DIY LED Lego Courtesy Lights

[compcrasher86]

After doing Gonefission's LED anchor light mod, I had alot of extra LED's to play with so I decided I wanted courtesy lights. Only thing is, I didnt know what to mount them in...

If you have kids, have you ever been walking around and stepped on a lego carelessly left on the floor? Well, I can tell you that if you dont end up crushing it, it hurts like heck. Heres a good way to put those forgotten legos to use.

Supplies you need:
-A 4x2 Lego (A.k.a four dots one way, two dots the other [see pic])
-3 White or colored 5mm LED's, your choice
-Some 5200 / silicon based caulking
-Some spare wire, choose two different colors
-Solder

Tools you need:
-Small wire snippers
-Soldering Iron (And some basic soldering skills)
-Wire stripping tool
-Power drill with 5mm bit
-Your favorite hollowing tool (knife, chisel, etc)

Alright first choose your favorite color lego (I chose white just because it will look more professional)

Next you need to hollow out the lego with your favorite hollowing tool. I used a flathead screwdriver and a swiss army knife.

Now you need to drill 3 holes in the Lego with your 5mm drill bit (Tip: there should be an outline of three holes on the inner surface of the lego that fit the size of the LED exactly (5mm)

(O.k. time to get a better camera with macro mode...)

Next you need to pop the 3 LED's in the holes. Allign them so you can wire them in series, with the negative of the first going to the positive of the middle and the negative of the middle going to the positive of the 3rd LED. Create a small notch in both sides of the lego and bend the positive and negative on each end of the series outwards.

(ahh much better)

Solder your first colored wire to the positive of the first LED and the second colored wire to the negative of the last LED.


You should then fill the lego with 5200/silicon caulking and smooth off on top. I put a little bit around my wires for mechanical reinforcement and to ensure that the assembly is waterproof.

I then put a piece of electrical tape on the bottom of the assembly to keep the caulking in form and extra waterproofing.

Let the 5200/caulking dry and then wire it up to any 12v source on your boat and voila, courtesy lights. As a word of warning: I designed these to be under the gunwale lights and thus mine are to be protected from salt and direct spray and uv, etc. I imagine that filling the lego with caulking will make it pretty watertight but I take no responsibility if water gets in and shorts something out. Mount it with adhesive or some more 5200.



Update: The more I look at it, the more I dislike the black electrical tape. Maybe I'll peel it off of trim it back a bit

[compcrasher86]

Hey everybody I got around to installing two of these today next to the console under the gunwales...

Heres a view from the bow back:


Here is a close-up of the gunwale area under which the lego LED is mounted:


And this is the minor reflection off the console. It shows that the LEDs are not overpoweringly bright and are enough to show you what your doing/where your stepping.

[GoneFission]

Cool! I like the Lego use!  Think also about doing them in RED to prevent night blinding.  Also, if you use the wide-angle flat top LEDs, you will get much better beam width.  

http://cgi.ebay.com/50-x-5mm-Wide-angle ... dZViewItem  

http://cgi.ebay.com/20x-5mm-White-Wide- ... dZViewItem

Good work!  

[compcrasher86]

I did sorta want red ones too but I kinda wanted to get 100 of them and Id rather have 100 white than 100 red. Also, the wide angled ones would have been  better choice but I was kinda being ignorant and also cheap. Mine work fine because they are really more to accent the deck at night and just show a little bit for people stepping on and off of the boat. I did the best I could on a $15-ish budget. Besides, you can buy the same thing I made here (not in a lego) for $30 at We$t marine whereas $15 here gets you 100 LEDs or around 32 of these LEGO LED lights, provided you can find 32 legos    trust me I felt like a kid again digging through the boxes looking for "the right" lego

Oh, while I wired them, I used triplex wire just for future-proofing purposes so I can use that third conduit to carry 12v to the red LEDs and share the ground with the white ones so i won't have to rewire plus I can control the red and white lights from separate switches. If I ever order some Red LED's I will do that.

And last but not least. My Lego light v2 will have a modified design in that the lead wires will be fed into the lego through a single hole and soldered closer to the LED. This will look more professional, and it should prove to be more waterproof.