Light and Sound Kit for the 2020 Creator Expert Ecto-1 (#10274)
Well, what an amazing model! Six years after the release of the LEGO Ideas Ecto-1-- in our humble opinion, one of the best vehicle sets ever released by LEGO-- the company has taken aim squarely at our pocketbooks with a huge new set: the Creator Expert Ecto-1 (item #10274). You can see the set here:
Our light and sound kit for the Ideas Ecto-1 from 2014 has consistently been one of our best-selling kits, and it has more features than any other kit available. It's really one of the kits I'm most proud of designing, so when we learned of an even bigger, cooler Ecto-1 headed our way, we knew we had to up our game and rise to the challenge.
We're currently testing designs for the huge rooftop lightbars and large spotlights-- stay tuned for more details.
Since we already have the base control circuitry and sound for the Ecto-1, it should be relatively easy to expand the kit to cover this new model. If all goes well, I'm hoping to have pre-orders up on the site before Christmas, with delivery likely beginning in March 2021.
So.....what features (beyond the obvious!) would you like to see in a light and sound kit for this amazing model? Let us know in the comments below, and thank you!
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William C Cheezum Jr Yes! We are looking at interior lights that turn on and off with opening/closing of the doors, just like in real cars. :-)
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Rob Klingberg That sounds great. But I'm assuming for those of us who display our cars with some doors open - you'd still be able to switch off the lights and not have them run permanently? - apologies if I'm just stating the obvious! And thanks, will definitely be getting my pre-order in as soon as you're taking.
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Rob Klingberg not sure if anyone sent in a pic of this light. Here is a shot from the original Ecto-1. See the little white light, it flashes in the movies. That is the steering light on the Lego version.
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Graham Starke Excellent suggestion, and one I had not considered. This is why getting customer input is so vital. Will definitely add this capability.
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Rick rivera Thanks for sending-- wow, it really is very small on the real-world car. I was thinking of a 1x1 transparent round brick, but now I'm thinking maybe a cone would be better?
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This build was phenomenal, and I’m very excited to add a BrickStuff light (*and sound!) kit.
As a purist myself, Jay has some great notes here and the Haynes manual is probably a great resource also. Forgive me if already discussed, but I would just add:
• The white beacon on top is present in the film as a small strobe (1-2 sec interval);
• The white strobes on the grill alternate back and forth, each rapidly flashing twice, about one second apart;
• The outermost of the dual headlights are steady on, whereas the two inner headlights alternate in a slow fade when emergency lighting active;
• I love the idea of a dimmer, or perhaps even UV interior light, with the option to disable - a lot of kits/models I’ve seen have a blazing bright interior light which is neither necessary nor aesthetic;
• Dash lighting would be very cool, instrument panels even cooler!;
• Options for Li-Ion and USB wall adapter;
Everything else, I think I’d second Jay’s recommendations. Thanks for working on this, and for taking ‘requests’!
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Couple links for ref:
First appearance in film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxqCX7sP4Co
Short doc (~15 mins) about the movie car restoration with movie clips, and a clear (if short) front-end shot at 13:02: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SjXvCHnHjVw
Blitzway 1/6 model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9j7pR2duiY
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Rob Klingberg I don't really have any suggestions to add, everyone's suggestions are great and thanks to Jay Pothier for the book tip ( I know what I'm getting for my B-Day this year). I just wanted to say thank you Rob for doing what you do with these sets to add a new level of detail. Ghostbusters is one of my all time favorite films so it was never a doubt that I would light up the Ideas Ecto-1 (21108), and I look forward to lighting up my Creator Expert Ecto-1 as well (10274). You can count on me to place a pre-order on the light kit when it becomes available, but no rush, quality does take time. Another thing that I like about your products, you get them right. Thanks again and good health to you and your family, and everyone else here adding great ideas.
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Nate Awesome suggestions, I did pick up that Haynes manual-- great stuff. Thanks especially for the info about the emergency mode for the headlights-- I had that effect programmed in my testing, but was wig-wagging all four lights. Definitely easy to make the fix though.
I tried, I really tried, with the dashboard lights. At this point we'll have one to light up the speedometer, which looks great, but with the other parts, LEGO pieces just don't transmit light well. We're not giving up, though, and I think we share the same dreams of what *might* be possible.
Thanks again for your suggestions!
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Tracy Myers Hey Tracy, thanks so much for your post, kind words, and support. It means the world to us that fans like you are willing to share their input for kit design and to hold out until we release our kits. I know it often takes much longer than any of us here would like, but we're a small shop doing a million things at once! Just wanted to say thank you!!
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Rob Klingberg Happy to contribute, so cool you invite participation! Mine is only a wish list, of course. Can’t wait to see the results, sure it’ll be phenom! Thanks again for doing the hard work!
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This is awesome that I found this, I absolutely love my Ideas Ecto-1 light and sound kit and was debating on another kit for my Creator Ecto-1 till I saw this and hands down will order yours, just gotta be a bit patient. Thanks again for the great product!
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Sean Awesome, thank you Sean!
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Hello Ecto-1 fans, just finishing a late night of coding tweaking the lighting routines for the kit, and I hope to have some teaser video to show you here in the next few days. I'm really happy with how things are turning out. More soon!
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Was anyone able to move the ladder to the other side, make it look good, and retain the function of the pop out gunner seat?
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Rob Klingberg [insert happy dance]
💃🏻🕺🏻
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Dan Ganta Yes, it's quite easy to do. You can find some tutorials on YouTube. The gunner seat pops out even though the door doesn't open all the way. You have to put the "hose" of the proton gun in a certain way, or else the seat gets jammed when you try to extend it.
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Juli Lirón thanks for the help. I was able to find a couple videos that will help me get it done. Can’t wait to see this light kit in action!
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Hi all, well I ran into some challenges this weekend-- all of the lights are connected and working just as I'd imagined them, but I need to get the sound (siren, engine) working as well. Right now the prototype board I'm using doesn't want to cooperate, so I'm tracking down the issue and will have video up here asap.
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Rob Klingberg
Good luck, but so far it sounds very promising and exciting! Sure you'll get it sorted in no time. Thanks again Rob.
Regards,
Graham
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There are two strobes in the grill. On the original they were aircraft strobes. Please include these.
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Dennis Wiiniciaki Valdez-King Of course! Already have them working with the movie-accurate double-flash.
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It's me Michaeljames01971@gmail.com with a new name, as I was getting to much spam mail. I agree with everyone that posted, we're dying here for the bigger light & sound kit for Ecto-1.
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Rob Klingberg that light is small on the original, lol. Would a cone be hard to turn for the turning feature? That is a tough one. I myself don't mind how Lego made it so big to help with the turning of the wheels.
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Hi all, another update! Last week was spent trying to iron out the performance issues I'd discovered, and on Friday I was finally able to conquer them! The kit design is now 95% complete-- just need to add the code for the add-on sound module, then I will be posting full photos, videos, and details for this amazing kit. I really love it, and I hope you will love it also! I'll post the link here when the info and pre-orders are up.
Thank you all once again for your patience.
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Rick rivera This was a tough one to tackle, design-wise. In the end I decided to go with a really simple solution: we'll include with our kit a clear round 1x1 brick and round tile to go on top. This fits nicely on the roof behind the steering axle. You can then decide whether you want the strobe LED to be inside the large clear round steering brick, or whether you want it inside the small round brick. You can actually keep the small round clear brick mounted on the roof even when the steering axle is attached, then it is an easy thing to pull that axle out when you don't need to steer and just want to display.
