Crissy Chan Oooooh, way over the need.  There's... maybe a dozen needed?  I've used four so far in my sticky-for-boat-stud swap.  (The tower has maybe six, and the exterior lights are zero... at least so far.)

But you're in good company: I ordered 12 from one guy, 26 from a second, and 20 from a third on Bricklink, so I have a small tote of boat studs now (but will come in handy to switch up some of my modular lights, and other projects.)

BUT - being clear, and a practical size, they may prove handy to help tack up wires on ceilings.  I started by using 1x1 and 1x2 light bluish gray plates, and that's cumbersome and somewhat block-looking... I'll have to do try that now.  Or finish working the day job, THEN play... 😉

Crissy Chan Not one drop, no.  🙂

In my specific 'use case,' I did (queue gasps) hacksaw four parts and trim three others.  I'm 98% certain it's due to how I have the castle on a baseplate, and a baseplate on a ABS plastic lazy susan... and when I push down on the castle to reseat the pieces, they don't quite "snug" in the same.  Or at least, not as tight as I preferred.

These Frankenstein-esque hacks (pardon the pun) were limited to my two trouble spots:

1. The exterior castle lanterns at the front door.  (I notched the gray plates right behind the lantern, shaved off a hair of brick on the 1x4 light bluish gray plate, and a second notch in the base 2x2 modified brick with the side studs.)  Had I not screwed up and not read the directions (used the wrong light on the wrong side), odds are I wouldn't have gone back to re-do this with the cuts.
2. The light behind the clock's wires didn't want to behave when I ran the wire between the two slopes.  And honestly, I'd already committed one mortal sin, so I figured a second couldn't doom me for a second eternity.

But no glue (happy dance!)

Okay, purely out of the most humble of places and a suggestion of kindness, love and good-will...

Problem statement: My sausage fingers seem to be at odds with pico plugs (generally, not just here), which has been giving me fits personally when attaching the mid-section (chandlier, kitchen stove) and regular wire in the INTERIOR kit, then needing to disconnect it for the EXTERIOR kit, then reattach, then disconnect for the COLOR-CHANGING kit, etc.  Obviously, half the battle would be if I stop re-connecting the darn just to look at the pretty lights, but I like simple.

Thought: how feasible would it be to have a "quick connect" option/plug for the mid-section to the lower boards?  Essentially a one-stop-shop that brings in the six wires from the mid-section into a common plug, with the three leads coming out?

In the meantime, tweezers are still working, but I get all anxious and stuff that I'm going to tweak something in the wrong way one of these times... (though after the color-changing and fireworks installs (today?), it should be the end until the slip ring lazy susan mod.  :)

Paul George Admittedly inelegant, but removing the two lower columns and lowering the chandelier helps enough with a good (better) set of tweezers.  I *adore* the Velcro tabs on the back of the 2:4 (2 reg:4 micro plug), though they're starting to get less sticky -- seems the Velcro is more resilient than the adhesive on the backing.  Flirting with a dab of the fancy crafting '6000' glue to help hold 'em i place on the back of the adapter boards.

Minor mods I'd also introduced: below the 2x4 dark gray tiles, one removed in foreground left, I'd removed the brick (a 2x4 if I recall) and instead put in a 2x3 with a cone - though anything like a trio of stacked round plates would work - just to give a bit more room for wires to run without having to wedge between plates.

Happily (second pic) with the mid-section now removed -- which I'd not attempted during the exterior lighting install contrary to instructions (see 'sausage fingers' worry, above), I can now better wire-tidy the various wires.

Still monkeying with if there's alternate means to run the four tower light pico wires.  I confess I'm not in love with the wire poking out of the back window, so each tower is setup a bit differently: one each is...

1. built per instructions
2. built per instructions, but inserted a clear boat stud tile on the ceiling above to disperse the light around
3. mounted the light on the ceiling under a clear boat stud tile
4. mounted on the base (as instructed), but instead ran the wire a few rows down the bricking (weaving in and out where space exists) to at get it at least below the line of sight when looking straight on.  (I'm thinking this to be my final answer with the clear boat stud tile in the ceiling plate

Yup, it's obviously castle day in Modularton's theme park area - which still lacks a name.

Side question: Is there a method to the madness in terms of how the color-changing lights work in 'firework' mode?  Just random curiosity, of course; I've noticed some of the color-changing lights flash together, other times not, and not every time.  It's not at all a bad thing, just wondering - how they're programmed, it's truly in a run-time random mode, or...?

That aside, cool!  Don't have the mid-section replaced yet, but loving the end result!  (And did insert final add-on: a wire-hide-a-wall behind the clock tower, seen roughly center in the photo.)

