Wireless LED Lights

I’ve begun work on building Real Grade Wing Zero, but it’s going to take me a while. In the meantime, I figured I’d finally get around to a post that I was supposed to do at the start of the year.

You may remember that I got some wireless LED lights as part of my Christmas haul, and while I did use them in a little experiment with the Nu Gundam, my intent was always to do a much deeper dive than that.

About the Lights

Mrs. Wolfe first discovered these on Amazon. I don’t recall how long ago that was, but since then they’ve been popping up more and more every time I visit the site. I wonder whether that’s due to the algorithm knowing I’ve viewed them before, of if the manufacturer is trying to get more people’s eyes on them.

Anyway, the idea is simple. Some Chinese company has made these tiny little wireless LEDs that activate when placed next to a power transmitter. You’re meant to stick them either around your models to create some mood lighting, or in some cases on the models (for example, the product page suggests you can use them to light up the clear sections on the Unicorn Gundam, or stick them inside of a thruster).

The lights come in different colors, and there are at least two power transmitters that I’ve seen. The one I have is the one you see above, where it’s built into a little ¹⁄₁₄₄ scale hangar. The other one is much bigger, and has no hangar:

The product listing says that this one is meant for Master Grade models, but I don’t see why you couldn’t use it for smaller stuff too (and as we’ll soon see, it might end up being better for the smaller stuff anyway)

Buying Options

Here is where we run into our first issue. The power transmitter that I got comes with a single pack of six LED lights, and as far as I can tell there’s no way to choose which color you get. I got blue (I don’t know if this is the default, or of it is random), and I don’t think that’s a great starting color.

It pairs well with mobile suits from certain factions from certain stories, but terribly with others. I know the company makes a pack of lights that are a yellowish-white, and I think that would have been a much better starter choice, since that’s a neutral color that would go well with anything.

This … feels intentional, though obviously I can’t prove it. It’s like they wanted to give you a suboptimal starting color to entice you to buy more (which I did, so if it is intentional, it’s clearly working)

The Hangar

The hangar is cute and all, but it’s small.

And here it is from the back, where we can see that the actual transmitter consists of a simple coil of wire and a logic board:

For the sake of comparison, here it is next to Bandai’s official System Base:

I could tell immediately that the LED hangar wasn’t going to fit certain chonky kits, but I wanted to test it out anyway just to give you proof. So here it is next to the Gogg:

And the Byarlant Custom:

And the Always Bulky Zaku III:

None of these fit, and it’s not even close. Now let’s try putting them into the Bandai System Base to see if that’s any better. First Gogg:

Then Byarlant Custom:

And then the Zaku III:

I’m not surprised that the official product does a better job, but I must admit that I am a bit surprised that a) The System Base can accomodate all of these, and b) The LED hangar can’t fit any.

But hey, maybe this isn’t a fair test. After all, all of these mobile suits are particularly wide and bulky. Let’s test it with something a little more “fair”. Something that’s kinda bulky, and also a little more mainstream. Something a main character might use.

How about the Gelgoog?

Crap, even that doesn’t fit! You might be able to get it in there if you took apart the side walls of the hangar and reassembled them around the model, but who wants to do that?

Bottom line, this hanger is clearly built to accommodate “standard” sized models, preferably with the slender profile of a Gundam. I’m sure there are some builders who fit that use case, who only build mobile suits used by protagonist characters, but if your horizons are even slightly broader than that, this thing isn’t going to work.

This is why I said earlier that the bigger, ¹⁄₁₀₀ scale power transmitter might be the better option. Since it isn’t attached to a plastic diorama, it doesn’t matter how tall or wide your model is.

But that doesn’t help me right here and now. I need to figure out if I can use MY power transmitter without having to be limited to this dopey hangar.

The simplest solution is to put it back to back with the System Base. But it looks and fits rather awkwardly in the lightbox:

No, if I’m really going to try and get my money’s worth from this thing, I have to try to take it apart.

Taking it Apart

Good news folks: it is in fact fairly easy to remove the power transmitter from the hangar. As you can see below, it’s mainly secured with a pair of sticky pads:

Granted, they are pretty sticky, and if you apply too much force I can see how you could possibly break the logic board. But if you use a small enough flathead screwdriver, or a long pick, you should be able to carefully pry the sticky pads away from the plastic.

