Testing Light Stax

Last november, at Brick Mania Antwerpen, the contributors to the show received a gift set of Light Stax, sponsored by Dutch LEGO trader BRiCKiZiMO.

Now, this is a system to light up your creations by, well, as the name suggests stacking elements inside a build.  And they are compatible with both LEGO as well as Mega Blocks.

The bricks have LED lighting inside, and by using connectors top and bottom, you can build whole creations and then light them up. 

This is done by ways of a 2x4 or 4x4 battery element.  This element has a Micro USB entrance (you know, like on about every modern day cellphone), so it can be charged through your PC, laptop, even a PowerBank if you use it in builds at conventions.
The button regulates the three speeds, being constant light, flickering light, or glowing light, of the elements.  I build a small minifigure display especially for testing it out (I`ll do a post on that one once it`s completely done) but that way I can show the different speeds.

The build is a simple podium, and I surrounded the 4 transclear parts with LEGO trans-red elements to give it a more Harley like appearance.  But you can see it gives off enough light to easily pass through those bricks.  The battery element is at the base of those trans-red elements, so you can see it fits in nicely in the whole build.

The final sort of bricks included in the gift parcel are non trans elements, in the form of a red and a yellow 2x4.  These have the connections to build on in your moc`s, so they "guide" the current to the light bricks, without giving off light themselves.

It was a nice little gift parcel, and the elements do fit on LEGO parts without to much hassle, so I' going to have a look and get some more of those in the future for a Tolkien build I have in the pipeline and add some light works to it.


I can recommend this especially due to the fact you won't have to look out how to incorporate cabelling and the likes into your builds, so that is a great bonus.  Just make sure the battery element is easily accessible for charging, or detachable for switching out with a charged one, and you're good to go.

Give Mega Bloks some loving!

Okay, so my "Convention Buddy" is probably going to strangle me in a very slow and painfull manner for writing this Opinion piece, but bear with me...

First things first, I love LEGO, but I can also appreciate the sets from other construction toy companies, even though this often results in namecalling et all on forums and facebook groups.

But this piece is about companies that make their own IP ranges, not knock off companies like the dreaded Lepin for one.  Those make just flat copies, while companies like Kre-O (Transformers), Mega Bloks (Star Trek), Nano Blocks (Pokemon) etc have their own genuine ranges.

And really, the new Blockheads that LEGO launched this week at SDCC is basically the same as the older released Kubros line by Mega Bloks... but I doubt any die-hard LEGOista will see it that way...

But Mega Bloks.  Yes, I admit, they had inferiour quality years ago, but in my experience, they have gone up a LOT since around the time of their Warcraft series about 5 years ago.  heck, a lot of their properties are really cool, like HALO, Assassin`s Creed, Terminator etc...

Now, contrary to some other companies that had cool licenses (Best Lok`s Stargate comes to mind for one), Mega Bloks has a lot of unique pieces that you can`t copy easily with Lego.  With Best Lok, i just bought the instruction booklet for a euro of their Daedalus and then build it with genuine Lego parts, something not do-able with their ranges.

Of course, the figures are TOTALLY different from the (patented) minifigure, and this is already a good indication if you`re dealing with a company that makes their own construction toy toys, or if you have chinese knock-offs on your hand.  While their is a niche in the action figure market for knock-off figures (Masters of the Universe and Star Wars have whole collector fares dedicated to the mostly mexican, brazilian and polish figures of a few decades ago), with Lego this is a whole different matter.

The Mega Bloks figures are more like small action figures and their heads etc aren`t really interchangable, so you have unique figures and that is it.  Going into their Expert Collector lines, these figures have even more articulation points, so really there is no comparing them to regular minifigures.

The sets are getting better and better in look and design, and their flagship set, the massive USS Enterprise from TOS is easily comparable with a Lego UCS set from the Star Wars range... even in price range.

I must admit I like putting the occasional set together and display them, just because of the fact they have such radically different intellectual properties, and I feel a lot of Lego fans are, well, sort of "racist" on their look of the bricks from the other companies.  A bit like with custom parts for Lego, which also lacks a grey area and just have a black and a white opinion of fans.

Maybe it`s time to change all this and become more openminded towards other toys?  If the Transformer fans could do it with knock-offs and the Go-Bots range, then surely the AFOL must be able to open his experiences as well?

Just my two cents... but now I got to think further about founding BeMBUG, the Belgian Mega Bloks User Group!

Mega Bloks Build Report: 10703 Lazy Smurf

No, I`m not a purist.  I can appreciate some other brands as well as my beloved LEGO, and of those, Mega Bloks isn`t that bad at all.

And face it, they got some mighty fine licenses in their range, like HALO, or the upcoming Star Trek TOS series.

One of their older licenses where the Smurfs, and when the kid saw the Lego moc of the Smurf village that was in the States last year, he wanted a smurf minifigure.  I had this set lying sealed in a closet somewhere, so he could have the little fella... after I`d build the small set first ;-)

The set, containing a modest 18 pieces, is made from a single bag of parts and an instruction leaflet.

The smurf figure is actually well done, including the droopy eyes of Lazy Smurf.

The set itself is based on a studded green plate.

A hammock is hung up between two small tree trunks.

Some insects are present to "close" the tree trunks up at the top.

Next, we build some flowers and some mushrooms, and place those on the plate as well.

And the final set completed:

Yes, this was a fast and simple build, but I must admit, I love the figure included.  And so does the kid...