Paul George As always, thanks for the great photos and feedback on the installation!  Your alternate mounting for the tower lights is interesting-- definitely does look cleaner.  We hesitated to ask people to take apart their towers to run the wires farther down inside the bricks.

RE: the fireworks and how they're programmed.  The effect has two stages:

1. Firework "launch"-- during this time, a white light streaks across the castle (randomly selected from L-R or R-L), followed by a pause (as with real fireworks after the launch but before the explosion).
2. Explosion-- depending on which side of the castle the launch ended up on (left or right side), lights on that side and in the middle will illuminate in random colors (simulating the explosion), and then fade out.  If you have the fiber optic sprays attached, the explosion sequence will run a bit longer as these segments are then also triggered at random intervals-- each with a random color, and each with a random fade-out speed.  The lights inside the sprays can also fire later than the other lights (making for some double-stage type effects).

Overall it was a fairly complex program to write, but hopefully you like how it turned out.  Thanks again for keeping us all posted on your progress-- keep up the great work!

Rob Klingberg Well, slap my knee - that makes sense... clever! 🙂

And it'll probably be far more obvious when I reassemble this beauty, but I deem her 97% complete.  (When those magical DIY rings come in, well, then she comes off her base, remount, re-glue, and wire in the lower/ground lights to wrap it up.)

Meanwhile, plenty of other projects to do with nifty wires 'n all... hot weekend weather means, shucks, better stay indoors to avoid heat exhaustion. 😉

Great kit -- thanks again!!!

Kathryn Forbes For some unknown reason, we have been having more trouble with packages sent to the UK than with any other country.  What has been happening is that the packages get to the UK, they are held in customs for up to 30 days, and your local postal service is supposed to notify you that a customs payment is due.  What's been happening is that people never get notified by their local postal carrier that a package is waiting, and after 30 days, the packages are at risk of being sent back to us.  This is crazy, as we have shipped them Priority Mail, which theoretically should reach people much sooner than traditional mail, but it seems the Priority packages are the ones being held.  I see your package is currently listed as being in customs, so hopefully you will receive notification that you need to go down to your local post office and pay the customs duties, after which you will receive your package.  If you do not hear from your postal carrier soon, I'd recommend calling down to the local post office and speaking with them.  Unfortunately this is out of our control-- once the UK postal system gets hold of something we've sent, we have little chance of finding more detail, and we have no way to know if customers are actually being notified of their waiting packages.  We have been shipping to the UK since 2013 and this is the first time any of this has happened, so again we are perplexed.  I wish I had an easier answer for you, but again I'd recommend calling down to your local postal office soon-- I've had other customers tell me the first time or two that they called down to their local offices, they were told nothing was there for them, but then three days later, the package appeared.  So I think at least asking down at your local office gets the local staff thinking to ask about your package at HQ.

I wish I had a better answer, and we are looking into other ways to start sending packages to the UK.  The good news is that your package is in the country-- please keep us posted and we will keep our fingers crossed that you will have your lights soon!

Chris L Hi Chris - an excellent question relative to the Castle's order/shipping status page.

It's typically updated about once a week, so the next update should be in the next day or so... (I was in the first group, and there's also the Newsletters, but the cadence has been the page typically was getting updated late Friday to early Monday to reflect progress updates of the previous work week... which often involves weekends as this was a VERY popular kit.  🙂

Chris L Paul George Thanks Chris for asking-- I just updated the table on the website.  We moved the needle a bit this week, but not as much as I'd have liked, mostly because we ran out of stock of several other products in our store (after focusing pretty much exclusively on making Disney Castle kits) and needed to make more of those products.  We're planning a Group 2 blitz next week, though, so the hope is we will be able to close out Group 2 orders by Labor Day.  Stay tuned!

And as luck would have it-- that room IS lit up... but the backboard of the bed is covering the window.  (But that dark set of windows has nagged at me also.)

So, I'm going to tinker with moving the light forward to see if it can "split" the light throw between the interior and exterior... most likely so, but it appears a minor mod would be needed to the brick arrangement.

Stay tuned...

Paul George thanks as always for jumping in Paul. Let us know what you are able to work out!

Rob Klingberg mellojello  Short answer, the light move-around works, of course... but there's very little room in there. 

As expected, it throws less light into the bedroom side, but it's not horrible.  But this just involves sliding the light about 2 dots forward.  For more light, probably would need a second bulb (one centered over the bed as designed, the second forward), maybe of a 2:1 pico adapter.  But now that's a design consideration. 

Paul George Thanks for testing and posting, Paul!  mellojello does this achieve the type of effect you were after?  Would be curious to see if anyone had come up with a solution to light more of the front window more evenly.  As Paul mentioned though, there is so little space in there.