chorlton

I received set 8428 from eBay in the post today. If I'd thought to video myself you would have seen a happy dance then

I've picked this up for just over £20 on eBay. It's much nicer than I was expecting. For someone who's dark ages were from about 1988 to 2007, this is a really interesting set. It is essentially studded, but contains many parts which didn't exist in the 80s and I only associate with studless builds. The wheels are very cool, and it also comes with a bunch of flexible ribs and spars and teal coloured trims which I haven't seen before. Very interesting build although I rushed through it. I might take it down and build it again taking more time. The set came with both CDs. If there are any files from them not available on-line that anyone is looking for, I can make them available. Q. Has anyone tried adding power functions to the model? I've had a quick google and nothing obvious came up. It might be an easy change for my first mod?

I'm in Scotland which is a relatively tiny country, but there were three or four local responses to the recent Falkirk Wheel model so we must all live within about an hour of each other. I don't, yet, consider myself a serious builder though, and certainly not an MOCer.

My first set was the red tractor, 851, which would probably have been a christmas gift in 1980, followed by the yellow forklift, 850, for my birthday a month later. What I remember most is that they were bought in a proper, old, local toy shop. The shop used to be a gentleman's outfitters. The walls were lined with wooden display cabinets and drawers. The Technical Lego was stored and displayed along the top of these. The drawers which previously would have held carefully folded shirts and ties now held nothing but Britains figures and animals carefully laid out for display, and the glass topped counter held Britains tractors and accessories. I have a pic of all the sets along with newer ones but it's on a different PC at the moment. Will stick it up later. They're generally in good condition, all in original boxes if a bit tatty now. I really miss the plastic trays and inserts they used to come with.

I'm only half an hour away too; it's an amazing pice of engineering. Inspired idea jojoguy10!

You mentioned being redirected to the US site. Just to confirm that they're not available on the lego.com UK pages either.

I think the following link - Skydrive Folder - will take you to a public folder contining the images plus three large zip files containing the TIFFs. Right-click on any file to download.

I have some MUCH larger tiff scans if you're really interested. Let me know and i'll upload and provide links tonight.

I'm not sure if it's of much interest, but I'm putting all my old (70s and 80s) Technics up in the attic and found this booklet under the tray insert of the 8700 4.5V motor set. It took me back a bit so thought it was at least worth posting in case anyone else is interested. I think it's from 1984. What really took me back was the Lego Services section at the back, which I remember using to replace broken parts. There's few things better as a kid than waiting for something to arrive by mail, particularly when we didn't do all our shopping through the internet. Front Cover And a link to the folder with the rest: 1984 Lego Technic Booklet. Apologies for using Microsoft Skydrive but Brickshelf don't allow catalogue scans which this probably counts as. Please post if there's any permission problems.

I wasn't excited by this year's models but I'd missed the fact 9398 was fully remote control. Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Nice Review. Good focus on the unusual steering. Cheers! You had some dry ice "lying around"? Don't we all

I can't find the link but remember reading about a neural-network implemented on a NXT brick. I think it was for a clap-counter. It's a complex topic but NNs can be used for character recognition. I'm afraid I'm posting from a hotel with limited bandwidth so can't go find the links myself just now.

Bricklink was just a suggestion as you used it earlier today which reminded me "oh, i was going to suggest that". I wasn't thinking about needing links to build instructions or LDraw files necessarily, just the easiest way to find out which set is being discussed. Basbase's example of a thread comparing multiple sets is exactly the use-case I'm thinking of. Locally hosted image-on-hover would be ideal but I guess a link to more info would be nice-to-have. Thanks all.

As I'm reading posts I find that some people (DLuders, thank you) usually post links to bricklink whenever they reference a set number. I try to do this myself but it's extra work. As I don't (yet) have an encyclopaedic knowledge of every technical set number it can be a pain going off to bricklink to look it up manually. Would it be possible to have the forum board software automatically recognise 3 or 4 digit numbers as set references and create links to bricklink automatically? The occasional false positive when a number doesn't refer to a set would, in my view, be worth the convenience. I know it's technically possible but would be dependent upon what software the board uses (IP.Board) and whether it provides some form of plugin framework. If people think this would be useful, could it be highlighted to The Management for consideration? The suggestion isn't technic specific so if a moderator feels this would be better moved to another area, please feel free. ( And as soon as I hit "post" I think about the number of times we mention the number of pieces a set has which would give false positives. Maybe not auto then, but custom tags so [bl]851[/bl] for example creates a bricklink reference? )

Nice. One thought is that "nothing is too small to tow" while being perfectly good english, isn't how a slogan usually appears on trucks. It's usually shortened to "No job too small" to be "catchy". I'm not sure if "No Tow Too Small" works though?

Thanks for posting your progress! I have enough sets to consider my own MOCs now but lack a. the time and b. the inspiration. It's heartening to see that it takes time to go from a rough frame to a finished model.

8109 Flatbed Truck. Built a bit in the morning, stopped to cook christmas dinner for 6 and entertain for the rest of the day, then stayed up til midnight to finish it. I normally like to take my time but once I could see how the lift rail at the back was going to work I didn't want to stop. This may be my favourite set, it's just so well designed and put together with the lift rail and the way the rear drops when lowering the flatbed. I'm very impressed.

Amazon UK recently dropped the price of the 8043 excavator to £127.99, but today I see it's back up to RRP £142.99 again. I was looking at getting it in January but obviously wish I'd done it this month now. Does anyone have an idea, or information about how long 8043 is likely to remain in production and on shop shelves at normal prices? There are already some £200 prices floating about already. I'm thinking about holding out to see if another price drop happens but equally don't want to get caught paying over the odds like some of the 8421 crane prices going around. Thanks

My partner bought me a mindstorms set about 4 years ago. I think she's regretting it now

I changed jobs and moved house earlier in the year so had to take a big chunk of holidays in September. I was a good boy and never opened the box despite buying it in July! Got all the chores and house jobs I needed done before taking a very leisurely 4 days with the radio on and frequent coffees. Totally worth the wait.

Could you not use pneumatic arms as the pumps? Are they not exactly the same mechanism, just without the spring?

Found this article on a tech website I read. (They previously had the Gears of War Assault Rifle) As a programmer I find it doubly impressive. CubeStormer II I noticed the NXT brick in the corner of the build doesn't seem to be switched on, so not sure if the motors are directly wired to the phone?

The build isn't mine, I just found the article. Sorry.

When you compress or stretch a spring, you're storing energy. A rubber band under tension can store a lot more energy than a Lego shock absorber spring. The casing around a shock spring, apart from constraining the direction of travel, is there to stop the relatively fragile, thin metal of the springs from deforming beyond the point where they can recover. You could possible store compressed air using the pneumatics somehow, and release it quickly, but again you're probably limited by the weakness of Lego components. The cylinders are likely to leak before you can store anything like the pressure needed to do work similar to a rubber band.

I know we're not supposed to make arms but... Gears of War - Lancer Assault Rifle Wow.