bonox

lots and lots. But: 1. it's therapeutic and 2. You only have to do it once. Searching for a repeating part in a box of assorted stuff means you do it again and again and again for however many of those parts you may want in the build. Some people like that searching behaviour, for others who know exectly the part they want, it's a nightmare and makes a build take forever. When you take something apart - again, sort once back into the individual part types, then you're good to go again. it's just a thought - and despite having a literal tonne of parts, i've probably got less than 40 or 50 thousand in ready use, nicely accessible drawers and boxes at any one time. In my mind, it's about what you're likely to use (or know you want to use if you'r'e building from a plan), not how much of everything you own you can see at once. That probably wouldn't change even with just 1% of the parts I actually have.

how about close to 1000k My million free parts (not built into something yet) are in two major sets - building and replenishment. The building set is the nicely laid out containers by type, generally with mixed colour, probably a couple dozen to many dozens of each colour part in each type. When things run low I go to the replenishment buckets, which are just that - big storage boxes full of bags containing thousands of each part type/colour and top up the building ones. Stuff I use regularly gets more building compartments. Stuff I don't use much gets combined with o ther stuff to save a bit of space. in the replenishment bins, everything is sorted into type and sometimes colour, but mostly just part type of all colours with the rare/expensive stuff in a small bag inside the bigger bag. A big build will start out with the replenishment bins to get most of what I want, then go back to the build containers to build and finish. The building sets are on and around my desk. The replenishment bins are in the attic/shed etc. as above - don't necessarily try to store your entire collection in one place if you don't need to. This bit is defintely your individual style and thinking about how much stuff you ahve and how much you actually need access to immediately vs 'could go hunting in other places but would take longer' The main reason i do this is because sorted stuff in drawers/pack and stack containers/dog food tins etc take up far more space than packing zip lock bags into storage boxes. If I had a massive warehouse to build in I'd just put everything in the one place, but I have a small place, so I split the collection into what I probably want right now and the bulk of the stuff I might want later.

an 1985 then 1988 2L SX Liftback. Was interesting to note the little details that changed in the 3 years between the same model. Looked the same, but little things were different, like adding drainage channels around the rear lift struts to stop them rusting. The later one wasn't advertised as having significantly more power, but it would climb a hill in top gear at 110km/h that the previous one would only do in 4th. My next door neighbour was a toyota factory mechanic and had a 1992 GT4 which I was quite envious of, except that he was always working on it and said it was a bit of a dog if you wanted a daily driver without access to cheap factory spares.

that's a fabulous recreation of a car i used to own. A funny stumpy sort of thing compared to the Celica i replaced it with, but it was an absolute go cart that would put smiles on your face whenever you found a twisty road. Thanks for sharing.

excellent seeing models made with mindstorms motors.

That''s fine - just don't complain when the parts weld themselves together. The only other way to get around it is to make the parts (piston and bore) so loose that you won't have much if any compression at low speed. For what it's worth, the start of this almost exactly parallels your description in the first post of the seizing of two parts at high speed with inadequate lubrication. (gets harder to spin, slows down etc etc) This last longer because it's rolling rather than sliding like the piston in the cylinder but the concept is still the same.

there's a reason all high speed moving parts in this world are lubricated and also why "oil-less" compressors don't last all that long. Lubrication isn't just about making parts slide across one another easily - it's also about removing heat, to either keep the dimensions of the parts in spec or to stop the lubricant itself from disintegrating. For amusement and learning though, hit youtube for "stir friction welding" as that's effectively what you're doing to those poor cylinders.

perhaps it's simpler if you understand that databases don't call out new elements, people call out new elements. One of the things people like is to be able to put sets together. If you have a set that requires a certain printed part, then you need to uniquely identify that part rather than just the underlying part shape/colour without the print. That applies whether you're TLG or a seller on a 3rd party site.

I don't have your tow truck in white, but I do have the original 5571 in white and think it looks great. Just need a door sticker :D

Probably a good time to say Thankyou Andrea for a beautiful model. I'm sure there are many more out there than you think, including one being built by this nutter (me) at a LUG show :) Didn't quite get it finished in one go.

hopefully it's just an old stock problem

if i've got parts, i'll build combination of real and virtual. If I have new ideas and don't have the parts, i'll use the digital model to work out what to buy, but I don't always get it right first time in the virtual. Some of the tools in stud.io are helpful in this regard, for example finding things that have limited support. (attached by one stud for example is a useful tool). When building for real and finding things that need to be changed, remodelling the digital model is called 'red pen markups' in the old terminology and can be a bug bear, but needs to be done if you want to follow later or share.

very impressive. The scale is certainly slightly intimidating, but it's really nice to see people tackling the stuff that most people don't with the big cranes - the extended jibs and the Y guy arrrangements. Bravo Sir.

I get the theory, but the (fake) photo shows a stud too big to do that - it's the diameter of the stop ring, not the stud. And I don't need any fingers to count the places where that would be the only solution

more to the point though, what would you use it for? It serves no purpose I can see

i'm not sure there are any - they were incorporated into the instructions for sets that included them, so try looking for those. It's essentially make sure the transmitter is assigned the same channel (from 1 to 4) as the receiver you're trying to control, then move the controls. If you want it to keep going, or want graduated speed control, use the train controller.

Very novel car shape - great rendition mate.

What lovely memories of my '71 IIA. The coloured knobs on the levers triggered thoughts of lots of fun times. Mine were much more faded though. I too would love to invest in your instructions if you choose to make them. Great model; well done!

join a lug, scour second hand ads, put out wanted ads, buy from aftermarket (ebay, bricklink, brickowl) or just plain buy from the factory.

you need an electric pulse. An old lawn mower breaking points style magneto will have about 6-8 volts on the primary side and via a coil, comes out at 300-500V to fire the spark plug. You could generate pulses with a small timer circuit and a battery or just a hand switch if you don't need speed, but you're going to need a coil to step up the voltage to your pair of wires. I should add that a general purpose spark ignition engine commonly has about 15000 volts on the secondary side of the coil. more compression tends to need higher energy impulses.

man, that's really cool :D

does it do the same thing if you use the train controller and wind it back from the problem side?

I can already hear a legion of fans reverse engineering it....

the picture shows a configuration that does allow the ends of thepin to "expand back", meaning the build is "in system" and will have no longer term issues if the picture doesn't make sense in your head, try building it.