CP5670

This piece (and the two other steering parts that went with it) was used in almost every small set in the 90s. They formed a simple rack-and-pinion steering assembly. I haven't found many uses for these things outside of that though.

These would be my choices in the categories provided: Best design: 8868 Airtech Claw Rig Most complex/best functions: 8480 Space Shuttle Most revolutionary: 8094 Control Center (numerous innovations with the programmability, model concepts and mechanisms) Most underrated: 8446 Crane Truck Best small set: 8259 Mini Bulldozer Great, but forgotten: 8839 Supply Ship My overall all-time favorite is 8868, followed closely by 8480 and 8455. The 8043 excavator has not been officially released yet, but it looks like it will be right up there with these sets.

Do they look under-saturated and/or slightly translucent? The collectible 8683 minifigs, like many other sets with special numbering or availability, are produced at a separate TLG plant in China. The minifigs in those special issue sets have been the subject of many complaints in the past, but as far as the 8683 minifigs go, people are saying that the quality of those has improved a lot. I don't know how they compare to the minifigs in standard Lego sets though. I don't have any of them myself yet. TLG reverted to in-house production in 2008 in the sense that they simply purchased Flextronics' factories. However, the problem here was not caused by outsourcing but the use of transparent ABS pellets, a change TLG made around the end of 2006 and continues to be in effect today. These have led to inconsistent opacity and saturation levels in various bricks of certain colors, including minifigs. There is plenty of evidence of it right in this thread. Look at the pictures people were posting a few pages ago. There have been a variety of quality issues in the past too, but the 2007-08 period was easily the worst in Lego's history in terms of how widespread certain problems were. There have been several improvements made since then, while other issues continue to persist. TLG remains some ways off from the quality standards they had in the 90s, for example.

Very nice. These models remind me of the concepts and building styles in the old Universal sets.

Wow, nice. I didn't expect that set to come with a cop too. I'll probably put him in the base though, which is about one minifig short anyway.

This setup is more or less what I was expecting, with two geartrains going through the turntable using an 8258-like setup. This is increasingly looking like the best Technic set we've had in years. It feels like an AFOL-designed model with the amount of functionality and gearing they have packed into a pretty moderate space. As Zblj said though, the lack of clutch gears is surprising, especially on the motor switching the transmission rings. That motor is going to stall frequently with the way the gearing is set up. It may be worth replacing the 16t gears with an 8t and 24t clutch instead.

I first thought this was just a troll thread, but after reading his next post I think he's actually being honest, which makes the thread even funnier.

This issue has been around on and off for a long time, although it doesn't seem to be as widespread as some of the others. I have seen it on large plates in the 80s, and more recently on a variety of smaller 1-wide plates as well. I haven't had the cracking minifigs or slopes myself, but they were mentioned by other people here a while ago. However, I have definitely noticed an improvement with minifigs in terms of color quality, at least the minifigs in standard sets (not sure about the ones in special numbered sets). The yellow and white parts on current minifigs look noticeably better than the partly translucent ones we were seeing in 2007 and 2008. It's a pity that other types of bricks have not followed suit though.

I've seen this argument from TLG before, but it only covers half of the picture. It only applies to committed buyers who want the extended train at any cost, and it is true that TLG will make more revenue from them by not offering a standalone carriage. On the other hand, many casual train buyers (which always outnumber the hardcore fans) will simply decide to not buy the set at all if they think that a single carriage is inadequate. That's more or less what I did. TLG's reasoning makes more sense for sets like the modular town buildings, which work very well as standalones and don't necessarily need to be expanded, but the Emerald Night with its single car suffers from the lack an expansion set much more.

This a very clever and unique model. I'm especially impressed by how well the vehicle holds up the bridge on its own end while deploying it, without falling over or dropping the bridge.

Good advice. I almost never buy anything on release, and often wait several months until I find a good deal on the set somewhere or if it's about to get discontinued. My set backlog (things I've bought but have not opened) is huge and I never have any shortage of sets to build. If I'm thinking of buying a set (that is, say, over $30), I always read any reviews of it carefully, both on EB and on Brickset. I also look over any photos and try to determine what kinds of quality problems are present in the set. In general, I only buy the sets that I really think are exceptional today, and pass on most of the "pretty good" ones. That being said, I will be buying a lot more stuff this summer than I have done for the last few years. There are simply a lot of good sets this year. As for hunting for old sets, that was my main way of getting Lego up until 2007 or so, through ebay and Bricklink. I've cut down on it in recent years, both because I have now acquired most of the classic sets I always wanted as well as the fact that I haven't gotten around to building half of them.

If your model is not remotely controlled or you're simply testing it, the best solution is to use one of the 9V AC power sources, such as the train speed regulator, control center or original RCX, along with a PF adapter cable. Alternatively, you can rig up a 9V transformer to a normal battery box with a little work. As Sariel said, the voltage of alkaline batteries drops to 7-8V after only moderate use, long before they die out. I avoid using batteries whenever possible and always like to run models off wall power instead, even if I have to use long cables to hook them up.

It's good to see some detailed pictures. I'll be picking up the police station for sure, and probably the limo as well.

