General Part Discussion

[1gor]

11 minutes ago, shroomzofdoom said:

Not sure if you tried, but I called Lego customer service and was quite honest in telling them I had somehow misplaced a sticker sheet and they sent me a replacement free of charge. Different set but may work for you?

Honestly, I was felt embarassed when I asked for motor and receiver replacement, since they didn't work in completely new set. I had several times missing parts (I usually bought them on discount in Mueller store), but preferred to buy them on bricklink; I'm raised in such manner so I can't help myself.

I know that you had intentions to help me, but I'll see in few days real Fadtrac 4220 and mrasure it; perhaps I did some miscalculations and 1x2 tile with printed gague(s) could be fine. I have dozen of tbem

[gyenesvi]

I recently bought a couple of these new frictionless axle-pins in pearl dark gray, thought they'd come handy in places where black would be needed (black exists but is super expensive).

Interestingly I have discovered a slight difference between this and the other colors (grey, tan). If you put a bar into the pin end, for example this one

then this new pearl dark grey variant holds the bar very firmly (just like the blue ones with friction), whereas in case of the other frictionless ones, the bar falls out pretty easily. I have tested with multiple axle-pin and bar combinations, seems to hold true in general. This is very useful in some cases, just what I need for a steering mechanism :)

Wonder if others can confirm its generality?

Edited March 17 by gyenesvi

[Carsten Svendsen]

2 hours ago, gyenesvi said:

Wonder of others can confirm its generality?

It's always been like this. The wall thickness of the frictionless pins are thinner as they need to be able to flex more.

However, I don't know when this happened, but some 2L pins are too small to insert bars into if I recall correctly, and yet other times, no problem.

Edited March 16 by Carsten Svendsen

[gyenesvi]

3 hours ago, Carsten Svendsen said:

It's always been like this. The wall thickness of the frictionless pins are thinner

What do you mean? This is a new part, that only differs in color, and all of them are frictionless, yet behave differently.

[R0Sch]

New reddish orange pneumatic T-piece in DnD Set, because why not make another recolor for this piece...

[gyenesvi]

1 hour ago, R0Sch said:

New reddish orange pneumatic T-piece in DnD Set, because why not make another recolor for this piece...

You know, after seeing these kind of recolors, I just don't believe that TLG would have logistical problems managing the parts inventory due to the large number of colors, and that would be the reason why certain technic pieces, like connectors, don't get recolored (as some say when the issue comes up). Neither do I believe that some parts don't exist in certain colors because TLG never needed them. I simply think that certain departments are more successful at asking for recolors than the Technic department. For example, the small Jeep Wrangler would have required a yellow recolor if this piece in its _front face_, the most iconic part of the vehicle, yet it was not made (though it would have been useful elsewhere too), rather substituted with LBG!

Something feels missing in the Technic department when it comes to new parts..

[R0Sch]

47 minutes ago, gyenesvi said:

Something feels missing in the Technic department when it comes to new parts.

New Parts are created by the Novelty Element Development team (in 2022 there were 26 on staff)  and it doesn't belong to a specific theme. A recolor can be requested by the set Designer if he so pleases because it costs LEGO nothing to use the same mold and mix a different pigment in the ABS. But then there are people like instruction designers and set inventory optimizers and they want to make the parts more easy to distinguish in a bag. The so called "logistical problems" with storing different parts or why prints are less common than stickers is also a nice fairy tale excuse. They have no issues with countless new parts for Duplo, 4+, Friends etc. But yes, I think so too, that some departments have more leverage in their color choice especially if the IP partner cares about it too (e.g. Hasbro wanted a red dragon, or Nintendo wants all parts printed instead of cheap stickers etc.).

[Lyichir]

27 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

New Parts are created by the Novelty Element Development team (in 2022 there were 26 on staff)  and it doesn't belong to a specific theme. A recolor can be requested by the set Designer if he so pleases because it costs LEGO nothing to use the same mold and mix a different pigment in the ABS. But then there are people like instruction designers and set inventory optimizers and they want to make the parts more easy to distinguish in a bag. The so called "logistical problems" with storing different parts or why prints are less common than stickers is also a nice fairy tale excuse. They have no issues with countless new parts for Duplo, 4+, Friends etc. But yes, I think so too, that some departments have more leverage in their color choice especially if the IP partner cares about it too (e.g. Hasbro wanted a red dragon, or Nintendo wants all parts printed instead of cheap stickers etc.).

