Daedalus304

Hello all! Lately I've been really getting into LEGO train, and after purchasing the Emerald Night I decided to start designing and building my own engines and put together a layout. For my first engine I wanted to build something that would be relatively simple, I've never used PF and certainly not in an engine before. It probably took about 30 or so hours to design. Thankfully Google and Wikipedia were both very generous with pictures of 5700s. I designed this train entirely in Lego Digital Designer, and as I do not yet have the parts to build it, all my pictures are from LDD. Each picture is also a link to a bigger version of said picture. A couple things of note. The clips on the sides and from of the water tanks are meant for flex tubing - which isn't in LDD. As well, the wheels of the engine are supposed to be the Large Train Wheels that come in the Emerald Night set, which are also absent in LDD. And finally, each end of the coupling rod is meant to be the "half" version of what it is (To allow clearance with the rear steps into the cabin). This photo I think really highlights the shapes of the 5700. I did my best to incorporate all the cab's sloping and unique angles, and you can see the gap between the boiler and the "floor" of the engine. The tool box and the few greebles behind it are a little hard to make out with the blackness of the engine, but they're there. I would have loved to do a GWR green version but sadly, a lot of these parts don't come in Earth Green. The front and rear bumper are both a little low for the train to be accurate in that regard, and this I blame solely on my desire to keep this engine compatible with all standard LEGO trains. This rear view shows off more of the engine's curves, and likely gives a bit of a glimpse as to how I built the cab. There are controls are a door for a firebox (Which, while the firebox DOES open there is nothing of note behind it. That space was eaten by mechanics). The train was designed to be powered by the new PF Train Motor with Emerald Night wheels on the axle, and that gap in the rear is actually a tunnel for the cord. Unfortunately this model would require both the battery box and IR receiver to be in whichever car it's pulling - I juts couldn't figure out how to fit either of them. Oh, and that lamp is sitting funky because LDD wouldn't let me hang it how I wanted. Here's a head on shot. It's hard to see the little metal steps on the front of the tanks/boiler, but they're there in the appropriate areas. The front and rear windows are not as far to the sides OR as round as I wanted them to be - but the thickness of the slope brick made it necessary. Call it a modified 5700. Sorry about that gap there to the sides of the windows - I couldn't find any parts that filled it appropriately. On a positive note, the anti-studs match up pretty well with all the welded bolts on the real engine. You can see there that the sideways SNOT sort of wraps around the back of the cab, and the bottom of the coal box is filled in by some hidden angle bricks. And here's an overhead shot. One of the nice things about LDD, for the observers, is that with the brick outlines it's a lot easier to see how things are situated. The boiler makes heavy use of SNOT and many bricks on the train are sideways, upside-down, or even raised a half a plate. I did my best to make sure it was all securely attached so theoretically this engine should be fairly sturdy. If/when I ever build it I'm also going to add those struts that go alongside the wheels near the track, but having them empty on LDD looked goofy so I kept them off. That's all the pictures that I have, and hopefully later tonight I'll have an LXF for anybody interested. For as much criticism as I've levied against my own engine in this post I am actually really proud of it, especially since it's the most difficult engine I've ever designed. (My previous engines were all very simplistic 6-wides). Hopefully I can figure out how Bricklink works and actually buy all the parts for it. I've added the LXF!! Actually, there are TWO LXF files. One of them is exactly how you see it in the pictures, with the substitute wheels and the brick-built replacement for the PF motor. The second one has neither of those. Normal Version Minus the Substitute Parts Any comments, criticisms, suggestions or questions are all very much welcome! I would love to hear your feedback. On that note, I would like to ask the more experienced Train fans a question: This engine is 8 studs wide (Ten with the steps, I guess). Do you think it would look silly or out of place running on the same layout as the Emerald Night?

I think I'd like to sign here! I've been a LEGO fan since I was 4 or 5, and my first LEGO were two big red Dacta buckets. I always wanted LEGO trains, but never managed to get any (Parents realized how spendy an investment it would be, I supposed XD). My biggest meshing of trains and LEGO was first between my water treatment plant and a house, I set a few of These pieces flat and found they were the perfect scale to run my "Thomas the Tank Engine" toys on. Several trains to catch my eye so far have been the Hobby Train and the Super Chief, but unfortunately I haven't managed to snag either... hopefully down the road! The Emerald Night was the next train to catch my attention, and nowadays I'm able to buy of my own accord . With news of the Maersk coming out I began to fear that I would be too late for the emerald night - So I bought it! It's very beautiful and I'm planning on starting to work on a layout soon for both it and the Maersk engine; as well as the plethora of engines I'm hoping to start designing in the near future. Anyways, that's my "Lego Train Story", condensed anyways (I built several trains over the years that I've skipped over because I'm pressed for time). I've been really excited to get into LEGO train lately though - probably going to switch from collecting Star Wars to this!

