Soft axle stud length?

[Richard Dower]

how many studs long is a soft axle of 13 cm?....is it 19L?

[Gnac]

If only LEGO made parts where there were a load of studs all in a row...

[zux]

16L

[bj51]

For future reference, 1L = 0.8cm.

There isn't any 13cm long soft axle, there is a 12.8cm one, which is 16L, as zux mentioned.

Edited November 5, 2015 by bj51

[D3K]

Also for the future; is it really necessary to create a topic with one, short question, that has only one, short answer? Couldn't this have been posted in the General Discussion topic?

[Erik Leppen]

LOL @ Gnac :D

Also, for future reference,

the available soft axle lengths (including the ends) are

7 studs = 56 mm

11 studs = 88 mm

12 studs = 96 mm

14 studs = 112 mm

16 studs = 128 mm

19 studs = 152 mm

Does anyone know why these weird lengths by the way? (I thought, let's post a little bit more useful question :P) It seems kind of random.

[Saberwing40k]

What do you mean by weird? I find it kind of odd that some lengths are odd, and others even, but that might be an artifact of how they were introduced. As in, the even lengths were introduced in the studded days, and the odd ones came later. I'm just waiting for blakbird to step in and render us all noobs.

[bonox]

given that the stud pre-dates metric, 8mm is close as .... to 5/16 ths of an inch. If the whole system is built around that value (including thirds for plates) then of course you'll get 'weird' values in metric.

[Jeroen Ottens]

Given that metric was introduced around the French revolution, the only studs at that time were created by the guillotine...

On a more serious note:

I happened to work at Lego when the flexaxles were introduced. We were handed these odd lengths by some technical development center. No idea why they had chosen these, but I still have some grey prototypes in exactly those odd lengths.

[zux]

given that the stud pre-dates metric, 8mm is close as .... to 5/16 ths of an inch.

Isn't it more weird to create system close to 5/16 of an inch rather than using exact 8mm. Edited November 6, 2015 by zux

[Erik Leppen]

No idea why they had chosen these

Did you ask why they had chosen these?

I mean, if I have no idea, I ask until I have. ;)

What do you mean by weird?

The uneven intervals. Why 11 and 12, which are hard to tell apart? Why the gap around 9? Why not 7/9/12, which would make more sense given they are more equally spread so more chance a part around the required length is a available (if you need "about 10")? Why 19? That seems like an odd choice. Why not 8/10/12/16/20? Or 7/9/11/15/19 for studless times. Or 7/10/13/16/19 for equal intervals so that between 6L and 20L you always have a choice that is at most 1.5L off? Or why not somewhat exponential as in 7/9/12/16/21, so that always there's an option that less than about 20% off?

Lots of questions I would have asked the technical development if I would have the opportunity.

Were all lengths chosen at once, or were some lengths added later from new insights? The latter would make more sense given the weird numbers.

Are all lengths even still in use? Something I'm wondering right now...

[Jeroen Ottens]

Did you ask why they had chosen these?

I mean, if I have no idea, I ask until I have. ;)

The uneven intervals. Why 11 and 12, which are hard to tell apart? Why the gap around 9? Why not 7/9/12, which would make more sense given they are more equally spread so more chance a part around the required length is a available (if you need "about 10")? Why 19? That seems like an odd choice. Why not 8/10/12/16/20? Or 7/9/11/15/19 for studless times. Or 7/10/13/16/19 for equal intervals so that between 6L and 20L you always have a choice that is at most 1.5L off? Or why not somewhat exponential as in 7/9/12/16/21, so that always there's an option that less than about 20% off?

Lots of questions I would have asked the technical development if I would have the opportunity.

Were all lengths chosen at once, or were some lengths added later from new insights? The latter would make more sense given the weird numbers.

Are all lengths even still in use? Something I'm wondering right now...

I never met the people that developed these axles, so I didn't have the opportunity.

Also we didn't feel the need. In those days we could simply cut the flexaxles to length if needed and than have it added to the assortment (this was around the milleniumchange when rules for new parts weren't that strict).

This is maybe also an explanation why the collection never expanded: shortly after the new part rules became much more stringent so designers were encouraged to only use the existing lengths...?

[SevenStuds]

Isn't it more weird to create system close to 5/16 of an inch rather than using exact 8mm.

As far as I know, the centre to centre dimension is exactly 8mm. Single stud bricks, for example, are roughly 7.82mm so that they don't push themselves apart when stacked together. Don't know if that answers the FLU discussion that has started.

As far as the irregular sequence of soft axle lengths, isn't this just because a new length was only introduced when a particular set was created that needed that length. Why make a 9L if you don't release a set needing that length?

Edited November 6, 2015 by SevenStuds