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Any recommendations for purchasing certain types of brick in bulks?
Ayoung posted a topic in Community
Hi I am quite new to the lego world, and trying to create my own lego design. However, I am facing difficulty in finding certain bricks in bulks for my creation. Do you guys have any recommendations other than bricklink? Thank you! -
Hello everyone! The first couple of AFOL Designer Sets from BrickLink have arrived to the people who pre-ordered them, so I thought it's time to make a review of my design, The LEGO® Story (which now has a set number too, BL19008). The postman gave me a classic brown box, with the BrickLink logo on it. After I opened it, I was finally able to see the beautiful, high quality box design. It has a white sleeve, with a couple of images of the four vignettes, the BrickLink logo, the 60 years anniversary logo from LEGO and a nice sticker, with "Exclusive LEGO element included" label. When you remove this white part of the box, you can see a nice backdrop photo for the model (on the inner side of the white sleeve), and of course the matte black box, with the BrickLink logo, and a nice brick pattern. The box is closed with a special shiny sticker, which includes the set number and name, and the (user)name of the AFOL who designed it. Let's open this black box! You can see here a thank you message from BrickLink and The LEGO Group, the exclusive element, the numbered bags, and the building instruction: Here is the exclusive element! - 39789pb01 The set contains 9 bigger, and several smaller bags (inside the bigger ones, for the smaller LEGO pieces), which are numbered similarly to the official LEGO set bags. A1 and A2 contains the pieces for the old workshop, B1 and B2 for the old moulding machine, C1 and C2 for the designer's office, and finally D1, D2, and D3 contains the pieces for the modern factory with the big moulding machine. The building instruction booklet is really high quality, just like the ones which you get with the bigger Creator Expert sets these days. I believe most of you have already seen the set on different sites, but here are some photos of the final model, and an official unboxing video made by BrickLink! Official unboxing video:
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Thinking of recent initiatives such as Lego Forma or Bricklink's celebration of the 60 years anniversary of Lego, I wonder if crowdfunding represents a true opportunity for afols. In fact, whilst Forma is a means to test a new product, minimizing the risk and using a different marketing strategy, Bricklink’s case is much more interesting. First of all which is the limit between an afol and an entrepreneur or, better said, between a passion and a business? And when a passion, taken to the extremes, becomes a way to earn money is it still a hobby? But let us not kid ourselves, the amount of hours that a high level afol invests to conceive a model and then to build it will never be repaid, neither by Bricklink nor by the tip that Lego may allocate to him if his Idea becomes a catalogue’s product. Therefore Bricklink’s attempt constitutes a fascinating mix of the (narcissistic?) will to show off and share with peers a hobby mastery, and a business in its purest form, spontaneously born to fill a gap. Whereas Lego, in spite of its formal approvals, cannot or simply don’t want to listen, then afols will step forward, kickstarting their own models, thus creating a parallel market. It is a win-win situation, at least for both Bricklink and afols (creators and supporters/buyers). How many times people gave up on building complex afols’ designs shown on Rebrickable, despite having the instructions for free, due to the impossibility or the high difficulty to find the proper parts? Maybe in the future Bricklink and Brickowl will take charge of this tedious procedure and, being paid for the trouble, they will sell their own sets regularly. Perhaps this hypothetical new market will also become the second chance for many rejected Ideas.
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Hi Brickstorians, For those that aren't aware, Bricklink is hosting an event called the "AFOL Designer Program". Similar to Lego Ideas, entries are considered from AFOLs to build a set from all existing elements and the finalists will have their set put into a 'pre-order' phase. During this phase, orders can be placed to help a set reach 100% funding. The finalists have been chosen and I'm pleased to say that there's a Castle in there and it stands a *very* good chance of being produced, but we can all help by pre-ordering in February. And here it is, Löwenstein Castle (by Raziel_Regulus): You can find out more about the event and other finalists by visiting here. You never know, Lego could be so amazed by support for this Castle that they re-ignite their own Castle line. We can hope, right? I plan to pre-order! Who's with me? @Marghal Just thought to tag you bud.
