I’ve been building LEGO MOCs and posting them for over eight years now, but somehow I’ve never yet stepped beyond LEGO’s rather basic light brick when it comes to lighting up my creations (well except for that one with the full-on desk lamp inside…). But recently, Lightailing reached out to offer me a LEGO compatible light kit. Also recently, I got the LEGO Ideas Grand Piano (and reviewed it on The Brick Blogger), so I asked for the Light Kit For Grand Piano 21323.
So without further ado, let’s see if the Lightailing light kit can make the piano shine!
They say a picture says a thousand words, and that picture is probably a sufficient answer. Yes, the lighting kit definitely makes the set shine! But let’s dive a little deeper.
The light kit comes in this handy little box:
Each type of piece is packed in it’s own little bag, numbered for easy recognition (a couple bags have more than one piece and two numbers).
The user guide is mostly easy to follow, although a couple times I lost track of a wire on the black surface of the piano or something like that.
It took me well over an hour to install the lighting system. There are lots of wires and small fiddly bits. If you want to get a real feel for the complexity level, I recommend watching at least part of this installation video.
The kit comes with two power sources–a USB plug and a battery box. I used the USB first and got the lights inside the piano to shine without any problems.
As for getting the front lights to shine–we’ll get to that in just a moment.
First, let me point out a few things about the installation process.
The lighting elements are tiny, but they still definitely take up space, so bricks laid down on top of them don’t stick quite as well as they should. The slight gaps don’t bother me, but some of the 1×1 trans-clear plates over the lights did pop off. I have lots of these in my collection, however, and just switched out the most troublesome for older, weaker 1×1 plates. If that’s not an option for you, you’ll want to keep an eye out that none of the plates go flying and get lost, and maybe try weakening their clutch power a bit by attaching and detaching them a few times before you put them over the lights.
When it came to the strip lights under the lid, I attached these first too far apart (so they hit the sides and wouldn’t let the top close all the way) and then too far forward (so they hit the front and wouldn’t let the top close all the way). Fortunately, they don’t stick too hard to remove easily but do stick well enough to reattach securely. Still, I wish there had been a warning in the instructions about the need for exact placement!
This board tucked away under the piano is what interacts with the remote to control the strip lights. I’m super impressed by the tiny size of all these components!
The biggest wiring mess is around back. Each of these plugs is so tiny!
In the instructions (and the video), the wires come down and go under the piano’s soundboard over the row of bricks that ends in a 2×3 inverted slope. I didn’t want to smash the wires that much, so I removed a couple bricks to create an opening for the wires (see below). They still stick out enough that the back doesn’t attach quite as firmly as it originally did, but it doesn’t fall off or anything.
This next light lights up the music sheet and is the same kind of light as the ones that go under the 1×1 round plates.
I mentioned that I had no trouble turning the back lights on… but I couldn’t seem to get the front lights to work! Eventually I thought to look inside the remote. Sure enough, there was no battery. I was a touch disappointed as CR2025 batteries aren’t exactly lying around my house, but I found a 2016 and turns out that works too.
So now we’re back where we started, with the gorgeous fully lit piano!
There are lights around the back of the soundboard, under the top, in front of the music sheet, under the lid, between the keys and the front, and on the bottom, shining down onto the pedals. All very well chosen locations–whoever designed this did a great job.
For the most part, all the lights are tucked away in places where you won’t be seeing wires or strips. Even if you look from a super low angle, with the lights on there’s nothing unsightly about the bottom of the cover anyways.
There are a wide variety of colors to light the keyboard up with (all the other lights are static warm yellow). I have trouble picking a favorite, but white, yellow, red, and blue are all eye-catching.
Green is a bit weird, but on a cycle through the lights (the remote includes options for fading and blinking) it fits right in.
The piano is a beautiful set in its own right, but these lights bring an additional wow factor that I absolutely love!
Notice how the light reflects off the seat. I don’t know if that was an unintentional bonus or if was well planned, but it’s definitely a nice additional effect of those strip lights under the fallboard!
Of course, you can’t install a bunch of wires and lights in a LEGO set–especially as set as functional as this one–without them getting in the way of something. The very last key on the keyboard can’t go down quite as far as it used to.
In terms of functionality though, that’s far less important than the fact that it’s now harder to remove the keyboard and the music stand. These were both designed to slip right off so you could see the inner mechanism of the piano close-up. Now, you’ll have to disentangle a couple wires before you can do this. Of course, you could leave off that part of the lighting kit and just stick with the lights around the back of the soundboard–but you’d miss out on some impressive lights!
Another minor issue that happened with my kit: one of the strip lights has a problem with the blue light. It can turn red or green, but on any color that requires a mix of blue (like white), it looks wrong. Fortunately, I happened to install this on the bottom where it’s not very noticeable. And Lightailing has been prompt to send me a new one [it has now arrived, with no hassles]!
So there you have it. The lighting kit took away a little bit from the easy-remove features of the piano, but aside from that there are no downsides to this beautiful addition to the set.
The lighted piano looks fantastic in my display spot, and it just went from being another nice piece of my LEGO display to the center of attention!
To wrap it up, if you’re looking to permanently display a LEGO set, I don’t hesitate to recommend investing in a lighting kit for it. Lightailing is a great option, with a wide selection and in the case of the piano (probably in other cases too) a well thought out design for where the lights should go. All the components look durable and fit together smoothly. They seem to have potential for use in a custom build too. Seeing how gorgeous this looks, I know I’m going to have to try lighting a MOC for my next LEGO convention!
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Geneva D 