I think it would be really handy if we could create our own custom "themes", and if we could have special set/model modes. "Custom theme" is basically what it sounds like: Let us create a theme where we choose which bricks, and how many of each, are in the brick pallet. The first (And perhaps most immediately useful) application of this would be that it would enable us to create a brick theme using only parts that we actually own. Or, it would let us do things like entirely disassemble a virtual model and rebuild it without cluttering up the building area OR potentially forgetting which pieces were and weren't used. I can imagine it may be a bit tedious to go through and add bricks one by one... but, perhaps if they let you select an LDD model and add it to the "theme", it would speed things up. Heck, that in conjunction with Eurobrick's own Official LDD Database would speed the process considerably. The set/model mode idea is basically the same idea on a much smaller, more focused scale. If we could just open an LDD file with all the parts in the brick pallet - and only those parts, that would be cool as well. I don't know how useful the rest of you guys would find these options - but I know I'd greatly appreciate them.

Not nearly as impressive as several of the other feats in this thread, but a few weeks ago built the 30051 X-wing in it's bag. The bag itself has a few hard to notice crumples in it, but it still has all it's ink and I made sure not to bend or damage the instructions inside. About forty minutes of work, but it was fun. Does anybody know if that Scarab Attack set is in a single bag? I'd be curious to try that one next.

My latest MOC (the split-engine sparrow) was designed in LDD first, and I included the LXF file in my MOC topic. Both the picture in my sig and http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=48427 will get you there. Link to the LXF Perhaps I should have made a topic about the MOC's LXF here in the Digital Designer forum as well?

[quote name=eltsyr' date='10 January 2011 - 01:16 PM' timestamp='1294690561' Thanks for all the nice replies everyone, I'm glad you like the review! Great review with many details :-) You could benefit from a better camera though :D I received this set a few days ago and built it with my sons. I agree with you, once finished this thing is a beast and looks much better then in the pictures I saw previously. It's agressive, it's sleak, colors are beautiful, and apart from the dozens of 1x1 headlight bricks (I still didn't get why they didn't choose lenghtier bricks with a similar function) assembly is great fun. Also after building the nose it becomes obvious that one day I'll build a real sword with legos :-p Actually I was thinking about that as well. However dark red cylinders bricks aren't that common and obviously you need some holes to add greebles. My idea was to use brick 41531 for the body. What do you think of it ? any suggestion for the legs ? Ach, this requires some collective brainstorming ;) My camera actually is capable of better pictures, but when i was taking these ones I had to wrestle with the settings a bit thanks to the lighting and me being a bit more shakey-handed than normal. I think the thing with the headlight bricks was mainly so that they could fit in into a smaller space. If they had used the 1x4 Brick with Studs on the side, there would've been a whole extra plate's worth of space in the nose to blunt the tip. As for R4, I've been doing a lot of thinking on it and I think using the 2x4x2/3rds slopes for the back (Building it in SNOT) would probably turn out ok. Right now the legs, or the top attachment thereof, is the hardest to figure out. I'll have to play around with LDD and see what works. With SNOT it may be possible to do the third leg, as well.