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[Guide] Using Rebrickable to retrieve parts list from LDD
supertruper1988 posted a topic in LEGO Digital Designer and other digital tools
I have noticed that there seems to be a lot of posts where someone shares an LDD file and then someone else has trouble uploading directly to bricklink. I have found a method that works pretty well and I would like to share it here. Please share your feedback and feel free to link to this topic if you find someone in the same situation. Supertruper's Guide to retrieving parts from LDD using Rebrickable Things you will need: Rebrickable account Bricklink or brickowl account LDD file of something you want to build Here are the steps after you have the things above. 1. Log into Rebrickable and navigate to the "My Custom Lists" section 2. On the left click "Add New List" 3. (Optional) rename your list using the "Edit List Details" button 4. Click "Import Parts" and browse or drag your LDD file 5. Click "Append Parts" From here the parts list will load but there will be color errors and Minifig parts do not come up correctly. There will also be no prints selected. Any printed parts will need to be updated. 6. Once all the parts are adjusted click "Buy Parts" from here you can add them to your Bricklink or Brickowl account Thanks for reading, please don't hesitate to provide feedback or corrections. Please also feel free to ask for help here and I will try to help you out as much as I know how. -
Studio - New Parts Updates
BrickWild posted a topic in LEGO Digital Designer and other digital tools
As Studio is gradually getting new parts added with some updates from time to time, it's time for you to post details about the new parts and show them to us as they become available. Thanks. -
Hello all! After previously brickling the dropship with AT OT, I set out to bricklink another, this time being the UCS Death Star II. For a used one, the cheapest on bricklink goes for around 800 AUD, and I managed to get one for 600 AUD in total. There are many older parts that are very expensive but can be swapped for cheaper ones. I have managed to build the internal structure but I'm still waiting for more parts to arrive. There will be more updates as the rest of the pieces arrive :)
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I wanted to buy all parts for my first MOC on Bricklink and since i've never done this i wanted to ask You few questions. A. Firstly there are two sites on Bricklink to buy from Wanted list: 1. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/wanted/buy.page?utm_content=subnav 2. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/wanted/shop.page From this what i check second is better as You exactly see what parts are You missing and in what count, and is showing better prices when using autofinder, which do You use and why there are two diffrent sites? B. Do You buy bricks only from country in which You are living (because of lower costs of delivery)? Or from whole continent like Europe (from this what i see it is better option as You are able to buy all parts in most cases) Or You are just using option from anywhere, but delivery costs aren't too high in this option? C. Besides filters: -exclude disliked stores -exclude stores that do not ship to me It is worth to use any others? D. Are You buying in stores when total price is below min buy? E. Are You buying parts for MOCs from anyother pages, is it worth? Thanks for help!
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Recently I have found a new 3d printing provider which can deliver in the needed quality and in a reasonable price range. I'm now searching for a reseller in US or Kanada which is able to cover this market with his bricklink store. Currently the possible end user price range for these items can be between $1.5-$2. If somebody is interested, please contact me. Woody64 Here you see the delivered items and in the background the first figures. The group shown above is wearing older prints from different 3d printing providers.
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Hello everyone! A while ago I stumbled upon @Lobot's bricklinking threads, and I decided to bricklink my favourite set, 10195 Republic dropship with at ot. Here is an interesting fact, I didn't use bricklink. At that time I never used bricklink and wasn't familiar with it either, so I went on Rebrickable for a parts list and uploaded it onto brickowl. Does anyone use that site? Anyway, I bought everything from one seller to cut down shipping costs... but the results turned out pretty great in my opinion. All the features worked and the colours looked right. I dunno, but I felt proud of myself after finally completing the order in after what seemed a long time. Now it waas time for the parts to arrive. On an extra note, I got the set for very cheap, around 300 AUD. Go figure. Here it is! The dropship: The AT OT: Everything works! Compatible with the 7675 AT TE and also compatible with 8098 Turbo Tank I hope you enjoyed this, comments are welcomed! Hint: I have ordered parts for another bricklinked project, be on the lookout for another topic soon!
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Hello all! I have recently started taking interest in Lego medieval MOC's and I was wondering if there is any kind of basic inventory to start the collection with. I mean an inventory of the most commonly used 20-50 items in these kind of builds, the absolute must have pieces. I've been experimenting with bricklink wanted lists, but some advice from the experienced builders would be much appreciated! :) Have a nice day!
