CP5670

Well, the pneumatic parts are individually quite expensive on BL, especially the small pump and piston. As you said though, the airtank isn't really necessary and it's possible to make a homemade version of it. You only need one pump for the whole system. Multiple pumps will speed up the pumping rate (especially if they're part of a double-acting compressor), but don't add any functionality beyond that. I was thinking of getting that Lego Education set myself since I really want the manometer, but I have plenty of the other parts and don't want to buy the whole thing just for that. The BL prices for it are too high though. If you end up buying the set and find that you don't need the manometer, I could buy that piece from you and help defray the cost of the set, if you're interested in selling it. And I like your P's everywhere.

In that case it may in fact work nicely. The pneumatic pistons give you powerful and reasonably fast motion, although they can be slightly jerky and are not that precise. That is a great setup, and it actually uses that obscure Control Lab interface to run the whole thing. I'm tempted to get one myself now, even though I know of its limitations. The airtank and a compressor are separate things though. With the airtank in place, you first build up air pressure in the tank (either by hand-pumping or running a compressor) and then set a switch to release air into a piston. You can continue flipping the switches several times before the tank's pressure runs low. Without an airtank, you do it the other way around instead, first setting the switch to your desired position and then pumping to create the pressure. This is the best way to do it regardless of whether you're using a hand pump or a compressor. To be honest, I'm not convinced that the airtank is actually a good thing, at least not in every situation. There are both pros and cons to having it in a pneumatic setup.

All you really need is a pump, switch, piston and some tubing. The T joints are needed to link up multiple pistons or switches, but they're common in non-Technic themes these days and are easy to come by. The airtank can make movements smoother but is optional, and the thing Sinner posted is something you don't want. The only reason to use the old pneumatic system is its suction ability. If this is for your big humanoid robot though, you are probably better off avoiding pneumatics altogether and instead using LAs with normal motors. Integrating pneumatics into the NXT system is complicated and hard to get precise movements with, although it's possible.

Great concept. The size is quite impressive. Are you planning to animate the arms?

Same situation here. The airtanks are super expensive on Bricklink these days. If you need an entire set of pneumatic parts including the tank, the Lego Education pneumatics set at $55 is probably your best bet. As Sinner said, the distribution block and the one sided pistons are part of the old pre-1989 system, which is generally inferior to the new one.

Great guide. Interestingly, your Brasso looks different than what I have. There may be multiple, distinct products under that name. I use this kind of Brasso frequently to clean up hairline scratches, especially on transparent parts, but it's a brown, watery substance that you can't spread on the parts directly without making a mess.

I don't see what everyone is arguing about here. If you like Halo and you think these MB sets are good, you can simply buy them. Brand loyalty is stupid. If the set designs or quality are not up to your standards, then ignore them and make your own Halo models out of Lego instead. There are numerous Halo MOC designs out that you could try to emulate. If you're like me and not a fan of Halo, then you have no reason to care either way. And yes, Halo is quite popular among kids, more so than most other FPSs. There will certainly be a market for these sets. As a longtime PC FPS gamer, I don't find the Halo series that impressive at all, but the reality is that it is one of the most popular games out there. As for TLG's unwritten "no violence" rule, that was effectively dropped several years ago, at least as far as the licensed themes go. TLG will decide whether to produce new themes simply based on how much profit they ultimately think they will make, taking the license/production costs and market demand into account.

Well, I think the scale is the good aspect of the new planes. The old planes look good but are way too small to be commercial jets, even by Lego scale standards. They are even smaller than most train cars. If the new planes actually had interesting and customizable designs, without using all the huge parts, I would be sold on them.

You are probably right. The medium one is already quite a bit more powerful than the older gray 9V one, and the only place the XL has a clear advantage over it is for making large vehicles move. It's a good thing you can still buy them separately though. Yes, the LAs are nice but I wouldn't want them to replace pneumatics altogether. That truck is actually the sort of set that would have been better with pneumatics, which would allow you to control all the crane functions from the truck chassis itself. The Lego Education set is nice, but quite expensive for what you get. You are essentially paying for the manometer and airtank with it. I looked at the picture again and I see what you're talking about. The winch control should have at least been on the base of the crane arm instead of having it up there. To be fair though, the only way to make it fully motorized would have been to have the motor on the turntable itself, which would be bulky.

That "piece" is more of a promotional extra than an actual part, sort of like the UFO mask in 6999. A few other sets included similar kinds of play surfaces, but only in certain versions of the sets (the 1728 Crystal Crawler is another example). There were also identical versions of these sets with different numbers, which didn't include these things. From that point of view it's not so bad.

