F0NIX

Together with morty at Brikkelauget we even made this switch better. Here is the picture of the one I made, and it now show a bit better what parts that are used.

Oh! You just beat me to it! I recently bought both the Maersk train and the Maersk boat. The boat had a lot of nice Maersk blue bricks and I immediate was thinking of making a loading crane and building with those bricks from the boat. I just have to add that this was a really nice container terminal

Excellent work! Those look just like the real thing! I have an uncle that have a few DS's and I just love the design on those cars. Here in Norway they go under the nickname "padda", that means "the turtle" because of the shape :) Do you have any instructions / LDD-file / MLCad-file to share so the rest of us can build one?

Thanx! You are correct. As I said in the first post: I'm not sure of the exact scale as I don't have the measurements of the real building (yet).

Thanx for all the nice comments! Now the pressure is up for making the neighbor building just as nice as this :) About the entrance, there is actually three of them in the building. One down in the basement, two on the first floor where one of them is the brown door on the long side of the building. The owner say that one is not in use anymore and is just an window in the office. The other entrance in the first floor also serve as an entrance to the apartments on the second and third floor.

I also get the inspirations from the CC-style buildings. And I use a "sandwich" type structure like in real buildings. Plates as ceiling, 1x bricks between and plates on top of that again. The bottom plates could be light colored plates, I like to use white to emulate real ceiling plates. You could also use two layers of plates, but that would not make it as strong.

Sorry for not presenting the images of the real building in the first post. You find more of them on the Mocpages link here: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/265080 There are even more detailed images of the interior on Mocpages. But I will put up a few here on the forum. This are from proximate same angle as the two pictures in the first post.

I have built several building from my town Tromsø up to now in LEGO. It started with a strangly formed roof from our old cinema (now rebuilt to a library), just to see if it was possible to make in LEGO bricks. Found out that almost everything can be built in LEGO bricks :) Then I made a few other building from my town that had a special design; Ishavskatedralen and Polaria. After those I was hooked! Then I wanted to model a building with more details and made an model of really old cinema building; Verdendsteateret. After Verdensteatertet I was searching around in my town to find a new project. I have now decided to model two private residence in my town. Both building is built and designed by the same mason master that also lived some years in this particular building I am presenting here. The neighbor building, nr 16, I am going to build later, I'm just waiting for the parts to arrive. A fun facts here (that I just got after I started building this) is that these to buildings is designed by the brother of the designer of the old cinema Verdensteateret I had made a model of earlier. This particular building I am presenting here has not too much details on the outside, so I was concentrating on the windows and wanted to build them as accurate as possible. That resulted in a bit large scale. It is a bit larger than minifig scale, even if the interior is built in minifig scale... This is the most interesting view on this building. The corner window is one of the most interesting part. But I also had a lot of fun to try to make that roof and the drains. The other side of the building. The wire you can see on the left side is going from a battery compartment down under the lawn up to the LED in the ceiling on 1st floor. Since the building had so few details on the outside I tried to make more details on the inside. The owner of the house was so kind to offer me some sketches of the walls on the inside, so layout and the function of the rooms is close to how the real house is. Here are a few shots of the interior (click on image to see a larger version): More pictures of both the outside and the interior of the building can be found here: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/265080

I would not say it is a design flaw, but it is not a good design. Anyway, I found a mod to be able to turn the batterybox on and off without removing any bricks at all. It is realy easy and you only need 4 extra technic parts. Look at this thread for more explanations and pictures: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=54320

I remember someone asking how to mod the train so you dont have to take of that top part to get to the powerswitch on the battery box. But I could not find that post again. Anyway I have done it, and it was actually very easy. And it can be done with various type of parts to get to the same result as I did. Here are some pictures: This first picture show the train with the modified switch. It is not easy to see at all. But all you have to do is press on the back on the second fanmodule on the roof to turn the batterybox on and off. This second image shows how the construction is in the train. Sadly I used black parts so they are not so easy to spot. Maybe this picture shows the parts better. After taking the pictures of this I also quickly found 4 other variations with diffrent parts, but the overall view of the mechanism are the same. The 1x2 technic brick is there for holding the construction at the right angle so the tip hit the button and dont turn sidewise and hit beside the button. It is important to remove the gray 2x2 round plate with axle hole for this mechanism to work. If it is difficult to see the pars I can take a new one with gray parts.

Awesome! I'm going to steal the idea with that little Luxo-lamp on the desk. That was just so simple but yet so effective! I love that little Millennium Falcon too :)

Well, I just had to make a quick one here too :) It looks like a container at least? Sadly it can not hold big items inside... but the rules did not say how large items it should be able to store :)

As I told you on the Brikkelauget forum, this is an outstanding creation. I, as many others here have said, like the color scheme too. And the balance of type and number of details in the exterior (and interior) on this building makes it very realistic too. Do you want me to come over to install some lights in there too? :) Have some spare LED I can install for you.... Do you have a overview shot of the building from behind?

