Toastie

In all their stupidity, did they give any "reason" for removing your designs? I simply can't believe this. It is getting worse and worse ... Good luck in finding a true AFOL new place for your shop and truly remarkable models, Tony! Cross my fingers. All the best Thorsten

Thank you very much @AlecDGeneric and @Mr Hobbles for your replies!!! I love this place ... Best Thorsten

And isn't that happening? I believe so. What I am concerned about though is that the 3-in-1 sets become ... less and less "complete". They fold out nicely, and TLG is showing that on the box, but it should get back a little to "buildings", which are enclosed. I know it is about playability and I know that modulars do that, and I know that you can fold them. But the left over is kind of ... small. Again: I do buy these 3-in-1's and give them what they need. No, I don't. As far as I read it, most City sets have vehicles because they have to have vehicles for the kids to play with (see above). Sometimes, I personally have the impression they are add-ons - simply because I don't push them around anymore ... I am old ... Best Thorsten

@Brandon Pea I take that as a compliment . Thank you for even remotely considering that. But no, I am not, it couldn't be further away: I am a >user< (as we have not defined AFOLs yet) I should maybe be more careful with my wording; consider everything I am writing here as relaxed, funny, and not relevant. I am enjoying all these discussions, I am really a free style person and do what I see fit. That does not mean that I do not have an opinion. I do share that here on EB. With my limited range of language coverage. As @Masked Mini has correctly noticed: He or she sensed some weird accent in my writing - I loved that reply so much. All the best Thorsten

@ShaydDeGrai , this is an "article", everyone here should read very carefully. Thank you very much. I enjoyed every single word. One of the things that occasionally seem to ... sort of dissolve ... is the perspective of people who lived longer than any product LEGO has released in ABS. I am close to that - maybe not as close as you, but I do really share everything you wrote. From my heart. I like to add another thought. I'm working with a good number of rather potent companies; they have ample money, but they also have to be careful. I like to further elaborate on your "icing on the cake" - lets for simplicity turn that into 10 to 20% target audience. Let us further think as a person/board who runs a company. With a >huge< number of folks on the payroll. Let us presume we are on the board. It comes to revenue, salaries, future plans, new products, efficiency ... Somebody raises a hand as says: There are AFOLs on EB who like to see XYZ on the shelves. Imagine YOU are in charge of ... everything. What would you do? I would ask: How much of an impact do they have on the healthiness of our business? Somebody else replies: 10%. Another one: 20%. My reply would be: OK. Folks: Is it more than 20%? Nobody replies. You know what I would do? OK, let us take care of the 80% first, then see what is left over for the 20%. When there is less than that: Too bad. Wouldn't you do the same thing? Best Thorsten

This. I completely agree with everything @Karalora wrote. My LEGO career began at age three, which is about 55 years ago. A photograph shows me pushing the train 323 on the floor - which is exactly what you observed: Put it together, earn all the "wow good job" cheers - and then push it and have fun. In other words though - as there is a discussion here on EB going on "AFOLs", their percentage money impact, their head count, and their impact on new products (we should face it: A new set is of course a simple product, with all that means) - the vehicle# increase is simply reflecting the core business of TLG: Kids. Very nicely phrased, thank you very much! Best Thorsten

Dear All, I have a question regarding the Technic hub (4I/O, Control+, whatever) - the one that has 4I/O ports and comes with e.g. the Liebherr 42100 Monster: What are the port IDs / hub properties for the internal tilt sensor? The LEGO Wireless Protocol 3.0.00 Documentation (r17) on Github is simply static - nothing much has changed there since the initial publication. This document tells me that the internal tilt sensor is of type 0x0028. The bare Technic Hub replies during discovery etc. with: Port Type 0F 00 04 | 32 | 01 | 17 00 | 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 10; Type = LED light 0F 00 04 | 3B | 01 | 15 00 | 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 10; Type = Current 0F 00 04 | 3C | 01 | 14 00 | 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 10; Type = Voltage 0F 00 04 | 3D | 01 | 3C 00 | 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 10; Type = ??? 0F 00 04 | 60 | 01 | 3C 00 | 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00; Type = ??? 0F 00 04 | 61 | 01 | 39 00 | 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00; Type = ??? 0F 00 04 | 62 | 01 | 3A 00 | 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00; Type = ??? 0F 00 04 | 63 | 01 | 3B 00 | 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00; Type = ??? 0F 00 04 | 64 | 01 | 36 00 | 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00; Type = ??? I simply can't find any information on the ??? types. How can I retrieve the 3D tilt and acceleration data Any help is appreciated! Best Thorsten

