CP5670

I need to make a post like this at some point. I have numerous obscure pieces from the late 80s and 90s.

From looking over several sets on Peeron, I have wires of lengths 9cm, 13cm, 26cm, 34cm, 52cm and 128cm. I think you're referring to the last kind, which is generally only used for connecting models to an external power source. That seems to cover everything I can find on there, aside from a few that are off by 1cm here and there.

This is actually something I wanted to do originally, by using flex cables to connect the switches to the fiber optic geartrain so that it would slowly launch them while the lights were running. I ended up dropping the idea after a few attempts though. There wasn't enough room for the gear down mechanism without making the launcher look very bulky, and it was frequently making the motor stall too. It would probably have been doable if the model was a bit larger and used the large RC buggy motor (which I didn't have at the time) instead of the gray gear motor. I wonder what sets the others came from. I believe I have only six types in my collection, but there are several of each kind.

There is a lot of overlap between these two themes, especially with MOCs. (which is why I've been saying for a while that they should be in the same forum category here ) Another example of this is Lasse D's Coca-cola truck, which even has a mosaic.

I think that's what he wants. There is probably no simple way of doing this, given the wide variety of box art templates that TLG has used over the years. The people who make them do so from scratch in Photoshop or the like.

Anything by Dennis Bosman. He has been building for a long time and is very prolific. This one is especially impressive, both in terms of size and functionality. Beat Felber has also made several great models in a similar style. The Liebherr wheeled excavator is my favorite one. The Jennifer Clark link you posted seems to be broken, although I have seen some of her models in the past. He also has a nice car built from only the Silver Champion parts. I've built mine into that and like it better than the stock model, especially its smoother suspension.

Thanks, I'm glad you are enjoying your copy. I tried to include everything I could think of that would be reasonable for a vehicle of this size. You can actually see the entire pile of gears in the last picture. (although it was taken during the upgrade and has many parts that are no longer used, like the blue stuff) Your render is awesome and the background fits it very well. It just became my new desktop background, in fact. It might also be interesting to try adding in some sort of bloom or lens flare effect around the transparent parts, maybe just on the 2D image itself. Yes, all of those changes are how it should be. I guess I messed up a few things in the ldraw file. I was also thinking that would look better. I used white ones since I don't have any of the earlier sets with the gray kind. Some (non-Technic) sets in the last few years have also come with them in black, and I have been seeing them on Bricklink lately. They might work even better. That should work too. I did it the existing way mainly because I happened to have a longer wire available. The wiring is generally similar to what is done on the 8480 Space Shuttle. The ldraw file contains comments next to some pieces that give additional information about them. I numbered the wire ends that way and roughly described how long the wire is (among the five or six standard lengths of 9V wires). Note that the platform is fairly easy to remove by disconnecting two of these from their pins, if you need to adjust anything under it. I did this many times while I was building it.

(continued from a discussion in the Technicopedia thread) Thanks, that could be very useful. It may be a while before I get around to it though. I will need to examine each step carefully and compare it with the actual model. I made a large number of adjustments everywhere that were mostly very minor, but they added up in the end. Those must be some seriously detailed fiber optic cables. I will try turning that off and see if it helps. Yes, I realized that too during the upgrade since I was rebuilding parts of the model from the instructions. They resemble 8865's dense instructions and should probably contain about twice as many steps as they do. The front should be held up by two of these, which are anchored on the inside by half-bushes. These parts look deceptively like bushes in many of the pictures. It is worth noting that I used the type I half-bushes (pre-1994) in this place and a few other spots around the model. I don't remember if I distinguished between them in the ldraw file. These had much more gripping power than the later ones. As for the wire, if you're talking about how it passes through here, there should be a two plate gap between the bottom of the platform and the stuff beneath it. It is also held in place by an arch brick in the back, and the plate under the arch should just clear the worm gear beneath it. This prevents it from clogging the other gears near the worm.

(click the picture for the full gallery) This model is several years old and was my first "major" MOC project. The concept was loosely inspired by the M270 MLRS, although the final model doesn't have much in common with it. I rebuilt it last year and cleaned up the design a bit. Hinckley had suggested to me a while ago that it would be good to create EB threads on any older MOCs, so here it is. Here are some quick facts and an overview of the functions, copied from the info file there:

I moved my reply to the other thread. It might make more sense to continue this over there.

That would look very impressive. Send me a copy when you're done. There were some spots where I removed unnecessary structural elements to make room for mechanisms and the ldraw model might not reflect that. I don't really remember where I left off with it. I would be happy to answer your questions or take additional pictures. (although some of the gearing is hidden fairly deep inside and would be hard to get a picture of) I tried to get the hoses in once through LSynth but could never get them to look right. They always came out as a series of disconnected ring-like bits instead of a single, contiguous piece. I was probably doing something wrong though. This reminds me, I was going to make a thread on this MOC a few months ago but forgot about it. Now might be a good time.

This is an epic thread.

