62Bricks

The Beta is now "open" and the new terms regarding the license go into effect Dec 19. It was never the case that you were "handing over" your designs to Bricklink - it is the standard boilerplate that every site with user-generated content has. By publishing your designs in public areas, you are giving the license to Bricklink to use them on their site. You are not giving them ownership of your design. It is essentially making explicit that you are giving them permission to show them to other people. They need that permission from you because you hold the copyright. So the "build" link is now live in the Bricklink banner and of course the BL forums are already awash with people who don't care one bit about using the new software but see it as a sign that the whole site is heading down the drain. It's a common fallacy you see everywhere - people have their own lists of what they think should be done, and whenever a website, their boss, their local government, etc. does something they think is less important they begin to yell that nobody has their priorities straight. The fallacy of course is the assumption that only one thing can be developed at a time, and that every new feature is implemented at the expense of another. It simply isn't true. I had a chance to meet Alex, the head guy on the Stud.io project. At that time he was working on re-designing the BL storefronts as well as working on re-organizing the parts categories - not replacing them, but finding a more intuitive way to display them in the storefronts. With the Stud.io project I can see a few ways that the general advances in the site development are being interwoven - first, the organization of parts in Stud.io is much simpler than the convoluted, inconsistent and sometimes ridiculous Bricklink category structure. The second thing that Stud.io is pushing forward, I think, is the standardization of part images across the site. Many of the basic, non-decorated parts in the catalog are now renders (probably based on LDraw?). Consistency is good. There are so many crummy photographs on Bricklink.

I like to load the calendar, then scroll slooooooowly until the new line of winners is revealed... and... doh! Maybe tomorrow

I think you are right. Thanks!

...

I somehow stumbled on the thread that showed the prizes, but now I can't find it again - is there an obvious link someplace I'm missing? The calendar just shows huge manatees...

New render with the house in gray and white, one of the more common color combinations:

Lustron was a short-lived company started in the late 1940s by the Swedish inventor Carl Strandlund. His idea was to address the post-war housing shortage in the United States by creating an inexpensive system of building pre-fabricated houses out of steel. He secured government loans and converted a former aircraft plant into a factory, where these all-steel houses were built in segments to be shipped all over the country and assembled on site. The company faced some challenges and only a few thousand houses were actually sold and built. You can find them throughout the American Midwest. There are four of them within a half-hour drive of my home in a small town in Iowa. The remarkable thing about Lustron houses is that they are constructed almost entirely of steel. The wall frames were built in sections and fastened together on site. The roof trusses were also steel. Finally, the entire exterior and the roof were covered with small porcelain-enameled steel panels, giving the houses a distinctive appearance. The panels could be ordered in a range of colors. The interior walls were also covered with enameled steel panels - to hang things on the walls, you used magnetic hooks. Cabinets and bookcases were built in. Interior doors were sliding pocket doors to save space. The houses came with a 500-page instruction book. In my design, I have tried to replicate the pre-fab building experience. Wall panels are built in sections, then assembled and locked together into the completed house. More photos and info at my Flickr album I have posted a version of the model at Mecabricks I am currently gathering support for the project at LEGO Ideas

Because I've been learning how to use Blender...

Just got these in the mail. Bought them online. A little sleuthing shows they are from Starfleet Voyager 6929 Obviously the real "gold" here are the new decorated parts. All the printed parts from the set are in the two top bags, except for the minifig torso and head. The legs and airtanks are in the bag at top left. I have no attachment to sets and would normally just open these bags and sell the parts as new. But I realize these are probably pretty scarce and there just might be someone out there who might want the sealed bags to complete a "new" set. I don't sell sets so I don't have a handle on that market. I could put these up as superlots or custom items at BL, I suppose, but I can see them sitting for a long time before the right person comes along. If I open them I know I could sell most of these parts quickly. Any thoughts?

I agonized over that pole. I tried several options and just could not get something that looked right to me. Part of the problem is that I squeezed down the proportions of the model from the initial plan, which was to scale, in order to fit it on a standard baseplate. The overhang is thus smaller in proportion, and the corner pole was overpowering. I haven't given up, though. Thanks for the feedback. Thank you! Yes, I'll put instructions up. In the meantime, you can open it up and take it apart in Mecabricks.

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The resemblance to Mecabricks is mostly superficial. You cannot grab and rotate the model, it just has static views (and it took me a while to figure out how to change the angles). Clicking on a part in the palette at the bottom does not insert the piece as with Mecabricks, it just "grabs" it so it can be dragged into the model view - and there's no way to drop it once you grab it except to place it in the model (then delete it, if it's not the one you wanted). If there's a way to insert parts snapped to the location of the currently selected part, I have not yet found it. I use that feature constantly and there needs to be a way to do this. There are some duplicate parts that seem to have been created out of discrepancies between the Bricklink and LDraw part number schemes. Sometimes where Bricklink still has an "undetermined" variant as well as a and b variants, it has matched the same LDraw part to more than one variant. So for example 4081a is listed once and 4081b is listed twice. 3940 is listed twice, and there is no 3940a or 3940b. Since 3940 is set for deletion, this will eventually cause problems when someone uses the app to shop for parts.

