howitzer

All of this begs the question: why are Lego boxes so easy to open without damaging them permanently? I mean, most retail products are packed in such a way that it's almost impossible to open them without at least some visible damage to the exterior so why are Lego boxes sealed only with a couple of small stickers that can be removed and replaced quite easily?

Has anyone else had a nice MOC which, for whatever reason was never finished, for whatever reason - like not having enough parts, unworkable design or something else? I have couple of things here which I want to show, even if I couldn't finish them properly before I wanted to take them apart for future MOCs. First, I made earlier a trebuchet design, which was in itself somewhat successful but I wanted to improve it with motorized priming so I redesigned most of it. Here's what I ended up with: Here's some more photos of it: https://i.imgur.com/fmxLhyh.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/ZltXf9j.jpg The XL motor with three clutch gears was almost able to lift 5 of the 7 weight blocks in the tail of the swing arm. The real problem though, was the 12t gears slipping on the yellow gear rack, which prevented it working properly. My intended release mechanism was to slide the 12t gears out from the racks. I tried to figure a better way of releasing it but in the end I ran out of interest and parts (would probably need 2 motors) so it just sat on my shelf for months, until I recently took it apart. --- Another, more recent project of mine was a modification of 42043 Arocs, to put in a general box container with a motorized tail lift. Note the colorful container, I had a serious lack of panels and had to improvise on the design with beams to make it large enough. Couple of photos of the unfinished tail lift: https://i.imgur.com/4fgKwYZ.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/YUtzRZ0.jpg I couldn't make the lift work properly, the movement range wouldn't be sufficient so I couldn't get it move to both closed and open (so it would touch the ground) position at the same time. Apparently the real equivalent is pretty tight on angles and relative lengths of its parts, and I couldn't adjust those precisely enough to make it work. The small linear actuator also could use a bit longer movement for this to work and then there's the play and slack in the parts. 4 actuators instead of 2 would be helpful, but there's no way those could be fitted in the space behind the truck.

Did you consider weight of the set as it sits in a shelf of store, or did you only take into consideration weight of the completed model? In other words, how do the packaging, manual, etc. affect the numbers? If you separate the weight of the model itself and the weight of everything else, is there a proportional difference between different sized sets?

7200 rpm is really fast, you won't find many household appliances running anywhere near that speed. Most power drills for example are much slower, though for example Dremel multipurpose tool can get higher. Considering Lego gearing, you'll probably lose a lot of torque to friction if you're going to gear it down to any reasonable speeds, but still I guess it's worth a try.

This. TLG always has to consider how appealing the proposed features are for target audience (=kids), especially for non-flagship sets (which seem to be more AFOL-oriented nowdays). Given that even very few adults have any idea what VSP is, there's really no chance something like that could be realized in an official set. I also believe it would have to be an actually floating boat, one that you can take out in a bathtub or a pool to see it working, and there's no way TLG would engineer the necessary new parts for it, especially watertight motors and battery boxes. That being said, I would love to see some kind of functionally interesting boat (way too long since 8839) and generally I like anything that's not another car, truck or construction machinery.

There's a number of Technic bricks which haven't been used in a good while, for example this one was last used in a set in 2003: And this pair was last seen in 1997 (connector) and 2002 (bushing): Though there's a similar replacements for both, only without the toothing (so they lost some functionality compared to the old ones).

http://sariel.pl/down/heavy-duty-track.pdf Here's instructions for a heavy duty tread chain.

I visited Legoland in Billund today, and saw the Spider crane and Car transporter at the shelf of the main shop there. I think I would've bought the crane if not for Sariel's review. I had much higher expectations for it, but the non-functional outriggers were a dealbreaker for me. The car transporter I don't find very interesting so I never really considered it, and other new sets weren't available yet. Got a couple of non-Technic sets in the end.

Thanks a lot, exactly the sort of thing I was looking for! Especially the info concerning lunchtime is useful, as we're probably going to eat in the cafeteria to save effort (travelling with kid an all that...) I don't think I'm going to buy much of Lego as it's probably less expensive elsewhere. Some souvenir is must have of course but beyond that only if I find something of special interest.

Hi, I couldn't find any relevant recent topic on the subject so starting my own. I'm going to visit Legoland in Billund with my family later this week, so I was wondering if the community had any tips on visiting? Anything special to look for, or if there's anything not worth wasting time on? Anything else to be mindful before going there? Maybe recommendations on restaurants? We're going by car and staying in AirBnB so travel and accommodation is taken care of.

My immediate thought was an upgrade: Separate selector mechanisms for both players where either can't see what the other is choosing, then a third mechanism which reveals choices of each player at the same time. It would need to be build in such a way that selection is either silent or the sound is identical for each selection so the other player couldn't make deductions based on sound.

I wouldn't count 16t gear among those that mesh with 28t (at least not in the configuration shown), as it'll probably skip very easily under load. The meshing doesn't seem to be very good, there's a significant gap between the teeth.

I also recently got the same set, and I have to say the pneumatic hosing is huge pain to get right, because the space is very tight and getting the crane to turn smoothly seems almost impossible with all the hosework stuffed in there. But it's a beauty to behold once you get it to work well enough.

Saturn V is probably one of the best official sets ever, and now I want both, the rocket and this tower to complement it... Really nice work!

I have the model built, right here in front of me. The trumpets are fixed on level with the roof, and the roof has no angles, it's assembled on top of two 8 stud bricks. The trumpets are attached to the same 4 long liftarm (BL item no. 2825) as the exhaust stacks. The liftarms connect to the roof between 4 studs (same as the axle and pin connectors at the front end of the horn), and there's no other connection, so if the roof was sloped more than insignificant amount, the liftarms couldn't be attached on it as the placement between studs wouldn't stick. Behind the exhaust stacks is the battery box, which isn't connected to the roof at all.