JopieK

Well I also wouldn't mind making some reviews. I also have special equipment to make LEGO macro shots (Light tent + DSLR cam).

I think I like #2 best, but others are also really nice!

We keep most of the sets and MOCs in boxes. We have a dedicated LEGO room but we also have some sets in the attic I'm afraid.

A very good set indeed, we have at least 3 of them, but we like them all.

Yups, that is of course nice to let the NXT 2.0 communicate to 1.0 with Bluetooth. Hopefully it is not the same as with the RCX 1, 1.5 and 2.0 (there were al the same but the first generation of 1.0 had a power inlet, just the firmware made the difference so that is cheating I guess)...

nice story and MOC :)

nice moc ;) nice little story ;) You must have a vivid imagination :p

I have improved the design of the Light sign. Now there is a tiny circuitboard inside. This makes it more durable and easier to solder for me. I still use white light since it seems to be more accurate (AFAIK the street signs are using TL tubes so they also have quite a bright light in them). I just also finished an Erdinger version :)

Yeah trains are nice, but it also costs a lot of room. We have the problem that we have too many trains! Sincerely Johan

Nice MOC's you have. Like your tanks a lot! We one day want to build a german vs. allied army that will fight around our town so might have some inspiration from your MOCs :)

Not too long ago we decided to rebuild our city (at least the exibition part of it) in the style of the blacksmith shop. When returing from the Frechen LEGO event my cousin Johan had a bright idea (it must have been the good influence of the German beer ;)). After evaluating several parts we thought it would be nice to use two round dishes 2x2 (2654) together with a technical beam of 1 plate high. The picture shows the prototype (that my cousin let go up in smoke), the sticker was not perfected yet, we now use heat to wrap the parts so it isn't that wrinkly anymore. This one was with yellow 3mm leds but white SMD leds are better I think. The separate (large) images: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/JopieK/W...fe/img_2627.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/JopieK/W...fe/img_2628.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/JopieK/W...fe/img_2629.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/JopieK/W...fe/img_2630.jpg The only problem is that it costs me about half an hour to solder the led's inside the cafe sign (I use very small smd parts and at this moment no circuitboard, so the latter is probably going to change soon) [and several LEDs cause they are so small that a sneeze is deadly]. The sign is 9V (at least the resistor is meant to protect the LED's to operate for that voltage). We had some heineken/amstel/grolsch available but they sold out last event, so I still need to solder some more I guess ;) Some youngsters asked for a Coke (Coca Cola that is) edition so that will be available at the LEGOWorld event (Zwolle, NL, in October) I hope. Warsteiner is a difficult color, that is why I choose to print the sign of the Warsteiner factory on transparent:

@Holodoc: I'm from the Netherlands (near Zwolle ;) [not so serious mode on] I moved there especially for LEGOWorld [/not so serious mode off] ;)) Most of the current stickers that we have are on our (Cousin/Brother/me) ministickers.nl site but also some here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=335638 I'm currently trying to reproduce all 77xx stickers (the 12V trains that is), but stuck to that CFN logo of the 7750/7730. We like to fill our city with brands and both the wish for brands and replacing our trains with neat new stickers was the reason that we started with our small printing business two years ago. @WhiteFang: Hopefully I can work out some of the prototypes of our arm signals within a short time, I think more people are interested in that (still it seems undoable to just use unmodified LEGO parts but we try our best to minimize non-LEGO parts. I will create a Warsteiner review topic with one of the newest things that we came up with (actually my cousin but I worked out the technical details).

Right indeed and we all will also make a shift from donating all our money to TLC -> Duracell I'm afraid... I'm going to ask my collegues at the School of Engineering and Design to make me some nice LEGO wheels from metal so I can make the RC train motors running on DCC too.

No offense, but most of the sets are standard enough so that MegaBlocks could have also invent those sets themselves, couldn't they? And I'm afraid parents/grandparents/whatever don't really care they just have subjective factors to decide on what set to buy. - We don't like space, so why did we get space sets quite often - My cousin had the 7735 but got 9V tracks since his parents didn't understand the differents - ...

Well, LEGO has Arla promotional sets (and Tine!) but right they are promotional sets and quite hard to find, also meant for delivery to shops, not to the customer. But the problem is that there are no good shops available from LEGO (that is why we opened our Albert Heijn and Spar supermarkets).

I always wanted to have that decoupler set. After our dark ages we bought one and it turned out that the set wasn't that useful at all. When we started with the sticker business I recreated a lot of rare sets: (actually also bought one original version) We actually have a repro stickersheet of Chocomel in our shop but then the yellow sticker (same set was issued twice with different stickers) I didn't reproduce the torso stickers but replaced them with a chocomel torso since I think that is more compelling. What I also did is adding a number 17 in case of having two of those sets (so I will probably build an other version and put two next to eachother in our city). The only rare part are the doors (but not that rare if you have quite some trains) http://media.peeron.com/pics/inv/setpics/3....1105127488.jpg we bought the set to recreate the stickers and made a blacksmith shop like McDonalds from it (I think our stickers are better than the original ones although we use both on our Mac). Last weekend it was sold for over 100€ (and we had the stickersheet repro for just some bucks ;)) This is also a very nice set though, we will probably be able to make it from our bulk but have never seen it at ebay or so: I bought the new Mainstreet set not too long ago but was disappointed to find out that LEGO cheated with that set (no cyprus etc).

well, I guess it was replaced by the Agents theme. Those sets are in the same genre aren't they?!

our newest strategy is to build houses etc. like the blacksmith shop. (so with a hinge and on two small plates). We are however still unsure about how to quickly build the roads (since we also use those small baseplates for that), Patrick from Belug has made some nice streets for the Mechelen museum, we might adopt some of his idea's about the streets. (last winter at Frechen we had this as a layout: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/JopieK/F...08/img_2552.jpg but we thought our buildings were too large (at least the Erdinger and Coca Cola)

Classic town is my thing too, together with the trains. This was our Frechen layout last year: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2913652 We have actually switched over to all blacksmith shop style buildings since they are nice and easier to transport.