Hello fellow EB Members! I have today a review of the 10215. The pictures for this review were taken after I already put it together once, so I'm afraid I don't have pictures of the parts in their bags, but I've tried to make this as comprehensive as I know how. Lets begin at the start, shall we? First glance: The box! I'd like to apologize in advance for any grain or slight blurriness, I'm a bit shakey-handed and had to make some sacrifices with the ISO settings. The front of the box has all the usual details. I think it looks pretty nice, although while this angle shows the ship as a whole well; you miss a lot of details! So, let's see what the rest of the box has to offer, shall we? Here's a bit of the side. It shows R4-P17's head for size scale since there are no mini-figures, and probably to show off the printing. There's also a picture of the ship with it's dimensions - that I would like to point out are wrong. Oddly enough, the box lists the ship as 40 CM in lentgh when it is in fact 47 CM. LEGO S@H has the correct size, so it's just best to ignore the number on the box itself (In both places it appears, they both list it as 40). The back of the box has a much better display of pictures and angles, as well as showing the ship against a geonosis backdrop like in episode 2. In the spoiler tag below I have close ups of each smaller picture. Now for inside the box. As I no longer have the bags, here's all the pieces loose inside: There are a good amount of parts and the box doesn't seem empty at all. There was I think five bags marked 1-3, and those I'll go into more detail later. This is the front of the instruction manual and the sticker sheet, both of these were perfectly flat and not bent in the slightest. I've borrowed a picture of the sticker sheet from bricklink, as mine has been used. The colours are all very good, as you can see here they are all very easily distinguishable and I never had any problems. The only tricky part is telling apart the trans-clear stud and the silver stud - but you only use one clear stud in total and if you pay attention to the part call-outs it's not an issue. Here's the main build stages. There are 2 bags marked "1", 2 marked "2", and 1 marked "3" (If i recall correctly). But enough of this picture gazing, eh? Let's get to the build! -After much sorting- It's a lot faster and easier to build in order of the numbered bags, but here's aaaall the parts! The 10215 tends to get some criticism for only having 676 parts, but looking at all of them like this really makes it seem like more to me. There is a large number of wing plates, slopes, curves, tiles, and uncommon pieces. Here's some closer-up pics of the assortment: The printed pieces: The white is a bit washed out thanks to my flash, but I wanted the droid print to be seen clearly. There's not much in the way of printing here, but the droid is beautiful and the control panel being printed is a very nice touch too. The Stickered pieces: Here's all the stickered parts. It took a bit of care trying to get them on straight and lined up, but I really like the added detail they give the ship. The only complaint I ever have with stickers is when there are Stickers Across Multiple Parts (STAMP), but they very thankfully avoided this altogether! The republic insignia, as you can see, is split into two stickers each. I'm on the fence as to whether or not I would have preffered them to be prints or not. Being a sticker it takes some care to line them up so they look good, but I also highly doubt that they would have been accurately printed enough, so in the end I think this solution is fine. Anyways, on to the build! I've got sort of a brick-blog series of pictures here for you to see. This is the ship at the end of the first "spread" of page. It's coming along at a fairly brisk pace, each step has 7-8 pieces in the call-out to add. This is almost exactly half way through the build of the "Bag 1" instructions. The bottom of the ship, base of the tail, and the start of the cockpit have all been done so far. It's a pretty fun and interesting build, and the base of the tail is attached pretty interestingly. Here's the bottom of the ship, as far as "Bag 1" goes it's finished. It's pretty nice looking I think. I'm not sure if the gap in the middle is there on the "real" ship, but there are some textured bricks and greebles in the gap to make it interesting. It's also where the stand attaches. The method they use for the slope bricks is pretty interesting, and I found it enjoyable to put together. Here's the top of the ship, "Bag 1" completed. It's pretty slick looking up here as well, the SNOT nose and the nicely rounded tail section really make it feel like a fast ship. The lime green stands out well and I think is really a good example of colour usage, and it along with the yellow help break out the long white segment without being too overbearing. Here's some close ups of the cockpit: It's pretty nicely detailed, and I love the seat design. It feels pretty cozy, and it's a nice touch that they made the tail's overhang easily removable for cockpit access. It may not hinge open, but I think in this case it's understandable. Here's the engines. It's pretty simple, but the wing assembly integrates with it pretty well and makes it not jut so much. Here's about halfway through the build of the left wing. There's a few neat/interesting choices as far as it goes, the wedge plate in the center of the wing I found particularly neat. Here's the bottom of the wing, it's got a nice build around the engine area. The front seems to build up to the wing slope fairly well, and the gun is fairly plain and simple. The bottom gun doesn't get too much attention later but it is one of things I wonder about, as far as alternate designs go. But enough of that, here's the finished wing! The other side is nearly identical, other than the droid area. R4-P17 herself is, as noted, a bit big for the starfighter but I don't think it's too bad. It does, however, make for a bit of an odd contrast with the 2x2 round tile Republic Insignia on the other side. The size difference between the two is a little exaggerated. Once you finished and attach both wings, the ship is complete! There will be plenty more pictures of the top later, but for now, let's see how the bottom of the ship lined up shall we? The engines fit perfectly into the wing housing, and I think the end result ended up looking much better than I anticipated. While not as smooth overall as the top of the ship, it seems that they put a fairly good amount of work down here and it's certainly nicer to look at than say, the bottom of the UCS TIE Advance. Here's the stand, simple yet effective. It doesn't use the same angled style as the UCS stands of old, but it does rotate. I may try and build or adapt an angled stand to see what it's like, but the rotating stand makes it very easy to spin around to see all the detail and shape. (And since it's fairly well balanced, kind of fun to spin as well!) The display card is pretty nice, and I love that it's on a single piece instead of across multiple. I do remember reading a concern that the mould injection mark in the middle of the tile would disrupt the sticker, but as you can see, the whole thing is as smooth as can be. Here's some more neat pictures as well: The breakdown: So here's where it comes down to the score. What do I think? Playability/Sturdiness: 10/10 Given it's UCS nature, you wouldn't expect much here. However the model is sturdy, albeit somewhat heavy, and it's very easy to pick it up and probably even swoosh it! The droid head swivels and the cockpit is relatively easy to access. It surpassed my expectations in this regard, especially since my last UCS was the fairly fragile TIE Advance. Design: 8/10 The design overall is pretty interesting, and I think for the most part pretty accurate as well. The droid is too big, the right-wing republic insignia is too small, and the nose is perhaps a little too flat compared to the wings. The cockpit, engine housing, tail section, and just about everything else are very satisfactory in my eyes and I think make up for it nicely. Price: Original ($100 USD): 6/10 Sale ($75 USD): 9/10 Here's where most people trip up. The original price of $100 USD was, without a doubt, too high. If it had stayed that price the whole length of the set's production I probably would have given in, but the new lower price of $75 is just about perfect to me. the large amount of plates, hinges, slopes, and other more "uncommon" parts balance out that $7 over the 10 cents per piece ratio in my opinion. Minifigures: 10/10 There's no minifigures here, obviously, but I've kept this scoring category because of R4. While a little too large for the ship, I think the R4 dome is a beautifully designed and printed part and am very glad to have it. I'm hoping to try, one day, to build a full body for the head (But hopefully someone more talented beats me to it!) Parts: 9/10 The parts in this set are pretty wide and varied. There are a TON of wing plates here, especially the 3x6's. There's not much, if any, new grey colours, but the large amount of dark red and interesting lime green parts is very welcome to me. Other parts like the 2x2 Tile with one stud, and 1x3 tile, among others, are all new and great to have pieces. That, along with the variety of other useful parts, have me give it good marks in this regard as well. Total Score: ($100) 43/50, 86% ($75) 46/50, 92% In summary, I really like this set and ship. I've been a long time fan of the Delta-7 and was both excited and worried about how the set would turn out, however after assembling it (twice now!) I can say pretty confidently that despite it's fairly small flaws, it's a fantastic looking set and I very much enjoy having it on display. I would highly recommend getting it while it's on sale. At full price it may be a tougher decision if you're really attentive to parts/price. I have a few more pictures (Some that are pretty neat) in the Brickshelf Gallery, once moderated. As far as this review goes, it's the first one I've done. Any comments/tips/criticisms would be much appreciated and valued. Any requests as far as pictures or information goes are just fine too and I'll try to get them filled as soon as I can.

