legotownlinz

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Posts posted by legotownlinz

  2. Posted

    2 minutes ago, Toastie said:

    The thing is: How can these folks at TrixBrix all of a sudden make injection molded straights at that price?

    Did you notice the packaging with the transparent window? This makes no sense for their web store, the only explanation is that they want to sell to retailers. If the quantities are high, the molds will pay off quickly. The market for LEGO accessories gets more and more professional, imho there won't be much market share left for hobbyists/semi-professionals soon. 

  5. Posted · Edited by legotownlinz

    29 minutes ago, Amoreternum said:

    Still, I doubt that Lego itself will change too much in the near future, I just expect the pack with curves and flex track to retire due to the negative feedback. Official tracks like the ones from TrixBrix are just too niche, I guess.... but since the Krododil appears to be very popular, who knows what's next?

    It's not only the stupid packaging. Lego's tracks are optically and functionally lacking. Dual-color for sleepers and rails plus single-stud-wide sleepers would be the way to go. The geometry of the switches needs to be improved and the switch levers don't work well and break easily, BrickTracks shows how to do it better. 

  6. Posted

    21 minutes ago, Lok24 said:

    Hi, good news.

    Where did you read "injection molded"?

     

    https://www.facebook.com/trixbrix.eu

    Quote
    We are very proud to introduce, just in time for the Halloween Promo ?, our second injection molded product - The Double Straight Track!
    It was one of the most highly requested items by our customers. Thanks to the increased length, building large layouts is now much easier. Storage is also more convenient. Double Straight Tracks work beautifully with our Supports Bundle product as well and allowing for a gentler slope or using less supports.
    The track has been designed and made to the highest quality standards and looks gorgeous ?
    We know that getting a lot of straight tracks is quite difficult and expensive. The new ones are only available in a set with the R40 curves and rather useless flex tracks - this is such a waste! Bricklink prices are also quite high. In contrast, our Double Straights are priced at 2.3EUR per piece which is more than 30% less than the average Bricklink price. We sell them in packs of 10.
    Oh, did we just mention a Halloween Promo ?? Use „hw2020” during checkout to get a 10% discount. Promo ends this Sunday.
    The Double Straight Tracks are available immediately at https://trixbrix.eu

     

    By the way, I've ordered some of these tracks. Will let you know about the quality once I've received them.

  7. Posted

    On 10/5/2020 at 1:02 PM, keybrickone said:

    Sadly no, we're using micro-USB, for various reasons.

    USB type C connectors are considerably larger (at that scale anyway) and would have forced us to place the connector on the long side of the hub, which again decided against because it seemed less practical. Additionally the conectors are a good bit taller too, which would require us to use a mid-mount type because we would run out of height.
    Finally, implementing USB type C would require a good bit more circuitry inside of Keybrick (because the device is actually supposed to communicate with the charger in order for it to be properly implemented) which comes at significant expense and with the matching board space requirement.

    I second the idea to use the USB-C connector. Assuming the battery box will have a long lifetime, it will still be used when USB-C has fully replaced micro USB connectors. And USB-C is much more user-friendly. You really shouldn't use micro USB for products that are used by kids.

  8. Posted

    https://trixbrix.eu/en_US/p/Double-Straight-Track-Set-10-pcs/288

    I really appreciate this product. I contacted the Lego support a few months ago to buy 250 pcs of straight tracks, but their offer was more expensive than just buying 60205 and disposing the curved tracks.

    I wonder how Lego will respond, now that their switches AND tracks are inferior to third party products. I think their only chance to disrupt the market is to make vastly improved tracks, e.g. a dual molded track that looks much better. Otherwise, they are out of business in the AFOL market. Will you still buy Lego track? I won't.

  9. Posted

    Hi,

    Here's my take on the Hidden Side train. I've removed the transformation play features and added a motor. I kept the good-looking parts of the original design and improved it where it is lacking, but kept it recognizable as a Hidden Side train.

    One LEGO 70424 set contains most of the parts to build one engine. The additionally required parts are mostly standard parts and Powered Up components. For the double engine shown in the image, two sets are required.

    GhostTrainExpressMod.jpg

    Instructions are available on Rebrickable.

    I hope you like it.

  11. Posted

    On 10/15/2020 at 12:22 PM, Toastie said:

    The thing is that the pickup powers the rechargeable battery whenever it finds metal track. When on plastic track it runs on the battery. You won't notice any difference, as the power from the track is completely decoupled from the power going to the motor.

