Toastie

I believe this is simply not necessary. I believe the entire Technic assembly will bend much more than the outer shell. It looks very good, but it makes not that much physical sense. The very narrow tolerances on the stiff larger pieces of the shell will lead to much less bending. Well, I believe. I have actually made a bridge spanning about 1 m (1 yard, 3 feet) from only 4 + 4 (on each side) monorail straight track: The fewer pieces used to gain span, the less bending will occur. The looks however is equally important as well, for sure!!! Best Thorsten P.S.: Phew - that document you referenced is NICE!!! Thank you very much for the link. I have securely saved that one! It does point on many occasions into the "add stiffness" by panels direction, doesn't it? Figure 3-108 is a nice example, isn't it?

That is what I would do/have done as well - as my first choice. It really is a tough task to do what you want to accomplish with a pure LEGO solution. When the trains are supposed to "show", then - as you are attempting - the support structure needs to go below the track. Did you study a bit how "real" bridges (relatively wide-spanning) are designed this way? There are not many - for a reason, laid-out above. I believe though this study is a good starting point. And then transfer that to the LEGO world - with all the options and restrictions you have "brick-wise". Good luck and all the best, Thorsten

I really believe so, Emanuele! With your building skills and with what @brick-builds has presented, it should really be possible. When you take the PF route, the PF L-motor will certainly create way much more torque as the PF train motor. At the expense of maximum speed though. When you take the PUp route, the PUp L-motor does all what the PF version does plus you get the option of PID control of the speed setting. You will have to in incorporate a 2I/O Hub, but as far as I remember, your Nohab had the PF battery box on-board as well. Lighting would then go with the other Hub's output port. And with your superb electronics/soldering skills that should be nor problem at all! All the best my friend! Thorsten @brick-builds, this a very neat design! And I believe reinforcing it when having more space available should be possible. Thank you very much for sharing! All the best, Thorsten

Nice one! I bet that there are many, many more powerful alternatives to the sensors I used. The IR-line tracker sensors are just dead cheap. And have two states: Yes or No. I guess it simply depends on what one wants to accomplish and then make the choices. For me it was: A Crocodile that runs back and forth on one stretch of track, with a triggered (not by time) acceleration and deceleration section and defined (>safely< triggered) end stops. The latter is of particular interest as the far end of the track is above a stair and behind a bookshelf on a sloped wall. When I need to get there because the Crocodile derailed it will be some effort - provided it did not fall from 3.5 m height onto the ground of the room below. BTW, did a "stress test" of the setup (ESP32 nodeMCU based with the four line tracking sensors set to low distance) for about an hour (actually the batteries drained ...) as well as in sunlight and in the dark. No failure once. All 4 sensors fired each time (4x per revolution). So far we now have at least the reed contact, laser distance, gesture, photo-electric barrier (IR/VIS), as well as the IR line tracker sensors. Nice selection. And most probably many more. It then pretty much depends on what the goal of the setup is to decide on which sensor to be used and which level of customization (e.g. custom PCB board) is feasible or: within reach. Plus cost per piece. And integration into code of course. On/Off or L/H is easiest but then there is no distance information other than: It is there or not. Oh well, it all depends I guess, when it comes to judge good - better - best. For me it is more: "Fits well" with regard to the task/goal. Best Thorsten

Absolutely. And it has become much more of an issue over the last decades. Same with the XY+ labeling. It is something else, but no real "target" population. Best Thorsten

Not at all, I guess - other than what the marketing folks over at TLG make of it (in terms of cashing in). That is the whole point here, isn't it? I buy LEGO "magazines" to get hold of a mini-dinosaur cracking through the egg-shell by illumination with some sort of - light. There isn't even a XY+ number on it, as it is marketed for kids at age whatever. But I feel as if I had made the purchase of my life. I am >>18++ years old. It does not matter. It is a marketing tool. Well - I believe. Best Thorsten

And how do you arrive at your judgement? By guessing or by evidence? Best Thorsten

I believe it is pretty much what adults (when amenable to marketing tricks) makes them feel good. Also, it is much easier to convince your wife that you NEED an 18+ set - as it is marked as "adults only" - not even remotely a toy, but a serious, no-nonsense, no-what-LEGO-was-invented-for, no messing around - well - box containing ABS plastic pieces that stick together. Serious stuff for grown-ups. Who know what is going on. Teens may or may not enjoy the sets - it fully depends on their taste and habits. Best Thorsten P.S.: That's what @MAB said a few seconds ago - his post came in when I pressed submit.

