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!

My Custom Not Lego Koban Police Station

 

Hey brick fans!

I just wanted to show you my latest project, it's a small neighbourhood police station called a Koban. It's typically found in many Japanese cities and towns.   My little not Lego Japanese town gets a much needed police station.

Here's the wikipedia page for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dban

My model is based on someone's 3D render I found on the internet.  It looked simple enough to replicate with my bricks and blocks.

I copied the location of all the windows that I saw in the pictures and even added bars on the windows.

I added a policeman minifigure and a policewoman minifigure to provide a sense of scale.

There are no pictures of the back of the building, so I just added a door with a covered ledge.

I have a weird sized brick on the back wall which I' need to replace.  I wonder if I should indent the back wall to replicate the design on the sides of the building?  Might give it a bit more visual interest.

I used minifigure baseplates for my rooftop, lol.  Looks crappy doesn't it?

In case, you are wondering if my not Lego police station is a modular building, yes it is.  The roof and the second floor can be separated.

I've even added a stairwell opening on the second floor.   Now I just need to furnish the interior.  I need to add stairs, a front desk, some offices, a break room and a small jail cell.  That will be for the next project. 

This project took me about 20 hours to build using just the spare bricks and blocks I had laying around. That's it, thanks for looking at my custom Japanese Koban police station!  Bye!

Why did I expand my Lego Compatible Strip Club?

 

Hey brick fans!

A couple of weeks ago I built a Lego compatible Strip Club for my new collection of Sexy girl minifigures that I bought from Aliexpress.

Right after I finished building it, I realized it was too small and lacking a number of necessary items.  I like the look of the building but needed to improve it somehow. I had two options, I could either build up or build out.   

If I added a third floor to the strip club, it would make it stand out amongst all of the other smaller shops on my Japan street.  Recall that I'm trying to create an unassuming building that kind of one doesn't notice when looking at all of the other buildings.

So what I decided to do was expand sideways and make the club 32 studs wide instead of 16 studs wide.  So the original building still stands, it just kind of took over the building next to it.

And here it is, the new and improved Strip club!   The back story is that the building next door used to be some kind of warehouse and it's been empty for many years.  The owner of the strip club first took over the old garage and now he wants to also take the old warehouse and combine the two buildings.

The storefront to the warehouse was replaced with vending machines, which are quite common on the streets of Japan.  

To expand the strip club, the owner decided to remove the wall between the two buildings, so that the exterior looks like two separate buildings, but internally, they are one space.

For a quick build, a lot of corrugated 5x6 panels were used to the clad the outside of the strip club.  Other than a couple of waste bins, there's not a whole lot going on in the back.

In addition to the expansion, lighting was also added to the building.   There are 5 different light strands that all connect to one USB plug.   Each light strand has different lights on it.  Two of the strands have colourful lights that flash on and off.  Then there are two strands that have chains of warm white led lights. Lastly, there is a single light on it's own strand.   Each light strand has a different length, making it a confusing mess of wires.  I'll elaborate more about the lighting later.

Going back to the front, the second floor is all panels and it's here that there is an indication about the purpose of the building.  Possibly, the strip club could be called the Loft.  Next to the sign, a gold figure and a silver figure share a stripper's pole.  I didn't want a giant stripper sign or flashing lights outside.  

On the rooftop of the newer building, it gets the same ventilation unit as the one next door.  The roof panel can be removed from the dark gray building, but not on the light gray building.  Instead the whole second floor can be removed to reveal the inside.

You'll noticed the missing wall on the the second floor of the warehouse.

That's because the second floor of the first building now opens up into the warehouse.  The interior stays pretty much the same, except for the removal of the wall.  Access to the second floor is via the existing staircase.  

The two dancing stages are still in the same locations, however there is now a glass panel behind the larger of the two stages.  The second floor of the original building gets a new speaker system and accent lighting.

The main stage that used to be in the older building has now been upgraded.  The interior now boasts a larger stage with lots of seating for the patrons.   The dingy gray walls have been replaced with an inviting lavender colour and lots of large graphics.  Don't mind all of the wiring, it's for all the lighting and there's a lot of it.

Some of the little corner balconies on the second floor provide an excellent view of the main stage.

On each floor of the strip club, there are guys whose job is to make sure that everyone is on their best behaviour.

Lighting for the second floor is provided by wires that come up the staircase opening.  Luckily, there's enough slack in the wires, that I can removed the second floor without pulling out all of the wires for the lighting.

Here's how the layout looks for the strip club now.

A much bigger bar with lots of alcohol.  There are four spigots for different draft beers.  I figured since the walls are lavender, might as well make the bar the same colour.

Opposite the bar is the DJ station.  Eagle eyed brick fans might recognize the sound station which is from the Pantasy DJ booth.  You can compare how it looks now from before: https://its-not-lego.blogspot.com/2021/09/pantasy-p-box-dj-booth-98001-set-review.html.

The guest DJ is one of the sexy girls that I got from Aliexpress.  More info about them  here: https://altbrickdeals.blogspot.com/2024/02/unbranded-s101-sexy-grils-minifigures.html

Just an alternate view.

Earlier, I showed you what the back of the strip club looks like, now let's add some juice and see if the set looks better.

I added some accent lighting to the front of the building, over the garage door and above the vending machines.

I wanted to add some lighting effect for the second floor but the wiring would make it difficult to remove the upper walls, so nope.

The second floor of the OG building with the lights on.

Here's the main stage all lit up.  The back blue and red grid panels are also from the Pantasy DJ set.  There are flashing lights on both back panels as well as the front facing speakers.

Perimeter lighting is provided by thoese warm LED light strings I mentioned earlier.  I put the lights on pivoting brick pieces, so that the direction of the lights can be adjusted.

I also put some of the lights under the beams near the bar and the DJ station.

The lighting was probably the most challenging to install because these lights were not meant for this building.  They were originally an LED light kit for a holiday christmas train.  I think I originally bought the lights because I thought I could use them to light up the Blade Runner Spinner. 

I love the way everything came together even though, the lights were a nightmare to install.  I changed the lighting so many times in trying to make everything fit.

I still have the light brick attached to the ceiling of the second floor.

The garage door still opens, so people outside can see all the action inside.

The DJ station can even rotate 180 degrees to bring the party outside.

Here's the video for your viewing pleasure:

I've placed the strip club in between two of the Cada Japanese themed modular buildings, the Kitty Grocery Store and the Japanese Tea shop.  I've modified both of those buildings too.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour of my custom strip club!   Thanks for looking, bye for now!