minifigure stand build with technic pieces

[dellock6]

Premise: I'm posting this in the technic forum as the design is made with technic parts. If moderators believes this post is better in another section, please move it.

Hi all, newbie here.
I'm Luca, from Italy, and I've lurked a lot these forums in the past. I'm mostly a technic fan, but I also have some interest in other LEGO sets, and lately "thanks" to my kids we wanted to start collecting some minifigures. Immediately, we realized that a frame to hold them would have been a nice and practical thing to have, so I searched around a bit.

After a while I've found this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm9bX4aFVlI. The idea of hacking an IKEA frame and have the structure made with LEGO obviously hook me up, so I found the PDF instructions and ordered the pieces on BrickLink.

The display is built and we are starting to fill it as we buy new minifigs, but I immediately noticed a few problems that are quickly becoming annoying. First, the height described in the instructions is slightly wrong, I had to remove one 1x2 plate from the top to fit into the IKEA frame. But probably the biggest problem is the insane fragility of the solution: it's impossible to build it outside of the frame, because any try to raise it breaks it immediately. But also when the frame is in place, when I go to mount the minifigs, the structure bends a lot and the studs of the different plates pulls off from time to time. It feels like it's kinda ok to fill it in one shot like the guy did in the video, but it's a sort of "don't touch it after it's build", which I don't really like.

Since I've started a month ago to learn Stud.io, I tried to design a frame using only Technic pieces, in order to have something more reliable and close to my taste. I can't really see all those studs... )yes I'm more a studless guy). Here is my first attempt:

I still have to build it, as I'm missing many pieces, but before even thinking about shopping for the missing ones, I'd like to get help for a couple of doubts, mainly related to the price. Black is one of the few colours where all the visible pieces are available, and it's the same colour of the IKEA frame, but the final price on bricklink (without shipping) is 110€. As a comparison, I bought the pieces for the original frame with 50€ included shipping. I tried a couple of other colours to reduce the cost, for example if I make it light bluish grey the price goes down to 70€, but I'm not sure the visual effect is going to be that great, counting the fact that the IKEA frame is available only in Black or White. If anyone has any suggestion, also by replacing some of the pieces with something cheaper, I'm all ears. Even if in all honesty you think it was a good exercise on a computer but I should never build it for real :)

This is the xml part list: http://bricksafe.com/files/dellock6/technic-minifigure-stand.xml

Thanks,
Luca

[M_longer]

Change those 1x6 thin iftarms to 1x6 plates. Those "shelves" will be stiffer. And 1x5 liftarms for 32124 1x5 technic plates  Also, things that are increasing cost of your model are those 1/2 bushes and 1L liftarms in black

[dellock6]

Hi, thanks for the input. I totally agree about the 1/2 bushes and the 1L round connectors, I'm looking for some alternative designs. I'm not sure about the switch between thin and thick liftarms for linking the two 15L liftarms, indeed it makes the structure stiffer, but I'm planning to place minifigs under them, so half stud can make quite a difference.

Great advice about the 5L technic plate, I can place two of them, below and above (flipped) the 15L so I remove the pins and the 1/2 bush, good spot! I'll probably replace the 1L round connector with a bush.

Also, there's nothing like building for real by the way, I tried to quickly assemble a part and I figured out a major (facepalm) problem, I totally undersized the height of the shelf:

Loki is not happy as it had to put away his helmet! So, I quickly replaced 6L axles with 8L axles (if you have taller minifigs by the way, it would be easy to use longer axles), added another layer of 2L round connectors, and now it's much better:

Loki is still not happy, one of my kids lost his helmet somewhere :) Also, you can already appreciate one advantages of the 1 stud deep shelf compared to the original one: if a minifig has any accessory that is higher than the single floor, you can simply place it vertically and it will easily go below the line of the shelf. I also replaced two 3L thin liftarms in the block with a 32184, less pieces and easier to build probably. I'm also thinking about replacing the 2L round connectors with bushes, so that there's no difference between them and the ones with direction.

Back to the design board :)

[M_longer]

35 minutes ago, dellock6 said:

. I'm not sure about the switch between thin and thick liftarms for linking the two 15L liftarms, indeed it makes the structure stiffer, but I'm planning to place minifigs under them, so half stud can make quite a difference.

 

I was saying about using 1x6 PLATE :P

[dellock6]

Ops, sorry I misread it. It may work if I place one under the liftarms instead of the 6L thin, but the two unused holes are going to be filled with two 1/2 pin to then place the minifigs in position, the studs of the plate are going inside the hole, so there would be no place anymore to insert the pins, isn't it? Unless there's a pin that is 1/2 on each side that I'm not aware of... I know that going studfull would have helped, but I really prefer studless.

[M_longer]

4 minutes ago, dellock6 said:

Ops, sorry I misread it. It may work if I place one under the liftarms instead of the 6L thin, but the two unused holes are going to be filled with two 1/2 pin to then place the minifigs in position, the studs of the plate are going inside the hole, so there would be no place anymore to insert the pins, isn't it? Unless there's a pin that is 1/2 on each side that I'm not aware of... I know that going studfull would have helped, but I really prefer studless.

Why not both?

Shelves made from three (or four) layers of system plates and columns made with axles, connected to shelves by 1x5 plates. And you will have full width of the shelves with studs, and unwanted studs can be covered by tiles. You could also change the width of the studs by using 1x2 jumper plates with normal plates.

[dellock6]

Well, your comment made me think, and I tried a different approach, using the studs for the shelves, here's a quick design:

I coupled two different technic bricks, 14L and 16L, with a 7L thin liftarm in the back (can't be seen but you see the four 3/4 pin) . In this way the sum of one side is still 30 studs, and the central axle gives me again the 61 studs that I need. I'll try to build now the entire frame to see how it goes, I found a way to level the central axle with the outer ones, using a 5.5 with stop. It is a much more simple solution, so probably is also going to be cheaper.

Luca

[dellock6]

Ok, I've reworked the entire design following the suggestions from @M_longer (huge thanks!) and here is a design that is more close to a final version I think:

Each half shelf can store 6 minifigures, so the infrastructure can have up to 84. Here is a detail of the construction:

The upper shelf is much higher than the others, so it can eventually be used to store some oversized minifigures like Hulk or others. The price for the set is around 68€ (before shipping, with 3 stores in european union) on BrickLink, so I'm quite happy already with the result. The highest price is for the Black Technic bushes, I could use a more common (and cheaper) color but the final result may not be the same.

[Captainowie]

I don't know how much of a problem depth is for you, but I'd suggest using full beams rather than half beams to join the bricks together. Those 3/4 pins are very loose.

You might even be able to get some additional strength by running a 1x6 or 1x8 plate under the join.

Owen.