Every year, I build a Lego Winter Village for my family. This year, I wanted to add a bit more to it—to go to the next step. I found a company that sells LED lights for Lego: Light My Bricks. Its kits really bring the entire diorama to the next level. I am not one to write about Legos, but this addition adds a bit of technology to any Lego set.
The overall appeal of Light My Bricks is wonderful. I quite enjoyed putting everything together. Currently, all but two Winter Village sets (the Bakery and the Post Office) have lights. My diorama adds several other unlighted structures from additional creator sets (Ski Lodge, Changing Season House) and also a tunnel with a ski slope made from spare parts. Eventually, lighting up those elements would be very nice to do.
The gotchas:
- The wires are very delicate 26- or even 28-gauge wires. I broke several wires building the diorama. This required me to order extra lights. That is probably a good idea from the beginning.
- Multiple battery packs. There is a light interconnect kit that will help here. I could not easily find this on the website, so I ordered a number of expansion boards and longer-length connection wires. In the end, I ended up with just one battery pack for all the static structures.
- Low batteries are not an issue with the kits per se, but low batteries will impact how the lights appear—specifically, on the Winter Holiday Train.
- Instructions do not ship with the kits. You have to go online to download them. This is fine. However, the formatting is more for online viewing than paper.
None of these are insurmountable gotchas. They are things you need to consider when planning your diorama.
Light My Bricks ships very quickly from Australia to the United States. Each of my orders took no more than a few days. Fast shipping is a must for many Lego builders. This was a pleasant surprise.
The company’s support was also very good, helping me work through several issues as quickly as possible despite a thirteen-hour time difference. My issues that needed support were electrical in nature:
- Low-battery issues with the train and Lego power functions.. The train would either run or light up using the power function cables. It ended up being just low batteries.
- Expansion boards would heat up. This happens when the board has a wire that is not connected to any form of load. Basically, the power has nowhere to go. This is not uncommon when dealing with low-voltage items.
Light My Bricks was also open to suggestions, and its instructions are very exact. Placement of the wires can be tricky. The instructions gave an optimal placement to hide as much as possible. Still, quite a bit is visible. It is possible to add more bricks to hide everything, however. There are also lots of ways to place wires on top of studs. You need to find the method that works best for you. The instructions give one method, but others also work. It depends mostly on your manual dexterity. As I stated earlier, these wires are delicate and quite small.
Overall, the effect on my Winter Village is very cool. Light My Bricks takes feedback, offers very good support, and allows you to light up anything you desire. Granted, you will have to plan ahead for what you would like to purchase. Next year, I think I will set up a tree-lighting ceremony in my Winter Village.
thanks for mentioning wire gauge, you got me going in the right direction. was thinking of using that thin motor winding enameled wire too. take care! 🙂