Opinions sought - best current Technic sets to break for parts?

[BooTheMightyHamster]

After many years away, I've got back into Lego recently, and I'm sticking (at the moment) to Technic.

I really want to keep all the sets 'separate', and not mix the parts up, but I'd also, at some point, like to start on some Technic based MOC's.

In order to get a basic set of parts for Moc'ing, I can see a few options :

A) buy a bunch of parts direct from Lego / Brickpicker etc

B) buy bags of second-hand parts from ebay or the like

C) buy some Technic sets, specifically for parts

I work for a UK retailer who sells Lego, and I get a 25% discount, so C is possible.

If I decided to go down that route, which (currently available) sets would people suggest be best to create a 'starter set'?

I guess you don't want a set that contains too many model specific parts, but as yet, I don't know enough to determine which parts are most useful.

Unimog? 4x4 Crawler?

Any suggestions / comments welcome.

Thanks,

Boo

[DLuders]

I would buy your desired parts from Bricklink.com -- you get exactly what you want (and nothing more). You can even shop for the best price worldwide in most cases.

[davidmull]

I'm the same as you i don't like breaking up my sets to build mocs,

Iv just recently started to build jurgens ultimate 8043 and I'm also leaving it built.im now starting to build his fully power function backhoe which is a real beast of a set :)

I buy all my parts on bricklink but the fact i don't use my own sets for mocs it works out expensive buying lots of parts for mocs.

If u want to build heavy machine mocs like me buy yourself a spare 8043 it's a great start and has lots of motors and PF parts.

[S.I]

I prefer discounted sets / bulk lots for random parts, and bricklink when I need something specific/rare.

[skylinedan]

I buy a set, build it, then after a while I take it apart and the pieces get put in the inventory like all the rest. I can go back and build it again any time I want, but its not quite the same as opening a box and having all those clear plastic bags. And as S.I said I go to brick link for the parts I dont have. you order what you need and that's it

Dan

[dhc6twinotter]

Boo, I think it really depends on what you plan on building. IMHO, the current log truck is a pretty good general parts pack. If you plan to build more remote control stuff, than the 8043 excavator has quite a few PF components, but not a huge part count. If you like to build construction equipment, than I would suggest maybe buying the Unimog or Excavator (again, not that high of a part count though). If you want to build cars, than the new F1 Racer may be a better option. And there's the Service Truck and Crane coming out this fall. Both should be nice for parts.

My vote for best starter set is the 8258 Crane Truck from a few years ago. Some would say the playability isn't that great, but it has an excellent variety of parts. If you can find one cheap, it would be worth buying.

I think having the parts from a few sets on hand is nice to have instead of buying individual pieces from bricklink or whatever. Building with Technic takes some trial and error, and having to order individual parts would be a pain. Bricklink works well for buiding from instructions or for a radom piece here or there, but if you're buiding for you own moc, nothing beats having the parts on hand.

Edited February 24, 2013 by dhc6twinotter

[nychase]

Take it from someone that has a 1m+ part collection that if you can avoid it, just buy what you need from bricklink. For years I have bought larger lots and sets to break apart for parts for building various Mocs but I can tell you that its just as much of a burden as it is an asset. I will have pictures finally posted soon of all my parts and you will see that its quite alot to try and keep organized and useful.

[Edwin Korstanje]

I buy the last year 35 sets, and there is only one set at mine display (8865) the rest is sorted out for building moc's and the most parts i juse for moccing i orderd it from Bricklink.

[skylinedan]

Take it from someone that has a 1m+ part collection that if you can avoid it, just buy what you need from bricklink. For years I have bought larger lots and sets to break apart for parts for building various Mocs but I can tell you that its just as much of a burden as it is an asset. I will have pictures finally posted soon of all my parts and you will see that its quite alot to try and keep organized and useful.

Take it from someone that has a 1m+ part collection that if you can avoid it, just buy what you need from bricklink. For years I have bought larger lots and sets to break apart for parts for building various Mocs but I can tell you that its just as much of a burden as it is an asset. I will have pictures finally posted soon of all my parts and you will see that its quite alot to try and keep organized and useful.

this I gotta see to believe, LOL. I dont have anywhere that much and I,m about out of room. I really have my heart set on the 42009, gonna make room one way or another< LOL.

[BooTheMightyHamster]

Thanks for the comments.

I'll probably leave it for a while, as I don't have enough experience to know which parts are useful and which parts are less so. But I suspect I'll start off by buying a couple of kits to break down. I think the brickpicker route is fine if you have a specific design that you're trying to build, and you need certain parts to complete it, but I think to start me off, I basically want a 'box of bits' to play with and see where I go.

