Tag Archives: 42111

BriksMax Light Kit (42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger)

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The LEGO Technic 42111 Fast & Furious Dom’s Dodge Charger set received a rather good review here at TLCB when we got our hands on it. Certainly a better one than movies did. But, like those awful awful movies, could there be sequel; one that’s even faster and furiouser?

Well no, neither of those adjectives. But we do have a 42111 sequel that’s more sparkly.

That’s because we’ve outfitted our 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set with an array of LED lights courtesy of suppliers Lightailing, who have a huge range of LEGO compatible light kits available for sets including Creator, Modular Buildings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, City, and – as here – Technic.

Our 42111-compatible kit is produced by BriksMax, and it came in a neat box containing an instructions booklet, a 1 Year warranty card, a remote control, a battery box, and an alarming number of resealable bags.

Said bags were numbered and described, corresponding to the relevant point in the instructions denoting when to open each one. Inside each was a well-coiled set of wires, tiny circuit boards, sticky pads, or a combination of these.

So is adding the BriksMax light kit to your 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set fun? Absolutely not. Fiddly – yes. Fun – no.

Despite the instructions being reasonable, the installation process is effectively threading needle around two hundred times. It makes us wonder if these LED lighting kit companies could design a little attachment that clips into Technic holes and holds the wire, removing the need to endlessly thread LEDs through Technic beams and making the instructions simpler to boot (you can have that recommendation for free Lighting People!)

The process is made harder by the wires being black and in this case the model being black too, although the BriksMax kit does sometimes differentiate between wire types via coloured band, plus each LED has the bag no. printed on its reverse, which is a thoughtful touch.

Only a few parts of the set need to be disassembled to install the LEDs, and only two pieces are replaced (the front indicator bricks switching from tiles to studs to give more room for the LED inside).

Overall though, the installation process is not fun one bit. However, the end result is, well… fantastic. Continue reading →

Technic 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger | Review

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The ‘Fast & Furious’ movies are – for the most part – total garbage. With characters coming back from the dead (twice), long lost family members loosely enabling plot continuation (twice), and bad guys turning good just to keep them in the franchise (three times by our count), the plots could have been written by TLCB Elves.

But, like the internet’s most popular video category, no one is watching a Fast & Furious movie for the plot. They’re watching for the cars. And maybe Vin Diesel’s giant shiny head. In doing so making ‘Fast & Furious’ the most profitable movie franchise ever.

Thus LEGO have joined the ‘Fast & Furious’ party, and have brought one of the franchise’s star cars to life in Technic form. This is the Technic 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set, supplied to us here at TLCB by online shop Zavvi, and it’s time for a review…

First a shout out to our suppliers Zavvi, whose delivery was prompt, communication good, and the 42111 box was massively well protected inside, well… a bigger box. If you’re the kind of person who likes to keep the boxes for your sets (ours just go in the recycling), that’s a bonus.

LEGO have realised this too, removing the sticky circles that hold the ends shut (but that rip the artwork when opened), and fitting a cereal-box style closable tab so it can stay closed.

Inside 42111’s box are five numbered bags, bagged instructions and stickers (which helps to keep them protected too), and 1,077 parts. Many of these are weird and new, at least to this reviewer (if not the set), and continue LEGO’s approach of using every colour ever. However, like numerous ‘Fast & Furious’ characters, we’re going to do a complete 180 and say that it, well… works.

Building 42111 is fun and straight-forward, with the multitude of colours making it easy to find the parts required. The colours are thoughtfully chosen too, enabling quick identification and actually changing in some cases as the build progresses depending upon which similar pieces they shared a bag with. They’re all fairly well hidden by the end too, so there’s no ‘rainbow’ misery here.

The build can also be commended for creating a fully working rolling chassis by the mid-point, which makes it much more interesting than only adding the wheels at the end.

As has been the case for a while now though, the instructions can be very simple, at times adding just one piece per step. That said, there are a lot of orientation changes, which you have to watch out for so you don’t install something upside down. Not that this Reviewer did that. He’s a professional.

