DrJimbo

That is one slick video. I like it - shows you what is in there without spoiling the build process. The colour is appealing, but 1:8s have lost their appeal to me now, and Ninjago city is taking up all my display room...

Love this set! Got it with a decent discount. Nice figures, baby, loads of seats, doors windows. I modded it to 8 wide so I could fit in 2 rows of seats. Populated with a bunch of speed champions drivers.

A few things seem pretty obvious to me, but not perhaps not to all: basing ppp assessments on sets that include dinosaurs is not going to work - like electronics, they will be outliers; on the other hand, sets these days have a lot more small parts and fewer large ones compared to older sets. I think people also have a hard time having an intuitive sense of the effect of inflation over time. As a kid growing up in Ireland in the 80s, lego was incredibly expensive. There have been a lot of changes in standards of living, disposable income purchasing power, and children's expectations since then. I remember being incredibly grateful when my parents would buy me the 1-2 medium-large lego sets I might get in a year. I would buy medium ones for sure more frequently for my kids now (if they had any interest any more, but hey, I get to buy for myself!) I am seeing Galaxy Explorer as ~€28 rrp when released in 1979 (I suspect rrp may have been higher locally, this is based on US$ pricing on BrickEconomy. That adjusts to ~€150 now with inflation. The Galaxy Explorer redux a couple of years ago was €100 rrp, for many more parts, functionality, and a bigger ship (although no baseplates). All sorts of things impacted this, I am sure. Here is the unpopular opinion: to me, Lego has always been a premium product. It got cheaper for a while and now it is getting more expensive. I think the point about there being fewer bargains is well made - there is a wider awareness of the potential value, and lego is bought up for hoarding. There are fewer 30-50% off bargains than their used to be, fewer opportunities to get a set that I was only slightly interested in at a good price. Personally, I don't get the minfig collecting thing, but other people I am sure look oddly at me, a grown-megablocks man playing with lego. It's all just degrees of oddness.

With all the modern pieces, I find it amazing that I haven’t seen an official Lego seat to match the ones from 8860.

Thanks! It does all sit in my attic, so the nesting goes three layers deep at least. And of course I could just be someone’s simulation…

I'd like to share an MOC I have been thinking about for a looong time (since before the official lighthouse set) and working on-and-off on for a while.. Anyhow, here is my lighthouse: The base contains a power functions battery box, vertically, connected to a switch hidden in the rocks The lighthouse has a spiral staircase all the way to the top, although there is a bit of a squeeze around the embedded power functions switch for the motor. LEDs at the top and a small geared down motor to rotate the lights with a ‘short, long’ signature. The lighthouse keeper has a cottage (the door was the first thing I built). Fireplace, bookcase (he likes nautical novels), radio. Kitchen Balcony from the bedroom. I am inordinately pleased with the 4 piece bedside lamp. Bathroom Working folding ladder up to the attic space, with storage and office. The lighthouse keeper also makes models in his spare time, including ones of … a lighthouse and cottage that look familiar.

I finally finished my aesthetic upgrade: replaced where I could the more visible bits with black or non-yellow axles. I didn't do a full rebuild, but did some fairly extensive teardowns added more gold whirls removed the whimsical flames I am tempted to drill the axle shape out a black double bevel 20T gear, so that I can replace the blue one - has anyone any experience of this?

Thanks! Brass decorated orrery was the vibe I was going for. With the flames around the sun as a whimsical element. Saw some lovely instruments in Greenwich recently.

I replaced a bunch of the easily reached parts with black (or less bright) equivalents - looks good. I might tear it down fully to finish the job with parts I have. Would probably break out the black 3L pins in that case. I also did a number on the pointless white decorative elements. Local pick-a-brick wall had some gold parts that I bought at random without having this in mind. I am a few curly elements short so the other side is unfinished.

I feel this set is not getting enough love. Got it for Xmas, built a bag a day, really enjoying playing with the functions, v doing some minor destudification. It is a thing of beauty (like the real plane), how well it keeps it keeps its shape despite the size. I really appreciate how the stand allows it to be posed in 4 different profiles.

I struggle to see widespread appeal of a grader, although I know there is at least one very enthusiastic proponent. What would it grade? Lots of 1x1 plates/studs wouldn't really work, finer material (e.g. sand - eek) would not work well with lego. I acknowledge that lots of sets don't have great playability with lego pieces as the 'material' to move around. Two of my favourites, Volvo loader 42030, and BWE 42055, don't really work well with lego pieces (both are great with pasta shells). But for a grader, I just don't see a way for it to have good playability.