No idea whether I want to build trucks / cars / construction machines, roller coasters etc

I'll wait until I've built the sets I have, and see which I enjoy the most.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

[TBS]

Hi Boo,

some ideas / advice from me.

Think through them, whats more interesting to you.

Don´t bother about value or something...

If you don´t like to build with LEGO Technic anymore at all,

then repack the sets and sell it used.

Of course you need to tread the parts very good for the above case, but i don´t have to mention this, do i?

Congrats, you´re working for a retailer, so your discounts are very good.

Lets say your almost treaded like a seller.

Here is the sets:

9391 for small treadlinks, crane arm and a view gears.

9392 for small steering parts, shockabsorbers and chainlinks.

9396 for a huge bunch of parts red and yellow, panels, mini actuators and propellers.

(this sets is quite a lot disounted in germany, and its rumored thats EOL already.)

9397 for lots of liftarms in all colors, medium steering parts, truckwheels, battery box, motors and actuators.

8110, you should hurry here because its also rumored EOL, with this you get a complete

pneumatic arangement, compressor, big steering parts, panels and tons of parts as well as huge wheels.

9398 for infrared pf-stuff, different motors, gears, huge offroadwheels, and all other parts.

with those sets you have covered a very broad range of parts, if not to say almost all.

(except from a colors point of view.)

What sets feel more like you, you will have to decide yourself.

You could start with smaller sets, and then go on, but i wouldn´t wait to long in case of the Unimog- 8110 .

By the way, EOL means end of life or end of line, i heard both versions, but they all mean the product cycle is over - production stopped.

For everything else in terms of parts you need, after you got on track with Technic, consider Bricklink or in special cases Lego Direct as Option.

cu Tom

[BooTheMightyHamster]

That's great - thanks, Tom!

[Porty]

I'm also trying to decide for me. Although I have a large collection, I would like to make it even larger. I'm definitely going to be spending over $500 on my EV3 collection, so I won't have a ton of money to spend on Technic, but which of these are best (Pick 2 or 3): 9397, 9398, 42000, 42009. I have an 8285, do I need 9397? I have 8043, do I need 9398?

As for Boo, I think these:

8258

8043

8110

9396

9394

[CisFran]

I also bought extra 8110 and 9398. My initial thoughts were to use them for parts.

But afterwards, I am hesitant to open those box just for parts.

Now I'm buying from BL for my spare parts needs...

[Meatman]

The 42000 looks to be a great set for parts. Too bad it costs a bit more than we had anticipated.

[skylinedan]

Yeah so much for a 100 bucks, I,m not a big fan of cars. Well not a fan of building them I should say, but I see a lot of good parts in this set too. I could use a set of hubs, like to build a razor sometime.

Dan

[Carsten Svendsen]

I could use a set of hubs, like to build a razor sometime.

Dan

I'm afraid you'll get some trouble finding sharp enough LEGO pieces to make a razor

[drofnas]

9391 for small treadlinks...

9392 for small steering parts...

9396 for a huge bunc...

9397 for lots of lift...

8110, you should ...

9398 for infrared pf-stuff, ...

I just got back into legos as well, and I recently purchased just about all the ones that Tom (TBS) had outlined in his post, just missing the 9396 set. I'm also going to pickup all the sets from this year, then maybe start picking and choosing after that. Just got my 42000 in the mail today, so going straight to building the B Model for that one (Race Truck).

[TBS]

Some more thoughts that came into my mind.

If you are into motorbikes get one of set:

42007 for long "motorcycle"-shockabsorbers, more chainlinks, and motocross tyres.

Racingbike tyres: i would purchase 2 extra from Bricklink (BL) , they were available 2010

with set 8051, but luckily they are available again in the ninjago set "ultra sonic raider"

This one is EOL and heavily discounted in my area. As i spotted last month an US-Seller

partet out 300 of them, but its 600 wheels were sold immediatly.

So grab 2 for you as long they are rather cheap...

When it comes to excavators, i am inbalanced what to advise.

there is 2 ways:

if you want a great building experience and fun play try to get yourself an used 8043.

There you have besides the above, many motors, actuators, tread links and parts.

I consider your retailer already sold them out for months, so a new one might be hard to get, at discounted prices. Its price has risen from 140€ in october/november 2012 to 200€ now for a new misb-set on the german market.

If you´re in just for the parts, i would rather go for 42006.

Just the treadlinks and sprocket wheels should be buyable at BL for around 12€

In the end it all depends on how much money sensitive you are ;-)

For cars there are 2 sets you wont come around.

8070: features the old steering parts, motor and battery box, as well as tons of parts.