I thought I was becoming increasingly lost in this discussion (I mean the who is what and who isn't bit). But then: This AFOL thing has been precisely clarified by TLG (as the citation above is from @TeriXeri who in turn found that on TLG premises): Building with LEGO = buy/get a box, build the model + older than 18 in the EU (older than 23 in the US) = AFOL Creating with LEGO = buy/get a box, build everything upside down + same as above = AFOL Don't realize that a) you bought/got the box and b) don't realize that you got it all wrong + same as above = AFOL. So whenever you have at least two LEGO pieces that you arrange in a creative way, and you are an adult, you are an AFOL. Even if you don't realize it. That was easy, wasn't it; we don't want to argue with The Creators of the AFOLs, do we? BTW: Although I may not realize it: I do buy entire (small) boxes only for >selected< pieces (and use the remaining trash for other things I am building or will build - who knows, what comes to mind), buy Technic, Mindstorms, PuP, City, Friends (as in not F*R*I*E*N*D*S, i.e. the pink stuff), MiniFigs, Polybags, Ideas boxes, entire baseplates(!!! Even in white !!!), Starwars, 3 in 1, Disney crap other than SW, stupid boxes, funny stuff, do BL, tell people to get me LEGO for my birthday, for Christmas, the weekend, weekday, lunch, breakfast, dinner, and whenever they see fit ... As far as this discussion goes, it appears that at least 90% of my activities qualify me as NAFOL. As far as TLG's definition goes - even if you guys or I don't realize it - I am an AFOL: An Alien Fanatic Of the Lunatics. (all this was meant to be funny, just to make sure) Best wishes, Thorsten

I have no idea what the up-to date LEGO software for smart devices (phones/tablets) is capable of ... too many things are happening at the same time. Control+ and so on and so forth. All LEGO "hubs" (i.e. with regard to trains sets currently sold, the 2IO hub) allow "pairing" of outputs. When you plug in two train motors into the 2IO hub, you can pair them. And then control them via the virtual port, the hub is creating upon request. The 2IO hub creates the A+B virtual port upon request, whereas the Technic 4IO hub can pair the A+B and C+D ports. But again: This is on the byte code level. I don't know what the apps can do. The remote for sure cannot. All the best, Thorsten

I would say the same thing - simply to cover up. Sounds rather cheap to me. I believe it is the >original< idea, the appearance, the look and feel that makes all the LEGO "Idea". The have a sh*t load of pieces and colors to ignore what they want. But there is the original Idea. Shared with so many folks. The Saturn V still rocks. As the lander does. I salute the original designers, as they had the Idea - all the "ignoring talk" is "re-engineering". No more - no less. All the best, Thorsten

Wow!!! I am not much into cars - regardless of type - but what I really admire is your scale. I believe it is so incredibly much more difficult to build at that scale with that detail. Very, very impressive!!! Thanks for sharing. All the best Thorsten

As far as I know, that "feature" is gone. This forum runs the Invision software suite I believe. Tried BBCode, failed miserably. It is now WYSisprobablyWYG. Or something. Best Thorsten

that explains everything ... joking of course. I am from Northern Germany, almost as close as you can get to the border to Denmark. Well, most of that part of the country was Danish anyways ... it was always raining up there, and the steady west winds blow away all your hilariousness Hmmm ... ... OK - when I came back from my dark ages, I was pretending for long that I am buying all that LEGO for the girls. It started out with 2 DUPLO sets just to seriously invest into DOPLO trains; track that is. And then slowly migrated towards Technic - I think that was the time, my wife found out about the "pretending" thing. I don't know. Also As who do buy LEGO for their kids/family may be considered FOLs - otherwise they'd buy ... Playmobil or the like, isn't it? Best Thorsten

