CP5670

You realize that basic laws of physics are also predictive, right? You are essentially saying that all science is wrong.

Sounds fun. I was actually rebuilding this set myself last month, in order to remove the old friction pins from it and replace them with the modern slotted kind. My built up copy is a 1988 version that used the old pins. I'm not sure what the North American name for this set was. It's called the Test Car everywhere on the internet, but the US catalogs from those years I have call it the Auto Chassis.

That certainly clears up some things. However, I think he is only talking about changes during the last year or two. If you look over a longer period, the box sizes have always been more or less standardized, and that alone doesn't explain why the boxes are so much bigger today than they were, say, 20 years ago. I have a handful of oddly shaped boxes in my collection, but the vast majority fit into one of several standard sizes. I can certainly understand why they moved to a cheap box design. The only surprise is that it took them so long to change it. Although the boxes were actually a good example of TLG's "only the best is good enough" company philosophy of that period, in contrast to what things are like today.

Exploriens in 1996 had a couple of Star Trek references. I think their logo, as seen here, was inspired by something from Trek. The S@H catalog description for the Explorien Starship also said "This menacing starship makes the Starship Enterprise look like a tub toy!" so it would be a little odd if they made an Enterprise now.

The Modulex bricks are awesome. I didn't know of their existence either before I saw this thread. It's interesting that they appear in some colors that did not exist in normal Lego until many years later. There have been quite a few sets in the past, even in the 1990s, that used what would be considered illegal techniques today. TLG only started to take that seriously six or seven years ago.

That depends on which sections you used to visit at Lugnet. As discussed earlier in the thread, some forums here are a lot more populated than others. That being said, EB's activity has already increased noticeably in the month since this thread was posted. I see a lot more posts and several new people in the Technic section these days. It's not yet at the level of lugnet.technic and lugnet.robotics (as they were 10 years ago), but it will certainly get there soon.

The boxes today are actually a bit bigger than the 1990s ones and much bigger than the 1980s ones, which is when they had the trays and cardboard inserts. The largest boxes in my collection are all from flagship Technic sets in the last few years.

This sounds like the usual effect of UV exposure. Take a look at this thread.

These are my top 10: 1: 8868 Airtech Claw Rig 2: 6781 SP Striker 3: 8480 Space Shuttle 4: 8455 Backhoe Loader 5: 6915 Warp Wing Fighter 6: 6399 Airport Shuttle 7: 6984 Galactic Mediator 8: 5571 Giant Truck 9: 4558/10001 Metroliner 10: 8275 Motorized Bulldozer

The old boxes with top flaps and trays were good for storage, but modern boxes are largely useless for that. They are made of a thin, flimsy cardboard and don't contain any trays for sorting.

You aren't going to get viruses just from creating a Rapidshare account, but it's still a highly irritating site to use. It rivals Fileplanet in that respect.

As Matn said, the boxes are made like that to catch attention on store shelves. Larger boxes will do nothing to protect the contents unless they are filled with some packing material like foam peanuts or airbags. In fact, the bags and manuals have more room to move around in large boxes, which increases the chances of things brushing against each other inside. This is why crumpled instructions or sticker sheets are most often seen in large sets.

Those scans are great. I especially like the classic Expert Builder (Technic) models. I need to get some of those early 80s catalogs.

Something is wrong with the text in your review. There are a bunch of unreadable characters for me. This looks like a great set in any case, and is very true to the real thing. This Discovery theme was excellent and it's a pity that it only lasted for one year. I have most of the other sets from the theme, but somehow I never got this one. Now I'm starting to regret it.

Not necessarily. A review can simply be a factual survey of the set. What is good or bad about a set is ultimately subjective, and a review is always going to be influenced by the writer's opinion. There are certainly people who consider anything Lego to be great, at least good enough to be worth buying. I agree with you that the numerical scores around here are inflated to the point that they are useless, but as I said earlier, it won't work any other way unless EB pays people to write reviews full-time. In any case, most reviews here do point out flaws in the sets. The significance of those flaws is a matter of opinion and is for the readers to decide. It should be doable but would be a little tricky, mainly due to the fact that the boom extends. I have a few solutions in mind but can't explain them easily without pictures.

