CP5670

I like the sounds the treadmill makes as it speeds up. We need Lego motors that sound like that.

I also have the European 1991 catalog you refer to and it does indeed have all the big sets. The US 1991 catalog has the same cover, but the largest set shown is 8856 and the big sets from previous years are all missing. Whoever designed the US catalogs back then seems to have been clueless about the Technic product line. When I first saw people talking about an "Airtech Claw Rig" on Lugnet in 2000, I thought it was some alternate name for 8443 or 8479. At some point, I checked the Lugnet set directory to see what they were talking about, and created an ebay account immediately after what I saw there.

I'm referring to the booklet-style catalogs that were Technic only (although a few also included Model Team), basically the ones shown on that site. The "pages" were only included in the smallest sets and were folded up like a map. There were also the general Lego catalogs in other themes, which included a few pages on Technic. The US and UK/Europe Technic catalogs usually had the same covers, but the contents were sometimes different.

Many of the largest Technic sets from 1989-1994 seem to have been poorly advertised in the US, even though they were sold here. As a kid, I closely followed all the small catalogs included in sets, but I didn't know about 8862, 8094, 8868 or 8082 at all until I saw people discussing them on Lugnet many years later. I have the 1991 and 1993 US Technic catalogs and the regular Lego catalogs for all of those years, but none of them show these sets. However, the UK/European versions of the same catalogs do show the sets prominently. The same applies to 8880 and the 1994 catalogs, although I knew about that one from the larger S@H catalogs. I was curious if anyone else had the same experience with these sets and catalogs. I think TLG stopped making different localizations of the catalogs after 1995, so this was no longer a problem.

Or the rest of the world, for that matter. It's certainly the largest Technic vehicle I have seen with a powered drivetrain. Technic vehicles of this size typically don't move on their own. All the super cars placed on it give a good sense of its size.

I think the light gray helmets are from early Castle sets, not Space sets. The gray airtanks in those Space sets also seem to be used as detail elements on vehicles rather than actual airtanks, but I can't tell for sure. People have made custom classic Space minifigs in various other colors though. Here is one example.

According to this thread, you don't actually need the overpriced Lego 10V transformer. A common 12V transformer will do.

Have you tried using a torsen differential like this? I don't know if they work well in an actual model, but they are used to mitigate this issue in real life.

We already have a 24t idle/clutch gear in a sense. It's part of the differential. They just need to make that into a separate piece.

There is a discussion about that issue going on here. What TLG can do legally is honestly not clear to me. The confidential stamp means nothing in itself. However, EB does have its own rules on posting such images. I don't agree with them personally, but we have to abide by them. Linking to the images is fine as far as I know. Back on topic, it's obvious now that the small LAs do in fact work. I believe TLG is thinking of LAs as a replacement for pneumatics at this point, in which case it would be logical to have small and large versions of them. I can think of many uses for those LAs.

That phrase came from the PC/console gaming world and is in widespread use over there. I certainly wouldn't say it applies to this set though. It does have fairly unique features, although the "super car" name is misleading. I probably won't get it myself though. I try to limit my set purchases these days and only buy the sets that I think are truly exceptional, as I have a huge backlog with sets I have bought but not opened.

That sounds great. The existing ones did seem to have an issue with this, even in other sets.

The point about bootleg brands seems to be another argument that doesn't hold water. For one thing, it remains very simple for the bootleggers to find the pictures if they really wanted to, given how easy it is for us consumers to do so. The bootleggers also tend to go into different markets than TLG (as their products would be banned in most developed countries), so they don't need to release their copies before the Lego sets come out. Most of the leaks and discussions I've seen this year were quite the opposite. People were talking about various intricacies of the sets right up to their release. For example, nobody was entirely sure how the 8043 excavator worked until it was released, and there was lots of speculation on how its mechanisms might be laid out. I would think TLG would want this. I see your point about the exclusivity creating hype, but that would be an argument for intentionally leaving one or two major sites alone and going after the others, which is not what you see TLG doing.