When you do, you’ll notice that the wire that connects to the logic board is attached to the main coil with nothing more than a piece of tape, so once you have it separated and start using it elsewhere, you should still be extremely careful.

But hey, the important thing is that it’s free, so now I can use it however I want. For example, now I can hide the whole transmitter (including power cable) behind the colored insert in the lightbox, and the lights still work:

Or I can just stick it behind the System Base:

Granted, it’s still visible, but it’s not glaringly so. Stick a mobile suit in there and you’d hardly notice it.

This is great stuff. Now I feel like I can finally use this thing to the fullest extent. But now we get to another question - does it actually work?

Does It Actually Work?

I mean, yes, we know it technically works, as I’ve just shown you pictures where the LEDs are lit up. What I mean is, does it work well? Are the lights bright enough to properly illuminate a scene? Are they easy to use and place? Stuff like that.

Let’s start with ease of use. Each pack of lights comes with a sheet of 3M double sided adhesive, which just so happens to be the exact same circumference as the lights themselves:

They seem sticky enough that they’d work fine if you stuck them somewhere and never removed them, but if you’re going to take them on and off (which seems likely considering all the different ways you could potentially use these), they’re not going to hold up.

I know this because I did a bit of initial experimentation when I first got the lights back in December, and even just taking them on and off the included hangar a few times they already lost enough stickiness that some of them began to fall to the ground. Sooner or later you’re going to have to come up with some other solution (be that actual double sided tape, or museum putty, or whatever).

How about brightness? This is actually really hard for me to explain, because I’m not an expert on proper lighting, but the lights seem to be both really bright and not bright enough. In my non-expert opinion, it seems that what’s going on is that the lights are more directional than ambient¹.

Here’s my evidence. This is the very first shot I took (back in December) using the blue LEDs, using the Gundam Base Entry Grade kit:

The lights are bright enough, and the model light enough in color, that you can definitely see it (regardless of whether or not it looks any good). But look at what happened when I put the ECOAS Jegan in there:

You can barely see it. However, two of the lights are pointing directly at the camera, with only two pointing directly at the model. Specifically, they’re pointing at the right foot and the shield, which just so happen to be the areas that are most brightly lit.

All of this is to say that it matters where you put the lights, and what direction they’re facing.

These photos also make me think that even if I did a better job positioning the lights, these scenes would be better still with some additional ambient lighting. But I’m not really sure how to do that without making it so bright that it overpowers the LEDs.

With all that in mind, and with the power transmitter broken free from its jail, I went back and did some more experimenting here now in March, to see if I get some better results.

Let’s Try This Again

I gave the fuck up.

Folks, this isn’t worth it. They’re too much of a pain in the ass, for little gain.

I was reminded of the fact that the lights don’t always work. The cylindrical base of the individual LED light MUST be positioned perpendicular to the coil of wire on the power transmitter. If it’s parallel, it will simply turn off, and if it’s at an angle it won’t be at maximum brightness.

I was also reminded of the fact that the actual light itself isn’t mounted directly to the cylindrical base, but is instead mounted on a small flexible tab. This would be super awesome if you could position the tab however you needed and it kept its place.

But that’s not how it works. No, the tab just goes wherever the hell it wants, which makes it really hard to position it as needed.

My third problem is that the lights aren’t actually all that small, or at least they’re big enough that they’re not easy to hide. Now maybe I’m being a stickler, but it takes me out of the scene when there are these very visible devices hanging from various parts of your diorama.

My fourth - and perhaps biggest - complaint is that because these are directional lights, they’ren not very good for much.

Let me give you an example. In this photo I tried putting a green LED on the backside of the AGE II Magnum, to make this clear part glow:

The problem here is that if I positioned the light to shine directly on the clear blade, you’d see it, nad it would look bad. But if I angle the light it so that it’s hidden, it’s no longer strong enough to fully illuminate the blade.

Conclusion

I got suckered, plain and simple. The promo photos make these things look like project a different quality of light than they actually do, and arguably suggest that they’re shaped differently than they actually are. What you get and what you’re sold are not at all the same.

Is it possible to figure out some way of making use of them? Probably, but it’s a situation where I just can’t be bothered to put in the effort, at least not right now.

If there is a silver lining to be found, it’s that this was all bought as gifts and gift card money, so the only thing I wasted was my time.