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Hi. I thought I would share my experince with the bricklinking and building of one of the most wonderful MOCs I have seen in my life: The 6100+ pieces UCS AT-AT designed by Cavegod. I have already bricklinked the UCS 10179 Millennium Falcon and had lots of fun doing it. Some threads already discuss in lenght the process of doing so. Since there seems to be no thread from other members discussing in details this adventure (please point me to one if it already exists), the following posts will describe, step by step, my own experience. Comments are gladly welcome! Here's a picture that shows in a great way the sheer size of that thing...(with Cavegod, its creator):
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The NX-01 was the first NX-class starship, launched by the United Earth Starfleet in 2151. She was equipped with humanity's first Warp 5 engine. Commanded by Jonathan Archer, he served as her captain for ten years before the ship was retired and placed in a museum. She was featured in Star Trek: Enterprise. (2001-2005) She was 225 meters long, but this model is 8.6" long, 4.7" wide, and 2.4" tall. (That's roughly 1:1030 scale, looking only at the length.) She's got 310 parts, with a Bricklink price of roughly $40-$45 USD. (I intend on polishing the design, then buying the parts for a physical version.) Other than a few tiny aesthetic details, I'm ready to call her complete. Been working on her for about 2 1/5 weeks in Bricklink's Studio 2.0. Lego NX-01 Enterprise (Final model) by SteampunkDoc, on Flickr Here are some more angles of the final version: See here for WIP pictures.
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Help needed with ordering parts for an LDD Model
Bricked1980 posted a topic in LEGO Digital Designer and other digital tools
Hi everyone I have a model set up in LDD and I am now at the point where I'd like to order parts to build the model with real bricks. The problem is that many of the parts are not available in the colours I've used. Does anyone know of a simple way of showing the parts that are unavailable so that I can swap them out for colours that do exist? Or is it simply a case of painstakingly going through the model and checking each brick one at a time? I wasn't sure if there is a way of uploading the model to Bricklink so that it automatically highlights the missing parts and shows alternative colours that are available instead. Sorry if this sounds like an obvious thing to most people. I'm a bit of a novice with this though and although I've built lots of models in LDD I've never actually ordered parts for the models before and have quite limited experience of using Bricklink as well. -
The best software to use to find the cheapest stores for Bricklink Wan
Transparency for Effect posted a topic in General LEGO Discussion
Is there any software (or multiple pieces of software) for importing a Bricklink Wanted List and finding the cheapest combination of stores to get all the parts from? -
The title kind of says it all. I'm new to Bricklink and want to know if there's anything I should know in regards to getting a good price, part quality, etc.
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Hello, I'm new to this community, but have been building Lego my whole life. My favorite themes when I was growing up in the late 80's and early 90's were Castle and Pirates. In recent years, my favorites are the Star Wars UCS sets, though I'm especially impressed with some of the MOC's both of Star Wars and in general. I first found this forum when I was wondering why Lego hasn't done a set for the Star Wars Nebulon-B Medical Frigate from the Rebel flleet. A google search turned up the absolutely AMAZING MOC of the Nebulon-B by Mortesv, and as I read more about that I of course found a thread or two talking about it in this forum. Over the last few years I've become very impressed with the online tools we have thanks mostly to the ingenuity of the Lego community. Most people, even probably a lot of people that have Lego or buy sets for their kids, have no idea that sites like Bricklink, Brickset, and Rebrickable, exist. The sheer number of online store fronts on Bricklink, and the enormity of how many individual parts there are just boggles my mind. The amount of data that Brickset can tell me about my collection is fascinating. I am now trying to learn about the Lego design software that until a week ago I wasn't aware existed. It seems like Lego Digital Designer is kind of broken and not supported by Lego, yet it seems like folks are still using it? What about Stud.io? Is that more or as popular? Or is there other software besides those? I feel like I am just scratching the surface of the new things I want to learn about - and this forum seems like a great place to figure it all out! Looking forward to participating in this community, almost as much as I am for my two year old getting old enough to graduate from Duplos into Lego!