I bought some december 27th for 67€ they are at 100€ now and 120 Retail (germany), So if your shop has them, grab one.

The steering parts alone are available for 15€ or so.

42000: is also a great set partswise. They have the new steering parts.

The only thing which might be "not so good" in your special case, it features a lot of white parts.

For me this is great, but as from the parts variation in the posts above you might be better of with more of the standard colors.

Alternatively, you can buy only the steering parts, after some time the set has been parted out by more than one seller.

One thing i can´t tell you is, which steering system is better.

I have heard both. If i remind correctly, there is some kind of review here at eurobricks.

Please also takes care of you boxes. This is very important when it comes to resale.

And sets with boxes are always more valueable because you have the buyers on your side

which insist on it.

A possible bider/buyer who doesn´t care about the box can go for with box or without, but a buyer who insists on the box can not.

So you increase your pool of buyers with box widely. Not to mention the achievable prices.

If you open the box, do not pull on the round end which is actually supposed to do so.

Take a sharp knife and cut the box on the end vertical and carefully. This way you don´t destroy the box.

Building instructions are available on BL as printed or by download here:

http://service.lego....nginstructions/

I don´t like the pdf´s for their low resolution / color differences, i.e. qualitiy but you might go with it.

After all... try to get known to BL, check LD for special cases, and groove into this site:

http://rebrickable.com/

register and insert all your sets here.

Then you be able to get yourself a list which parts exactly you are missing to build another lego set or moc. This is a great site. you should definatly take a look.

If i forgot to add anything more, just ask, from my point of view i covered the most important sets and aspects of starting with LEGO Technic.

You´ll find a lot of help here, once you started.. ;-)

By for now.

Tom.

[drofnas]

Regarding those PDF instructions, I've found a bunch of the A Models (the instructions that come in the box) are usually the worst. It baffles me that they can't turn their digital copies of the instructions into PDFs with higher quality images (aka, being able to see the holes on black pieces). I've personally started cutting up some of my own instructions, scanning them, and will put them online when I find a good place to do so.

TLG vs Personal Scan

[ChrisLegix]

Quote:

TLG vs Personal Scan

Regarding those PDF instructions, I've found a bunch of the A Models (the instructions that come in the box) are usually the worst. ....

Trying an explanation for this:

Quality vs. size: good scans require more memory. Considering thousands if not millions of downloads, this may be an issue.

Or is this intentional so that we buy originls and not just use the free instructions? Not for me though as i use therm for reference when i no longer have the models complete.

But i agree: TLG scans could be improoved a lot. Maybe the effort with Autodesk make the instructions more legibel?

[drofnas]

Hmm, I think you might be on to something with the "buy originals" to get the high quality A Models instructions

Since if they just cared about space they would have did the minimum size possible while keeping some sort of details, like the one I created using my scans and massive compression in photoshop. But it's all a moot point, I just need to get my hands on more originals so I can remedy this

Official TLG PDF: 9.5MB

Personal Scanned PDF: 33MB

Super Compressed Personal Scan (below): 4.4MB

Edited February 27, 2013 by drofnas

[CisFran]

I would buy your desired parts from Bricklink.com -- you get exactly what you want (and nothing more). You can even shop for the best price worldwide in most cases.

There are lots of good BL sellers for spare parts needs...

Try Tom's Brickstore (Germany). Very accomodating guy, the prices were also very competitive, some of the cheapest, i might say.

http://www.bricklink.com/feedback.asp?u=TBS

[Porty]

Take it from someone that has a 1m+ part collection that if you can avoid it, just buy what you need from bricklink. For years I have bought larger lots and sets to break apart for parts for building various Mocs but I can tell you that its just as much of a burden as it is an asset. I will have pictures finally posted soon of all my parts and you will see that its quite alot to try and keep organized and useful.

So just seeing your 1m+ parts, I must ask: When do you stop as a collector... When you think you have enough of every part or on what circumstance? For instance, this year I plan: 42000, 42008, 42009, 9398, etc... Should I just use BL??? Just for your reference I have about 16,000 Technic parts.

[Theo van Vroenhoven]

I own about 30 Technic sets now but have very little room to display and store them.

When a new set comes out I first check how many parts I am missing from my collection and how much they would cost on BL or LEGO Direct.

As a rule of thumb: if the investment is less than 25% of the setprice I go for the loose parts on BL or LEGO Direct.

For instance: the new 42000 costs about 90 euros here in The Netherlands.

For about 25 euro I can upgrade my 8386 to an 'all red' 42000.

I will go for that option; saves me money and, more important, space!

Therefore I am very curious how many new parts you need to build 42009 if you own already 8421-8265-8043...