so for the time being I have to rely on only my battery pack to power the LED lights.  These were the problems I encountered with my own kit, but you may or may not have any issues with your kit.

Contacting Service

Do reach out to Lightailing.com support for assistance if you encounter problems, as I did.  They will ask you to document the problem with either photos or videos so that they can assess.  Afterwards, they should be able to resolve it or send you replacement parts.  At the time of writing this blog post, I'm awaiting the parts that Lightailing.com sent out to me.

Assuming you didn't have any issues with your lights, let's move on to the next step!

Taking Apart Your Modular Building!

As per the instruction manual, you have to remove or replace parts of your modular building to install the LED lights.  Make sure you have your original modular building instructions close by, in case you forget how to re-attach the different parts.

This was probably the most stressful part of the process for me, because it means tearing down parts of my modular building.  If you don't do this often, it's a daunting task, but know that the end result is so worth it.  The instruction manual is pretty good in most places but you will have to finesse the wire placement and where to attach the expansion boards.  All the wiring makes the interior kind of messy, but when viewed from outside, your modular building will look amazing.

Light It Up!

So here is the first floor of my Detective's office wired up.   What do you think?

There are lights under the canopies of the pool hall.  The interior of the pool hall is also lit up as is the adjacent pedestrian tunnel.

Here's Al's barber shop with interior lighting and the barber pole lit up.   Not gonna lie, trying to squeeze the led lights into the barber pole was a nightmare, and I still think the wiring placement can be improved, which I might return to at a later date.

The street lamp on the sidewalk is also lit up.

Don't be alarmed about why my Detective's Office looks different than yours.  I made some minor customisations awhile back (I actually borrowed the windows for another modular MOC I was working on).  But anyways, you can see the back of the building is lit up just as nicely as the front.

I just finished lighting up the first floor of the Detective's Office, so I've still got the second floor interior to do plus the POOL sign.  I'll do another blog post after I've wrapped everything up, so please be sure to come back when I'm done to see the final result.   Hopefully the replacement parts get shipped out to me soon!

In the meantime head on over to Lightailing.com, if you want to check out all of their different LED light kits.  They make all sorts of kits for pretty much every Lego set, not just modular buildings.   

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BTW, use special code ITSNOTLEGO at checkout to get an extra discount off your purchases!  

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That's a wrap for this blog post.  Don't worry, there will be a part two once I finish wiring up the rest of the Detective's Office to show you the completed and lit modular.   Thanks for looking!