Well that stuff is just like computers, just buy it, otherwise you will never buy it I'm afraid. For some applications I like the RCX better than the NXT so well just see what 2.0 will bring us.

Well, I found out that there are some great discussions here and it is more thematic. Of course I already ran into some people that I know from the more local clubs. @Forcemaster, so both SF and History fan huh ;) Well I also like the older themes (not that much a SW fan but nice parts now and then), but one needs to make a choice now and then. @I Scream Clone: well, the other chaps are not into fora etc. but as long as they are enthusiastic, it is fun to have your family LEGO club :)

We have about 5 7750 Steam Engines. A stickersheet costs 114$ at bricklink but since we have a special printer that can also do white on transparent, I can also make the stickersheet myself. However, I have been able to reproduce the whole sheet save the CFN logo. I posted it a week ago at lugnet but no one seems to be able to help me. We should have it somewhere at the LEGO room but I can't find it (too much LEGO I guess). Is there anyone with a good scan so I can redraw it in illustrator? The 7730 has that Logo as well. It was replaced by SNCF in the other train sets. I found at least some info about CFN: http://www.countrybus.co.uk/stn.htm It is interesting to see that some sites call it: "Chemins de fer économiques néerlandais" others say it is "Chemins de fer Normandes" Well this becomes interesting, CFN seems to be used by quite some railroads: # Companhia Ferroviária do Nordeste (CFN) (Controlled by Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional) (Brazil) # CFN Chemins de fer économiques néerlandais (Netherlands) # Compagnie du Chemin de Fer de Normandie # Chemins de Fer Normands although it seems that the first one is still currently active and that the latter onces were somehow affiliated with eachother. I assume the CFN logo from LEGO was meant as this railroad company: A little more history. There were originally three local rail companies in the département of la Manche: Tramways Normands (TN), Chemins de Fer Départementaux (CFD), and Chemins de Fer de la Manche (CFM). CFD and CFM were in financial difficulty by 1925 and it was agreed that TN take over all of the local railways. TN became the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer Normands (CFN) in 1928, operating both trains and buses. Many of the local rail lines closed in the 1930s, except the standard gauge lines in the Barfleur area. The Société des Transports de Normandie (STN) name was set up on 29 June 1943 - but as a road freight company only. (The passenger operations continued under the CFN name). The last local rail service ceased on 30th September 1950 (the famed "Tue-Vaques" from Cherbourg to Barfleur), then it was buses only. The STN company expanded into road passenger services too by taking over the CFN buses in 1954. Then on 28 February 1957 the Société des Transports Départementaux de la Manche (SGTD) merged with the STN, bringing together the two networks based on Cherbourg. (source: http://www.countrybus.co.uk/stn.htm)

I was a member for more than 1,5 years but didn't post anything. Searching for stuff I came across the forum again and thought apart from participating at 1000steine.de, debouwsteen.com, now and then lugnet and belug, it looks like eurobricks is an enjoyable community too :) Age: 29 Occupation: college teacher/coach in Informatics and Robotics Interests: professionally: Dacta and Mindstorms hobby: trains (mainly 12V era although we mainly use it on 9V tracks) and city (4 wide cars, 6 wide trains). I enjoy my hobby together with my brother and cousin, we also try to reproduce stickers (and create nice applications for it) One of the current projects is getting a digital train system (DCC like) with arm signals and automatic points (prototypes do work!). Non-LEGO hobbys: windsurfing, sailing, other informatics stuff

As a hobby I'm into city and trains, but professionally I'm using Mindstorms to teach in primary and secondary schools that Technical Stuff is fun and that Robotics is a cool subject (although I also use other robots like AIBO the sony robotic dog). We now also will have a stand at LEGOWorld (Zwolle, Netherlands) and help with a First LEGO League regional contest. I have a good understanding with some LEGO Mindstorms folks and Dacta in the UK so I already know about some upcoming new NXT and other educational products but I was suprised to find out that LEGO will release an NXT 2.0 set next year. My wanted features would be: 1. flashdrive slot 2. vision system from LEGO 3. the tracks set being also available in Europe (see legoeducation.com) 4. a way to create more androïd like or animal like robots (so we can use NXT for social robotics as well). What would your favorite improvements be?!

We will be able to print it for you (www.MiniStickers.nl). We have a special printer that can also cut it like a torso sticker. We use vinyl instead of that ugly decal material like they use in Modeltrain/plane groups. So you can always contact us if you are interested. This is the sheet that we have currently available: But most of the old stickers aren't that colorfull so we can create cheaper sheets (or larger for the same price) for quite some of the older torso's. B.t.w. we use vector files. I'm not sure if a png will work but I think I need to recreate it as a vector (ai/eps/...) first.