Anything with a lot of humor. The Ronald time travel story and the M:Tron bar brawl stand out for me.

Wow, that looks great. You're giving me an incentive to fully update that model now.

I haven't been following this regularly but just spent a hour reading the last 30-odd comics. The whole fictional universe here is quite impressive and has a lot of depth to it by now. I love the humor everywhere. The Ronald profile was one of my favorites. Does he play with Lego too? Galanos and Schwartz immediately comes to mind there, but they're mixed up so maybe that isn't it.

I only have the Mobile Outpost among those sets, which is very well designed and includes a lot of equipment. It goes pretty cheap on ebay too. As someone else said though, there has to be something from Ice Planet in a such a list. The Deep Freeze Defender would be the obvious choice for me.

It looks nice, but if I'm going to download a file I would rather just get the model itself and look at it in LDView. I think the existing gifs do the job fine as a quick preview.

This was the model, although it looks like he modified his a bit. I have the instructions but don't have a scanner here. The extra model is prominently advertised in the US 1991 catalog, but I can't find any other references to it. Yes, that connector is another piece that breaks quite easily. TLG experimented with several designs for it over the years before settling on the current one.

They used to use pre-colored ABS pellets but moved to clear pellets two years ago, adding in the color during the molding process itself. The uncolored ABS is apparently cheaper and it was part of their overall cost cutting strategy in the last few years. It should in theory be possible to get the same kind of color with the clear pellets, but they haven't been able to get it right. There are indications that yellow became bad before the other colors though, possibly as early as 2003, so that might have been due to a different cause. TLG actually claimed to have fixed the yellow a few months ago and brought it back to its old level, but we will have to wait some time before the new yellow becomes widespread in actual sets.

It looks like he became frozen after running into the cave, where it was presumably very cold. As I said earlier, the previous pane in that catalog shows some Blacktrons running into the cave entrance with the Space Police in pursuit. Maybe they're going to hand him over to them.

I think that is generally the case between most TRU and Target stores, from what people say on EB. I tend to buy most of my things off ebay (including currently available sets). The sales tax around here is on the high side at 7%.

Another nice overview. I think 1991 was the first year that they used air filled tires (on the Shock Cycle) instead of the hard foam ones. There was also an interesting "super model" promotion that year with 8024, 8815 and 8820. The two latter sets came with an additional instruction booklet, which allowed you to combine the pieces from all three sets to build a sports car. As you said, the flex cables were never widely used and even when they did appear, they were often used as simple liftarms. I think the 8485 dinosaur is the only model that truly showed what can be done with the system. One issue with the Whirlwind Rescue is that the rear wheel hubs seem to break over time. I have had mine on display for 6 or 7 years and both of the rear wheels are cracked in the same spot. These wheels are only supported from one side and tend to sit on the ground at a slight angle, so I modified their supporting joints in case that had anything to do with it. Have you experienced this with yours? That hub piece was prone to cracking in general, but this is the only time I've seen it happen on a display model. (and there are heavier models with it like 8480 that have no problems) I also have a broken one from the 8839 Supply Ship. I tried using some superglue at one point, but the bond wasn't strong enough and it broke again quickly. Unforunately, I lost the small end piece at some point and wouldn't be able to try again.

That was a great read. I generally prefer darker colors with space sets but still liked this theme. As you say, the colors fit their "cold" environment well. All of their sets had a nice variety of minifig equipment too, like the skis and ice saws. The DFD has a lot of unique ideas. What I especially like about its modularity is that the alternate ships actually look very good. There were other space sets with many removable sections but it was rare to be able to make something good out of them. They could have done more with the ship's rear section though, which has a lot of empty space inside even with the small ship stored there. I modified mine to include a small control center. This set was also surprisingly cheap when it came out ($40, as opposed to $60 for the similarly sized 6984). The base was somewhat underwhelming though. It was decent, but I think almost all of the other themes' bases are better than it. Yes, this was quite a strange release, and it wasn't marketed as an Ice Planet set at all. I wonder what they're going to do with him. The previous page in this catalog shows him running away from the Space Police into the cave. Also, I copied the theme description from the US boxes if you're interested: And here is a short piece from the US 1993 catalog:

Those engines turn very smoothly considering that they run on pneumatics. The pistons' strokes must be aligned perfectly. Although the design is otherwise fairly simple and it would be a lot cheaper to build your own.

Some of those were probably from an older production batch, before TLG switched to clear ABS pellets in late 2006. It's common for Bricklink stores to stock both types of pieces. The color differences are especially glaring if you look at identical pieces from four or five years ago and compare them to current ones. This is something that consistently annoys me when I open new sets these days and has really diminished the fun of building new sets for me. Some of these pieces look just like megabloks, and when I first got some in a BL order in early 2007, I thought they were in fact a clone brand that was copying the Lego logo. EB is a great place and certainly the most friendly and open Lego forum I've come across, but I put Bricklink above it as realistically, none of my larger MOCs would have been possible without it.