It's based on ldraw - the download includes both the official and unofficial ldraw libraries. Also includes LGEO and povray-related files.

Getting damaged parts is a big deal, so you should not sell them. Forget about complicated grading schemes - you don't have the time to classify thousands of parts - and just focus on two grades of used parts: those good enough to sell in your shop and those not good enough to sell. Set your own standard, and anything that doesn't meet it gets chucked in the "custom filler brick" box, or the "give to the kids/charity shop" box. You will save yourself a lot of time and will never have to worry about unhappy customers if you only sell used parts that are in very-good to like-new condition. My own criterion is that if I am looking at a part and see a scratch or a ding and say to myself "Oh, nobody would probably care about that..." then I reject it. I do not shop at Bricklink stores who grade their parts, or those who give blanket statements that their used parts may have scratches or dings. I'll give a shop a chance or two, and if the used parts don't meet my own standard, I don't shop there any more.

I have signed up, but have not heard anything yet. Today is the first day and the announcement says they will be adding testers "incrementally." I notice today they created new forum topics to report bugs, request features, etc.

I wonder what the process will be to add and link parts between the part library and catalog. Adding an existing part in a new color is a simple thing, but new pieces will have to be modeled before they can be added. That might be a little complicated to rely on volunteers to get done quickly. I can see the parts library falling behind the catalog pretty quickly unless BL is going to have someone in-house modeling parts as soon as they are released. I also wonder how they will determine what makes a part color "available." The "known colors" information on BL is incomplete in many cases, so if they use that it will create errors. On the other hand if they use the list of colors currently for sale it will also create errors - from sellers who have listed parts under the wrong color or for rare colors where there may not be any actually listed for sale from time to time.

Looks as if it might be the base for one of the simple vehicles that were included in fast food meals, cereal boxes, etc. These usually just had three or four large, molded parts that fit together and were decorated with stickers. At Bricklink they're usually cataloged as "gear" and are not inventoried, but the listings are not complete there.

"As always?" Maybe you have the Administrative and News topics turned off in your forum settings? Because I've read three or four announcements about site updates in the past couple weeks (new store settings page, HTML editing).

I see - because you chose to ignore the announcement it means there was no announcement? Many more people visit the front page than visit the forum. And it is currently the first item in the rotation at the top of the page. It is literally in the highest-profile location on the site. And you're complaining that Bricklink never told anyone. Nonsense.

"nothing has been announced" It has been in top rotation on the front page for a couple days. First thing you see.

You can use Bricklink and the free program Brickstock to get close to what you want: http://brickstock.patrickbrans.com/ First, create a list of the parts you want in any color. In this example, I made a short list of common parts in a common color and set them all to the 6-month average price for new pieces: Then "select all" and from the Edit menu, change the color of all of them at once. In this example I tried turning them all Dark Blue, then re-set them to the 6-month average price: This will try to pull data from the current Bricklink database. If there is no part in that color, you'll get an "error" in the price field and no image in the image column. This method will also show you if there are some scarce parts that might set you back if you choose the color to build in - that Dark Blue 2x8 brick is kind of scarce, for example. You'll still have to go through the list of colors to see which colors match all your parts, but when you hit on one, you can "save as" the list and keep it for later reference. You can also upload the file as a wanted list directly to your Bricklink account to find sellers that have the parts.

Right, that's how I ship them, as small packet first class. Maybe USPS is ripping me off it is possible. That is the price it use to be but lately I haven't been able to ship anywhere outside the USA for under $7. I'll have to see what I can find out next time. It sounds like you were using the "large envelope" rate to ship LEGO pieces. There are some post offices where the clerks/sorters will let you do this, but not at mine. Large envelopes are not supposed to have anything rigid in them and have maximum thickness requirements. This is because they will be sorted by an automatic machine that sends them rapidly through narrow chutes and around sharp turns. For flexible envelopes, this is no problem. But for anything rigid, it's very risky - your envelope can get caught in the machinery and get mangled, along with the contents. You might save your buyer $10 on shipping, but you might lose more than that in merchandise. Right now the least expensive package option from the US to Europe and most of the world is $13.50 for up to 8 ounces ($9.50 to Canada). The USPS raised the minimum rate, but increased the weight allowance, so for larger orders of 7-8 ounces, it's not too much higher than it was before. For small part orders, however, it is prohibitively expensive.

With a beam and an axle connector.

I noticed that, too - the front end of the motor is just resting on that piece. Also, on page 92, in step 152(3) the upper red gear in the direction changing mechanism is shown in place on the model (but is not in the part list for that step), but it's not secured in place. The next several steps are from the underside of the chassis, so if you put it on in step 152, it's going to fall off in step 154. Funnily, it is still shown in the upside-down steps, just hovering there in defiance of gravity. It finally falls of in step 164. And this is right before the steps for the assembly that seem to be missing the two half-pins that would secure the motor.

I need to connect two sections of a mechanism where the axles are aligned x and +. They need to be in the same vertical axis but not necessarily the same horizontal axis. Right now I'm using one of the old 24-tooth gears with three axle holes. This works, but I'm wondering if there is a more compact technique that uses a part currently in production. I've been away from Technic building for a while and am not familiar with all the new connectors. Is there anything out there that will do this?