That is certainly true. But ... 20 years ago ... there were a lot of things not there. 2 decades ...from that perspective in the beginning of LEGO moving to ABS there were zero AFOL sets. Which translates to an indefinite increase because of that division by zero ... Oh yes. I truly second that. But you know ... "and then he/she/they said" ... https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/2073078/And-Then-He-Said For my >very own, very personal< taste there is way too much "hurrah" and "love" and "great" and "outreach" and "so good" and "caring" and "reach out" ... and so on and so on in all these TLG announcement regarding the great AFOL community. It may be because I am from Germany (you know of course the "How many Germans do you need to change a light bulb? One. Because we are efficient and not very funny" joke). But the thing is: No one talks like that to a German adult - if it were all good. You do that, when there is something else to it. OK, in Germany you wouldn't even do it that way because even the most "good willing" folks would know that there is for sure something else when hearing all that "super excited" talk. Not wrong. But something else. No one here talks like that to an A. FOL or not. What you would tell an A is: This is gonna hurt in some way or the other but let's face it: We have to get a handle on this because of X, Y, and Z. It would depend on how smart you are to replace X, Y, and Z with "true and threatening issues". And then you would alleviate the situation by granting N, M, and O ... and more and more. Actually they did it the other way around: Hurrah. All is good. Well sort of. You know what I wish? Being treated as an AFOL and not as a ... kid. That is really all I would like to experience in that TLG AFOL dialogue. As an adult, I like facts much more than smoke and mirrors and super excitement. But again: I am German, and we are not very funny. All the best Thorsten

Whoops - I am lost ... I joined this forum to share my ideas, to ask for advice, to help out where I can (if at all), to listen to advice, to learn (a lot). And then - at the very end of all that - to discuss. I believe EB is there to learn. And to share. Upon posting. There are forums on EB where people do believe, they could make a difference. Or know what is going on. As in: They know. Because they have been her "for ever". And have collected things forever. And then what? TLG does what they want. And that is it. Period. It is the most natural thing to happen in a world of competition. Of business. Over and out. The fun part is that we can speculate, calculate, propose, believe, hope, and criticize whatever we want. And hear all the oh so educated replies. From stone old people. From people who believe they know. From ambassadors (whatever they do). And from all these "have seen that and have been there" folks - and - nevertheless the company does what it sees fit. Why be disappointed? I don't get it. Make a proposal. See as it hits the fan. And then do as the gremlins do: Laugh your as* off. It's fun to be here. Nothing ever has been changed on TLGs agenda because of EB. Never. But it is fun to believe we >could<. So just go on and throw in ideas. And most importantly: Build stuff. And share. And don't talk that much. Do something Best Thorsten Heehee: Edit: Just read this: Read it carefully: EB is one of hundreds of media TLG is following ...

You are more than welcome, Dave. Have a nice weekend! Thorsten

It is not so much of a "problem", is it? It is more a "nice to have" thing, or am I wrong? Also, new shape required = new LEGO part/panel required to match that shape is a bit like Revell or Tamiya, isn't it? I always though LEGO is about getting as close rather than have the perfect match. Best Thorsten

It really depends on your groove. Should you decide to make that rather narrow, then the O-ring should fit well with regard to nominal thickness and diameter; you would order a ring that simply matches the wheel size. When that groove is a little "flexible" in width/depth (as you see fit when making it), then stretching the ring narrows its thickness. I would go with: Nominal diameter of O-ring (relaxed) = diameter of wheel/1.25. Then make a groove that matches the O-ring thickness when stretched. This gives you again flexibility - I'd suggest 1.5 to 2 mm thickness O-rings (relaxed). So you order a 1.5 mm x [wheeldiameter/1.25 mm] O-ring, for example All the best, Thorsten

I really do believe that as well. But how? I mean, just look at the last entry - exactly that has happened ... We would need very well-educated people though - and also use the English language in all its width and depth ... there are so many other things that appeared to be completely irrational to me. Which creates ample of room for nice, delicate, refined - fun. Should we gang up and do it? Just one example: The Mindstorm RCX1.0 (was it 1998?) had a 9V = or ~ input ... saving uncountable numbers of disposable batteries. Rechargeables sucked badly back then - and very soon after, TLG came up with the >improved< version 1.5 (the improvement was no external power supply anymore) and even with 2.0 ... and all they did was saving a penny/cent/whatever on a rectifier and some capacitors - and improve the firmware. Which runs flawlessly on 1.0 RCX. This was environmentally totally stupid. As well as stupid overall. Oh, I know: A kid of age 1 ... 10 could have used - things - to open the PBrick; unsolder the capacitors and swallow them all at once. Or swallow the entire PBrick + power supply. Which was still plugged in. Again: For fun only. I do buy TLGs stuff and will continue to do so ... then do modify it (screw the purists) to make it - at least sort of - compatible with todays ... demands. No disposable batteries here anymore, but a lot of electrical stuff ... All the best Thorsten

