CP5670

The conversation in the first image is hilarious.

These look great for basic plates and bricks but would generally be too large for most specialized parts, unless you lump a lot of different stuff into one container (or if you just have a huge collection ). I use five of these for storing my parts collection. They aren't perfect but do a lot of things nicely, and I get about 200 drawers total in a fairly compact space. The width of the small container is almost exactly 6 studs, so it's easy to pack them densely with bricks. Their quality has dropped over the years though. Four of mine are from 2003 or something and I got the extra one only last month, but the older drawers are made of a fairly thick transparent plastic and included a bunch of tiles to further subdivide the drawers into sections. The newer ones don't have the dividers included and have a cheaper plastic that flexes easily and is only partially transparent. It's not too big a deal though and they're still the best storage solution I've seen. There are also versions that contain only small or only large drawers.

I've been working on it since last summer. It's only half finished at the moment but should be complete in time for the Brickfair event in August. I was going to put up some pictures in the sticky WIP thread but will be getting a new camera soon and thought I would just wait until then. It's obviously a space model but has some Technic-type construction as well, with various pneumatic and geared functions along with some lights. The main challenge will be figuring out a way to hold the entire thing up once it's finished. The wheels can connect to a round 2x2 brick, so I can just make the same axle go through that as well to keep it steady.

I'm actually planning to use these as parts of thrusters, so I only need room inside for greebles and other random stuff. If anyone's interested, here is what I'm trying to do: (this is a very generic concept model, just to help me keep track of the overall shape and dimensions while I build the thing)

Thanks. I think I can still manage, but it will be somewhat harder. That hole in the middle will make everything work since I can attach stuff to an axle going through it and anchor it on the other side. Also, is the open end of the container flat on the top? (so it should be flush against a flat surface like a wall of bricks) It looks that way in the Peeron picture, but I'm not entirely sure.

Does anyone know what's on the inside of the transparent X-pod container pieces? I'm trying to figure out if you can attach bricks there in the usual way. I know there are studs on the outside, but I can't tell from the pictures if they also have stud receptacles on the inside (like the bottom of a normal plate or brick) or if it's just a flat surface in there. I'm going to buy a few of these containers off Bricklink for my current MOC project, but want to make sure they will work for what I am trying to do.

It's hard to make out much in that picture, but I especially like that spider artillery thing in the front. As for the glued minifigs, they're almost certainly from some exhibit, possibly at one of the Legoland parks. I don't know why they are missing the airtanks though. There is a actually a pretty funny picture in the US 1989 catalog with a hostage situation involving two Blacktrons and a whole bunch (10+) of Futurons, and most of the Futuron guys don't have airtanks. Maybe those came from the same batch.

Looks like an interesting set. I didn't realize the motor controlled two functions through a transmission switch. That's always good to see. I'll probably pass it up though until the price falls a bit. The overall design is a bit too studless for my liking (I think the 8275 bulldozer has a much better balance of studded and studless pieces), and the wheels somehow look too small to me. I also have something of a backlog at the moment; I still need to pick up that bulldozer along with the 8421 mobile crane (on ebay).

I use the same kinds of stacks with the 1x1 plates and bricks along with all types of slopes, since those are easy to put together and pull apart, but not with most other stuff. The crisscross thing he's doing with the larger plates looks cool but I don't think it's very useful as far as saving space goes. I mainly just do this to save space though. I picked up a new pack of drawers a few days ago (I use a couple of these for storing my spare parts stash for MOCs), so I might not need to do it anymore. I haven't noticed anything like this in practice. If anything, some my older pieces actually stick better than the newer ones, even after being joined together for many years. The Flextronics produced pieces from the last year don't stick as well as the TLC manufactured ones did. However, I think I know the the cause of the long-term damage you're describing; it's not actually caused by leaving the pieces together, but by removing them in a certain way. This is especially common with plates. You have to distribute the pulling force from all sides fairly evenly, and pull them outward instead of doing it at an angle. It's important to note that TLC's own brick separator (this thing) actually removes bricks in the worst way possible. If you remove two plates with it, it will create slight but noticeable deformations in the top plate, since the studs of the bottom plate dig into the plastic of the top one when they are removed at an angle. These will grow larger after a few such removals and the piece will no longer accept studs perfectly right anymore. I stopped using those brick separators when I realized this a few years ago. The deformed bricks are especially bad for Technic models, where they prevent axles and stuff from rotating smoothly since the bricks aren't aligned exactly right anymore. There are other, better ways to remove the plates that don't cause this damage though.

Looks pretty good. The wings should be a bit larger though. I think changing the wedge plates on the top to 4x4 ones should do the trick. I've been a huge fan of the Descent series for many years. I practically grew up on D2 in the mid 90s and still play the games every now and then. Unfortunately, the 6DOF style of gameplay pretty much died out after D3. Interplay recently stated that they want to start work on a new Descent game (among other things) if they can get the funding for it, but it won't be happening right away given their current financial situation. On a side note, the Warp Wing Fighter (6915) looks somewhat like the Pyro GX too.

