[Software] Brick Wizard: A tool for saving money on LEGO parts at BL

[Zerobricks]

I'm having problems with the prgram... I am building a 4000 pieced model and importing from LDD file.

I get this error:

Some items were unavailable. Calculation cancelled.

[Freppe77]

This seems really promising! :) Any idea when the next release will be out? I'm trying to use it for my current project but unfortunately I've hit two of the bugs that are tagged as being fixed in 0.1.6. I'm currently stuck on the pruning bug, and if the next release will be out soon then I think I will wait for that rather than trying to figure out which brick(s) are causing my problems.

[Rotsiser Mho]

Can you say a little bit more about the exact algorithms you are using to do the calculation? In particular, I'm curious what assumptions you are making to prune that combination tree. TSPs are a particular area of interest to me, and I'm happy to see this application to LEGO and Bricklink being tackled a bit more efficiently.

At the moment I don't have time to write up the details of the algorithm but I do plan to write about it in the future. Mostly it just tries to intelligently remove as many stores as possible from the list of possible stores in order to minimize the number of combinations to process.

This seems really promising! :) Any idea when the next release will be out? I'm trying to use it for my current project but unfortunately I've hit two of the bugs that are tagged as being fixed in 0.1.6. I'm currently stuck on the pruning bug, and if the next release will be out soon then I think I will wait for that rather than trying to figure out which brick(s) are causing my problems.

You are in luck! Hopefully you didn't have to sift through your wanted list for problem bricks!

I have released Brick Wizard 0.1.6 Beta with a fix for an issue parsing country codes which led to crashes.

Please vote for features or report bugs on the Trello board!

[colinrichardson]

I'm trying to use Brick Wizard for the first time but keep getting this error:

"Unable to retrieve store information. Please try again."

Has anyone else run into this?

[giomel]

I'm having same issue here, I'm trying to use Brick Wizard 0.1.6b getting the error:

"Unable to retrieve store information. Please try again."

Is anyone able to really use it?

[SearchFunction]

Just a warning to potential users out there, from someone who uses a similar program:

• Check each store before buying for special requirements such as "1 euro per lot"
  
• Check the language of the page, is it full of errors and bad english? Chances are you´re going to have trouble communicating if something goes wrong
  
• Check selected lots for special requirements such as a need to buy in multiples of x2, x10 etc.
  
• Check selected lots description which will often contain words such as "yellowed", "playwear" which you might think twice about before buying
  
• Buying from several places will cost you in postage. Consider buying straight from PAB where shipping is free over a certain amount.
  

[Covi]

I'm having same issue here, I'm trying to use Brick Wizard 0.1.6b getting the error:

"Unable to retrieve store information. Please try again."

Is anyone able to really use it?

I'm getting the same error.

[Matt G]

Same error here. I think something has changed with BrickLink that has broken everything. Brick Optimizer and Brickficiency aren't working for me either. As Bricklink has no API it's always going to be a moving target, attempting to scrape the information from HTML directly.

This is why an open source project makes more sense (which is a shame a Brick Wizard showed some promise and had a nice UI). I'm going to see if I can get the Brick Optimizer code to compile and fix whatever is wrong with the Bricklink stuff...

[bonox]

^{does anyone else have a wish that these kind of programs would accept not being able to find all parts? ie instead of just cancelling, printing a best list for available parts and a supplementary list of parts it couldn't find.}

^{As an example, if I have a list of 3000 parts i'm after and 4 of them are unique and not found either anywhere or in a restricted country search, then I really don't want to not have an answer, or have to keep re-editing the source files to remove the 'no stock available' parts and then re-run?}

^{Perhaps i'm just unusual or looking for odd parts?}

[Transparency for Effect]

Does anyone know a fix around the "unable to retrieve store information. please try again later" bug?

[badbob001]

I had contacted the developer recently and he says that he is currently focused on family stuff but will get back to updating this program eventually.

[Frequenzberater]

2018 - Error still occurs. Has someone in the meantime found out a way to fix it?

[DutchBlockhead]

On 3/13/2018 at 8:40 AM, Frequenzberater said:

2018 - Error still occurs. Has someone in the meantime found out a way to fix it?

Quickbuy option in Bricklink maybe? :)

[SylvainLS]

It’s called “Easy Buy” (or “Auto-Select” if you want a bit more options / a bit less magic).

The problem is no one knows how it works.  There are examples of strange behaviours and no explanations given.

Edited March 19, 2018 by SylvainLS

[Frequenzberater]

Of course I know the easy buy function. But I thought using the brick wizard would bring some kind of advantage :) 

[judegreer]

Sometimes, I feel like I can outsmart the built in BrickLink auto-select feature.  I'll go in and start removing a certain store's shopping carts that were auto-filled, and going individually to the other stores' carts and trying to add in the parts that were from the eliminated store.  I have spent hours trying to get the best deal and eliminate stores and the associated shipping charges.  After doing this for probably a dozen MOCs I've attempted to build, I've finally come to the conclusion that, while I could probably save a few dollars in shipping charges here or there, overall the benefits were nowhere near the effort involved.  So now, I just use the auto-select & fill feature and trust that the BL algorithms work well enough.  Of course, one still must look out for exorbitantly priced parts (older parts that have a newer & cheaper mold & part ID, rare colors that can have cheaper swaps like LBG for old LG, etc) and make smart decisions whether those parts are worth the price.