I think he means the hair slides on all his minifigs, so my guess is that the "anti-stud" on the bottom is more of an oval and lets the hair wiggle around. Sounds like an all-around poor part to me, very glad neither of my Leias are having such a bad hair day.

I didn't mean for the wing - the angle in that second picture shows the location I meant. The bent U shaped sides of the body seem about the same angle.

Can't wait to see what you do with the model, Cavegod! I'm a big fan of your UCS series. As for the side angle, perhaps a couple of these would work? I'm not sure if they've got quite the right angle but they should be easy and strong to build on.

I got the 10215 Obi-Wan's Jedi Starfighter, which I am still pretty excited over. I absolutely love it. Planning on putting one of my giftcards towards the ARC-170 set as well, that's a pretty slick ship there.

Nice F-302, Legostein! What a clever design! It's a shame I don't have all the correct part colours or I think I'd give building it a shot, although I think I wouldn't mind buying the parts off bricklink someday. Why did you keep the engine ends without the dark grey, though? It seems that you probably could have included that without messing up the proportions. I guess it's a nitpicky thing, though. XD

I love the ship! It's very compact and sleek. The cockpit is much bigger than most Vipers but I think you've pulled it off quite nicely! The Vic Viper is actually several ships, originating from the video game series "Gradius". Each game has a new Vic Viper (Or several), and they are generally storied as humanities greatest ship, and last chance of survival in whatever attack the current game is highlighting. It's quite a difficult game.

Yes there is! There are a couple parts that couldn't be placed, but they are right by their proper spots. The link to the LXF is under the final picture in the first post (With a bold banner), but I'll post it here for you just for easiness' sake. Here you are! I'm glad you like it!

