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Moz

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Everything posted by Moz

  1. Moz
    One other complication is that it would likely be made in DBG or dark tan, just because TLG are fixated on colour coding everything. So we'd have yet another colour of pins visible from the outside of Technic models. Yay :( What I'd really like is for them to bring back the black two-long axle-pin joiners (that BrickLink files under axles, because reasons). Currently they're insanely expensive on bricklink and there appears to be a total of about 1000 in existence.
  2. Moz
    The thing about set size for me is that almost every sets comes with wheels. I have enough wheels, more than enough. So a bigger set means fewer wheels per dollar, and I'm cool with that. To some extent the same with PF, although I do regularly run out of some PF parts (usually when I have three versions of a MOC on the go, admittedly), because I like to build "play sets" like the 42009 B model(s) where there's a bunch of vehicles that work together. Hence also my interest in the SBrick ...
  3. Moz
    I'm with Rollermonkey: the best "video reviews" to my mind are a standard text+photo review then a video showing the model in action, possibly with some close-ups of specifi parts and a half-assembled shot showing the internal mechanisms in operation. Really, if the model isn't moving why are you using video? Count me in the people who don't watch video reviews very often. I read ~10,000 words an hour, but I can only understand about 50 a minute (3000/hour), fewer if the videographer hasn't paid much attention to sound quality and enunciation. So the question is: can you re-write your script to have 1/3 the words without losing any of the content? No? Best give me a copy of the written version then. Then there's video quality. It's hard to light still shots well, then you have to get the framing and focus right. With video? Lower resolution, more compression artifacts, and you have to think about panning, zooming and linking shots. That's quite hard to do well. Then you need to script those shots so that you linger appropriately at the points where each viewer is interested, but move smoothly past the less interesting parts. What's that? Viewers don't all think the same parts are interesting? That makes your shot list and editing even harder, then. I'll usually watch Sariel's videos because he does them well and builds interesting stuff. But for me a video review needs to be short and have a page of text with it to be worth while, and even then clearly linked to the text before I'll watch it. Too many video reviews are some slow-talking moron talking about how the box works. Yes, yes, I get it, you have to open the box, get a move on. 10 minutes later they've progressed to explaining the history of Lego instructions and the black/grey/bley problem. Yeah, whatever, is there perchance a model involved at any point?
  4. Moz
    That's why I've made the comments above - first to point out that there is a $US200 phone that should work with the SBrick, and second to prod the SBrick team to start collecting a list of phones that are known to work. It would be worth them getting a bunch of people together at a club meeting so they can try it. But so far they have not even published a list of the phones they have already tested - maybe they all own iPhone 5's?
  5. Moz
    I've just spent an hour or so grinding through the BLE support page trying to find phones from that on the Cyanogen supported device list and looking at online prices. It is very tedious So far it's looking like the LG Optimus Pro, since that has a Cyanogen build available and it's about $AUS350/$US300 at Plemix (just as a price reference). The Motorola Moto G has CM is $200 at plemix but doesn't have an SD slot. The device list page is completely useless for Samsung and Sony, since it just says "Galaxy Series" which means I can't tell the difference between the "i9000" (which has Bluetooth 3.0) and the S3 (which has hardware but not software support for BLE) and the S5 (which has both). Ditto Sony Xperia series. If you can get hold of one of those and try it then it might be worth getting second hand, but I'm not willing to buy one on the off chance. Right now I'm quite away that it will be months before I have an SBrick to test with, and the smartphone market will have changed a bit by then. I'm leaning towards buying a new phone from somewhere with a good return policy so I can send the phone back saying "BLE connectivity did not work with my device". But I'm hoping that when the SBrick people start having more users they will make their website more usable (it's just an advertisement right now, obviously) and add a "known to work with" list.
  6. Moz
    Oh yay, TechnicBricks have a survey up about this but I can't comment because I'm not willing to share my google ID with them and can't be bothered creating a new openid when there are already two comment forums open (plus the SBrick one which is a bit dead right now). So... it's interesting that they list the Galaxy SIII asan option(but not it screen resolution) since BLE support on that device is apparently tricky. I too am looking at a "new" smartphone, probably a second hand Galaxy SIII or Note I, if I can get either of them to work (both belong to friends who want to upgrade). But given the "hardware but not software" BLE support on the SIII I am not optimistic. I may end up buying a new smaller, cheaper phone (which I will select based on "cheapest BLE phone I can find"). I am really, really hoping the RFDuino will pair with an SBrick and I can build some joystick-and-switchs hardware remote controls for it.
  7. Moz
    Oh easy. Buy a set for parts, as soon as you get it rip out the parts you need and put them into the MOC that's mostly-finished on your desk, put the rest of the parts into a bag labelled "set 1234 parts" and never get round to actually building it before you realise that there's hardly any parts actually in the bag. Or, with some sets, buy four copies for parts and wince at all the unpacking and sorting you have to do before you can actually use the parts. For those it would be better if each set came in one bag and instructions were optional :) Although, if we were doing that, I'd rather be able to choose not to get wheels/tyres and battery boxes. I have *lots* of battery boxes.
