CP5670

I was thinking the same thing. It may be worth trying to modify it to use only one actuator, and see if that improves anything. We did in fact meet briefly, although I didn't realize you were a poster here. You showed me and a few others standing around the tractor's functions on Sunday. That was an outstanding creation.

This is a good feature. I'll need to add a few lines to my profile too. As for the search issue, one solution is to embed the Google Custom Search panel into the forum, and leave that option open for guests. This is done on a lot of other forums these days. I would like to see the search time limits for registered members removed though, as I've said in the past.

This is a nice model but I'm going to pass on it. I like the boosters and the NASA minifigs, but the shuttle itself is less detailed than the 7470 Discovery shuttle, especially the tail fin and satellite. The cockpit also looks really cramped; it would have been better to have one minifig sit behind the other.

It's too bad people are having trouble with this set. It could be that the model is very sensitive to any friction in the geartrains, and you have to build it exactly right to get everything working. We've seen a few cases of this in the past. I'm still in two minds about the set due to its US pricing, which makes it a remarkably poor value by Technic standards even if you leave aside these functionality issues. It reminds me of 8485 back in the day. I was planning to get one at Brickfair at a discount, but they had run out of stock by the time I got to the store.

That seems more credible to me too, especially the cost reason (studless beams don't need an expensive 4-sided mold like studded bricks do). I'm just repeating what Steve said.

There was a Q&A session with Steve Witt of TLG at Brickfair a few days ago, and a few questions came up about Technic that you might find interesting. One guy asked about the future of pneumatics in Technic sets. Steve said that TLG wants to make Power Functions the main focus of the Technic line, and hinted that there won't be more pure pneumatic sets in the near future. However, he did say that the company is interested in exploring possibilities of combining pneumatics with PF in some way. Someone else also asked why TLG moved from studded and studless construction over the years. He said TLG wanted to move away from Technic bricks in general because as the holes in them don't have the exact same height as some other bricks that have studs on the side. Trying to connect the two leads to a slight height mismatch and an illegal assembly. Apparently TLG was not as strict about having different part specifcations compatible in the 70s as they are today. On the other hand, he said that they plan to keep putting Technic bricks in other themes.

Brickfair ended today. I had a great time as usual. There seemed to be significantly more MOCs than last year, and we had a corresponding increase in the number of visitors as well. I put up all my pictures here (when moderated). The Bulls event was a bit of a mixed bag though. You had to stand around for hours before they let you in and the event apparently went on until 2:30, although I left after one round. I picked up a Grand Emporium there, which was great, but didn't find any of the sets I was actually planning to buy. When I went there again the next day, they had sold out of all the regular copies of those sets too. It was an interesting experience, but in the future I will probably just go to the store earlier in the day and stick to the 20% discount.

I'm leaving for the area tomorrow and plan to get to the event around 9:30 on Friday. I think that should be enough time to set up my MOCs before Arthur Gugick's talk. Perhaps we EB regulars could get together at some point during the event. Send me a PM if you're interested in meeting up.

They're referring to the E-motor, not the train motor. You can alternatively just try the 9V RC motors, which are still widely available on Bricklink. They run at 900RPM and actually have a bit more mechanical power than the XL motors. They have an odd shape that's hard to fit into models compared to the PF motors though.

I don't use LDD much but do this sort of thing regularly with the LDraw-based programs (MLCad and SR3D Builder). I don't actually build the entire model in the program first, but I make a rough outline of it so I can visualize the overall shape of the whole thing before I start building. This is especially useful for large models, or models where you're trying to build a replica of something at a particular scale.

If you think about it though, single rear wheels make more sense for a Lego model. A Lego truck doesn't actually haul heavy loads like a real one, so the front wheels will be carrying more weight and the rear ones will have relatively less weight on them. I tend to stick to single wheels on my models just for cost reasons, and TLG seems to do the same with official sets. The only big Technic sets I can think of with doubled wheels are 8285 and 8436.

