dr_spock

In the beginning I purchased sets on sale for parts. As my collection grew, I stopped buying sets for parts. Sets now stay intact for display purposes. If you take the time to cram as much as possible into those PAB, your cost per piece decreases. I think there was a PAB thread here where folks showed what they got and how they packed it.

Sell only boxes of random bricks without instructions?

I have an RJ45 crimper but the pin spacing is wrong for PU. Otherwise, I could probably grind off 2 of the 8 pins on the die to make it work. Someone should fabricate a die for the crimper. I went the cheapskate route of 3D printing my own and epoxying the wires onto the grooves. I have to be careful not to get epoxy on the bare wires if I want things to.powered up.

I find the Pick a Brick wall at the LEGO store the most cost effective. You can also challenge yourself to design your MOC around what's available on the wall.

You could try carefully pressing down each pin one at a time with the correct sized flat head screwdriver in an arbor press.

There are battery management boards available to control the charging. They also keep the battery from overcharging and over discharging. Both which are not so good for lithium type batteries.

Nice work. I think that may depend on where you connected the step down converter. If you connect after the BMS module, the BMS should keep it from fully discharging. But batteries can also self-discharge internally. It's good to recharge from time to time.

You can try your local RC hobby shop. If you're ok with waiting, aliexpress.com.

Sounds like the battery pack inside may have reached the end of useful life. Open her up and measure the voltage of each of the cells. You could rebuild it with a new set of LiPO batteries of the same size. Be sure to read up on safety protocols for LiPO handling if you are not familiar.

Wifi and Node-RED maybe?

Nice and shiny. Don't have to fret if it didn't work.

I think animals could do well with a Friends train. Friends do have an animal rescue sub-theme with different modes of transport like boats, helicopters, and ATVs. Mia can be the main character in the set, she loves animals.

1 ouf of 6 isn't that bad, is it? One good thing about the AA or AAA size is they are readily available. Forgot the charger one time at a convention and was able run over to the hotel gift shop to buy some AA batteires.

Welcome aboard, fellow ex-Montrealer.

Samsung coped by doing a major product recall of the Note 7, if I recall. Don't lithium battery fires produce HF gas?

Flex tracks aren't pretty. But they'll have to do for my group of purists. Luckily for me, they didn't notice I 3d printed wheels on my camelback steam engine running over their flex tracks.

The LEGO track packs come with flex track pieces. I think you could use some of them to angle the straights so that curve is a bit more in from the corner edge?

Is to that the Older Than Dirt Club? I am forever at PU version 3.6.0 on my tablet. I had problems before where the update version would not maintain a stable Bluetooth to hub connection on my tablet. Not so good as I had to do a virtual event demo. Then with the next release update, the app Bluetooth connect was rock solid again. I don't have to use PF clones. Cheaper to pull the GBC fried can motors out of the PF casing and put in new can motors. The hard part will be removing and pressing in the 11T 0.4M pinion gears. Lost in Space? Danger, danger, Will Robinson. You'll need a new Robot to work with this app. ATH0

You could use double-sided tape to hold the baseplates to your custom table surface. You could also add a slightly raised trim edging around the table to hold in the baseplates. Having nail heads on the baseplate can get in the way of putting LEGO pieces on top of those spots.

My fears have come true. I am now obsoleted.

I used epoxy to glue wires to my 3D printed ABS PU and PF connectors. Epoxy can also fill in gaps. Acetone is a solvent that can dissolve and fuse ABS together. It is volatile and flammable, so no open flames when working with it.

Happy New Year! Thanks. It's a small compressor I originally bought for working on my car. Impact wrenches are great at breaking rusted nuts loose. My wife won't let me add a motor with PWM control to her Singer. Thanks. Next on my list is the upstair hallway. I think my carpeted stairs are going to be difficult. Did you have to put in new treads and railings for your stairs? I might leave my LEGO space carpeted since LEGO pieces don't seem to bounce quite as far away when dropped on carpet.

Pirate Ship has a lot of reddish-brown pieces. We all know how well reddish-brown likes to break. Maybe to cover their customer service piece replacement costs?

Pulling out the batteries would be the instantaneous method.

I buy only LEGO. As a member of a LUG, it is harder not to.