SP3 is a better illustration of the opposite point. Everyone in the SP3 2010 thread was looking forward to 5984 and 5985. If anything, the leaked images created extra hype around those sets and lots of speculation about the minifigs they came with. There are plenty of other examples of this too. I think SP3 2009 was actually better received on EB in the leaks than in the final products, some of which were disappointing. The preliminary images are more accurate than people would like to believe. There have been very few cases of substantial changes being made between the preliminary leaks and the final products. The vast majority of sets come out with at most minor (and in many cases no) changes from the leaked images. I can't recall ever seeing such an image and then being truly surprised by the final product.

Great review. Despite the odd scales, all three models seem to have had quite a bit of thought put into them, which is rare to see. I especially like the tow truck, as the level of detail on it is comparable to Model Team. I was planning to get this set for sure when I first saw the previews, but this is why I eventually ended up passing on it. There was another review that complained about it too.

Looks like the service is available here after all. I'll need to try it out. I would not expect the service to be good for large bulk orders of generic parts (Bricklink is the way to go there), but it sounds like a good bet for specialized elements such as pneumatics or LAs. There are many such things that are expensive on Bricklink and not available on PAB.

I think TLG's approach to internet marketing is naive and that they are missing opportunities by covering up leaks instead of using them to generate hype. However, I don't necessarily like or dislike TLG for this. They are a business and trying to maximize their profits, and as a consumer I don't really care about their profits. I personally like to see the pictures in order to plan out future purchases, and it always remains trivial to find them despite TLG's efforts. Also, I'm not sure whether TLG demands pictures to be removed, or simply asks them to be removed and website owners comply (but could choose not to). I don't know if TLG actually has any legal authority to take the former action. Their beef is with whoever leaked the pictures in the first place (and presumably violated an NDA), not random sites who subsequently propagate them. I do know that product leaks like this are common in other industries. I frequent some computer hardware forums and we get leaked pictures showing up there all the time, and no company tries to fight it.

I like how you're approaching this. As you said, the weight difference is far too small to be noticeable, but you should probably try it with minifigs of the same color. There are generally minor differences in brick weight due to the colors. The texture does seem to be slightly rougher than regular minfigs, which may be the reason they look less shiny, but I'm not sure if you can just feel that without looking at it visually. For the color and opacity problem, only minifigs in certain colors will be affected. I don't think you can measure it objectively using household equipment but it should be easily visible in a picture taken with the right kind of lighting, alongside a regular minifig of the same color for comparison. You should see something similar to this:

I would like to know more about this too. Has anyone done in it in the US? I have heard of people doing this in Europe but am not sure if it's possible here. Some specialized parts such as LAs are apparently much cheaper this way than buying them from Lego Education, which is the only other official channel to buy them from. That is a different program called Lugbulk. I don't think it's related to this.

This is a remarkably clever design, especially how you did the wheel angles. It moves quite fast for a holonomic platform too.

I don't think Peeron is a great site for instructions anyway due to its slow loading speeds. Brickfactory is more comprehensive and loads faster, and for sets from the last 5 years or so, you can always just go to the Lego customer support site. On the other hand, Peeron is still good for catalog scans, as some of those are not yet mirrored on any other sites. (the ones on Brickfactory are often different)

Does it matter where or how they say it? It is the company's official line either way. If you call up any company's customer service and ask them what their product quality is like, what do you think they will say? Marketing (and that is what that mission statement is) can never be accepted at face value. If you think TLG has any extra "responsibility" just because their website says something, then if anything you should be even more annoyed at them for any low quality parts.

There was an article profiling TLG as a business posted here at one point. The TLG CEO said in it that the corporate culture had to be shaken up to make the company profitable again, and one of the things that was changed was the extreme attention to and pride in quality that they use to have. They still care about quality, but not to the extent that they did 10 or 20 years ago. I need to see if I can find that article again. Obviously, you wouldn't make a good marketer. Every company says they have high quality products. This is for each consumer to judge, not the company.

Lugnet's "forum" seemed to be essentially a newsgroup engine with a web interface tacked on. When you made a post, it had to go through your email and the newsgroup server, and the whole process took a few minutes. It wasn't really what we call a forum today, and even in 2000 I thought that the system was clumsy and outdated, as regular forums based on commercial forum software had started to come up by then.

I have been building many of the old Universal models recently, after Technicopedia's descriptions brought them to my attention. Do you have any plans to add the alternate models for non-Universal sets to the site?