I have most of the old space flagships of the past (all but 497 and 6980) and I think the Galactic Enforcer surpasses them all. It really combines the best aspects of many of them into a very solid and feature-packed model. Among the old sets, my favorite flagship is the Galactic Mediator. I like its space shuttle-like shape and it has a big interior, although it's a little sparse on detail inside compared to some of the other ships.

This doesn't entirely explain it. Several parts that were previously made of other plastics (not ABS, but not this waxy stuff either) and have no obvious sharp edges have been changed to this material in the last year or so. Metal detectors, shovels and brooms are a few that I've seen or heard about. Actually, it seems that the problem is not only caused by the plastic itself, but also the dimensions of the tubes that the minifig hands clip on to. These tubes are too thick on some parts made of this material, which creates an excessively tight fit in minifig hands and sometimes results in their outer layers being shred off. Also, some of the pointy parts are still sharp by Lego standards. I believe someone actually made a thread on the sharpness of the Atlantis tridents in the general section, back when this problem first surfaced. I don't. This particular problem with the minifig accessories is fairly recent and may well be resolved at some point, but there are other issues that have been going on for years and TLG apparently has no intention of ever fixing them. Remember that if people aren't picky about these things and don't complain about them, TLG has no incentive to improve anything.

My favorite is the SP Striker: This set arguably had the best implementation of the old 9V lights, and looks very sleek and heavily armed. Some of my other favorites are the 6939 Saucer Centurion, 6915 Warp-Wing Fighter and the 5974 Galactic Enforcer. Among small sets, I like the recent 5981 Raid VPR a lot. Despite its size, it has a fully enclosed cockpit, and includes great figures. The colors and parts selection in that set are excellent, but I think the model itself is actually the weakest of the SP1 line. It's large and has some cool features but feels quite hollow and empty inside, especially compared to the SP2 and SP3 flagships.

I haven't actually taken any videos of it, although that might be fun to do at some point when I have time. The model is pretty old now, but I still have it built.

Is it higher than the light gray one? The light gray gear requires much more torque to slip than the marked dark gray one. If the unmarked gear is beyond even that, it's certainly not a straight replacement for the marked version.

The early 80s set catalogs are pretty hard to come by anywhere. Aside from Peeron, you might also try the collections on Brickfactory and Duke's Nostalgia. Scans of the big S@H catalogs and club magazines are much harder to come by than the set catalogs. I would be interested in seeing those too. I've only seen one on any site, a US 1989 one on Peeron. I have many of these catalogs but only from 1996 onward.

Yes, these gears are unfortunately not marked separately on Bricklink. The 1997 versions with light gray centers are quite rare, appearing only in 8479 and possibly the earlier copies of 8735. I don't have any of the unmarked kind myself, but some people have reported getting them in recent sets. They seem to be identical to the marked dark gray gears in functionality, with only a different external shell.

This is the main problem I see with it. I was thinking that 3 or 4 of those USB controllers might make a cool manual control setup, similar to the Control Lab Interface from the 90s, but at $45 for each one the price is absurd. It makes much more sense to just get the usual PF IR units instead.

Excellent model, I especially like your mechanism for hitting the launch switches. This is also the first full-blown MOC I've seen with that differential CVT system, and it looks well implemented.

This is the main reason why Lego as a serious investment seems pointless to me. You need to factor not only the storage required, but also the time it takes to first buy the sets, then later advertise them on ebay/BL and finally package and ship them. It seems like a great idea to get a $150 Green Grocer and sell it for $300 after 2-3 years, but now try selling 30 GGs like this, one at a time. It would be a huge time commitment. I have a few Lego sets I've been meaning to sell but have been putting off doing it for years. One of them was a spare MISB 8466 that I had gotten courtesy of a S@H glitch several years ago. I was planning to sell it on ebay for a long time but never got around to it, and eventually decided that I would rather just keep it as it has a lot of good parts. If you're willing to put in the time though, it's not a bad way to make some spare change on the side. As you pointed out, these S@H exclusive sets have appreciated much faster in value than ordinary Lego sets. Although that might not last in the long term, since if a lot of people start buying up those sets for reselling purposes and the overall demand goes up significantly, TLG will increase the supply to compensate.

Yes, it's always great to see Technic functions like this in System sets. 7470 had a working landing gear system too. All NASA stuff is in the public domain, so they could have used the logo and names if they wanted to. Although I do like that classic space-inspired logo they used.

After seeing the picture, I have mixed thoughts about this set. It seems smaller and less detailed than 7470, especially around the back. The stacked slopes on the tail fin look pretty generic compared to the cool slope pattern that 7470 had. The boosters and tank are a very welcome addition, but like someone else said the parts they used for the tip look a little strange and not quite round. I'll probably still get it if the price is around $100 and the quality of the white pieces isn't too bad. I like anything related to real-world space. I wonder if it has a satellite inside, like all the previous Lego space shuttles did. I don't like that either. It looks like it should be easy to switch them out for a 4x4x1 cockpit as used in 7470 though. It should be kept in mind that TLG has changed the scale of City aircraft since then. The best City-scale space shuttle was arguably the Launch Command one (appearing in 6339 and 6562), but it was in line with the size of planes back then. I think this new space shuttle is about the right size considering how big the modern Lego planes are.