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[Software] Brick Wizard: A tool for saving money on LEGO parts at BL
Rotsiser Mho posted a topic in LEGO Digital Designer and other digital tools
Hi everyone! Over the past 18 months I have been working on Brick Wizard: an app for OS X/Windows that helps save money on BrickLink orders by determining the least expensive combination of stores for a given parts/wanted list. It's inspired by the awesome MATLAB scripts written by atxdad but it's much, much faster and easier to use :). Please comment on the Trello board if you'd like to suggest a feature or if you run into any problems! You can also track our progress there. Brick Wizard Brick Wizard consolidates BrickLink orders by taking a BrickStore inventory file and determining the least expensive combination of BrickLink stores that contain all LEGO parts in the inventory in the desired quantities. For example, if you wish to find the least expensive combination of stores from which to buy 100 red 2x2 bricks and 200 1x4 blue plates you would use BrickStore to add those parts to an inventory file and open it in Brick Wizard. The Wizard can then search BrickLink and find a combination of stores that have all 300 pieces at the lowest available price. The idea is to save money on large orders! While a few other apps exist that perform a similar function, Brick Wizard has a C++11 back end that is many times faster than existing apps. In addition, it is the only app of its kind with a native UI on both Mac OS X and Windows. In the future, I hope to expand Brick Wizard and add features that LEGO fans have been clamoring for. Please note that this is beta software and there may be bugs and there are certainly missing features. Bugs can be reported and features can be voted on at the Brick Wizard Trello board. Using the Results Once Brick Wizard has worked its magic, you will see a list of combinations and stores. The cost of each combination is displayed as well as buttons to create BrickLink wanted list XML. You will first need to create an empty wanted list in BrickLink for each store. Give it a name you can remember. Note the ID of the wanted list. For each store, click Create Wanted List... and enter the wanted list number given by BrickLink. Click Copy (or press Enter). Next, go to the BrickLink wanted list upload page. Paste the XML copied from Brick Wizard and click Verify Items. Next, click Upload File. Next, go to each store's page (Brick Wizard provides a link) and click Show All Items this store has on my Wanted List on the left side of the page. Select the wanted list you created before from the In: dropdown; click Go!. For each item, enter the quantity from the wanted list. Now you can click Add Selected Items to Shopping Cart. Finally, you can checkout! I hope you find this useful! Thanks for checking it out! -
Hello guys, i should create this topic on the buying, selling & trading forums but i'am a new member and my liberty in this forum is so limited. The next month i will buy The Lego Movie 70816 Benny's Spaceship ¡¡SPACESHIP SPACESHIP!! set on eBay but i got too much concern about it is the real set or it's a scam. Leave you hints & suggestions replying on this topic. That's all pals, hasta luego.
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I recently finished bricklinking a UCS Death Star II, and finally got around to putting it up the pictures. https://www.flickr.c...th/27481130204/ Death Star photos by North White, on Flickr A shot of the front Death Star photos by North White, on Flickr Backside Death Star photos by North White, on Flickr A picture of the "Eye." I misordered 2x4 left wedges in dark grey, so I went with it Death Star photos by North White, on Flickr The lil' Super star destroyer included for scale. I modded it a bit because I didn't like the conning tower design with the binoculars. Overall, 10143 is a very fun build, and mostly uses cheap pieces. Mostly. I just went with a dark grey 10x10 dish on top because light grey is way pricey. Otherwise, the main problem was finding enough grey wings from the same seller. That and the fact that I ordered most of the parts at 1am after work, and so I messed up quite a few of the orders .
