Pieces Encyclopedia

[dolittle]

Hi,

I am helping our my local FLL group and the youngsters have given me a hard LEGO question to answer.

I know part of it, but not all of it, could someone shed more light into the subject?

There are pieces in LEGO that look the same, but are colored differently, for example:

This element

Vs this element:

Now here the answer is easy, one is friction less and one is friction (enabled).

But for some elements there is no apparent difference, i.e. beside their color.

One such element I found is the "Technic, Pin Long with Friction Ridges Lengthwise and Stop Bush", there are several versions of colors for this, is there a version that is friction less?

So my question is actually, DOES the color of the element mean something? i.e. does blue mean friction, black mean "construction" (connect elements), white mean friction less, etc?

Thanks,

Noam

[prateek]

I'm not a Technic genius, but I'm gonna say that Lego likes to experiment with different colours to see which colours make building easier for children.

[paul_delahaye]

Years ago, black pins were a bugger to remove from technic bricks, the tolerance was very tight on them, they later added slots in the pins, this made them easier to remove and insert. I think they also made them safer if swallowed by people, light grey however was like a frictionless pin

More recently, like you say, tan has become the frictionless pin, blue has become the medium friction pin, still leaving black only found occasionally now as the maximum strength pin.

That would be my taking on it

Paul

[DLuders]

The new blue colors could help distinguish between (black) Technic Axles and Technic Pins. When there is a pile with both of them, the different colors help sort them. There is no difference between RED 2L Technic Axles and the (older) black ones, but the red color helps distinguish them from 2L Technic Pins.

Edited December 29, 2010 by DLuders

[flyz]

Regarding 32054 Technic, Pin Long with Friction Ridges Lengthwise and Stop Bush:

I've seen most of the red pins used to highlight steps for pushing/connecting submodels together and other colors used for aesthetic reasons. There are no frictionless version of this part as far as I know...

With other pins, frictionless versions came in light grey but some have been changed to tan.

Edited December 29, 2010 by flyz

[Jetro]

More recently, like you say, tan has become the frictionless pin, blue has become the medium friction pin, still leaving black only found occasionally now as the maximum strength pin.

That would be my taking on it

Paul

Close, but not completely:

blue and tan are the colours indicating friction and non-friction for axle pins (one side looks like a pin, the other like an axle.

black and grey are colours in use for the normal technic pin (again in the same order: friction, non-friction)

The long pins are now also blue and tan (previously black and grey) to make it easier to distinguish them from the normal short pins)

Half pins were grey and have later become blue for some time for the same reason, but right now they appear to be mostly grey again.

There is no colour coding on other pins, although pins with towball tend to be black and axles with towball grey

Colour coding on axles is as follows:

even lengths are black, with the exception of the 2L axle which is red

odd lengths are light grey

axles with a stop (8L, 5L and 4L) are dark grey

axles with stop and stud are tan (3L)

Any variations on this pattern are because of aesthetic reasons: sometimes axles are used for decoration and need to be a different colour (white, green, ...)

A similar effort was made with gears:

Bevel gears tend to be black

Half bevel gears are usually tan

straight gears have become dark grey (z8, z24) or light grey (z16)

Worm gears are usually light grey

clutch gear z24 - white

clutch gear z16 - dark grey

clutch ring red

...

...

Of course there are exceptions to (almost) everything.

Edited December 30, 2010 by Jetro

[dolittle]

Close, but not completely:

blue and tan are the colours indicating friction and non-friction for axle pins (one side looks like a pin, the other like an axle.

black and grey are colours in use for the normal technic pin (again in the same order: friction, non-friction)

The long pins are now also blue and tan (previously black and grey) to make it easier to distinguish them from the normal short pins)

Half pins were grey and have later become blue for some time for the same reason, but right now they appear to be mostly grey again.

There is no colour coding on other pins, although pins with towball tend to be black and axles with towball grey

Colour coding on axles is as follows:

even lengths are black, with the exception of the 2L axle which is red

odd lengths are light grey

axles with a stop (8L, 5L and 4L) are dark grey

axles with stop and stud are tan (3L)

Any variations on this pattern are because of aesthetic reasons: sometimes axles are used for decoration and need to be a different colour (white, green, ...)

A similar effort was made with gears:

Bevel gears tend to be black

Half bevel gears are usually tan

straight gears have become dark grey (z8, z24) or light grey (z16)

Worm gears are usually light grey

clutch gear z24 - white

clutch gear z16 - dark grey

clutch ring red

...

...

Of course there are exceptions to (almost) everything.

Hi,

Thanks for the answers, I will relay them to the kids.

Thanks,

Noam

[Walter Kovacs]

axles with stop and stud are tan (3L)

I agree with everything you said except those 3L axles with the stop and stud. Most of them are Dark Gray, with the newer ones in Dark Tan (or is that color Dark Nougat? It's called Dark Tan in Bricklink, at any rate). Here's the Bricklink page, for reference.

[Blakbird]

blue and tan are the colours indicating friction and non-friction for axle pins (one side looks like a pin, the other like an axle.

There are actually a few very rare "axle pin with friction" parts that are black instead of blue. But they have the same amount of friction as the blue ones; they are no different.

The "Technic pin long with stop bush" parts are not color coded. That is, there are lots of colors but every color is the same kind of part. I've seen at least black, light gray, dark gray, yellow, red, white, green, and blue.

[Jetro]

I've got a couple of thos black ones from a Spybot if I remember correctly.

I've also got a couple of orange long pins with bush.

[jonwil]

And just to throw a spanner into the works, 2 Classic Space sets included the non friction version of the axle pin (which was normally produced in light grey until the switch to tan) in black (I actually own some myself)

So there does exist both non-friction axle pins in black from the old classic space sets AND friction axle pins in black (which I also own some of) from various sets before the switch from black to blue for that part.

Are there any other examples of parts that are almost identical but with functional differences being produced in the same color?

[DLuders]

Bricklink has a Catalog feature for "Relationships". There is the "Item Relationships: Similar Parts with Different Molds: Technic, Axle" that shows the different parts; if you click on the Part Number hyperlinks you can see all of the colors that they came in. If you click on that color hyperlink, it will tell you what set(s) they came in.

Below, each part's picture appears first, then the corresponding description:

43093 "Technic, Axle Pin with Friction Ridges Lengthwise" -- the "Known Colors" are Black, Blue, and White.

3749 "Technic, Axle Pin without Friction Ridges Lengthwise" -- the "Known Colors" are Black, Light Bluish Gray, Light Gray, and Tan.

Here are the "Item Relationships: Similar Parts with Different Molds: Technic, Pin":

4459 "Technic, Pin with Friction Ridges Lengthwise" -- the only "Known Color" is Black.

4459a "Technic, Pin with Friction Ridges Lengthwise and NO Center Slots" -- the only "Known Color" is Black.

3673 "Technic, Pin without Friction Ridges Lengthwise" -- the "Known Colors" are Light Bluish Gray and Light Gray.

6558 "Technic, Pin Long with Friction Ridges Lengthwise" -- the "Known Colors" are Black, Blue, and White.

x202 "Technic, Pin Long without Friction Ridges Lengthwise" -- the "Known Colors" are Light Bluish Gray, Light Gray, and Tan.

Edited January 1, 2011 by DLuders

[Jetro]

The images do not, however, represent "current" parts (with the exception of the tan axle pin)