LED lights

[SpaceMan Nathan]

Hey all, I could have sworn I had seen a thread in the past about working LED lights into your build. I am looking to use some in a larger display I am building. I can't seem to find the thread though. Can any of you point me in a direction of some help/instruction? Thank you.

[Missing Brick]

This thread on lighting the winter village may be useful.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=77308&hl=+winter%20+village%20+lighting#entry1465122

I tend to use powerfunctions leds for small lamps in the build and LED torches for ceiling lights. I also tried using discrete 3mm LEDs wired up with crocodile clips on my most recent moc.

[fred67]

There's a bunch of threads; it's easier for me to say to google "lighting site:eurobricks.com" to get a bunch of hits.

IMO, there's three choices to lighting:

• LEGO Only (PF and LEGO light bricks)
  
• Third party, like lifelites and liteupblock.
  
• DIY, buying wire, LED, some power source, resistors, and soldering it all together.
  

These are the most flexible in reverse order. DIY you can wire exactly how you want, but it takes more time and effort (but likely less money, if you already do any kind of electronics); I lit my winter village with lifelites and also used one of their elite kits with (somewhat) programmable bricks to light my "monsters of rock" stage with flashing lights. PF requires the battery box somewhere in your model... if you're doing something like a minifigure scale X-Wing, it simply is a non-starter. Even anything short of a UCS scale ship would have a hard time hiding a battery box inside.

Lifelites has several battery options... including an AA battery pack, or watch battery driven elite bricks.

[Missing Brick]

What Fred said - but I would add it's also possible to DIY without soldering, using crocodile clips to connect everything up (ideal for exterior lights on a building assuming you can tolerate having a mess of wires and clips inside of the building).

You can get some ridiculously cheap sets of croc clips on amazon - so with a 9V battery, some 3mm LEDs and a selection of radial resistors - you can make a very cheap lighting system (< £4). That's what I used for the wall lights on the middle picture below.

By contrast the official powerfunctions lights are ridiculously expensive ( £5.50 for 2 dim LEDs + £12 for a battery box!! )

Edited January 19, 2015 by Missing Brick

[SpaceMan Nathan]

Thanks guys. I am building a hanger right now, so the lighting would be either just in the walls or the floors (actually similar to what you have in your signature Missing Brick). Looks like I may be able to get by with a kit from lifelites. I will poke around some more. Thanks again.