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This is the start of a very ambitious project for me - I intend to bricklink all of the UCS sets, buying all new parts. However, since every UCS set has at least one unique part/colour combination and many key parts in the older UCS sets are long out of production, I intend to “refresh” each one in the same way Lego did when they updated and rereleased the 10188/75159 Death Star playset. My goal is to change as little as possible on each model, preserve the original design and construction techniques, but replace all the hard-to-get parts with more readily available (and cheaper!) ones. I’ve been working in Lego Digital Designer, and the first set on my list is now complete: 10134 Y-wing Attack Starfighter The original model had over a dozen unique or rare pieces which have been replaced with parts that have featured in sets released within the last two years. Minor changes include replacing the unique copper hoses with reddish brown 6L and 4L bars and recolouring the dark orange parts to bright orange (the 1x2 brick with handle is now a 1x2 plate with handle sandwiched between two 1x2 plates). More major changes include the 6x6x3 domes on the front of the engine struts, which only appeared in white in one other set, and have been replaced with a set of 3x3x2 white round corner bricks mounted on white 6x6 plates and held in place using concealed SNOT bricks. The original engine pylons were constructed from technic axles covered with 7mm ribbed hoses that are now insanely expensive, so I’ve rebuilt the whole assembly using the 3L driving ring axle connector and white pin connectors (the current version has a slot in it, which is annoying but can’t really be helped). The overall length of the starfighter remains the same, but the sizes of the axles used have been altered. One part which perhaps should have been replaced is the 30359b “Bar 1 x 8 with Brick 1 x 2 Curved Top End”, which only appeared in white in 2 sets but is relatively plentiful on bricklink (I was surprised to find one German seller with over 1500 of them in stock). However, the most significant change to the model is the replacement of the white wheels forming the engine nozzle (part 32077, unique to the set) with a brick built structure that adds some extra detail Here, some bricks have been removed to better show off it’s construction: I made it as lightweight as I could, but it is still twice the weight of the original wheels . I suspect it will cause the pylons to droop over time, and I’m worried it might be enough to throw the model off balance on its stand. I also hate the way it’s mounted on a single axle, allowing it to spin almost freely, but the distance to the central turbine is 3 technic half-bushes so a pin is incompatible. I'd be curious to hear suggestions for a better version. Full details of the part changes under the spoiler tag. I've got LDD and LDraw files prepared, you can access them on bricksafe. You can also view the model on mecabricks here. Any comments on the model, my CGI images, or suggestions for improvements would be much appreciated! Edit 9/7/17: Migrated all photos from photobucket to bricksafe. I am never using photobucket again...
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Prologue: When I was very young I bought a copy of the ROTJ novel. I hadn't seen the film at that point, but the first two paragraphs got me immediately hooked: ‘The very depth of space, There was the length, and width, and height, and then these dimensions curved over on themselves into a blending blackness measurable only by the glinting stars that tumbled through the chasm, receding to infinity. To the very depth. These stars marked the moments of the universe. There were aging orange embers, blue dwarfs, twin yellow giants. There were collapsing neutron stars, and angry supernovae that hissed into the icy emptiness. There were borning stars, breathing stars, pulsing stars, and dying stars. There was the Death Star. At the feathered edge of the galaxy, the Death Star floated in stationary orbit above the green moon Endor – a moon whose mother planet had long since died of unknown cataclysm and disappeared into unknown realms. The Death Star was the Empire’s armoured battle station, nearly twice as big as its predecessor, which Rebel forces had destroyed many years before – nearly twice as big, but more than twice as powerful. Yet it was only half complete. Half a steely dark orb, it hung above the green world of Endor, tentacles of unfinished superstructure curling away toward its living companion like the groping legs of a deadly spider’ I know that as a child I was supposed to side with the rebels, but I’ll admit that I had a quiet admiration for the Empire - the sheer size of their command ships & the efficiency of it all. Perhaps it was also due to my rabid hatred of ewoks......whilst I’m on the subject I’m still waiting for my sister to paint my version of ROTJ on one of the walls of my study; the Death Star in the blackness of space, the Shuttle landing on the illuminated platform, the patrolling AT-AT, the dish and a few Stormtroopers happily