[WIP] Light up all Modulars with LEDs

[beverly888]

Wow.  Love the mini-scenes illuminated by the lights.

Cheers!

Beverly

[Berthil]

Thanks @beverly888 for your positive comments <3

Edited February 14, 2018 by Berthil

[Berthil]

Top floor also ready which completes the Market Street. LEDs put in to terrace, bedroom and bathroom with no wires visible in the interior. It looks better in real life as the human eye is better than a camera, even with these pictures shot with a 5D Mark IV.

[Berthil]

Market Street with 14 leds has been put back in it's place in my modular street, next in line is Parisian Restaurant and after that Green Grocer.
The Parisian Restaurant should be less work with 2 floors less although it has two terraces with original 'lights' that of course will get LEDs.

[fordtruckin]

Looks amazing! I would absolutely do this to my modulars if I knew how. Can't wait to see more. Thanks for sharing your project!

[higgins91]

On 12/02/2018 at 7:10 PM, Berthil said:

 

Hello,
this photo inspired me to illuminate my modular. I used cut nails on which I soldered a wire. No more wires between floors
here are some photos:

IMG_20180303_153018 by alex peraux, sur Flickr

IMG_20180303_153025 by alex peraux, sur Flickr

IMG_20180303_153040 by alex peraux, sur Flickr

 

 

[Berthil]

18 hours ago, higgins91 said:

Hello,
this photo inspired me to illuminate my modular. I used cut nails on which I soldered a wire. No more wires between floors

Also an excellent idea with the cut nails, I'll also try it on my next modular. I will get copper nails like these with flat head and 3mm width.

[koalayummies]

Really great work. You're skilled with those small holes and super tiny gauge wiring, if I tried to do that the drill bit would invariably come out the side of the lamp posts and the soldered connections would be twice as thick as the wire . Brilliant connection for the separation of the floors. Can't wait to see Parisian lit up.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

What an impressive work!

[alsielou]

The Market Street looks gorgeous with the lighting. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the street lighting up!

[LegoModularFan]

Some great work going in this topic  Looks very realistic! 

Edited March 7, 2018 by LegoModularFan

[dylanfarrow]

Old topic I know, but I’d love to see anymore progress? It looks stunning so far and much cleaner than the led kits you can buy. Excellent work

[Berthil]

@dylanfarrow, it happens to be I'm working on the Diner after a pauze. Ground floor has 9 LEDs with lighted jukebox and chimney above stove. Since I really don't like the turquoise and pink colors, I've replaced these colors to also fit better with the other Modulars. Still waiting for parts but hope to have some pictures by the end of the week.

I also have almost all 27.000 bricks for the 8 Brickative modulars and plan to build in LEDs right from the start.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Berthil

[Berthil]

Here the back of the ground floor of the Diner with wiring for 9 LEDs. No wires visible on the inside and trying to arrange wires at the back as neatly as possible. As you can see no ugly turquoise in this Diner. Next step is to solder all wires to the vertical 'lifeline'.

[dylanfarrow]

Great to see you back, and nice skills again

[Berthil]

15 minutes ago, dylanfarrow said:

Great to see you back, and nice skills again

Thanks for your encouraging comments, I need it because this is a lot of work, especially to finish all modulars. If others read this, feel free to encourage if you like it because I need it for motivation. If the Diner will light up as I envisioned it in my head it will be awesome, I hope to post some pictures with lights soon.

[Berthil]

Ground floor of my Diner (without turquoise and pink) is finished. I added 9 LEDs including LEDs in the juke box and chimney above the stove. Also LEDs above counter and table. I really like how it looks. The camera does not do justice, it looks better with the human eye.

With lessons learned from the Market Street I now designed a cleaner backside with power lifeline (fingerprints meanwhile wiped off):

[Kalahari134]

13 hours ago, Berthil said:

The camera does not do justice, it looks better with the human eye.

Blimey, if it looks better by eye than it looks in the photos then it must look amazing.

[Berthil]

Diner is finished and has 15 lights, here's a video:

And some pictures.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Berthil
Pictures added

[dylanfarrow]

Outstanding!! Great photography

thanks for the tips on wire size, managed to get some 0.04 and it is perfect. Tiles properly click into place and you can’t see a thing. 

Quick question. What lead you to put in ‘lights’ within each floor, eg lights over the counters in the Diner, instead of putting the lights into the ceiling of the floor above? I’d like to keep it as clean as yours is, and keep the playability of the sets

Also are you wiring your leds in parallel or series? 

Love the clean power at the back of the Diner. 

[Jody Meyer]

Your work on both is awesome, are you adding any resistors to your LEDs? Love the clean tube work, great idea. I am thinking I want to do my Death Star with leds

[Berthil]

2 hours ago, dylanfarrow said:

Quick question. What lead you to put in ‘lights’ within each floor, eg lights over the counters in the Diner, instead of putting the lights into the ceiling of the floor above? I’d like to keep it as clean as yours is, and keep the playability of the sets

Also are you wiring your leds in parallel or series? 

I wire these through the 3mm tubes to the back of the modular. Mostly there is enough room to the ceiling on ground floors for this but I decide per Modular what is best. For other floors I try to be as 'natural' as possible and e.g. add light on cabinets or on walls like with the Diner.
I wire everything in parallel.

2 hours ago, Jody Meyer said:

... are you adding any resistors to your LEDs?

With the 9V train power supply I used 100 Ohm on the plus of a cut 9V plug to the rest of the house. This results in almost 3V. If you want the LEDs to be brighter choose less Ohms but lifespan of LEDs will decrease.

Thanks for the positive comments, very helpful!

[McWaffel]

You're a hero!

You can't imagine how many sleepless nights I had, thinking about solutions to light up Lego without having to buy overpriced 3rd party kits or running wires everywhere that would ruin the look of these beautiful sets! 

Finally someone came up with a solution that looks stunning, works great, doesn't reduce playablity of the sets... etc. This is truly the solution I was hoping to come up with! I'm so great to have found this thread. Thank you so much!
I hope you don't mind, if I copy your ideas. They're great. Especially running the cables in tubes. Brilliant. 
How hot do your LEDs or the resistors get? Do you have them all in series?

[Berthil]

@McWaffel Thanks. The LEDs are running on 3V and don't get hot. I have them all in parallel with one resistor after the 9V plug that lights all LEDs

[Stonehenge]

Hey there,

This topic kept me interested as not-registered user for several months now, as I am considering to light up my modulars a little bit, too. I am really impressed of the detailed and precise work!

A short question regarding the 3mm tube you are using to cover the cables (you wrote about in the thread-opening-post).
Is this a Lego-original brick or third party product? - If so, where did you get that?

Kind regards,
Stonehenge