I agree with others that this is not a great set. Like most of last year's sets, it has a few major flaws and I didn't buy it. I don't mind the steering here so much as the fork mechanism. Placing the control knob right there does not make for a proper Technic function and is rather lame to see on a model this size. This is the same problem with 8258 this year, but that set has several other nice functions to make up for it. The reviews here are meant to be more informative than critical, and any scores are always going to be inflated because of the nature of the reviews. Just think about it. There are many sets out there that I don't like, but I generally won't buy such sets, and even if I do, I'm not going to review them. I only have time to review a small fraction of the sets I have, and I could instead be covering my favorite sets. Of course, when everyone thinks like this but has different preferences with sets, you are rarely going to see a score lower than 8/10. I think it would make sense to not have any numerical scores in reviews. I read reviews to get factual information about the model (which is certainly provided here), and then make my own judgments based on that.

That is my favorite picture too. Those three u-joints are a thing of beauty. I may just have to get this set after all. The design seems to be just about flawless (unlike 8258), and even as a parts pack it includes tons of gears and three linear actuators.

I sort most sets unless they are small. It saves a lot of hassle while building the set. Here is an example: I see it more like buying a game and then spending a hour finding patches and driver updates for it. I'm paying for the building, not the part searching.

I think some of the issues you describe are specific to the train controller, which apparently sends out different signals than the usual dual-stick type. You're right that the motors no longer come to an instant stop when you release the controls though. It's interesting to compare this behavior with the 9V Technic battery boxes, where the motor stops immediately if you release the button, but it gradually slows down to a halt if you unplug the motor while it's running. The difference seems to be related to how the motors generate electricity if you turn them manually. TLG had a couple of their own 9V RC systems in the past. The best one was probably the one in 8475 and a few other sets, although the receiver is quite bulky and the system is only good for similar types of RC vehicles.

I'm not interested in this game if it has a subscription fee. It seems to have many nice ideas, but it is an MMO and it is going to have the usual problem with grind-oriented gameplay that all pay-per-month MMOs have. The basic MMO financial model gives developers an obvious incentive to design the gameplay so that it rewards time commitment over any sort of skill. They want to make sure that people keep paying for more time. On the other hand, if it's a standard retail game with a one-time cost, then it may well be worth checking out.

The most powerful motors are the black 5292 RC buggy ones. However, they run at a high speed and building your own, external gear reduction is less efficient than what the motors do internally, so the XL might still provide more torque in practice.

They haven't appeared in Technic for some time now. The only recent set was the Lego Education pneumatics set last year, but it's pretty expensive and is meant to be an addon for the NXT. The last Technic set to include them was 8285 in 2006, although it only had one piston.

Cool video. Although it's strange that they specifically point out the outriggers, which are probably the weakest aspect of the model. I plan to get this and other sets at the Brickfair event in a month, as the Lego store there usually has big discounts at that time. On a side note, it might actually be possible to motorize the crane winch, despite what I said earlier. In principle, whenever you have two independent functions, you can get an unlimited number of functions out of them by having one geartrain act as a switch to change what the other one does, similar to the mechanism used in 8082's forklift. The main challenge would be fitting the whole thing into a small space on top of the turntable, but it might make an interesting mod project for that model.

Nice. I often get currently available sets off ebay too. Things that aren't S@H exclusives can sometimes be a lot cheaper there.

I have seen minor glitches in instructions many times before, although I can't think of that many cases off the top of my head. In some cases, TLG issued corrections for the manuals. The big one that comes to mind is the 8002 Destroyer Droid. The original manual had numerous errors and the set included a 10 page secondary manual full of corrections. My 8856 also came with a corrected version of one step, printed in B&W on a normal piece of paper, although the change was pretty minor.