drumming on the heads of a dozen furry....... Current: Anyway, the UCS Deathstar II (10143) has been on my ‘wish list’ for several years. I'd always intended to buy it at some point, but other (UCS) priorities kept getting in the way! Unfortunately the Ebay price has gradually crept upwards and a new MISB version is now around £500, so I had almost resigned myself to never owning it. However, a couple of threads about ‘Bricklinking’ a UCS Falcon this year got me thinking, and I was intrigued about the possibility of building one from scratch. I only had 211 parts I needed from my small pile of spares, which wasn’t the most promising start. However, a limited amount of research on Bricklink suggested that the project was viable, and I estimated that I could source all of the parts for between £225 - £250. Could I build the Death Star on a budget? Only time would tell (and perhaps in doing so I would finally discover how it managed to travel across the galaxy despite having no obvious means of propulsion)... So during the last two months I’ve spent a lot of time trawling Bricklink for potential suppliers. I hadn’t used it much before, and certainly not for anything of this scale. I worked on the assumption that the postage would be a significant amount of the eventual cost, so I was determined to source most of the parts within the UK and to make the orders as large as possible. I wanted to buy only new parts (as I’m OCD about such things), but I quickly found that most individual stores didn’t have sufficient quantities of the necessary parts (e.g. the 231 x ‘Black Technic, Brick 1 x 2 with Axle Hole’, 458 x ‘Dark Bluish Gray Brick 1 x 2’, 271 x ‘Dark Bluish Gray Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 1 Stud (Jumper)’ and 259 x ‘Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 8’) so ended up grabbing whatever I could, and making up the numbers from more than one supplier. Before I forget I’d like to thank the following Bricklink stores, who unknowingly provided parts for it, via a plug: gizmocom, Kram, Byggeklodsen, Yellow Farm Bricks, AFOL Supply and Kamino Supply Post. They all provided an excellent service and are officially Lobot recommended! Special thanks also to cavegod for his help and encouragement!! Total price per part, to date, has ranged between £0.01 - £1.46. Some proved to be very reasonable, but others seemed ridiculous. The worst value was the 30 x ‘Light Bluish Gray Minifig, Neck Bracket with Back Stud’ @ £0.18 each (which doesn’t sound much but they’re tiny!! ) and the most expensive was the ‘Light Bluish Gray Dish 10 x 10 Inverted Radar’. So after a total spend of £225.30 I’ve ended up with 3,251 parts (94.34%) with 195 left. I’ve made 10 orders (7 from the UK, 1 from Ireland, 1 from Denmark & 1 from the Netherlands), summary below: Order Parts cost (inc P+P) Cost/part (£) 1 979 £59.90 0.061 2 311 £24.62 0.079 3 314 £22.40 0.071 4 296 £16.49 0.056 5 210 £14.85 0.071 6 66 £9.96 0.151 7 159 £16.95 0.107 8 473 £29.87 0.063 9 130 £19.13 0.147 10 102 £11.13 0.109 Total 3,251 £225.30 0.069 So what does this look like? Well, see for yourself: And what can I build with them so far: "We can dispense with the pleasantries, Commander”. Vader’s words echoed as from the bottom of a well. “The Emperor is concerned with your progress. I am here to put you back on schedule” Jerrod turned pale. This was news he’d not expected. “I assure you, Lord Vader, my men are working as fast as they can.......” Unfortunately, I’m currently missing some of the key parts, most of which I now have on order. As they arrive I’ll be posting updates. Do I regret taking this on? Well, it’s certainly been rather challenging and frustrating at times, but perhaps I’ve taken it a bit too seriously!! Cheers, Robin
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Prologue: Following the countless hours I productively wasted last year building a 10143 UCS Death Star II (link here), via Bricklink, I’ve been looking for another project. Next on my list was the 10030 UCS Star Destroyer, but after sourcing about 50% of the parts I admitted defeat as I couldn’t obtain several of the rarer ones inside Europe. I briefly debated building an Endor Landing platform, using instructions which I’d purchased from Ebay, but it wasn’t going to big enough for my UCS shuttle so that was the end of that. Back to the drawing board, ho hum. To be honest, since I’d ‘Bricklinked’ the Death Star, normal sets (the ones that come in a box with all of the parts in numbered plastic bags) seem a bit too easy somehow... and I like a challenge!! I considered numerous options, but kept circling back to the idea of a UCS Falcon. I would like to say that I did try to stop myself from starting this for several weeks, but finally gave in. My wife gave me her, classic, disappointed look when I mentioned my plan to her and, to be fair, she did have a point as I already own one! My logic: My current Falcon is the third one I’ve owned (long story) and I paid £750 for it MISB a couple of years ago just before the prices got really silly. I built it once and displayed for a week in a darkened room before my irrational fear of