I just finished LDDTechnician's 8296 Dune Buggy. He did most of it. 8296 Dune Buggy - Theme: Technic Download the LXF! Issues with the file: The Engine Blocks are missing and have been left out entirely, and part 2853 has been replaced with both 41677 and 32062 thanks to an error in the 2853 that doesn't allow an axle to be inserted completely. Flex rods could not be bent and are simply resting straight. As already reported, parts 32069 and 32068 do not register a connection with each other, however they can still be placed correctly. They are in their proper spot but the steering assembly is "loose", and doesn't connect to the rest of the model.

The general rule of thumb is: If it has been released, you can build it. If you start on a new theme it's added to the index!

Sick of Star Wars? Nope. I love LEGO star wars sets, for reasons ranging from the good looks to the excellent parts that come with them. As for clone wars, that's a little bit of a mixed bag for me. I don't have much problem at all with the clone wars sets, and I actually have found myself quite liking a few of them. The thing with clone wars that bugs me is the high amount of repeats. It's felt like they're releasing a recoloured Jedi Starfighter every year, I think we're up to four now? Most of the set designs that I don't care for are generally because the ship itself didn't have a great design in the first place. But I think that even if Clone Wars sets were entirely trashy (Which they are not, not close), I still wouldn't mind. Because they still release sets from the movies, and it seems that their work in clone wars has been helping to progress the designs of the other sets as well. I sort of view it as one big progressive thing, so even though I don't really buy or care for all the Clone Wars sets, I still think that they affect LSW as a whole and I think the effect has been pretty positive!

With a little bit of scaffolding you can actually get the parts to fit properly, it just won't count as a connection. For the sake of helpfulness I made a simple file with the two parts situated together as a group, as seen here: Which you can download here. All you have to do is select the group and paste/place as so needed.

Found an interesting glitch when I was goofing around in LDD today. Using my touchpad's scroll wheel I zoomed in and out a couple times really fast, and the smaller 2x2 grid sections disappeared. Leaving only a larger, stud-less, grid. I managed to replicate it every time I tried thereafter. When you rotate the camera "underneath" the model, though, the grid returns. I don't know if it's a glitch or even something for them to bother fixing (What kind of person zooms in and out like a madman anyways? ), but just in case I figured I'd report it. I do remember some people disliking the smaller studded grid segments though, so maybe they'll like putting the scroll wheel to use and do without?

The X-Wing's afterburners appear to be missing...

I haven't posted anything in a while... but I've made a few. Here's a couple more, hopefully I'll back into the swing of things soon! First up is: 30051 X-Wing - Theme: Star Wars Already been posted by ADHO15 Download the LXF! No errors to report here! Mostly just built it because I recently bought a few and thought it was pretty nifty. Next up, a new one! 7262 TIE Fighter and Y-Wing Download the LXF! The only errors in this set were substituted prints, and both pilot's helmet are missing. As a note, this set is not to be confused with the 7150 set of the same name. This was the 2004 (?) Re-release of the set, featuring the new greys and an entirely re-designed TIE Advance, now built in the same modular fashion as the rest of LEGO's TIE fighters.

I've added the LXF file to the first post! Well, the forward wings I'm pretty happy with. I usually struggle getting them a shape that I can live with - let alone like. I'm not too sure what I could to to make them better, unless I weaponize them. If you have any suggestions about what I could do to make them more interesting I'd love to hear them! And as for the rear wings/tail, I agree that there's most likely less flimsy designs. I sort of touched on it earlier, but they had a bit of compromise to them since I was having a hard time finding ways to attach them. I may revisit it in the future (I would love to try and fit these engines onto a delta winged craft ). I hope I'm not coming across the wrong way, I'm very glad to have heard your thoughts. I just am not quite sure how to change these few things for the better!

I have Access 2003, I believe. I'll look and see about updating that.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm sorry I haven't yet got the other pictures up, I took them but haven't had time to upload them. I will definitely do so later today, I have some free time. Part of my sort of "Theme" for building the plane was to have an older aircraft sort of feel to the design, despite the engines, so I'm happy to see that it reminds people of the P-38 and other such craft. Thank you for the kind words. The tail actually was a mixture of a lot of things for me, design wise. There was the design style I wanted, and trying to find a good way to put a tail on the plane's somewhat uncouth rear. I did try and elevate it a bit so the tail sits around the top of the engine, but not quite over it. The stresses and heat issues with that part of the design are definitely the biggest issues with it for sure, what with the engine there, but I like to pretend that the tail works like the tail of the A-10 Thunderbolt II, and helps lower the plane's heat signature a bit. A lot of problems with that I'm sure, but that's why it's pretend.