Product Guide: Lighting Starter Kit for LEGO Aircraft

Product Guide: Lighting Starter Kit for LEGO Aircraft


INTRODUCTION

This guide describes how to use the Brickstuff Lighting Starter Kit for LEGO® aircraft.  This kit was designed to work with all types of LEGO® aircraft-- you can mount it inside of a passenger plane, a cargo plane, or a military plane.  Depending on the specific type and size of aircraft you have, you might not use all of the lighting parts in this kit, or you may decide to purchase some additional lights to expand the effects.  This guide will present a general overview of how the kit is designed to work, and it will also show some areas in which the kit can be expanded if needed to work best with your specific model.

InfoThe photos and examples in this guide use the LEGO® airplane from the 2020 set #60262 (Passenger Airplane).

This Starter Kit includes the following parts:
  1. One red Pico LED light (for use as the bottom-mounted strobe light)
  2. One cool white Pico LED light (for use in the cockpit as an instrument light)
  3. Three Microflex LED lights with thin, flexible circuit boards (for use as wingtip lights and top/tail-mounted beacon light)
  4. Two Pixel Bead warm white LED lights (for use in the cabin as interior lights)
  5. One lighting effect controller with six outputs
  6. Connecting cables
  7. LEGO® parts to use in mounting the lights
  8. 3xAAA battery pack (batteries not included) with on/off switch
Again, depending on the size and specific design of your aircraft, you may use all of these parts or only some of them.

CONNECTIONS

Your kit includes one lighting effect controller (LEC) pre-programmed with several aircraft-related lighting effects.  The diagram below shows the LEC and the connections for power and each specific type of light for a typical aircraft:


The plug in the upper right corner of the illustration shows where the power supply is connected.  Your kit includes a 3-AAA battery pack which can be connected to this plug.  You can also use any of the other Brickstuff power supplies to power your aircraft setup.

The text box in the lower right corner of the illustration shows the "mode" button on the LEC, as well as the three different lighting modes:
  1. Mode 1: Interior lights are off, exterior lights are on
  2. Mode 2: Interior and exterior lights are on
  3. Mode 3: Interior lights are on, exterior lights are off
To change modes, press and release the "mode" button once.  There is a small blue LED light directly above the "mode" button that will flash 1-3 times to indicate the active mode.  This LED light also flashes 1-3 times when power is turned on, to show which is the active mode.  Your mode setting is preserved even when power is turned off.

The numbers 1-6 in the illustration show where specific lights should be connected:
  1. Plugs 1 and 2 are for the two wingtip lights
  2. Plug 3 is for the cockpit instrument light
  3. Plug 4 is for the interior (cabin) lights
  4. Plug 5 is for the top beacon light
  5. Plug 6 is for the bottom red strobe light
The illustration below shows these connections overlaid on top of a generic airplane outline:



Info
For your convenience, a PDF document showing these connections is attached to the bottom of this knowledgebase article and can be downloaded and/or printed for future reference.

INSTALLATION

The photos below show a general approach for installing the lights inside your airplane.  Again, since every airplane is different, these photos are just a guide.  You can use the concepts and layouts presented in the photos to adapt to your specific airplane configuration.

Installing the Cockpit Light

Beginning with the cockpit instrument light, the photos below show how to install this and how to run the LED wire to the back of the plane where the effect controller will be located.

Preparing the cool white Pico LED light.


Mounting the transparent blue plate included with your kit. Optionally you can also use any of the other colored parts included with your kit to change the color of the cockpit light.

Running the LED light wire toward the back of the plane.
Finishing running the cockpit light wire. We will use the cargo are of this plane as the location for the effect controller and battery pack.
Connecting the cockpit light to plug #3 on the lighting effect controller.

Installing the wingtip strobes

Preparing the two wingtip lights. Note the three Microflex LED lights in the photo: two have long wires and one has a shorter wire. We will use the lights with the longer wires for the wingtip lights.
Removing the existing wingtip tile.
Carefully bending the top of the Microflex LED light over the top of the stud.
Re-attaching the wingtip tile. The Microflex LED lights are small enough to fit under any brick, plate, or tile.
Carefully bending the Microflex wire under the bottom of the wing, and (optionally) securing with a spare plate.
Removing the engine(s) to allow the LED wire to run underneath.
Carefully running the LED wire *between* studs. Make sure your wires do not run on top of any studs, or the wire could become pinched or damaged.
Re-attaching the engine to hold the wire in place.
Removing the wing assembly to make a path for the wingtip lights to enter into the main airplane body.
Repeating the same process for the other wingtip light.
Running both wingtip light wires into the main cabin and toward the effect controller.
Connecting the wingtip lights to plugs #1 and #2 on the lighting effect controller.

Mounting the Underbody Strobe Light

Insert the wire from the red Pico LED light through the hole in the round transparent 1x1 plate with hole (provided with your kit).
Attach the plate and red LED Light to the bottom of your plane.
Find a pathway to run the LED light wire inside the main body of the plane.
Connect the wire from the red strobe light to plug #6 on the lighting effect controller.

Mounting the Interior Cabin Lights

Attach the two Pixel Bead LED Lights to the cabin ceiling by using the two black 2x2 plates and two round transparent "boat stud" pieces included with your kit. Use the shorter connecting cable to connect the two Pixel Bead lights, and connect the longer cable to the end of the first Pixel Bead light (pointing to the rear of the aircraft).
Run the connecting cable through the holes in the plane's roof sections.
Carefully re-attach the cabin roof.
Make sure the cabin light wire has a clear path to the rear of the plane so it can reach the lighting effect controller.
Connect the cabin lights to plug #4 on the lighting effect controller.

Connecting the Top Beacon Light

Depending on the configuration of your plane, you may choose to attach the beacon light either to the top of the tail or to the top of the main body of the plane.  For our example, we'll be attaching the beacon to the plane's tail.

Prepare the tail by removing the existing transparent tile.
Carefully position the remaining Microflex LED light (with the shorter wire) over the stud beneath the transparent tile you just removed.
Carefully re-attach the transparent tile over the top of the Microflex LED Light.
Run the Microflex LED light wire down the back of the tail.
Optionally, you can use several small pieces of transparent tape to secure the Microflex wire to the back of the tail.
Carefully re-attach the tail, making sure the LED Light wires pass *between* studs and not on top of any studs.
Connect the tail/top strobe light to plug #5 on the lighting effect controller (this should be the last remaining available plug on the LEC).

Re-Assembling the Plane and Cleaning Up Wires

After you have connected all of the lights and made sure they are connected to the correct plug numbers as shown in the diagram at the top of this article (and in the PDF document attached at the bottom of this article), connect your power source and test to make sure all lights work.

Connecting the battery pack to make sure all lights work before finally re-assembling the plane.
Alert
When testing, if any lights don't work, carefully trace their wires back to the light itself.  The most common cause for a light not working is a pinched wire, which causes a short circuit.  Sometimes you can fix this by re-routing the wire (freeing it up and then running it again).

After you have tested your lights, you can finish re-assembling the sections of your plane.

Once the plane is re-assembled, you can coil up any excess wire to make the installation a bit less cluttered as shown in the photo below.
The final results, after loose/excess wires have been coiled up.

THANK YOU

Thank you for purchasing this Brickstuff product!  Your support means a lot to our small, family business, and it allows us to wake up every day and continue doing the work we love: making really cool things to take your models to the next level!

If you have any questions or problems with this product, please send us an e-mail and let us know how we can help.  You can also comment directly about this guide below.

If you make something really cool with this product, please share on social media and tag us (@brickstuff on most platforms) so we can see your awesome work!