dust & light damage made me disassemble it and return it to the safety of its packing box. Hence, there was some logic to this project after all....if I could build one (relatively) cheaply I could then display it long-term without any fear of i) daylight ii) dust or iii) one day finding our cat asleep on it!! Now I know that this project has been well-documented before by BobBongo and jFox but I thought you might like to see how my project develops, building it my way. Firstly, I’ll admit that I’m rather OCD about Lego; it has to be new! Secondly, I wanted to see how cheaply this could be done, keeping to the original colours wherever it was sensible to do so. Some of the costs I’ve seen for building one seemed ridiculously high and I was determined to do better, at least that was the plan.... My Strategy: Firstly I checked the Lego PAB website to see what parts were readily available to set a ‘benchmark’ cost. Next, using a spreadsheet, I recorded the cost of the parts which were available in four of my favourite stores, not overly scientific but it was a useful starting point. Using a few formulas I estimated that I could do this for about £550, give or take some postage. Before I forget I’d like to pass on my thanks to both gizmocom and KRAM who supplied a total of 1,541 parts, in 50 and 67 lots respectively. Their excellent service deserves a shameless plug; both sellers are 100% Lobot recommended! Bricklink: I’m not an expert in Bricklink, but if you haven’t sourced a lot of parts before, I can offer the following advice: i) Buy within your own country wherever possible; the cost of long-distance postage really adds up after a while. If you’re in the UK also be very wary of any potential Import taxes so try and order from the EU if you need to go further afield; I got stung a couple of years ago and it resulted in a cheap purchase from the US being a very expensive one!! ii) Don’t get too obsessed about saving the odd penny here and there; it’s far more important to minimise the total number of orders. During my searches I set myself a minimum 100 (ish) parts per order; otherwise the postage gets prohibitive. iii) Having said that, I’ve adopted a policy of ‘grabbing’ parts wherever I could. For example the Falcon requires 243 x 3021 ‘Light Bluish Gray Plate 2 x 3’; these are £0.10 from PAB, so that’s £24.30 unsurprisingly. However, if you can buy 20 @ £0.07 from a seller, as part of a larger order, you’ve just saved yourself £0.60. Now that doesn’t sound much but if you manage to source all 243 for that you’ll save £7.29, as long as you don’t incur any additional postage charges. I’ve found that most sellers use weight bands (0-250g, 250-500g etc) so provided you keep a careful eye on the total weight of each order, via the shopping basket, you can make significant savings. For my orders I estimated that the weight of the packaging would be a maximum of 30g, so kept all 250g orders below 220g. iv) PAB can look expensive for some parts, but for some they’re unbeatable (for example the 3069b ‘Light Bluish Gray Tile 1 x 2 with Groove’ & 3068b ‘Light Bluish Gray Tile 2 x 2 with Groove’); also they have a fixed shipping charge which can be very helpful if it’s a large order. You need to bear in mind that lots of plates will be heavy, and even if you can get them slightly cheaper on Bricklink the cost of postage may eliminate any potential saving. v) Don’t automatically disregard sellers with only a small (ish) parts inventory or feedback. By using the Bricklink filters I used several with 50-150 feedbacks; their service was at the same level as those with 1000+ and frequently their price per part was significantly less. Progress to date: I managed to find 414 new parts from my own collection before I started ordering. These were mainly small Technic connecters etc and realistically they were probably worth £15. During the last 6 weeks I’ve made a total of 13 orders for 3,747 parts at a cost of £374.74, excluding my own stock. 6 orders were from the UK, 3 from the Netherlands, 2 from Germany, 1 from Denmark & 1 from Belgium. Including my own stock this adds up to 4,161 parts, or 80.42% of the set which I’m quite pleased with, breakdown as follows: Orders Parts Total Cost (£) Cost per part (£) Source Own 414 £0.00 0 N/A 1 873 £46.99 £0.05 UK 2 668 £36.52 £0.05 UK 3 443 £42.68 £0.10 UK 4 343 £37.40 £0.11 Denmark 5 311 £34.46 £0.11 UK 6 147 £28.35 £0.19 Netherlands 7 103 £20.56 £0.20 Netherlands 8 100 £30.22 £0.30 Germany 9 111 £15.70 £0.14 UK 10 96 £12.30 £0.13 Belgium 11 206 £24.76 £0.12 Netherlands 12 98 £13.82 £0.14 UK 13 248 £30.98 £0.12 Germany To date 12 orders have arrived, totalling 3,913 parts (75.63%). So, what does this look like? Scroll down to find out: A large box: Han in part heaven (insert the music to American Beauty here): And what can I build so far: “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts”...Han paused and then, with a deep sigh, continued...”Ok kid, I’ll admit it’s total rubbish” I’ve just made two orders for another 457 parts, including the technic beams, so I should be able to make some tangible progress soon. I add another update soon. Cheers, Robin