After a few hours of happy parts selection and spot-the-difference, you’ll have a nicely sized Technic recreation of the early ’70s Dodge Charger – modified ‘Fast & Furious’ style with a giant supercharger and NO2 tanks – complete with a working V8 engine, steering, all-wheel suspension, opening doors, hood and trunk, and a bizarre party trick. Continue reading →

Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge

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The Five ‘D’s of Dodgeball make for an appropriate title today, as this wonderful ’20s Dodge Coupe is built only from the parts found within the official LEGO Technic 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set.

Eurobricks’ gyenesvi has included suspension front and rear, working steering, a 6-cylinder engine, plus opening doors, hood and trunk, but hasn’t stopped there.

The real ’20s Dodge Coupe was also available as a soft top, which gyenesvi has duly created via the model’s removable roof and modular A and B-pillars, allowing for a swift conversion to the roadster variant.

We guess that makes it Dodge, Duck, Dodge, Dive and Dodge.

And that’s not all. The 42111 donor set includes some rather tasty ‘modifications’ that Dom’s Dodge Charger sported in the Fast & Furious movies, including a supercharger and nitrous kit. Said modifications can also be applied to gyenesvi’s 42111 alternate, creating an authentic looking Dodge hot rod.

Which makes it Dodge, Duck, Dodge, Dodge and Dodge.

Further details of all versions of gyenesvi’s Dodge are available at the Eurobricks forum, where a link to building instructions can also be found. Dive over via the link above!

Game of Bricks – Light Kit (42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger) | Review

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Here at TLCB we’ve taken a fairly backwards approach to employee payment. As in, no one gets paid anything. But why should we have all the fun when we could not pay you guys for doing work too! Cue Francesco Frangioja, who joins us here at TLCB to review one of Game of Bricks’ new lighting kits. For free. Because he’s great. Over to Francesco!

…

TLCB kindly offered me the chance to pick two Game of Bricks light kits for 2020 vehicle sets, and my first choice was the light kit for the LEGO Technic 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set. After a couple of weeks (due to the shipment), I finally had time to install the kit in the set for which it was intended.

The lighting kit comes in a cardboard box, black and premium quality, with only the logo of the manufacturer on it.

Inside the box I found: 

  • Seven numbered plastic bags with tiny LEDs stripes and the thin, very thin cables
  • Three un-numbered plastic bags with the battery box, some “junction” cable plus the control unit and the USB connector to connect the LEDs “circuit” to the battery box
  • One booklet with the explanation of what each component is and its use/purpose
  • A remote (because I got the remote/RC version of the kit)

The actual building instructions are found on the Game of Bricks’ website; a series of “photographic” steps that show where to place the individual “light points” and how to organize (where they have to pass) the various wiring. 

I’m already familiar with the installation of this kind of product (light kits from other manufacturers) and the instructions were very similar, so I was able to follow the steps for this set very easily. Installing all the front lights is pretty simple: you have to “squeeze” the various LED element between the respective/relative transparent piece and the underneath on which the transparent one is originally fixed.

After that, you have to place the “array stripes” in the position/as shown in the photo-instructions.

Because normally there is exactly zero space between a transparent piece and the stud below it, you need to push it in place carefully even with this super thin wire. In fact, compared to the kits of other manufacturers, the peculiarity of the kit from Game of Bricks is that only a few of the “light points” are glued into LEGO brick. In practice, only the bricks of set 42111 which have to be physically replaced with counterparts with the LED already wired and glued inside, have been inserted in the light kit. All other “light points” are realised by fixing the LED element between the transparent and to be illuminated LEGO element, and the stud of the underlying piece.

The rear section was just as easy to manage; once the wiring steps are completed, you need to attach the tiny connector to a “splitter piece”, also equipped with adhesive tape to fix it in the position indicated by the photographic instructions. The connectors are very thin, so the use of a modeling plier can make the job easier. The cables, although very thin, are very resistant to traction and torsion. You just have to pay attention to the “scissors effect”: if you “staple” them too hard between brick and stud, you risk that they get cut. Therefore, you must always pay a lot of attention and procedures gently and carefully. 