I mean, the logistical issues aren't a "fairy-tale". No theme has an unlimited budget and every one has to pick and choose what to use that budget on. In some cases that means trading printed parts for a sticker sheet and a wider variety of molds or recolors, in others that means charging more for a particular theme's sets overall. And the logistics are partially kept in check by affording each theme a particular number of "frames" for unique parts. All these things are true and the existence of themes that use that budget or those frames differently doesn't disprove that. And the themes you describe as getting "countless" new molds in fact have limits just like other themes; they only appear "countless" to you because they're outside your area of interest and therefore the new molds have little value to you.

That said, for common Technic-theme complaints like "color vomit" the limits are mainly due to separate restrictions, which aren't due to the logistics of production and storage but rather overarching guidance to maintain ease of building/distinguishing parts. This is why I find people complaining about things like why Lego "can't" make all pins and axles neutral colors to be a misunderstanding of the problem—it's not that they're incapable but rather that they have higher priorities that are in many cases opposed to those of display-minded fans.

EDIT: One more thing—it doesn't actually cost Lego nothing to change the color used in a mold—it costs TIME. Time is money on a full-schedule production line, and the time it takes to change a mold over to producing a different color is time lost for the use of that mold and molding machine. Many limits on things like recolors, prints, and the use of newer parts compared to common ones are rooted in those overall limits on production time, which is ultimately the bottleneck that all Lego production has to fit through for sets to come out on schedule and in the necessary quantities.

Edited March 19 by Lyichir

[gyenesvi]

8 hours ago, Lyichir said:

And the logistics are partially kept in check by affording each theme a particular number of "frames" for unique parts

Obviously, we don't believe that some themes would have unlimited budget or get countless new molds. But it does feel like Technic gets a smaller frame or uses it in a weird way.

And we are not talking about color vomit here, I agree that it helps to distinguish parts on the inside - rather talking about long missing basic, quite reusable parts for basic colors, while other themes seem to get specialized parts in exotic colors (like that one in the dragon). Something is counterintuitive about that.

8 hours ago, Lyichir said:

a misunderstanding of the problem—it's not that they're incapable but rather that they have higher priorities that are in many cases opposed to those of display-minded fans.

It seems like the opposite - Technic seems rather display minded nowadays. Many models are not very functional for their size, and many of the new parts / recolors are panels to improve the looks of models, and new structural / functional parts are rare. Even recolors of parts to an exotic color for the sake of a single set in technic are somewhat annoying, because it creates a new color that can hardly be used, as only a handful of parts exist (like olive green and bright light orange, and now the new reddish orange, though I can imagine a new upcoming larger set using that color). At the same time, look how slow is the unrolling of the flip-flop beams in many lengths. They have proven very useful already, used in many models, yet only exist in 3 lengths after 2-3 years. That's very counterintuitive; a new concept that changes the whole game and makes fundamentally new structures possible, yet they don't make full use of it (actually, the non-existing short lengths could be even more game changers for dense builds).

Edited March 20 by gyenesvi

[SNIPE]

It's only march.

[howitzer]

6 hours ago, gyenesvi said:

Obviously, we don't believe that some themes would have unlimited budget or get countless new molds. But it does feel like Technic gets a smaller frame or uses it in a weird way.

And we are not talking about color vomit here, I agree that it helps to distinguish parts on the inside - rather talking about long missing _basic_, quite reusable parts for _basic_ colors, while other themes seem to get specialized parts in exotic colors (like that one in the dragon). Something is counterintuitive about that.

That's not an exotic colour for a dragon. It's only exotic if you only think it as a pneumatic part, but obviously it has also many other uses which sometimes require recolouring, that's a perfectly normal thing to do.

Quote

It seems like the opposite - Technic seems rather display minded nowadays. Many models are not very functional for their size, and many of the new parts / recolors are panels to improve the looks of models, and new structural / functional parts are rare. Even recolors of parts to an exotic color for the sake of a single set in technic are somewhat annoying, because it creates a new color that can hardly be used, as only a handful of parts exist (like olive green and bright light orange, and now the new reddish orange, though I can imagine a new upcoming larger set using that color). At the same time, look how slow is the unrolling of the flip-flop beams in many lengths. They have proven very useful already, used in many models, yet only exist in 3 lengths after 2-3 years. That's very counterintuitive; a new concept that changes the whole game and makes fundamentally new structures possible, yet they don't make full use of it (actually, the non-existing short lengths could be even more game changers for dense builds).

It's true that Technic is somewhat display-oriented nowdays, considering the endlessly repeated car sets with minimal functionality and almost no innovation. I also agree with you on the issue of new exotic colours which makes the recoloured parts almost useless, which is why I avoid buying those sets - I long considered buying the Land Rover but in the end decided against it due to the stupid colours.