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[Software] BrickUtils - Import and manage LDD and Ldraw files
Mario Pascucci posted a topic in LEGO Digital Designer and other digital tools
BrickUtils NB: starting from october, 2015, this software become unmaintained. Sorry for that, but my time is limited and I don't see reasons to put effort in a project with really few users. From now on no updates, no bugfixes and no support. BrickUtils is an utility for builders that use LEGO Digital Designer and LDraw-compatible CAD for designing models. The main problem that BrickUtils tries to solve is the answer at the question: can I build this model with bricks I own? So, with BrickUtils you can quickly build your brick catalog and check if you can build a model. You can also export list of bricks you can buy on BrickLink, to complete your brick collection. Program main window Example of exported bill of material (HTML, printable) This thread holds all you need to know about BrickUtils Feature list: Imports LDD project file (LXF or LXFML) Imports BrickLink set inventory, store inventory, order inventory Imports LDraw file format (MPD or LDR) Manage your collection of bricks, sets and bulk lots Display brick shape in 3D (from LDraw part library) Checks if you can build a model (from LDD, LDraw or a BrickLink set) against your brick catalog, and helps you to find alternate bricks Exports BrickLink "Wanted Mass Upload" XML file, to buy bricks on BrickLink Exports lists in printable HTML to helps pick bricks from your collection (a bill of materials) Exports wanted lists in user-defined format via templates (see manual) New releases check at startup Database update via Internet Imports and exports your bricks and sets catalog in XML format, for backup and upgrades Faster full text search in BrickLink and LDraw databases “Can Build?” function now includes an “export” button to create a wanted mass upload file from missing bricks, accepted by BrickLink Complete user manual (PDF, english and italian) Program is totally free, Open Source (GPLv3 license), coded in Java, and do not needs any other program to run. Available on SourceForge: Program page on SourceForge User manual (english) User manual (italian) Python version remain as history, and will not receive updates. There is a mailing list and a complete manual. Let me know what do you think about BrickUtils! Thank you. -
With the recent release of The Force Awakens, the seventh installment to the Star Wars Franchise (If you haven't heard of TFA, I wouldn't be surprised, almost no advertising and no merchandise was made for the movie), fans have been in love with the newest droid, BB-8. The new look to the droid caused many Lego builders to desire their own, and HenrikLego did just that. Totaling at nearly 11K pieces, Henrik built an enormous droid for a local theater of his, and even included the local community of AFOLs with an LDD file for it. His original topic for this MOC is here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=116949&st=0 After seeing it, I immediately wanted one of my own. After an incredibly long and difficult debate with my wallet, I decided to pursue my own BB-8. Using the LDD File, I generated a parts list for bricklink totaling 10,909 pieces. I looked over the parts needed for this and took note of some of the nuisances. White Brick 2 x 4 (1184 needed) - The part itself is not all that rare, but getting it in new condition (Getting White Bricks in used condition is a nightmare) in that quantity was a challenge. It ultimately ended up costing me 25 cents per brick. White Plate 1 x 2 (1385 needed) - Also very difficult to get in large quantities, but I managed to find it for about 10 cents per piece. White Plate 1 x 3 (527 needed) - It always seems like 1 x 3 plates are a pain to obtain, this was the case here. About 15 cents per piece. Orange Plate 1 x 8 (25 needed) - I did not imagine this piece being very rare, but I ended up placing about 5 orders for it, despite it being cheap. About 10 cents per piece. White Plate 4 x 10 (24 needed) - The large quantity drove the price way up. 48 cents per piece. White Plate 2 x 2 Corner (374 needed) - Once again a hard to find piece that I never would picture as rare. About 12.5 cents per piece. That rounds out the worst bricks and pieces for me, the rest are not very difficult to find, but prepare yourself for about 11 cents per piece, I optimized smaller amount of orders over saving a few cents per piece because shipping charges really drive up the final price. To date I am glad to say that I have ordered all 10,909 pieces, just waiting for them to arrive. However, I have not started designing a desert base for BB-8, I need to work on this ASAP. Once the pieces come in, I of course will have to count them (I am not looking forward to this at all, but more and more it seems that bricklink sellers don't have the ability to count) and check off that everything is in my possession, including parts for a base. I hope to keep you guys updated as much as possible throughout this process, but for now I need to explain to my wallet why an enormous chunk was taken out of it.
