Stereo

The box logo's in the top left, so diagonally that way works better a lot of the time, though that's another way of saying the same thing, why do we write left to right?

I'm pretty sure it's half pins, with the spoke and wheel parts both being half-thickness pinholes. They mount alternating sides. I can't tell if the wheel piece is symmetrical or if it's also offset to one side so that the two together create a 1 stud thick "beam" shape centered on the wheel.

~30 stud wheel/tire is enormous, might have some interesting GBC applications depending what it looks like under the tire. I like how it uses 12 spokes so it can just go onto a pair of the classic pulleys turned so their holes are 30° different.

The latest ones I have that it does catch on something are the Koenigsegg and Lamborghini. The Bronco and Jeeps of course nothing is that low (it only sticks up 2 studs) That new Mustang's 17 wide so it might just not fit... lower deck's also exactly 17 wide.

When I add new categories I sort it as I look for pieces for something. Like recently I split up my 1x2 modified tiles into subtypes, because I was looking for white 1x2 curved slope with left+right corner wedges. So now I have 1x2 tile with textured top (grilles, slope grilles, ingots) and 1x2 with curved top. Probably get through 60% of the sorting before even finding the pieces I wanted. In general I keep my pieces in a few places, plates+tiles in one stack of drawers, modified bricks+other in another, Technic in a third, basic bricks in a fourth. So when I'm dealing with unsorted Lego due to buying new stuff or taking a build apart, I split it into those categories and then deal with each over time. The basic bricks don't come up a lot in most builds, so I sometimes go through multiple builds before putting them away, and store them in less accessible bins. If I do need a bunch of them I can grab the whole bin and put it in front of the stacks of drawers.

I guess now's a good time to doublecheck that I understand the part equivalence. A bricklink 5306bc036 is 36 studs long, including the plug ends, so 32 studs of wire = 256mm = Fx 9402, right?

Two new buckets at the same size, right? About 3x3 end size, with 2 pinholes for connection, vs. the old larger 5x5 (3 pinholes) and smaller 2x2 (ratchet joint)

Those curve bricks for the headlights don't look terrible, but I don't think I would have chosen white. They're obviously glass over chrome on the actual car, so if not transparent, maybe LBG would look better? 90 degree corner panel on the Dodge front end is cool. Makes the "toilet paper roll" family of panels even more versatile.

They did add this ~5 stud piece (1mm larger) Wheel 68327 in the time since this thread started, in some situations it could be helpful to transition down to regular 4 stud round parts as they fit in the hole.

Mostly no real difference when used as spur gears, but the thin bevels are probably a bit worse as bevels. Larger also better, I've pretty much only had 8 and 12 teeth gears skipping as long as the engagement's ok. With less ideal loose engagement, spur gears might work better, but it's going to be still quite easy to skip.

I suppose you could probe your layout for good feed locations by running a battery-powered (or push) train with a multimeter connected to power pickup wheels. You'd just short the feeder at the power supply end, instead of connecting it, then measure resistance. A dynamometer car that just passively shows the voltage across the rails could be interesting too. Might take a bit of running to get used to interpreting it.

It depends on what things cost, but I expect my minimum order specific to trains is the power pickup axles and track connection wire, so I can combine it with PF remote control. Most likely IR receiver onboard the train, for DCC-like behaviour, but if that turns out to be unreliable (no idea how much the receiver tolerates gaps in power for maintaining speed settings), wall power into the receiver into the tracks is a backup plan. Aside from being what's available first, it just makes more sense budget-wise to continue to use the working PF motors I have. Though I suppose for this specific task there is one thing - the PF 9V adapters don't connect to the "constant" side of the PF plug, which is what the IR receiver input needs. Obviously the workaround is just wire my own adapters the other way. So I might also order some short FX wires to get spare 9V plugs.

The weird thing is it's right next to a brown 1x1 Technic brick with a stud stuck in it, so they obviously know there are other parts available... why is it a headlight brick? I have heard that Technic brick pinholes don't line up with SNOT, but... surely that's a smaller problem than what they did do.

My optimist outlook is that the cars are easier to leak because people recognize them. The heavy equipment names don't mean as much and the sets look more "the same" (eg. if we get another Volvo, it'll likely be black and yellow).

https://rebrickable.com/parts/6596/tyre-816-x-142-motorcycle-z-racing-tread/ Really looks like the same size as these tires (~10 stud * 2 stud), interesting. I wonder if they'll use them in black for a motorcycle. Windshield is I guess dual molded with bars at the end. Stuck into half-pins.

I used about 1/10 of the stickers on 42125. That's about the main upside of stickers that I see. Mix and match instead of going to fully 0 or everything that Lego decided needs a print.

The boosters also swing out on an arc, they could be counterweighting it in the 'up' position.

Slipped my notice until now, but 42678 Pet Accessories Van (Friends theme) is using a Technic shift drum to wag the van's tail in an uneven pattern, driven by the back wheels. Funny part usage.

All the differentials should be about the same for wheels going opposite directions, since they use the same 12t bevels. The gears might not be slid into place properly inside it. I think when assembling it you want to drop all 5 in, have the one on the open side be floating loosely and centered, and then put the cap on. It has enough friction that a wheel won't spin indefinitely like it would if it was just an axle connected to nothing, but usually easier to turn the other wheel than to move the drivetrain.

8 small sets in the same colour is interesting, would have thought they would make them look a bit more different. I guess it's good for people designing 8x combination MOCs. To me it looks like dump truck, cement mixer truck, bulldozer, wrecking ball crane, excavator, front loader, truck crane. I can't see the 8th one, maybe another truck like the dump truck.

I think it's because of the red gears that float on the driveshaft, if you hold maximum steering, those are pressed against the axles and increase friction a lot. (both within the gear and the beams it passes through in front/behind) Zero Ackermann also contributes though, the front tires are scrubbing quite a bit if it's on a smooth floor.

Ah, but what if it's the modern Dodge Chargers from Fast 5, that they used to move the bank vault? (I know, it's going to be Dom's from 1st movie)

Well, if it was car transporter scale, it should be wider than the car transporter, not transported on it. Since it's bigger than most cars. The previous minifig Tumbler was about 14 studs wide with 4 of the 3-stud wide truck tires (which I hadn't realized have a truck tire tread until the GT40 got car tread ones).

The Technic subforum's light theme broke for me today, a lot of white-on-white text. The Dark theme's text is too dark for me to comfortably read in a lot of spots, but I don't normally use it so I can't say whether it changed.

The blue-violet's somewhere between sand blue and sand purple, interesting. I hope it gets enough part usage to be able to have it as an accent on general builds rather than needing to use the specific 20 pieces.