The flipflop beams don't really compare here because each requires new mould and reconfiguration of the whole production line (part counters, bagging etc.) so they are requested by designers only when truly needed. This does leave moc makers at frustrating position as there's a sort of a promise of this new very useful part but it's unknown when we'll get a delivery on that promise. I'm sure more lengths will be released eventually, but only as the designers need those badly enough. One problem with Technic parts is that they are generally not that useful in other themes (many are but mostly those which have been in production for a long, long time) so the Technic designers probably have to justify the need for new part more strongly than designers for other themes. Getting a recolour of a Technic (or whatever) part is much easier if it happens to fit in a System build than getting an entirely new part. Also, despite this we've been getting quite a bit of new Technic parts lately with tons of new panels and also new gears and gearbox parts and the small fake engine parts in the latest. What other theme gets as many new moulds designed every year for their specific needs?

[gyenesvi]

3 hours ago, howitzer said:

That's not an exotic colour for a dragon. It's only exotic if you only think it as a pneumatic part, but obviously it has also many other uses which sometimes require recolouring, that's a perfectly normal thing to do.

Yeah, I can accept that, but my point was that by the same argument we could have gotten a recolor of that pin-axle connector in yellow in the Jeep, or the same happened with some parts not getting recolored to orange in the Raptor..

Quote

The flipflop beams don't really compare here because each requires new mould and reconfiguration of the whole production line (part counters, bagging etc.)

I understand that a new part is different from the case of a recolor, and it's more complicated to introduce. My point was that they are game changing really basic useful parts at least in the technic world (though such structural parts are the ones that can actually be useful in other themes as well).

Quote

 only as the designers need those badly enough.

I think this kind of thinking is what's problematic, and short sighted. Because define 'badly enough'. Designers can always say, well, we can work around it in some awkward way. We can come up with suboptimal solutions. We can leave out that complicated mechanism. I see plenty of examples for these, like the incorrect suspension / steering geometries of recent cars (Zetros, Raptor, Ford GT) instead of adding a long missed part for a correct one (I mean, majority of technic models are cars, it would make sense to make more efficient parts for them). This kind of thinking is short sighted and unsystematic. Instead of creating a system of parts (that would be the essence of lego in my opinion), it leads to a pretty random set of parts that cover specific needs. And with that they are not only frustrating builders (they can afford not really caring about them), but they are also making their own life more difficult. Instead of releasing obviously missing parts, they are coming out with sets containing workarounds and suboptimal solutions again and again. Only when reviews get bad enough do they consider fixing the situation. When I first looked at the technic parts palette with a grown-up engineering mind, I was pretty surprised and disappointed how unsystematic it is and how much suboptimal workarounds it requires to build with. Sure, one can get used to it over time, but..

Quote

One problem with Technic parts is that they are generally not that useful in other themes (many are but mostly those which have been in production for a long, long time) so the Technic designers probably have to justify the need for new part more strongly than designers for other themes.

That's a good point, this kind of more isolated status and different parts palette of Technic theme might account for seemingly less new parts compared to the rest of the themes.

Quote

Also, despite this we've been getting quite a bit of new Technic parts lately with tons of new panels and also new gears and gearbox parts and the small fake engine parts in the latest.

Indeed, these last few years are more promising, I do agree. Just wish more focus was put on the missing basics, than the completely new concepts. For example that U-shaped 2x3 beam that we are getting this year seems pretty specific, I literally don't know what I'd use that for as I never found myself needing a similar part, and I could have imagined a more basic part to have more priority. Unfortunately, I suspect some big holes will never be filled. We will probably never get a 4L beam (that's kind of a unicorn of technic parts), we will always have to work around that, even though in quite a few cases it's impossible. And by the same argument I guess we'll never get a 4L or 3L flip-flop beam (as something similar already exists), we can only hope to eventually get a 5L, as hopefully that's missing badly enough. And we'll probably also never get a proper 2x3 L shaped beam, because we recently got a 2x3 curved beam, that tries to be both an L shape and a panel piece at the same time, but now it's not great for either of the tasks (some part of it is often in the way), but now it's kind of blocking the true need for both.

8 hours ago, SNIPE said:

It's only march.

Unfortunately, what I see is that often when a new concept is introduced in a year, it is used in many sets of that year (which is good). So for example, I think if we'd be getting a 5L flip-flop beam this year, it would have already appeared in the January / March waves. Sure we still get some specific surprise novelties later this year, but I already ruled out some obvious / awaited ones in my mind.