The battery box requires 3 AA-LR6 batteries and includes a female USB connector. It’s up to you to choice to fit it into the model (i.e. into the trunk) or to keep it outside the model. Just remember that you will need to be able to access the on/off button.

Once the installation is finished and all the LEDs are connected, the final result is really great. 

Keep in mind that the kit in my possession is the top version, the one with the highest number of lighting points and including remote control to manage the on/off of each group and some “lightshows”.

Unlike the light kits I have tried before previously, the solutions of modular wiring and the interlocking of the lighting elements between the transparent bricks and the stud below implemented by Game of Bricks are perhaps the two most significant plus: not having bricks with pre-glued LEDs inside, you do not have to do too many replacements of parts of the official set to be illuminated, as well as the modularity of the wiring, allow you to decide from time to time if and which lighting elements to insert and which not. 

You can find the Game of Bricks lighting kit for the 42111 Dom’s Dodge Charger set, alongside a wide range of other kits designed to fit official LEGO sets, by clicking here!

Lego in Lock-Down

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With less than a week to go in TLCB’s Lock-Down B-Model Competition we have three more alternate builds to share, each of which has made the shortlist to win an awesome SBrick Plus Pro Pack!

First up (above) is a B-Model from one of LEGO’s newest sets, the 42111 Fast & Furious Dom’s Dodge Charger. Built by Matt Walker aka cleansupgood, this excellent prototype endurance racer features working steering, a mid-mounted flat-8 engine driven by the rear wheels, front and rear suspension, and an opening engine cover. Matt let us know about his competition entry via Facebook and there’s more to see of his 42111 B-Model on Bricksafe via the link above or on Flickr here.

Today’s second competition entry comes from Kieran Gutteridge who is making his TLCB debut with his 42093 alternate off-roader. Using only the parts found within the official LEGO Technic Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 set, Kieran’s off-roader features a working inline-4 engine, rear suspension (cunningly using a flexible axle from the donor set), and working steering by both ‘Hand of God’ and the steering wheel. Head to Kieran’s photostream by clicking here to see more!

Today’s third and final entry is also the work of a newcomer, 13 year old Ondra Chlopcik, whose father let us know about his entry. Using the parts from the 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS set which has been chosen a few times in the competition so far, Ondra has crafted this brilliantly accurate Porsche 918 Cayman GTS, complete with opening doors, hood and trunk, a removable ‘convertible’ roof, a 6-cylinder engine and a two-speed gearbox.

There’s more to see of Ondra’s excellent 52056 alternate on his publicly available Google drive, and if you’d like to enter your own B-Model into the competition you have until June 30th to upload your creation. You can do so on Flickr, Eurobricks, or Brickshelf (or any other freely available platform if you let us know where we can find it!), and you can read the competition rules by clicking here.

42111 Technic Fast & Furious Dom’s Dodge Charger | Set Preview

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If you’re ten, you gonna want to keep reading this!…

This is the brand new for 2020 Technic ‘Fast & Furious’ Dom’s Dodge Charger set, a 1,077-piece recreation of the iconic drag racer from the very first ‘Fast & Furious’ movie.

Officially licensed by both Universal’s ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise and Dodge, LEGO’s new 42111 set continues Technic’s increase in visual realism with almost Model Team levels of detail. Fear not though Technic fans, because it’s loaded with mechanical functionality too…

A working V8 engine complete with a spinning supercharger belt, functioning steering, double-wishbone suspension, plus opening hood, doors and trunk (with NO2 bottles inside) all feature, as does a wheelie stand so you can recreate the Dodge Charger R/T’s most famous movie scene.

The new 42111 set is expected to cost around $99 when it goes on sale at the end of April, around a year ahead of the release of next (and ninth) ‘Fast & Furious’ movie. Not counting the spin-offs.

Whatever we feel about that state of cinema that the ‘Fast & Furious’ movies are now the highest grossing films ever, we have to admit that they do inspire a properly cool LEGO set. And we’re not even ten.