PF lights two studs wide

[Rebel_Lego]

Hello everyone,

I have purchased a lego power functions led light on Bricklink, to light up my 42043 MB Arocs. On real life trucks you often see that the rear lights are ‘double’. I modified the rear bumper of the Arocs to create this ‘double’ lights. But, the Lego LED light has only one light bulb for every side, so it will not shine trough two holes of a technic liftarm. Anyone any ideas how to achieve this?

[Zerobricks]

Use more lights?

[Gray Gear]

43 minutes ago, Zerobricks said:

Use more lights?

 yeah that's what I thought as well...

I mean what kind of answer did you expect? "Just leave the LED in a glass of water over night and it'll have doubled in the morning"?

[Lipko]

You can try to put a 2 long transparent brick on the opposite side, maybe it will be sufficient to scatter the light. Not sure it there's enough space...

[nerdsforprez]

Lego PF lights system is a burden. You may want to consider a third party light system.  I have used them in the past with great success.  They are much thinner and it should allow you to use two lights... 

I have also found that the Lego system has poor reliability/longevity.  The old lights I have all have varying levels of brightness (with the same battery source)..... 

[Rebel_Lego]

1 hour ago, Lipko said:

You can try to put a 2 long transparent brick on the opposite side, maybe it will be sufficient to scatter the light. Not sure it there's enough space...

Thank you! I’ll try!

1 hour ago, Gray Gear said:

 yeah that's what I thought as well...

I mean what kind of answer did you expect? "Just leave the LED in a glass of water over night and it'll have doubled in the morning"?

Lipko gave an answer at least. You don’t have to reply if you think it’s a stupid question, right?

[Lira_Bricks]

There is also elements like https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4171&name=Electric, Train Light Prism 1 x 3&category=[Electric, Train]#T=C&C=12 :)

[dr_spock]

Wire your own 5mm LEDs.  They will be much brighter than the LEGO PF LEDs.

[Lira_Bricks]

27 minutes ago, dr_spock said:

Wire your own 5mm LEDs.  They will be much brighter than the LEGO PF LEDs.

Where are the wires of the leds going? Is there some hole drilled into the receiver?

[Rebel_Lego]

55 minutes ago, Lira_Bricks said:

There is also elements like https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4171&name=Electric, Train Light Prism 1 x 3&category=[Electric, Train]#T=C&C=12 :)

Never seen this piece before, will dive into that!

 

48 minutes ago, dr_spock said:

Wire your own 5mm LEDs.  They will be much brighter than the LEGO PF LEDs.

Will look into this too!

[MikeTwo9398]

2 hours ago, Lira_Bricks said:

There is also elements like https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=4171&name=Electric, Train Light Prism 1 x 3&category=[Electric, Train]#T=C&C=12 :)

This was used in the in past with the 12 Volt train series. Like the picture below.

I never tried to use it in a technic build.

[Johnny1360]

Crap, I've never seen that piece before either. Now I have to get some, thanks.

[nerdsforprez]

Those are the exact pieces on the front of @horickdesigns motorcycle.  Second place in our latest TC19 Technic competition!

[dr_spock]

8 hours ago, Lira_Bricks said:

Where are the wires of the leds going? Is there some hole drilled into the receiver?

No holes were drilled in the IR receiver. The wires were soldered to the 9V and ground pins in the receiver and fed out through the existing pin holes. The LED goes on when power is applied to receiver.

[pdw]

If you're happy with a non-Lego solution, then there are various options.  I did these using SMD LEDs:

The LEDs are glued into a short piece of silicon tubing that's just the right diameter to plug into the back of half pin.  SMD LEDs are also small enough that they'll fit in the hollow on the underside of a stud, which is what I did for the front lights.  

The 3rd party lighting kits have similar options, but they're quite expensive for what they are.  

[Rebel_Lego]

Don’t know if anyone is interested in this, but I thought I’d share my solution.

I decided I’d go for a all Lego solution (despite being a bit more expensive). Unfortunately I can’t post any photo’s, I don’t know why, maybe it has something to do with the amount of posts I have.

After a lot trial and error I came up with this: I used one PF light to shine trough two studs, by using a transparant red 1x2 plate, with two 1x1 transparant round plates stacked on it. The PF light is about half a stud behind that and the transparant plate sort of makes the light bundle wider, so that it shines through both round plates. I decided to remove the liftarm, because letting one light shine through two studs would take too much space, because it would require a 1x2 brick stacked on the liftarm and because the effect is much better with just all transparant bricks.

[brunojj1]

@Rebel_Lego : I´m interested in your solution and would like to see some pictures . Host them somewhere else (bricksafe e.g.) and simply post the links here.

[Rebel_Lego]

https://bricksafe.com/pages/Rebel_Lego/42043---mb-arocs-rear-lights

This is the bricksafe page of the Arocs rear lights, not the best photo quality but they suit the purpose.

[UltraViolet]

  If you had the space to hide it behind holes or a trans-colored tile/brick, you could use the old 12V incandescent 2x2 light brick and simply underpower it with 9 volts.  Or you could use two of the 4.5V version of the 2x2 light brick wired in series for a true voltage match.  Back in the day, they were commonly used to backlight colored trans bricks, often with words printed on the outer surface, so brightness should be reasonable.  The large 'window' on these bricks would allow you to place more that one in a row/stack for more coverage on larger models:

  08010bc01, e.g. (12v/3-hole version shown, other minor variants available)

  Or, if you could actually get your hands on two of these antiques, you could go larger:

    x456c01 - 4.5 volt 2x4 brick, all clear body

 

  Both types seem quite affordable on BrickLink, I was surprised.  I guess there isn't enough demand for them.

  The neat thing about the old bi-pin wire plugs is that the wire was attached to them with set-screw terminals, meaning you could modify wires at will or make really long ones without needing a soldering iron or having to mangle crimped ends.  You could put a bi-pin end on a cut-off PF wire easily that way.  Also, most of the bi-pin connectors had an extra set of holes for another connector to plug into it, making power sharing to multiple lights a breeze.

  As a child, I had two of the 4.5v 2x2 light bricks from the 816-1 light bricks set, and the C-cell rectangular battery box plus some wires.  Brings back fond memories!  I still have all the pieces, but I don't know where the light bricks are at the moment.  I don't have the package any longer, unfortunately, but here is the image from BrickLink:

 

[Rebel_Lego]

@UltraViolet because I started building Lego just ten years ago and in the beginning didn’t do much with lights etc. I never saw these pieces. I think I will keep my Arocs lights like this at the moment, but if i’m lighting up another model I will look into it!

Edited March 10, 2021 by Rebel_Lego