  8. Moz
    You can upgrade out of a pledge though. Someone probably pledged a bit more and went from the #29 level to something else.
  9. Moz
    You might have to build your own. It shouldn't be too hard if you start with something like the RFDuino. It's not as though you want to do anything particularly complex, the difficult part will be deciding what control layout you want (and how to change it when you have a different need. I suspect the reason there's no official one is that people would immediately want it to do 200 different things, so they'd end up making something that no-one actually liked. I have been wondering whether something like an arcade game joystick wired up to an RFDuino would work, or whether I'd be better off with analogue joysticks. I've been thinking about this, because if I want to let people at exhibitions play with the models I need a controller that I'm willing to let 1000's of people hammer away at (so my phone is out!). To get speed control and steering I really want analogue, so I'm currently thinking one analogue joystick and a bunch of switches/levers.
  10. Moz
    Those can be a bit hard on people in bad timezones. For Australia it's likely that the contest will start and finish at an unreasonable hour of the morning, and possibly not a weekend one. If it was 12 hours, using EU time 8am Saturday to 8pm Saturday thats going to put the USA people at 4pm-4am overnight on Saturday and Australia 8pm Friday to 8am Saturday. So "speed build" might have to mean "3 days" not "4 hours"... I'm also wondering whether the SBrick has any chance of being accepted. It would somewhat advantage people who have one (or two), and I suspect once we get them we're not going to be too keen on the existing PF controllers :)
  11. Moz
    Good point. Also important for people outside the UK/EU, because if those prices include 19% VAT and we don't have to pay it, that'd be very nice.
  12. Moz
    Now you've got me thinking of getting the 42030 as a way of boosting the pledge and hopefully getting this thing over the line. It's going to be ugly though, because I'm darn'd if I'm letting go of my #29 SBrick, so it'll be 29 + 180 + 70 + 3 = GBP282 for the loader plus 4 bricks. I suppose better that than paying for plans I don't want :) I'm reminded of the RFDuino that was another kit-type Kickstarter and I'm sure was a shipping nightmare (an Ardunio with bluetooth added, and about 6 or 8 different shields you could stack onto it). Their approach was to give prices for each shield and a couple of combos, then let people pledge whatever they wanted. It worked really well. The only sad thing (IMO) was that to simplify it they packaged every tiny little thing in a giant plastic box, so I ended up with a pile of those when my parts would have fitted in one of them. Anyway, too late for that now.
  13. Moz
    That's very cool! I like the ball as a valve cap :)
  14. Moz
    Got my Shapeways order and the parts are better than what I've printed locally. Maybe I will have to buy a printer after all :( Or just use shapeways and cry about the shipping cost. The two-wide diff is better than I expected after printing one that I couldn't assemble without filing a lot of it away, then it broke. The shapeways one is better... but still a lot of friction, I will have to get out the scalpel and maybe some silicone grease to get it to actually work as a diff. I'm also concerned about the longevity of those little pointy teeth on the driver gear, but I'll see what hap[pens when I start using it. I also printed a couple of universal joints, and they also work. I found a 3/16" drill bit worked better than a metric size one for cleaning out the holes (should be ~4.25mm, a metric size I don't have). Thanks Efferman
  15. Moz
    Yippee!
  16. Moz
    +1. It's not especially about only having 8 outputs from IR in one model, more that it's difficult to use IR around other people. Conventions are the ultimate example where random IR control bursts can make life very exciting. More so for people operating free-moving models on tabletops, but it does annoy the train guys a lot too. One question that does occur to me now is: can I have more than one output on a single control? My road train drive system used 4 outputs for movement because there was 144 wheels and ~10kg of Lego pushed by 4 XL motors, so a single output was not enough (and two motors were a metre away down the train, as well). Being able to set one control on the phone to operate multiple SBricks/SBrick outputs would be very useful for those models.
  17. Moz
    Just to clarify, by "the cable will be a problem for a lot of people" I meant "having to buy a cable when they missed that bit on the Kickstarter page" would be the problem. I expect but don't know that without the extra comments on the KS page a lot of backers would miss that requirement and be unpleasantly surprised when the brick(s) arrived. It's not explicitly mentioned, and given how many people missed the click-to-unroll FAQ entry about GBP3 shipping, I'm not optimistic. I'm hugely excited by this, but still a little confused about the pricing. If I could just get 4 of the GBP29 bricks that would be magic, but it looks as though I'm going to have to pay more per brick to get four rather than one. Or more than four, I keep thinking of new ways to build an interactive diorama for Brickvention. Plans and colours don't matter to me, if I wanted to control one of the listed models I'd DIY it (for that matter I bought a 42000 for the parts and didn't assemble it), so paying for them when I likely won't even download them is pure extra cost. Again, to me alone, I'm not projecting this onto anyone else's situation.
