Light up your LEGO Town

Here's a little gift of illumination for fellow LEGO town Mayors. LEGO officially produces Light Bricks (part# 4667622)  but are only available with relevant sets like the Creator Family House 31012. When I started the Lighthouse I was looking around for options of getting it lit up, that's when I stumbled upon this awesome little thing.

LiteUpBlock 2x3 Brick, Yellow LED with clear case

It's made by a small setup in Hong Kong called LiteUpBlock who offer a pretty wide range of LED LEGO compatible lighting options. I decided to go for a few 2x3 Yellow LED clear case versions but they have other combinations of White, Red, Green, Blue LED, with matching options of coloured and clear cases. In addition to this 2x3 brick they have 2x4 versions as well.

They do offer other lighting setups like LightStuds, Lamp Posts and Light Bars too. Some are wired USB powered but they are working on battery versions which should be available by now.

Overall great LEGO lighting options and so far I'm really happy with the few that I purchased.

So while I would like to cover nice examples of sets with lighting, I decided to focus on a closeup technical review of the 2x3 brick LiteUpBlock and remember these come is various colour options including a blinking RGB version which would be great lighting upgrades for LEGO City emergency vehicles and stations.

Side view of LitUpBlock 2x3 with their batteries (included)

Out of the pack these little things are powered by 2 small LR41 batteries. To turn them on just hit the click switch at the side/front and you're in business. Do note that for those with large fingers you'll need to work a little harder to turn them on or use your fingernails to get them to click in. It shouldn't be a problem for kids or if you have child fingers. 

The left one shows the little switch to turn it on.

LiteUpBlocks are fully compatible with official LEGO bricks so they offer the same clutching options top and bottom.

That being said they are unique in their design and differ from the official Light Bricks.

To start off LEGO Light Bricks don't offer a sticky switch, which means you'll have to press and hold on to their switches to keep it on, alternative you can find ways to keep it on like attaching a 1x2 / 2x2 Angle Plate to hold the switch down.

Height difference of LiteUpBlock and Official LEGO Light Brick. The Angle Plate on the right is used to keep the LEGO Light Brick on.

Size wise there's a difference in that the LiteUpBlocks are at full height of standard bricks, whereas the official Light Brick is 1/3 shorter of full brick height. This was probably intentional on LEGOs part to allow methods of building around light brick. As you can see with an Angle plate the height of the official light brick is brought to full height, place a 2x2 plate and you'll have a full size 2x3 brick out of the Lego Light Brick.

Different placement, same function

One of the main difference between the two are the placement and direction of the LED within the brick. From the above image you'll notice that the LED face upwards on the LiteUpBlock while the official Light Brick points out from the side or front of the brick (which ever way you see it). 

This is where application of the two bricks differ as you will see in some examples further down.

Different design & build altogether.

The clarity, transparency overall design of the casings are another key point of difference to note, as you can see from the above images the official Light Brick (Right) is crystal clear whereas LiteUpBlock is somewhat translucent. This doesn't hinder the LiteUpBlocks core purpose, if anything it actually helps diffuse the light further to give a nice softer spread of light. The main plus point about LiteUpBlock is that it comes in a full translucent case, LEGO's light brick is opaque at the bottom which limits the spread of light to pretty much one direction.

Here are examples of why the above matters, by placing both on a ceiling in a room, image (a) below show the LEGO Light Brick in the middle of the room, notice the concentration of light in the area of where the LED is facing(in this case the LED was facing the back wall), this spot of light is pretty strong as well. You can see how strong the spot of light is on my Lighthouse video which uses the official Lego Light Brick.

image (a): Room with LEGO Light Brick placed in the center of ceiling.

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Now we have LiteUpBlock in exactly the same spot in image (b). Even though its LED is facing directly upwards into the ceiling it light spreads quite evenly around the room, this is due to its complete translucent case which allows light to pass through the bottom and sides.

image (b): LiteUpBlock in exactly the same spot.

Between the two images it shows that LiteUpBlock does a better job of lighting up spaces.

That being said LEGO light bricks may not have been designed for this lighting purpose or method. LEGO light bricks were designed to be used in specific ways on sets like LEGO Lighthouse Island 5770 and LEGO City Museum Break-in 60008 which require strong spot of light based on the setup. 

LED Intensity

When its comes to intensity of the LED it seems to be pretty similar as you can see above.

Finally, battery replacement is pretty easy. Using a small philips screwdriver, you just remove the cover, pop the old battery out and pop the new ones in. Nothing to it.

Simple battery replacement process.

In conclusion, LiteUpBlocks are cool. The makers of these awesome LEGO compatible Light Bricks have done a great job in offering something simple, functional and unique. I'm sure this goes for their other products as well which I hope to be able to get at a later stage.

Do check out their other products on their Facebook page. 

Like or buy if you want to get your LEGO town all lit up!

Update: Here's one of our MOC with LiteUp Blocks