As long as Bionicle is selling well, it obviously makes sense to keep the line going. That means there are still a lot of fans out there. I've never been interested in it even though I'm a big Technic fan (actually, I think it should have a separate subforum from Technic/Mindstorms, as they have almost nothing in common), but that's just me.

Nice model, and equally nice presentation. What motor are you using there? I've tried to make such fans in the past, but they never turned out powerful enough to blow any significant amount of air. Although the last time I tried building such a fan was probably 10 years ago, when we only had the old, ungeared 9V motors that are much weaker than the various modern motors.

I use LDView too. POVray has better quality, but the rendering can take a long time with many steps. You have to use another program called LPub to give them input in the form of the individual steps. I wish MLCAD's internal renderer was better though. The program is excellent otherwise, but the software renderer and its dithering look like crap. There is another, similar program called Leocad with a much better renderer, but it doesn't run off the Ldraw parts library and the selection of parts is more limited.

These two do look like separate pieces, but I think small variations in the minifig heads are normal. TLC's printing with the heads is not very consistent and you'll often find heads where the printed face is aligned a bit off center, or where the printing is thicker than usual. This has always been the case, going back to at least the mid 80s. It's actually a good thing in some sense, as it means that many minifigs look slightly different (just like real people ).

I don't know exactly how long my major ones will last, since I haven't taken apart any yet. The rocket launcher is now five years old, although it has been upgraded in the meantime. In general, if I need new parts, I go over to Bricklink or buy more sets off ebay instead of disassembling anything that is built. I have had a few smaller MOCs that I generally take apart after a month or two, as well as big projects that I abandoned halfway through after deciding that they wouldn't work out well. This especially happens with Technic ones, where it can be hard to predict how well all the mechanisms will work in advance. I remember I was making a large truck (using the 8880 Super Car wheels and done at the same scale) in 2001, but scrapped the project because it became too heavy halfway through and no amount of suspension was holding it up properly. I still took some pictures before ditching it though.

Wow, I'm going to feel like a complete idiot if this has been there all along, especially since I've been using BL for seven years. Thanks a lot for the tip though. I kept looking in the advanced search and the catalog but couldn't find anything like this there.

I'm following each and every one. :-) Just been too busy to post recently. I like the appearance of the funky Dacta guys too. :-D

Yeah, it's certainly understandable why they did it, but bad for box hoarders like me. :-P

I'm in the same situation as you; I have this set but missed out on the newer 8421. This was a great set for its time but the 8421 definitely looks better to me. I've been trying to find a good deal on it on ebay but it's pretty expensive, considering that it only went out of production last year. The box designs in general are crappier these days than they used to be 10 years ago. You don't see the old "featured parts" trays anymore and the boxes don't have the different sections either (these also acted as internal supports for larger boxes, so they were less prone to being crushed). The cardboard material is also quite a bit thinner. I think it's a result of TLC's overall cost-cutting moves since then. Most people toss the boxes and probably don't care, but I keep all of them. There was actually a time when the boxes used to be even stronger. I have an old 8859 set and the outer box is made of a hard, styrofoam material, although they probably stopped using that for environmental reasons.

This is very cool. I've actually seen a number of those illegal techniques on official sets (often on the extra models on the back of the box), so they must have become more stringent with it only recently. I tend to be quite picky about this in my MOCs too and don't use any connections that could weaken the model. The one on pages 5 and 6 seems okay to me though; the "illegal" one actually makes the assembly stronger without putting stress on anything. The Super Street Sensation uses two particularly bad illegal connections, with a 1x5 Technic plate connected to a 1x5 liftarm. I got this set when it came out, and to this day I haven't been able to separate those pieces. :-P There are also some models that don't have anything illegal, but still have pieces arranged in a way that damages them over time. The 8466 4x4 Off Roader is one example, where the suspension isn't quite strong enough to support the weight of the model and the front shocks become bent over time. This is easy to fix by adding a second yellow shock on each wheel.

I wish the game was coming out on the PC. They're releasing it for just about every platform out there, including some pretty obscure ones, but not the PC. :-(

This is some serious self-ownage. :-D [edit] hmm, seems like that smiley is gone from the list. Was it removed from the forum? I liked it. :-P

I love their instructions. :-D Back on topic, for those of you who buy a lot of stuff at once like I do, don't you wish there was a way to search for multiple parts at once? The lack of any way to do this is something that always annoys me about Bricklink's search engine, since it means I have to spend hours trying to figure out which stores carry which things the cheapest. It would be a huge timesaver if you could enter in several different pieces and the site would find the optimal store (or combination of stores) for you.

Same here, this is a brilliant concept. :-D

I used to have this happen frequently many years ago as a kid. I remember I made a large Technic helicopter (mainly from the space shuttle parts) that worked well but was flimsy and fell apart a day after I finished it, which took a few weeks. Another one was a large, airplane-like spaceship that was built on baseplates and had no strength whatsoever, to the point that even trying to lift it off the ground made it fall apart. I remember I used to just slide it along the carpet and pretend that it was flying. :-P I started putting far more effort into making my things strong over the years though, and most of my recent stuff is pretty durable. I know that rocket launcher in my signature can easily take a moderate fall without any real damage. I do end up avoiding certain building techniques I see other people using in favor of strength, but I think it's worth the tradeoff.