CoNSpiracy

Looks really good! The only disappointment is the colour of the walls. Since I already own the old VW Cottage set and want to display both, it would have been nice if TLG had chosen a different colour than light blue.

Merry Xmas fellow Eurobricks users! Lego Santa minifig mosaic by LEGO_CoNSpiracy, on Flickr I made the mosaic with the aid from Lego Art Remix - but also did a lot of editing of the original image and quite a bit of changing round tiles and plates in the mosaic to other colours after it was built from the Lego Art Remix instructions.

Could be a great Lego Ideas set, like the Home Alone McCallister's House (which will hopefully be released soon, in time for building this year's Winter Village display!)

The leaked photo from the Korean website has the date 9/23. I guess this is the date when the set will be available for VIP members. Official announcement of the set usually comes within a week before that date.

You mean other than the rumours above in this thread about adult scenes in order to explain the 18+ age recommendation? :-) No, there is only one leaked photo at the moment, showing the front of the box and the built set next to it from the front. I actually like the large light bulbs as a new fresh alternative to the "traditional" chains of light bulbs from the cottage and the bakery etc. I do agree with you that it would have been great if the set had included one bigger side-element in addition to the Christmas tree, sleigh, computer and the presents - like the ice skating rinks that came with the bakery and fire station, the igloo that came with the cottage and the pavilion that came with the post office.

I agree with Fenghuang0296 that the belt looks like it is part of the torso print. At first sight I actually thought the torso was the same as for the Collectible Minifigures series 11 Holiday Elf, but after a closer look I think it is slightly different with the belt print on the new torso being more straight. Altogether I think the set looks good. It will fit nicely with Santa's Workshop. Great colour scheme and style, although I am not a big fan of the very high pitch of the roof (same as on the Gingerbread House), but I think it can be justified to some extent as it is part of the overall fantasy look. I can't really be bothered about the change of the style of box art!! I do, however, agree that it can be difficult to see the thread of consistency in the WV sets over the years, with the three first ones and the train, the train station and the fire station all being very town-like sets, and the same for the cottage although not in scale with the other houses, and then Santa's workshop, the gingerbread house and now the elf club house going in other directions. Anyway, I just happy that Lego continues the WV line year after year, and all of the sets are indeed very Christmas'sy and are all great for display in the house throughout December. Partly due to the fact that I was growing out of room on my display table, I decided last year to have two separate displays: a WV town display, and a "Fantasy Land" display, the latter containing Santa's Workshop (with set 40106 Toy Workshop add-on etc.), the Gingerbread House (also with set 40139) and some other "fantasy" elements such as minifigs etc. from various Lego Star Wars advent calendars, a MOC scene from Frozen and a MOC winter Disney scene. The Elf Club House will be this year's addition to my "WV Fantasy Land" display, together with a MOD of the Home Alone IDEAS set when it is released. One thing I don't like about the Elf Club House set is that it doesn't seem to include "replacement elves" for those of us who live in countries where Santa's helpers are certainly not elves in green clothes but rather pixies in red and grey clothes!! But I have bought some extra red hats (part 13787pb02), red pixie-like torsos (part 973pb0849c01) and short legs in LBG and DBG for this purpose... EDIT: I also agree that the computer is a bit misplaced in this set! The WV sets all have a vibe of "good o'le days" (mid-20th century-ish), so from before computers were invented... But perhaps elves were just way ahead of time - and again, this will be part of my "WV Fantasy Land" display (together with Star Wars!) so I can accept that the boundaries are more relaxed than in my WV classic town display!

Unfortunately, not :-) I just found it some time ago on YouTube and saved the link for future inspiration. It was done as a colab between two Australian AFOLs (Ryan Masters and Cherie Shields aka Aussie Chick Brick) for the Bricktober event in Perth, Australia in 2019. There are some more pictures in the Flickr albums here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cherieshields/albums/72157711386933541 and here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bricktasticblog/albums/72157711359178868/

Check this out (at 0:16 and 0:50 in the video):

I take the sets apart each year (fully or in sections) and put the bricks in plastic bags inside the original boxes. Come November/December I invite over friends, neighbours and family and line up all the boxes and they all get to pick one set to build.

In past years, the new VW set has been released for sale from 1 October each year, with early access for VIP members starting mid-September (14 Sept in 2017, 13 Sept in 2018 and 18 Sept in 2019). TLG announces the VW set just a few days before it becomes available for VIP members. In 2019 the announcement came on 12 Sept, i.e. just 6 days before VIP members could buy it. The early VIP access seems to start each year on the Thursday in either week 37 (2017 and 2018) or week 38 (2019). My guess is that this year’s set will be available to VIP members on 17 Sept 2020, with an official announcement of the set around 11 Sept.

Where have you seen pictures of this?