This is like 5571 on steroids. The chrome parts really give it an eye-catching appearance.

This set is nice enough and is certainly better than the other trains we've gotten in the last few years. I don't like the curved roof pieces though. They make the cars look disproportionately tall given their length. This can be easily solved by selling the cars as S@H exclusives only, instead of having them on retail shelves. The lack of extension cars is one reason I don't plan to buy the recent train sets, and have only gotten a few train sets in the past.

This is very nice. I like the style of your models in general. They're packed with fine details everywhere, but make no attempt to be studless and still look like Lego.

Thanks, guys. There were in fact some track packs. This setup consists of track from 6990, 6991, 6921 (track pack), a second incomplete 6991 and some switches I got off Bricklink. I've got another 6990 I haven't opened yet, so I plan to add the stuff from that to it at some point.

BUMP I built another station for this over the last week or two, and added a motor on the Explorien radar array. Here's a video of the latter. The pictures of the whole layout are now outdated, but I will be adding one more station and a bit more track soon, so I'll just update them when everything is finished.

Very cool ideas. I especially like the sub diorama as others have mentioned.

I can't even see what is wrong with that. It might make the tracks dirty, but is otherwise harmless.

This is something that has changed over the years. At one point (2000-2005 or so), ebay set prices were consistently much cheaper than on Bricklink, but today it varies a lot. It seems like there has been a new influx of ebay collectors who don't know about BL. As a general trend, I think used sets are still cheaper on ebay, while MISB set prices can be all over the place. The famous, "high demand" MISB sets are often more expensive on ebay, while lesser known, "low demand" MISB sets are cheaper on ebay. There are many exceptions to this though.

I don't have this model yet, but this does sometimes occur with the idle gears if the geartrain is very smooth. One way to fix it is to add a very small amount of friction to the geartrain by adding a rubber belt or extra gears somewhere. I did this sort of thing here, for example. (the 1x1 round plate rotates freely, but the rubber belt's tension is enough to keep the gear still when it's not engaged)

Yes, you're supposed to register first and then pay. Send an email to Todd about it. They should have all the Paypal records and can match up the names. I don't know if you will get the name badge and other stuff at this point though.

I actually ignored the issue back then, thinking it wouldn't affect me. I figured that the old gray parts would remain on Bricklink for a long time and most of my set purchases back then were old sets off ebay anyway. It has become more of an issue for me over time, as the old gray supply on Bricklink has dried up. The majority of gray in my collection is still the old kind, so I end up sticking with that for my MOCs. I think the two grays can substitute for each other as long as you don't use both in the same model. However, some parts only exist in one color or the other, which I find is especially an issue in Technic models where you need both types of parts to achieve a certain functionality. This method can look good on historical or post-apoc MOCs, but it really depends on what kinds of things you build. I like to build Space and Technic models that are supposed to be pristine, as if they just rolled out of the factory, so it obviously looks bad there.

I have the same issues on the Army Men jeep, but it's not quite so extreme. That 1x2 handle plate looks horrible, although I think the camera flash in that picture is making it look worse than it really is. I have generally cut down on my Lego set purchases since 2007 and only buy large sets under some kind of discount these days (typically the ones at Brickfair). The bad quality is something I take into account when deciding whether a given set is worth buying or not. A set today has to have better design and a higher parts-to-price ratio than it did 10 years ago for me to buy it.

I'll keep that in mind. Maybe I have to plan for two trips there. I guess I could go to the store during regular hours just before Bulls, but at that point I won't know what will be available at the sale. It's probably too much to hope for that they will have the specific sets I want in damaged box form. At this point, I'm more interested in the novelty of the whole thing. The Bulls event is something that people talk about over the next two days, so I want to see what it's like at least once. And yes, the event is supposed to be at the Tysons Corner store this year. That is the main reason I'm going this time.

Good choice. He's one of the most active posters there and starts lots of interesting discussions there.