Could it turn out to be a time-machine type thing? Trenching at this speed allows the crops to grow on the fly. A planter and harvester are maybe hidden in there as well? Best Thorsten

(Ouuhhhh, dangerous! Babies may swallow them! They get the Primos!) For children of a certain age. I remember having great fun in building a pirate ship from DUPLO bricks for my daughters. Which we then played with. Hmm. As TLG is providing sets (and other stuff) for a very broad range of folks, with different experience, capability, and most importantly taste - you will get as many answers as there are all the diverse LEGO-head characters out there. There is no scheme and almost no "on average". However, in a room with children and DUPLOs present, chances are high that the kids play with DUPLOs. Hardly, they will display or collect or keep them in mint condition. I guess this observation may even count as a more general thing. And thus DUPLO sets and bricks fulfil an essential criterion when assessing "playability". It is a very weakly defined term though - playability. (I believe you'll get as many answers to what playability means, as you get when you ask: "It this set cool?") Best Thorsten

The Renault R5 from 1972 - The little Friend: With stick shift of course - this type: we had an R5 back then - probably one of the best cars in the world . Best Thorsten

Beautiful. Lovely. Excellent building techniques. Fantastic redintion. This station has everything, a LEGO model can possibly inherit and show. The interior details are just amplifying the impression, one gets from looking at the building from some "distance". No wonder: Original floorplans ... three weeks ... and an eye for the detail, which - for me - makes all the difference. Very, very nice. All the best Thorsten

Huh? That is for yourself. Without any proof of reality. You can put in whatever you dream of. This is really terrible. Not only with regard to LEGO items. So many, many other things are at threat ... my goodness. I am 100% with @MAB. This is the way it needs to go legally. Taking photographs now may even help later on. But once again: This is more than terrible. Hope you and your family and in case your pets, all the living beings can resort to a safe place, in case. Man. I wish you all the very best. Thorsten

Shouldn't that go in the "LEGO City 2021 - Rumors, Speculation, and Discussion" thread - not yet existing, but wouldn't it make more sense? In case it makes sense to speculate at all, because - wait, what did he say - "it is what it is" - but well - it becomes what it becomes. And we can speculate what we want, but TLG does what TLG wants. Best Thorsten

I believe this window (which simply lists what LPub is going to do in what order) is core of the matter. There is also a "scope" type thing that I have missed regularly: Whenever things are meant to be applied for one step only (locally) - better check it. LPub will sometimes take these settings and apply them to coming steps when not "redefined". What I also did often was to forget the scope. Any "global" settings affect things - well globally - and may screw up the entire instruction. And you can do that very nicely manually. The commands are more or less "readable" - what helped me a lot is to let LPUB tell you the syntax. Which is not always working - but mostly. Maybe even always, but I just did not get it. Cover page, BOM, global settings/definitions, page layout etc. all come up front. Then go with the flow. Global changes after a certain step (e.g., it becomes too large), affect all next steps. Settings for multiple steps/page have a "scope" - single step pages have their own "scope". To be honest, I do most of the adjustments and the fiddling using first the graphical interface commands etc, then check how the text file changed, then adjust things only in the text section. I bet you @supertruper1988 and @1963maniac know all these things - I am sorry for sounding being smart. It is just the case that when I use LPub I seem to have to learn all this all over again. Best Thorsten

So absolutely true. 4564 was a couple of years before my awakening. But yes. What I like about 4512 so much is the color scheme. Old gray and green. As far as I see it, very carefully designed ... But yes, 4564 is really the original. Best Thorsten

