Non- LEGO LED lighting - have you used them?

[1963maniac]

If you have 3rd party LED LIGHTING KITS for your LEGO sets, or DIY projects, I'd like to hear your feedback. Which brands do you have? What do you like or not like about them? Would you buy more? Do you recommend them? Please tell about your experience with them. 

Edited May 3, 2020 by 1963maniac

[Pdaitabird]

I've just used 5mm LEDs from the local hobby shop. They fit the hole in a technic brick as if they were made for it. It's easy to connect them to switches and batteries with a soldering iron. This was my first lighting project from almost a year ago:

And a more recent endeavor:

Pros: Cheap, widely available, can be customized to your exact needs, available in several colors (solid or flashing).

Cons: Requires cutting/splicing wires and soldering to connect to a power supply, may require extra resistors depending on voltage.

Overall, I would recommend getting some 3mm or 5mm LEDs and a battery holder and trying your hand at a DIY lighting kit!

[dr_spock]

I have some Lifelites. They're ok if you don't disassemble them very often. It is not hard to rip their tiny wires out of their tiny connectors.

I use inexpensive 5mm Chinese eBay LEDs too. You can also wire wrap LED leads if you have a wire wrapping tool. DIY means you can cut your wires to the exact length needed. With Lifelites and others you have to buy their extension wires and/or stash excess lengths of wires somewhere.

[ShaydDeGrai]

My problem with a lot of the third party lighting solutions _designed_ for Lego is just cost (true to my ethnic origins, I can stretch a copper pence into a length of wire).  Instead, I've gone with cheap LED christmas lights, usually picked up on clearance after the holidays, fifty lights and a battery box for just a few dollars is hard to beat.  If a whole strand isn't needed or desired, I just snip off what I need and do a little soldering.  As others have pointed out Bulbs that fit in Technic holes and inside 1x1 bricks and rounds aren't hard to find and for tight form factors you can make your own battery box out of a 2x3 brick, a resister, a paper clip, some tin foil (or the tear-blade from an empty tin foil box) and three hearing aid batteries.

BTW @dr_spock, thank you for reminding me that I haven't used my wire wrap tool in ages - why have I been soldering all these years when I could have just wrapped the darn stuff?  It would have been so much easier.  Oy. (insert palm to forehead here...)