    I'd also prefer this approach for my layout, based on Powered Up components.

  12. Posted

    On 10/12/2020 at 2:32 AM, Lord Insanity said:

    Power pickups that plug into the current "battery" motors are a minimum requirement to get people that don't already have 9v trains.  I hope this sells well enough to get to that point.

    Are there any people who don't have 9V trains yet who are considering to switch to 9V? I've already bought several BrickTracks and TrixBrix products that just look too good to limit myself to the few elements that might be available in the Fx Tracks system in the future. I'm worried that Fx Tracks will be too expensive and there is no guarantee that the system will ever be completed while there are many vendors for plastic tracks. I'm sorry to say that, but Fx Bricks is five years late. That ship has sailed. Or as we say in German: Der Zug ist abgefahren. (The train has left.) 

  14. Posted

    1 hour ago, nychase said:

    Question for everyone here.  

    I've had my roller coaster built for approximately 9 months.  In that time its been in my finished basement with absolutely no sunlight and minimal lights-on in general.  Looking at the set today I noticed that a significant number of the parts are yellowed (as if they were in the sun) but not consistently.  One part could be yellow and the part connected to it be bright white.  The set has only been built once so there is no possible explanation that I'm aware of for this.  Further, I thought that newer legos were protected against the yellowing that the old space sets experienced. 

    Anyone have an issue with this???

    There are no yellowing issues with my set. 

    However, I've noticed that the cars get stuck after not using it for several weeks. It gets better after running it for a while. The axles are not dirty nor are the tracks.

  15. Posted · Edited by legotownlinz

    Colors got more realistic over time in every way except the minifigs. The yellow minifig is iconic, nevertheless I don't think it will stay yellow forever. It's obvious that Lego wants us to get used to the realistic colors step-by-step. I like them and wouldn't mind if all themes use them.

  16. Posted

    Hmm, no explorer/adventurer subtheme? :sceptic:

    In my childhood I had a Lego town with road base plates and some buildings, also on base plates. It was a well arranged layout, which is not possible anymore since Lego stopped using base plates for buildings. And now the road plates will be discontinued. Maybe it's nostalgia, but these base plates were an essential part of what made a Lego town fascinating for me. The new system is neither easy to use for children nor is it looking good enough for AFOLs. My guess: It will turn out as a huge mistake. We will see Chinese replacements in toy shops soon...

  18. Posted

    Here's a picture of my modded exploration ship with relaxed color schema (red parts removed), increased height, hidden crane gear box and a few minor details added.

    DSC_6998.jpg

    I've started to make instructions so that I can upload it to Rebrickable, but I can't find the large boat piece in Studio. Any ideas how to add it?

    OceanExplorationShipMod1.png

     

  19. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Otherworld said:

    Also, the box art is incredibly cramped, as if they didn’t want you to see the where the buildings start and end... mhmm suspicious. Maybe it’s just to give the illusion of the large alley it really is, or a small indicator “their alley” does not end there.

    The box art doesn't look professional at all, why didn't they use the excellent dark blue design of all the other Wizarding World sets? Was the designer on vacation and the trainee did it? :hmpf:

  23. Posted

    18 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

    I'm unsure as to the second issue you mention, but it'd be great if you could raise an issue on the GitHub repo so we could discuss there.

    The reconnection issue on Windows only happens with a hub between PC and Bluetooth dongle. I could reproduce it with these two dongles, both work fine without hub and do not allow reconnections with hubs:

    ASUS USB-BT400 Bluetooth 4.0 USB Adapter  (0B05 17CB, BCM20702A0 Broadcom Corporation)
    DIGITUS Adapter tiny USB Bluetooth V 4.0 (0A12 0001, Cambridge Silicon Radio Ltd)

     

     

  24. Posted

    10 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

    Hi @legotownlinz, node-poweredup library is actually my project. :)

    Thanks for your library, which is very clean and elegant. :thumbup:

     

    10 hours ago, Mr Hobbles said:

    I'm unsure as to the second issue you mention, but it'd be great if you could raise an issue on the GitHub repo so we could discuss there.

    Do you have plans to use the default Windows Bluetooth stack instead of WinUsb/noble? Sharing applications is difficult if the end user has to replace drivers.