Paul George Great photo-- I love how Emmet and friends have a castle-side view from the double-decker couch!

Hi everyone, Paul George got me thinking about Lazy Susans and turntables, so I ordered the same one he used from Amazon, and it arrived today.  I immediately dismantled it 🙂 with the goal of seeing if I could fit a slip ring in the middle.  A slip ring allows power to pass through a rotating object by enabling the wires to spin a full 360 degrees without binding.  I've been thinking about this because several people have said they plan to have their Castle on a rotating base, but they want to use USB/wall power to run the lights.  So, how to get the power into the Castle without the wires getting bound when you spin it?

Have a look at the results of my demolition work today:

   Net-net, the slip ring fits perfectly, and the entire assembly rotates smoothly.  Adding the ring doesn't compromise the turntable's ability to support the full weight of the Castle (the ball bearings take the full load, and the ring is actually not load-bearing).  The only downside is that the man screw in the middle of the turntable needed to be removed to allow the ring to mount, so the top of the turntable just rests on top of the ball bearings.  Not a big deal most of the time, since you'll have your heavy Castle on it, and again, the overall structural integrity/strength of the turntable is in no way compromised.  I'm really happy with the results-- these are the same tiny slip rings we use for our lighting kit for the LEGO Ferris Wheel-- they are custom made for us, and are of the highest quality and durability.

So, the question is: is this something people would be interested in buying from us?  Obviously the turntables are large and heavy items, so I haven't figured out yet how we'd ship them, but if you want something like this for your Castle, let me know.

Thanks again Paul for the inspiration!

Rob Klingberg Um, yes!  Though I could see the logistics challenge (and personally, I reckon I'd need to retrofit the existing, but not impossible) -- and way cleaner than my original plan of just dropping a battery pack in a ground floor nook.

For my money, I guess I'd wonder the complexity of a DIY kit: order the turntable and modify to one's heart's delight.  Not that I expect everyone to have electrical and mechanical engineering skills (heaven knows I don't), but it appears it'd be something a few photos and ~6 steps could capture on an one page instruction sheet.  (It also dodges the logistics of shipping those monsters, and certainly Amazon can foot that bill way better than y'all on a re-ship.)

I'd just call it an "expansion" accessory and sold separately, as I could see some other applications (beyond the ferris wheel -- Carousel 10257, anyone?... heck, even introducing it into the Fairground Mixer 10244).  There's a host of applications where this could be handy...

Rick Prescott If someone can find a powered turntable on Amazon or somewhere similar, I'm happy to order it and see if the slip ring can fit! 😀

Gregory Hi Gregory, overall mounting the ring is fairly easy.  The holes can be drilled using a hand drill-- you just need the right set of bits (you need a 6mm, 7mm, and 8mm bit).  And yes we would include the slip ring and power connectors-- once the holes are drilled, mounting the ring is really easy.  And the wires would be thin enough so you could still mount the large pate on top of the turntable.  Look for some step-by step instructions after we dig out from under the castle orders.

Crissy Chan Hi Crissy, thanks for posting, and thank you also for your order today!  To answer your question about the wiring, the kits will include full instructions showing how to mount the lights, run the wires, etc.  We worked hard to make sure the wires were as invisible in the installation as possible-- our wires are super thin and can fit under and between LEGO parts, which makes them easy to hide.  We know you don't want to have wires hanging out everywhere, so we've worked hard to get the part/cable/light mix right so things will fit snugly and discretely.

Thanks again for your support of our efforts!

Can I just say I enjoy how this forum really lights up on the weekends, like the cube-dwelling zombies coming to life after a week at work? 😉

Rick Prescott I'd flirted with motorized, but found they were too expensive, and when we went with a 'scene' placement, abandoned the idea. I was inclined to (then) use the 21-inch and concoct a motor setup similar to the Ferris Wheel, just to both make it more purist-LEGO and tap into that for power for the build as well (and in theory, one switch would both light 'er up and take it for a spin).  Movement in the theme park seemed bad, but I know my audience will want to turn it during play, albeit manually, which is fine for her age bracket.