Do it!!! I am with the University of Wuppertal, live near-by and do take it whenever I can. It is a highly efficient means of transporting a good number of people through the valley. There is even more to it: It runs mostly "over" the river "Wupper", which has - well - created the valley ("Tal") within eons - which is spectacular for itself. Swings out nicely in curves - and most of the stations are built towering the river as well. Exit to the left/right is then a decision, as you need to find a bridge to get the other side ... or you just walk back into the station and take the other exit ... and the trains are arriving every 3 to whatever minutes, depending on demand. They are replacing the old cars now with "new" ones - just to find out that what worked for +100 years - does not work anymore - reliably. So right now it only runs on weekends. It is a shame. They'll fix it. It will take about 6 months to a year. Yes, we are living in 2020. Best Thorsten

Merde, even worse here: Not living in the UK and 40 years too old. But the idea is really brilliant. Maybe rising the bar to 21 or even 25 years could be still rounding up more folks with the same "focus"? Best Thorsten

They do really look great. But I am still so in love with 4512 ... for whatever reason. It was one of my first sets after returning from the dark ages. Some time ago I made a PF version of that train ... I don't even know whether this link still works, will check in a minute: https://uni-wuppertal.sciebo.de/s/hwpJrxylYQggVKB (It's on our universities campus cloud server, don't fear the weird link) Best Thorsten (Just checked, link works - at least from my laptop)

@JintaiZ, there is a bullet missing in the second poll: "3) I could not care less about the XY+ number on the set" Best Thorsten

Ahhh. Well then my story is a bit different : Got into LEGO 1965. Then played with them almost every day (so I was told) for about ten years - fading out around 1975ish - which is commonly referred to as the dark ages. In 1996 (kids arrive) DUPLO caugth my interest, in 1998 the Mindstorms RIS1.0 hit the shelves and blew my mind. Since then I am paying with LEGOs. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I am buying what I like - sets from Friends to Technic and from City/Trains to architecture ... poly bags ... nice finds ... it does not matter other than catching my interest. I am not "collecting" its more assembling stuff I like. With regard to the build experience ... yes and no. I bought sets for parts only - so the building experience was zero with the sets It all depends, I guess. Best Thorsten

After separating the plastic (yellow dumpster) form the paper stuff (blue dumpster) of course - and then setting both dumpsters on fire separately. And I believe this is equally important, when the company within the capitalistic world wants to survive for a couple of years in that world. Other than that: Fully agreed on! Best Thorsten

Define playability Example: I got the Crocodile (#10277, declared as "18+") when it was released - and played with it, as I haven't done in a long, long time. Closely followed the mods/improvements here and elsewhere. Sat in front of my tens of boxes of pieces and tried to figure out how to improve it myself. Arrived at my preferred personal taste design. After hours and hours and days of playing. Then got word about Legoino - which - it was such a relief - allowed me to get rid of that ... weird ... PUP app on my cell phone - formerly required to run the Crocodile - then spent hours and hours - weeks to program a cheap microcontroller to do that job, I wanted it to do: Run the Crocodile back and forth - with well-defined acceleration and deceleration points on the track. Personally, I'd define the playability of #10277 (18+) as the one of the greatest, I have experienced in many years Best, Thorsten Need to add: I now frequently sit in my chair and watch the Crocodile going back and forth. It negotiates "Paris" (architecture) and soon also "London" - I purchased a couple of days ago on eBay - from a first year student. He asked for €25. I found that not appropriate - and added some value before sending the money. For me, that is playability at best.

I believe this is less of a tendency but rather mostly the case. In the world of so-called developed countries. Partly at least. Let's make that "hopefully". (Well, there are many, many countries in this world, where kids do generate income - for the family. But in most cases they are not that much into LEGO. More into food and the like) I look at the XY+ number solely from the money perspective. As @JintaiZ has outlined. I believe that there is no set that needs to be 18+ - building skill wise. None. Best Thorsten

Uhmm - yes. See here: And here is a detail: Best Thorsten P.S.: The sensors I am using just "snap in" between the rails after very little filing at the short ends. Their PCB is then almost level with the sleepers. Can show details, if you wish.