I would like to see planes of a similar size but made of mostly standard parts. It should certainly be doable with all the curved slopes and wedges we have today. The planes from the last few years are big and look great, but the huge specialized parts have deterred me from buying them. (particularly the single-piece wings)

The truck and other vehicles are great. I like how the trailer is actually built from bricks, unlike the single-piece trailers that have become common in recent years. There are a lot of minifigs for a set of this size as well. I never had this set myself, but I remember one of my friends had it. The shuttle itself looks kind of crappy compared to the newer Launch Command one though, or even the one in the 1682 set from the same time. It's too short in length and the proportions of the wings and engines somehow don't look right. That appears in numerous sets actually and is quite a useful piece. TLG never really made a new version of it unfortunately, when they switched from the finger hinges to the click hinges.

There isn't really any way of finding out for sure. Sets will typically be around for at least a year, but beyond that it's hard to predict anything. If you see something over a year old on S@H that you like, I would advise you to just buy it quickly. It may not be there a few weeks later. Some sets are easy to find on ebay after being taken off S@H, but others aren't.

Very nice. The pictures are large and detailed too, unlike most leaked images we get. As I thought earlier, the front end loader seems to be very similar to the old one, except with (non-motorized) LAs instead of pneumatics. The most fascinating set is the big truck. The crane arm has two degrees of freedom (two LAs are visible) along with the winch itself, and the whole thing is on a turntable. I wonder if they actually have three independent geartrains on the turntable. This is impossible to do with current pieces (you can have at most two, using a differential) and something that Technic MOCers have wanted to do for a long time, so it would be interesting to see what they did there. Of course, it's also possible that they just took the easy way out and made the winch manual powered. I can't tell how many PF motors and switches it has. My guess is at least two of each, since you wouldn't need switches at all if there was only one motor. Maybe one controls the four crane functions and another powers the stabilizers. Steering seems to be front wheel only, but we may also have an engine given the size of the model. One nice thing about Technic sets these days is that engines are more common than they used to be in the 1990s. The one downside I see on some of the models is a bunch of those cheap panel pieces instead of beams, the same kind that we saw on the Hauler.

They can certainly be used, but the problem is the concept itself. The only reason you would ever use such things is for the sake of using them. They are just collections of many smaller, standard bricks molded together for a specialized purpose, and add no value at all to the Lego system. Some of the other pieces people have described are of very limited use, but they at least do something you cannot do with other pieces. That can't be said about these chassis things.

Any of the chassis parts used on the town junior sets from 1997-2002. Here are some examples:

Thanks. Yes, the Invader is very nicely designed, although I'm not sure I would call it noble. It looks more like it's ready to cause trouble.

I love Blacktron 1 as a theme too, just not that particular set. BT1 probably had the most "evil" appearance of any of the bad guy themes.

You're probably referring to the newer Aquaraiders line from 2007, which was in fact sold internationally. There was a small theme of the same name in 1997 that was restricted to US/Canada. I agree that this kind of regional release makes no sense. Even for AFOLs it's annoying, since it makes the sets more rare and in short supply. You can really notice this with the Unitron sets on ebay, which sell for a lot more than anything else around their time period. It's good to know that we won't have the same situation with these new themes though.

I don't think the Renegade is that impressive. It looked great in the pictures but I was rather disappointed when I got one myself off ebay. It has a lot of details on the exterior, but the overall structure is flimsy and there is very little interior room, not even enough space for the second pilot. There is also the same issue of holes in the cockpit as this Battrax. I made a modified ship using the same basic shape instead (it's in the link I posted earlier). The best Blacktron 1 sets for me are the MIB, followed by the Invader. The Invader is small, but has a lot of features and is just about flawless for what it's supposed to be.

This is one set that really benefits from mods. I think the stock model has a couple of flaws, but they can all be fixed pretty easily. As you said, the cockpit is full of holes and should have room for a second guy given its size. I also thought the rear-mounted guns looked strange, so I mounted them on the wings instead, as seen here. That makes sense. The catalogs always have them shown with the visors up. The funniest part about this is that Blacktron wasn't overtly evil when they originally came out. They actually seem to be cooperating with Futuron in the 1988 catalogs. However, when the Space Police came out in 1989, they got pissed off and started attacking the Futurons and destroying their monorail. TLG decided to make them the bad guys only at that point.

Beautiful model. I love how it has the fine details of a minifig-scale city model but is fully functional at the same time. This kind of thing should probably be cross-posted to the Technic section as well.

The innuendo here is hilarious. I've noticed the black/red 9V motors give off a slight metallic odor if you run them for a while. I think all of them do this though.

I never noticed anything with the PF parts in the 8275 Bulldozer. However, the plastic is indeed something lower quality than the standard ABS. It's not as shiny and the studded parts (like the IR receivers) don't seem to fit as well over standard bricks.

It has happened before, although there has rarely been any logic to it. The Blacktron Renegade, most of the Unitron line and all of the Roboforce and Aquaraiders sets were US only. On the flip side, the entire 12V train system was Europe only. That could be. There have been quite a few cases where they released the same sets in some countries a year after other countries.