On the community page in his YouTube channel it says that he is on annual leave and will be back soon

Source?

I have been eagerly waiting to hear any news on this year's WV set, so thanks a lot for sharing this rumour. Interesting, indeed... I could see an Elf Clubhouse set fit nicely together with 10245 Santa's Workshop. However, this time I hope that the set is provided with some items of part No. 13787pb02 as extra parts, which can be used when building the set in replacement for part 13787pb01. In Northern Europe, where I live, Santa's helpers are not elves in green clothing but instead pixies with a red hat. I agree. But maybe TLG believes that the non-VW related limited edition GWPs generate more sale in general, if they are "generic" and appeal more broadly to other people shopping for Lego around Christmas time than "just" the VW (or City) buyers.

The train automation stuff shown in the videos on this website is quite impressive, I think: http://mattzobricks.com/

Thanks again for making the library available. This is very helpful and much appreciated.

Yes, indeed, the Technic Builders Guide 2nd ed. turned out to have an example which is pretty much spot on to what I want to do. With figures 9-23, 9-29 and 9-30 in the book, I am sure I can make it work like I want. Thanks again to all of you for your support. Much appreciated and exactly what I was wishing for!

Per default, if I connect PF lights to a Lego PF battery box, the lights will shine no matter which "direction" is selected on the battery box (forward or backwards). The same applies if I insert a PF control switch (8869) in between the PF ligths and the battery box and change the "direction" using the control switch. Is there a way to make the PF lights work only with one of the directions? Forgive my ignorance and lack of electric knowledge, but would it work to cut one of the two middle wires (C1 or C2) in the PF lights cable (between the PF connector and the black brick)? Or would it just result in the PF lights not working at all?

Excellent, thanks! I have the book at home and will go check it out.

Thanks for sharing this.

@Captainowie I have been thinking more about the solution you suggested. I could start off with controlling the track switch with a PF motor, like in this video: HOWTO LEGO Train Motorized Points Switch. I would then need to have the drive / technic axle coming out the motor to continue on to two different PF control switches (8869). I guess I could achieve this by putting a gear on the technic axle coming from the motor, in order to connect with two new gears, each with a technic axle going into a respective PF control switch. But how to physically block the travel of the two switches in one direction each (as you suggested) in a way where the motor is not put under too much constraint and where the other “leg” of the mechanism would still rotate / make a change on the relevant switch?

Sounds really good. Will it be a complete library of all the TrixBrix tracks, including the odd pieces such as the buffer stop and short straight tracks (1/16, 2/16, 4/16)? I have just had a look at your homepage and your YouTube videos. Wow, your setup is really impressive - looking forward to seeing more footage, including some "how-to" videos :-) (In particular, I am interested in the software part, and how you have added sounds)

Thanks, I will give this idea some further thought. It would be quite heavy on PF components, though, since I need one set of PF lights to turn on in forward direction and another set of lights turn on in reverse. Thís particular feature is not for the houses. It is for a signal system for the train tracks in the layout, where I want to have a PF motor controlling a track switch and in connection therewith have green and right red lights changing whenever the track switch direction is changed by the motor.

Thanks for explaining and taking the time to make the diagram. I am afraid it is beyond my limited electrical and soldering skills so I will not dare to move further down that avenue Yes it would! Another other example of great use of such PF "logic" brick you describe would be when motorizing locomotives, which are designed to run both ways (e.g. the one from set 7939). Here it would be great to have front lights turned on only in the direction the locomotive is running. With 3D printing having become mainstream in recent years I am wondering why there are not more (or any?) third party products which link together with PF using the PF sockets. I am of course aware of the larger control units such as SBrick, but I am thinking about more simple products such as the one you describe. However, since Lego is now replacing PF with Powered Up, I guess third party companies won't have much focus on developing add-on stuff for PF in the future, either. I am currently making a big city layout including a train track, where I want to light up the houses in the city. As I am making the city in modules which are meant to be dismantled quite often and transported/stored separately, I need to make sure that the wires for the lights can be easily disconnected and connected again. For this purpose, I find all the third party lighting products much too vulnerable with their small connections. I have broken quite a few of them when testing the concepts. So I have ended up with using Lego PF lights and PF extension wires, in order to have the easy click connections with the PF sockets. However, this is quite costly as I want to light up quite a few houses. Also, because I don't like the bright white colour of the PF lights I have had to cut off the LEDs (and transclear plastic housings) and soldered warm white LEDs onto the wires instead... So a lot of hassle just because no third party products have a sufficiently robust (in my view) connection system.

Thanks. So that would be the "D1 Diode Bridge" shown in the picture of the print board inside the middle brick (as per the homepage you linked to)? Could I achieve the functionality I am looking for by simply removing one of the connections on the print board?