Edited March 20 by gyenesvi

[karmadrome]

17 hours ago, R0Sch said:

New reddish orange pneumatic T-piece in DnD Set, because why not make another recolor for this piece...
 

They manage to recolour such a special piece for such an occasion, but still fail to replace visible blue 3L pins with black ones in the expensive 18+ sets...

[Maaboo the Witch]

27 minutes ago, karmadrome said:

They manage to recolour such a special piece for such an occasion, but still fail to replace visible blue 3L pins with black ones in the expensive 18+ sets...

I miss black 3L pins.

[gyenesvi]

2 hours ago, karmadrome said:

They manage to recolour such a special piece for such an occasion, but still fail to replace visible blue 3L pins with black ones in the expensive 18+ sets...

I guess that's exactly the kind of thing @Lyichir was talking about; it's not that they fail to do so, rather they deliberately don't want to do so. Though I agree with you that there is no really good reason not to produce black ones again and use them sparingly, where it matters. I guess it's just that it's not worth for them bothering with it.

At least they exist in black and old ones can be bought on BL, so MOCers can use them..

[R0Sch]

And continuing the trend of recoloring Technic parts for other themes but Technic, we'll get orange 14T bevel gears thick in set 75380.

Edited March 20 by R0Sch

[howitzer]

On 3/20/2024 at 9:50 AM, gyenesvi said:

Yeah, I can accept that, but my point was that by the same argument we could have gotten a recolor of that pin-axle connector in yellow in the Jeep, or the same happened with some parts not getting recolored to orange in the Raptor..

I understand that a new part is different from the case of a recolor, and it's more complicated to introduce. My point was that they are game changing really basic useful parts at least in the technic world (though such structural parts are the ones that can actually be useful in other themes as well).

I think this kind of thinking is what's problematic, and short sighted. Because define 'badly enough'. Designers can always say, well, we can work around it in some awkward way. We can come up with suboptimal solutions. We can leave out that complicated mechanism. I see plenty of examples for these, like the incorrect suspension / steering geometries of recent cars (Zetros, Raptor, Ford GT) instead of adding a long missed part for a correct one (I mean, majority of technic models are cars, it would make sense to make more efficient parts for them). This kind of thinking is short sighted and unsystematic. Instead of creating a system of parts (that would be the essence of lego in my opinion), it leads to a pretty random set of parts that cover specific needs. And with that they are not only frustrating builders (they can afford not really caring about them), but they are also making their own life more difficult. Instead of releasing obviously missing parts, they are coming out with sets containing workarounds and suboptimal solutions again and again. Only when reviews get bad enough do they consider fixing the situation. When I first looked at the technic parts palette with a grown-up engineering mind, I was pretty surprised and disappointed how unsystematic it is and how much suboptimal workarounds it requires to build with. Sure, one can get used to it over time, but..

That's a good point, this kind of more isolated status and different parts palette of Technic theme might account for seemingly less new parts compared to the rest of the themes.

Indeed, these last few years are more promising, I do agree. Just wish more focus was put on the missing basics, than the completely new concepts. For example that U-shaped 2x3 beam that we are getting this year seems pretty specific, I literally don't know what I'd use that for as I never found myself needing a similar part, and I could have imagined a more basic part to have more priority. Unfortunately, I suspect some big holes will never be filled. We will probably never get a 4L beam (that's kind of a unicorn of technic parts), we will always have to work around that, even though in quite a few cases it's impossible. And by the same argument I guess we'll never get a 4L or 3L flip-flop beam (as something similar already exists), we can only hope to eventually get a 5L, as hopefully that's missing badly enough. And we'll probably also never get a proper 2x3 L shaped beam, because we recently got a 2x3 curved beam, that tries to be both an L shape and a panel piece at the same time, but now it's not great for either of the tasks (some part of it is often in the way), but now it's kind of blocking the true need for both.

Unfortunately, what I see is that often when a new concept is introduced in a year, it is used in many sets of that year (which is good). So for example, I think if we'd be getting a 5L flip-flop beam this year, it would have already appeared in the January / March waves. Sure we still get some specific surprise novelties later this year, but I already ruled out some obvious / awaited ones in my mind.

The non-recolour of the axle with pinhole part for Wrangler is indeed inexcusable.

I don't really disagree with you on any of your points, it's just that this is the world we live in and TLG does what it does. I believe the set of flipflop beams will eventually be completed (same as normal liftarms) but other missing parts you mention seem to be more elusive. My pet peeve is the lack of pin-axle connector, the same as pin with pinhole but axlehole in place of pinhole.