Heehee ... love it. Guess it is more type of visual perception rather than IQ isn't it? When they did the original StarWars Triology (Part whatever to whatever, I mean the real thing), I thought I was in space. It was beyond belief. As in real life. When I watch them today, I am still excited - but phew. When Luke does the DeathStar run ... it looks like a Commodore64 game. Just saw the latest SW piece ... now story-wise it just goes on and on and on - chasing in canyons seems to be an eternal fact in the universe ... but: It was like ... real. So yes. It may be money, it maybe cost ... but I also believe you don't want to look like living in the past (as I certainly do - and apparently some AFOLs around here as well) It may be just up-to date. As they do now in their youth ... All the best Thorsten

@JaBaCaDaBra, @Cosmik42 I am really no experienced programmer, just building my own code on a Win10/64bit Dell Precision 7530 laptop with latest Windows updates installed. The Bluetooth stack is native Win10 code with built-in Bluetooth radio hardware. I am programming in VB6 (no joke) using a 2016 n/software BLE ActiveX control. What I do notice (and I am struggling a bit with) is: Using the "BLEClient.Connect" method throws the "connected" event, even when any LEGO BLE device is turned off. No other commands trying to access the BLE devices don't work of course. This happens whenever the BLE device is registered and visible in the "devices and printers" section of control panel in Win10; when you click on the corresponding icon, it says "paired" (no hubs turned on). Same hols true for the Disconnect method: The disconnect event is thrown immediately. It thus looks like that at least my ActiveX control is connecting and disconnecting to the Win10 stack, maybe because it tells the control, that the device is paired(?) This makes life of course much easier, as you don't have to pair every time you want to use your BLE devices. Also, when not exiting my program cleanly, i.e., not disconnecting before shutting down, the hubs remain connected, even with may software not running. Could that be? All the best, Thorsten

Well, I don't want to repeat my entries here on EB regarding the setup of my layout - I don't like self-promotion. I short, the entire track layout is powered with 15 DC. Everywhere. I am using several (soldered) feeds from two main delivery points - these two are connected to the power supply with serious wire gauge. From there, essentially genuine 1.5 mm2 wires go to the several feeds. Everything on the layout is powered of the track; lights/light controllers, switch point controllers, bridge controller, recharging points, etc. That also means that all switch points have all directions powered. Several of my trains use a modified 9V train motor as power pickup and motor. These are separated electrically in the motor housing, power from the rails is routed through a bridge rectifier (so that polarity is always the same on the exit) to the outside, fed into a 9V regulator powering either the rechargeable LiPo PF battery box or - via a couple of diodes (to drop the 9 V further by about 0.6 V for each diode) - to trickle charge NiMH rechargeables in modified conventional 9V battery boxes. These in turn power PuP hubs or PF IR receivers, which in turn power the 9V motor or whatever. This way all trains have full access to track power on metal track, automatically turn over to battery power on non-metal track (e.g., used for insulation of wyes). I simply don't have to care anymore about battery life other than they go bad after so many recharging "cycles". Electrified trackside stuff is set up in the same way; I use mostly RCX PBricks to do these jobs. They can be fed directly with 15 V DC as they have internal voltage control (the 1.0 version that is!). 15V/10A is easily supplied by a slightly more powerful laptop power supply. 10 A? Because I don't want to think about wattage when I add another electrically powered "thing" (be it train or whatever) to my layout. I guess this is it ... All the best, Thorsten When you deliberately limit, i.e., set the max. current on the supply of course. Otherwise, the electrical resistance of whatever you power determines the current drawn. Also, the 9V LEGO metal track do have some sizeable resistance. Same holds true for a "misaligned" switch - here it may become even higher than everywhere else in the entire circuit. And when this happens, heat is generated here as well (P = I^2 R). Which in turn may melt plastic ... Best Thorsten

Here is the conclusion pushed through Google Translator: "Even if this new axle is more practical to assemble and its price and really more interesting, it is really less efficient than the old axle with the metal axle. For me it’s quickly seen, all the freight cars will stay on the old axle and for those I miss, I’ll buy old axles. Next time I’ll try on passenger trains to see if we really feel the difference. To summarize, if you do not tow too many wagons and if you want to make wagons at a lower cost no problem, but otherwise it is better to buy old models." Whatever that is worth ... Best Thorsten

And that is fine, perfectly fine. The photographs are still here, your memories are, and all is perfectly fine that way. Best wishes, Thorsten

Awww man - I came up an exact number! >Just kidding< and fully agree on your post!!! Best regards Thorsten