  18. Moz
    The cables will be an issue for a lot of people I think. I have a pile because I build bigger MOCs that need them (and I have some that have been opened and re-wired to make them even longer...) It is probably worth putting on the KickStarter page, IMO, and in an update. I wonder if they could buy a few hundred off TLG at a discount and offer those as an add-on?
  19. Moz
    The first is the special limited-quantity price for the lucky first few backers. They save £11 compared to everyone else. A lot of them can actually save £14 because of the shipping confusion (if they choose not to add the £3 shipping charge). A lot of KickStarter campaigns do this, but mostly the special limited pledges are a lot more limited than this. It's not uncommon to see something that's, say, $99 at the "as many as you want" price to have 25 at $49, then another 50 at $70, then 100 at $90 for you get the "special kickstarter price" of $99. With expensive stuff like 3D printers I've seen a very few do "5 at $499, then 10 at $699, then $999", so if you're around at the right time and happen to refresh just when it goes live you can get one very cheaply. I tend to imagine that those are "special price for my friends" just to get a few pledges in and kick the "$ pledged" up a bit at the start. There's a whole lot of psychology and sales technique involved.
  20. Moz
    The train guys in Melbourne are most excited about this. Exhibitions are a bit of a struggle ATM because with more than a few trains running it becomes a contest to see which remote operates which train. Having 16 channels with 4 motors on each channel should mean that they don't have to worry about it. Especially if each remote can uniquely identify the receiver it's supposed to talk to, which would mean that the 16 channels is per phone, and you could have a whole hall full of phones each controlling a couple of receivers (limited by the bluetooth hardware's ability to deal with congestion)
  21. Moz
    I'm keen. I'm also bugging Mark about options for multiple units. I'd like more than 1, obviously, because I'm multiplexing channels with the IR controllers already. Being able to power 8 motors from the space used by two IR receivers is a great step forward. But to do that... you need two of the SBricks. Maybe I should get four rather than two. Hmm. The problem is that prices go up as you order more, rather than down. Buy one for 29, two for 35 each, three for 40 each... should I expect to pay 45 each if I buy four? It's an excellent choice even though it means I'll have to upgrade my phone. BLE4 is pretty new, so phones more than a year or two old are very unlikely to support it.
  22. Moz
    I motorised it a while ago: http://www.eurobrick...topic=92747&hl= That was surprisingly easy, except for load rotation which needed a second motor input at the end of the boom. So I "had to" buy more parts :)
  23. Moz
    Trouble with helium or hot air is that Lego containers are usually not airtight and their walls are very heavy. You'd probably need to buy all the sails and glue them together to make a full size hot air balloon before it would float, just because of the wall thickness. And you could fuel it with the burning wrath of all the Lego sail fans :)
  24. Moz
    From talking to a Technic designer (Ricco) at brickvention he seemed to think it was complexity and scale. The weird gender-essentialist stuff never came up. If you look at the scale of Technic models they're all over the place. Even just taking flagships there's no "Technic scale", the theme is more "1000 pieces, 2kg, what can we get for that?". Trying to make a couple of models every year that match the figure scale got a bit hard after a while, I expect. Some of the sets with figures were a bit of a stretch IMO. Then there's the cost. Look at the current minifig sets and generally it's 10/c piece plus minifigs, and a lot of the smaller sets really suffer when they have to include too many to make the scene work. But minifigs are simple, a complex one might have 10 pieces. A bare minimum Technic figure has more than that - about 17 by my count. And those pieces have to be assembled, unlike minifigs where half the parts come bare in the bag. There would have to be a real price premium in the market to justify adding Technic figs. But if you look at them on Bricklink, it's just not there. Compare that to some of the rare train pieces, or 8880 and powerpuller wheels. So the accountants are looking at that and going "hard set to design, not widely popular, no price premiums.... not worth it". Ricco seemed to be aware that there are real Technic fig fans and I got the impression that they are discussed occasionally, but there's no way they're going to be produced again.
  25. Moz
    A PSU is not a transformer, so that comment isn't relevant. Somewhere inside the PSU there's almost certainly a transformer, but that's not the same thing. It's like, inside every car is a motor, therefore I can treat a car just like a motor. The PSU will have effectively a "master" output that everything else relies on. Normally this is the 5VB line, since PCs typically draw a lot of 5V current. The design assumption is that "make the 5V rail work, then once that's up everything else can assume that 5V is available". So they make a lot of the electronics inside the PSU run off the 5V rail. If you don't draw much or any current off the 5V rail, some stuff inside won't work properly. Normally you see a combination of ripple and poor regulation on the other lines. I suspect that to kill a Lego battery all you really need is to get the 12V rail up to about 15V for a millisecond of two but obviously I haven't tested this. Send me a (working) battery and I'll let you know :)
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