So I think this is what you get when you pay the lego premium, compared to other manufacturers - not allowing designs that are a bit 'on the edge' (or not really fit for purpose) reach the market, better QC of instructions, and higher part standards - I think there are cases where a 90% good part is not good enough. I'm not saying lego is perfect, people will have their own exceptions for all these come to mind (Perseverance rover that cannot drive over terrain, errors in instructions (but I think usually cosmetic only), colour variation, etc). But I do still think there is a quality difference that is sometimes important to how much I can enjoy the set.

I'm sharing my (very late) review of the Fantasma car. I was quite excited about this set based on reviews, but was let down by the implementation. In theory the variable speed gearbox and the rear wheel steering looked great, but in reality there were too many gears and linkages for the systems to work well. The doors did work, and was very cool, but were really sensitive and fragile, so once they needed any re-work they were difficult to get behaving again. I've seen videos (perhaps in Japanese?) demonstrating these functions working well, but I could not get them going as smoothly, (or for the rear wheel steering, at all). I'm a very experienced technic builder, so found this very frustrating. I think there are a few things going on here, and 2 make me wary of getting future CADA sets: First, and unforgivably, errors in the instructions that meant not all the gears could be accessed in the final model. By the time I found this out, I was too far gone in the build to want to go back. Second, the part quality from CADA is not quite there. It is some very high percentage of Lego quality, and good enough for most purposes, but there is, for example, clutch power variability, and some stickiness I think contributed to the poor functioning. I believe I am an experienced enough builder to make the mechanisms in this one successfully. Thirdly, some functions may be too ambitious - they may be beyond the capability of plastic bricks to implement - I am thinking of the doors here. Fourthly, there can be pointless functions, perhaps to distinguish from some of the recent LEGO Technic sets with too few functions. Here, there was a very elaborate train of axles, gears, etc from rear to front, that when the last parts were in place was revealed to.... wiggle some panels near the front wheels that were only visible from the underside. Hmmm. Call me underwhelmed. Other aspects of the build were interesting, and the final outcome was very solid - the form-locking was incredible. However, I think I am getting bored of sculpting authentic looking supercars out of lego pieces and panels. Anyhow, I leave you with the 'Fantasma' and his little step-brother.

After some disappointing sets and hearing mixed reviews, I ended on the fence on getting this set. But I picked this up for €75, reduced from €95, so clearly didn't need too much incentive. On paper, it was right up my street, as I do like real space-themed sets. What I liked: the build was fine - there is not a huge amount going on in the set, function wise, but there is something in each set of bags. The alternative steering modes are ingeniously executed, I thought. And finally we have a lego model with a decent turning circle. The final model looks fine, and the motion in the arm is good - a bit slow on the non-manual movements. The new wheels look good and authentic, but in practice are a bit frustrating. It can only really move on a flat soft surface (basically carpet). Any obstacles (even a lego stud or slope) and the wheel mount bends back. I guess that is just a limit of the material and the wheel mount design, which can't be any other way on a model like this. It'll be interesting to see how those wheels behave on a more traditional axle. I also have to agree that the lack of info on the model is a big miss. I was lucky enough to get the Cuusoo (as Ideas was) Curiosity rover 21104 (as my return from the dark ages set) and that had lots of extra info in the booklet. This included an emphasis on the suspension, including explaining how the suspension system ensures that all 6 wheels stay on the ground, regardless of the terrain, and even had some bumpy landscape as part of the build to demonstrate this in the display model. This set (42158) has a working implementation of the same suspension, but there is no mention of it, even in the AR app, that I can find. The implementation is good - the central DBG bar is very asymmetric in the photo below, as the wheels on each side cope with the different slope directions. In practice, the model can't drive over rough terrain (except for carefully engineered rough terrain, which kinda defeats the purpose) due to the wheel mount flex issue. The Cuusoo model implements this really well at a small scale, but of course cannot steer. See the photo below for a demo of the two rovers in action. Overall I'm reasonably happy with the set at the price I paid, and good to have another member of the Little & Large club: loaders: not technic: not technic: not all lego:

I second this sentiment.