[gyenesvi]

42 minutes ago, howitzer said:

it's just that this is the world we live in and TLG does what it does.

Yeah, I know..

42 minutes ago, howitzer said:

My pet peeve is the lack of pin-axle connector, the same as pin with pinhole but axlehole in place of pinhole.

That one is a good example as well. One of the things I am most curious about is if/when they'll introduce the 5L steering link. We have the 5L steering arm for suspension, now we also have a 5L driveshaft, we are only missing a 5L steering link to match them and to be able to build a 15-wide steered and driven independent front suspension or a 13-wide steered and non-driven one. Wonder how many suboptimal models will come out before they actually decide to do it. They double screwed it in the Raptor (no FWD, wrong steering geometry), and they avoided it in the Ford GT as well (worked around it with 6L ones, though complicated the structure). (cough) #onlythebestisgoodenough

[Ngoc Nguyen]

1 hour ago, gyenesvi said:

Wonder how many suboptimal models will come out before they actually decide to do it.

In the words of Sariel, in Lego Technic, if you wait around long enough, TLG will eventually produce whatever part you want.

Edited March 21 by Ngoc Nguyen

[JTS]

On 3/19/2024 at 11:24 PM, gyenesvi said:

Even recolors of parts to an exotic color for the sake of a single set in technic are somewhat annoying, because it creates a new color that can hardly be used, as only a handful of parts exist

This is my biggest gripe with technic; we have a far smaller inventory of elements and yet what you can actually create yourself is limit by colour availability. 

Case in point: fenders. When the 42056 Porsche came with orange fender fairings in 2016 it was arguably a game changer for realism in technic, and in the 8 years since they've been released in azure, dark blue and... dark purple. That's it. There have been a dozen or so other fender designs but a lot of them made one appearance only and I am starting to worry that might be it. 

[gyenesvi]

17 hours ago, JTS said:

This is my biggest gripe with technic; we have a far smaller inventory of elements and yet what you can actually create yourself is limit by colour availability. 

Case in point: fenders. When the 42056 Porsche came with orange fender fairings in 2016 it was arguably a game changer for realism in technic, and in the 8 years since they've been released in azure, dark blue and... dark purple. That's it. There have been a dozen or so other fender designs but a lot of them made one appearance only and I am starting to worry that might be it. 

It would actually be enough to have parts that are often used in bodywork to exist in many colors. For all the structural / special parts, a few shades of grey is enough.

Indeed, fenders are a very good example, I often have the same problem. On top of that, fenders are quite hard to integrate into a bigger bodywork unless they perfectly fit the shape you need. But if you need to build a continuation in any direction, they are hard to attach to and just don't blend in, result in really patchy looks. I just don't get the design of them, I think they are one of the worst designed parts in terms of reusability / buildability. They usually stick out too much from the bodywork and have hard to use mounting points at the bottom where the wheels always get stuck. Also, they only cover a small portion of all the fender shapes that exist; we don't even have fenders that are asymmetric (one end longer that the other) or curve inside on the bottom not on the top (many classic cars have that), and the more angular fenders are almost non-existent (only on the biggest size). 

Fender flare parts seem more promising, I don't get why they don't go more in that direction, system builds make use of them as well, like the Icons defender. And actually that's what old models / MOCs tried to simulate too, built from angled liftarms / connectors. They could be independent of the top shape; no curved top / flat version required, instead they could vary the arch shape itself. Could even be more independent from the bodywork color, if the actual flare would be a fairly thin part, black could work with many colors. Furthermore could be split into multiple sections to be able to vary the size and combine different shapes. It would be like.. Lego. But I guess they are just opting for the next shelf model to look good instead of thinking on the long term / bigger picture. Actually, it's amazing how hard it is to build even the simplest shapes, like a flat side with a curved fender (that doesn't stick out). And given that cars are the majority of the models, that should be a useful point to focus on.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

From Sariel:

 

Pretty much how I see sets lately.

[2GodBDGlory]

2 hours ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

From Sariel:

 

Pretty much how I see sets lately.

That's pretty funny!

Edited March 26 by 2GodBDGlory

[Lego Tom]

1 hour ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

That's pretty funny!

But not too far from the truth....

[1gor]

On 3/26/2024 at 7:05 PM, Ngoc Nguyen said:

From Sariel:

 

 

Pretty much how I see sets lately.

It has more and more sense (specially if you have limited place)