Crissy Chan  I confess I've also never done a kit, but have every confidence the instructions will serve you (me, and everyone well).  In my own install, it's very much trial-and-error, but it doesn't take long to go from novice to pro if my experience -- and I'm hardly THAT handy.

In our "Modularville," I have interior (ground floor only) light strips and street lights.  The strips are SUPER easy to connect and hide -- it's end-to-end, kind of like Christmas tree light wiring -- and can tuck between features or even sandwich into bricks. The only modification I've chosen to do (see photo 2) is putting inverted slopes on the wall when I install the light, just to angle it downward.

My real challenge has been finding a home for connector boards, particularly when doing from the strips to the pico lights and their smaller plugs.  Early on, I just stuck them wherever (photo 1), like up near a ceiling that didn't open up; in the Assembly Square, I lucked out and hid it under the barista station (removed a 2x4 plate, added 1x2 plates on the ends and left the center 2x2 open for wires. But frankly, it's part of the fun: like hiding Easter eggs -- when the bunny isn't available, you've got to make it hidden enough to not distract from the display/play use, but not so much so that you can't switch it up... say, to install blinking holiday lights.  :)

Pic 1 - my lazy approach of tucking them up high with some vinyl (electrical) tape:

Crissy Chan I confess I was also late to the modular party -- being cheap, I scoffed at the price for the first 3-4 years, and then my bride gifted me the fire station and... it went from there.  (The castle is also 100% all her -- the first set she ever said I had to buy, then... light.)

Picos are the teeny-tiny lights that you can put darn near anywhere; the only other real variety (save some specialty lights) are the 6-dot-long strips with two LEDs on them.  In my book, the latter are WAY easier to work with for lighting larger areas -- and of course, we'll see some new introductions with this set based on what we've seen Rob and the team demo for us here.  :)

Paul George Crissy Chan Rick Prescott Thank you all for your comments-- it's so great to see a real community forming here online.  Thanks Paul for posting the photos showing your approach to lighting as well-- very informative!  I know many new customers, and people new to lighting, are apprehensive about "how do I do it" and "will it be easy?" so again, this info is great to have.

One tip for mounting the adapter boards-- we just started selling our sticky squares in packs of 32-- these are great for mounting an adapter board to the underside of a floor, etc.

Also, Crissy Chan , you may have already found it, but www.bricklink.com is the place to go to buy older sets (like the modulars). The prices are often better than you'll find on Amazon or eBay. The user interface is a little quirky at first, but you can find any set (or any part) ever made on this site. Now the prices, well that's another matter. :-)

Thanks again everyone for keeping the conversation going!

Lisa Sullivan Hi Lisa!  Thanks for your post.  We have looked at lighting up the Fairground Mixer.  There are several challenges, so I made a topic dedicated to discussion about this set-- you can view and contribute to the discussion here.

Daniel Metcalf not a bad question at all!  Nope, no additional power supply needed for the 2nd controller.  Everything is designed to operate from the single power source.

That's probably the $64 question, but I think there's been a hesitation to declare a formal date (whether it be in pencil or Sharpie) given the hiccups discovered during the documentation and QA validation of the install steps (i.e. the one wire a wee too short that's now being lengthened), and most recently the addition of some gold rings that are still awaiting their arrival to the good folks in Minnesota to mount.

My sense is -- beyond knowing if you're in the first, second or third group (first, baby!) and using the chart they've shared, when it's all green bars, the lights are headed to the mailbox to ship.

http://www.brickstuff.com/castlestatus.html

(Much as the original goal of mid-May became late May, and now perhaps soon in early June... but if them 200 gold rings due in this week get caught up in Customs, all bets are off.)

But I'm 110% right there with you -- I've got a castle and a turntable that are sitting in a dark corner after sunset.  Poor Minnie! 🙂

Timothy Spann Paul George Thank you both for your continued understanding and support.  Good news today-- photos for the documentation are complete!  Almost 150 photos-- now I get to whittle them all down into what will become the final documentation.  Lots of progress already this week.

Crissy Chan Did you get the e-mail newsletter last week?  Just wanted to make sure you are receiving them.  You're in the June 15 batch, which maps to Order Group 3.  I expect we'll be making good progress on your batch once we get the first batch out soon!