Building B-Models

[roland]

Hi all,

I've been building technic models as an adult for nearly a year now. And I think it's time to explore the B-Models of the sets I have.

But one of the first things I noticed after my 15 year LEGO vacation, is the lack of paper manuals for these B-Models in most sets.

So how do you use the downloadable pdf's ?

imho Best thing would be a color e-reader, but these are still very rare/expensive.

A laptop seems to clumsy. I don't own something like an iPad at the moment. And I'm not jumping on the idea of spending 600 euros, just for working with the lego pdf's.

So anyone has any better (inexpensive) alternatives?

[Dazmundo]

Hi all,

I've been building technic models as an adult for nearly a year now. And I think it's time to explore the B-Models of the sets I have.

But one of the first things I noticed after my 15 year LEGO vacation, is the lack of paper manuals for these B-Models in most sets.

So how do you use the downloadable pdf's ?

imho Best thing would be a color e-reader, but these are still very rare/expensive.

A laptop seems to clumsy. I don't own something like an iPad at the moment. And I'm not jumping on the idea of spending 600 euros, just for working with the lego pdf's.

So anyone has any better (inexpensive) alternatives?

Print them?

D

[bb15080]

I just use the pc mine is the area of a table

printing would take a lot of paper and you have to do them in color

[dr_spock]

I use an iPad. Before I used a laptop. It wasn't bad if you have space in your building table.

[Legoman of War]

This probably doesn't help but my laptop is behind my building table. Before I had a building table, I built on my desk infront of my laptop. If you need to have paper copies then copy the instructions to a disc and take them to a printing place and have them printed. It's not that expensive and you can keep the instructions with your other sets for future building.

LMW

[Andy D]

I use an iPad. Before I used a laptop. It wasn't bad if you have space in your building table.

I think the iPad is the greatest for reading instructions because you can enlarge areas for closer inspection. iPad, the perfect LEGO building accessory.

Andy D

[roland]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I did consider paper printout, but I only own a mono laser printer. And having it printed at a office store seems a bit overkill for a single build.

I agree on an iPad probably being the best solution at the moment, but I was hoping someone could suggest a cheaper alternative.

I've been looking into some of the (very) cheap clones outthere, some as low as 80Euro, but they all seem to come without pdf support out of the box. And though it seems possible to install a pdf reader I can't find any decent reviews addressing this. On top of this Lego's manual pdf's are big in tablet terms, so any information I did find suggests those cheap ipad clones are way to slow for it.

As for a laptop, I'm usually building on the floor of a spare room (pretty small room) so the less extra stuff the better.

In short, anyone had some positive results using cheaper tablet's ?

[Sisko]

It may sound a bit arkward: Have you considered to convert the PDF files into JPG files and copy them to a digital picture frame? Maybe the resolution of these picture frames is a bit too low..

[roland]

It may sound a bit arkward: Have you considered to convert the PDF files into JPG files and copy them to a digital picture frame? Maybe the resolution of these picture frames is a bit too low..

That's an great idea. I don't think the resolution is a major problem considering the poor quality of the LEGO pdf's to begin with.

I was planning on getting a frame sometime anyway. Will consider this when choosing a model for sure :)

[mrklaw]

if you can hold out until ipad 3 comes out in maybe March/april, you should be able to pick up a 16GB ipad 1 for under 200 euro. Yes, still expensive, but its fantastic for pdf reading and lego instructions. The pinch-zoom for having a quick look at some detail is really useful. And of course you can use it for other things too

[CP5670]

Tablets are definitely the best way to read those instructions. Note that there are other tablets out there besides iPads.

I think they would also be very useful for placing Bricklink orders from. This process takes a few hours for me since I often place big orders and do it from my Lego work area to check exactly what I'm running out of and need to buy. I use a laptop at the moment, but it just sits in one corner since it's too big and heavy to move around constantly, so it's less convenient than it could be.

[Cwetqo]

I use iPAD and it's ok (higher resolution would be nice, but I guess that we will have to wait for ipad 3 for that). In the past I used laptop and It was also ok (picture is even better), but unconvinient for larger models, because it takes too much space on the worksurface.

Of course, iPAD is not the only tablet. Any android tablet could be used and in these days you could get them for as low as 100 euro or even less. Every android will be able to support reading pdfs, if not out then with free program downloaded from android market. Speed, amount of memory, quality of dispelay and other technical details are not so important here, because basicaly you are looking at static pictures. From this standpoint iPAD is really an overkill.

LEGO pdf quality is not perfect, but it ok and usable. I remember building 8880 from very bad pdf scans and THAT was painful.

[roland]

Note that there are other tablets out there besides iPads.

I would actually prefer an android tablet over an iPad one, but current cheaper models all seem to be very slow and use 'old' touchscreen technology. And the more expensive ones are outside my budget at the moment.

[Legobrandon]

As others stated above, wait for the iPad 3 to come out, then the prices for the iPad 2 will drop. Or you can get a refurbished iPad for a couple hundred bucks cheaper than a new one. Just my 2 cents.

Edited January 16, 2012 by Legobrandon

[zyrex]

I just use a laptop, works good enough for me.

[happymark]

I am using HP TouchPad. a little slow for PDF. but usable.

for size. 10inch is better than 7inch I think

Tablets are definitely the best way to read those instructions. Note that there are other tablets out there besides iPads.

I think they would also be very useful for placing Bricklink orders from. This process takes a few hours for me since I often place big orders and do it from my Lego work area to check exactly what I'm running out of and need to buy. I use a laptop at the moment, but it just sits in one corner since it's too big and heavy to move around constantly, so it's less convenient than it could be.