Every Town need some vehicles. Thus a car MOC that is designed to be in a town could be posted in the "LEGO Town"-subforum. If the car is more specific for a theme like the Racing theme, then post it in the "Other LEGO Themes"-subforum. Is it a larger Technic based car, then it should go into the "LEGO Technic, Mindstorms & Model Team"-subforum. But you will always find a gray area, like a 8 wide street-racing car built with some technic parts or functions, where should it go? I say put it where you see it fit best. Just my opinion...

Captain Becker, first you need the cache name where the minifig is hidden, then you go to Geocaching.com and download the GPS-position for thet cache and enter it into your GPS. Then go out and search for the GPS-position you have entered. When on the position, search for the box. Open box and take minifig (if not someone else have been there before you). You can ofcourse read the logs at that cache to see if anyone have grabbed it before you. But it could still be gone just hours before you get there. So there is no way of knowing for sure that it is there before you go out and search :) Geocaching and LEGO is a great combination. I do both :) I have tried some combinations on a few of my caches. At one I put in the pieces for a little set (#7424 Black Cruiser) in a ziplock bag. Then I instructed the finder to build something of the set, take a picture of the creation and make a part of a story that I started. Then the next visitor could build another thing and add to the story. Unfortunately, some parts got lost and the camera was damaged by some water. The story can only be read in the logbook in the cache. I also had another cache with similar task and it was also a set from the Orient Expedition series, but don't remember which set that was. After 3 years in the forest, most of the parts got lost. Another funny Geocaching-game is the Travel Bug (TB). There you pick up the item with the TB-tag on it (it is a little metal plate with a number on it) from the cache. Then you take it with you and put it in to another cache that you visit. Some TB's has a mission, and you are supposed to help it on its mission as best you can. Normally the mission is to travel from one cache to another. Some may have a mission of going as far north as possible (I have seen a lot of those in my region). Some may have a mission to visit a special place, be taken a picture of at that location and then travel back home. I have even seen logs of minifigs that have traveled around the globe several times. And now we have both geocaching and LEGO in space too. :)

The tan house is very nice and very realistic. It seems like some old buildings that has been refurbished a few times after it was first built in the 1800 or early 1900. And now latly it has been modernised and are used as a Sport shop. The large windows and the signs above the large windows makes it very modern. I also like the laundrey-line.

Hello, I have just tried out some new window designs for my LEGO buildings. They are all inspired by buildings from my own home town. First test. Here I used 4 of the "headlight" brick for a window in the top left and right corner. Second test. Here I cut some thin bands of the white part on a used LEGO sticker. Thus it is still "LEGO" and it is easy to remove and does not harm the window glas. Pictures of those window designs can be seen on a white house I just built for testing out the window designs : http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/232784 Here is the third test I've done. This type of windows is used a lot around in my town. As you see I have used the same technique here as on the small 1x2x2 windows. I hope LEGO will make some "Window 1x4x2 Flat front" in the future.

Depending on what you want to put onto that perf board, I would try to not use a circuit board at all and just solder the components together. A 2x4 LEGO brick is not big and just the thickness of a normal curcuit board is a little over 3mm. I'm also intresting in a realy small inline connectors. I know of ways to make a realy small connector, but it is not "foolproof" and has no +/- directions. I am thinking of using connectors like these: http://www.computercablestore.com/High_Density_HD_D_Sub_Pin_PID157.aspx . They come in male and female versions. They are realy small and if you use some crimping insulation outside the lead it would work very well I think. I will try those out myself anyway as I have some avaiable at my work. I do not know of any good coaxial wires beside the one you get for audio cables. If you have a RCA to RCA audio cable that has two small coaxial cables joined toghether, you could try to strip some of those. But I found those too large, and the "FKUX 0.08" wires I'm using is a lot thiner than a standard audio coaxial cable. The FKUX is less than 1mm in diameter.

I will try to put something around the LED that will dampen the light so it get a bit softer. But I will also try out some LED's with other more warmer white color, but they are a bit harder to find in the 3mm size that I need. What do you mean "just buying the LED parts alone"? This is no LEGO lights, they are custom made. I thought that came out clear in my descriptions... I bougth some standard 3mm LED and soldered the leads and the resistors on by myself.

Thank you! Yes, as you say the light temperature on those Ultra Bright White LED's is a bit "cold" and bluish looking (color temperature is about 6500 Kelvin). I just bought those for testing, and was the only white LED's I could find in my town on short notice. I want some more warm white color for the next LED's (color temperature around 3000-4000 Kelvin). The bluish looking LED's would problably look very nice as headlights on a car or vehicle as they look more like todays Xenon lights for cars :) I am thinking of buying some LED's from either Besthongkong.com or Elfa.se. But it is hard to find LED's with a warm white color in the 3mm size.

Thanks for the comments. To clear up some confusion about my choice of resistor value: first of all I was calculating using 12v supply (even if 9v is working fine). And with 12v I should use 440ohm, but then again it is difficult to find in a standard value so I selected the closest I could find in my drawer with various resistors, and it was a 470ohm 1/4w resistor :) This is the formula to calculate the resistor: R = (Vsuplied-Vdiode)/Idiode = (12v-3.2v)/0.02A = 440ohm. Or you can use this page: http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz there you even get the color-code on the resistor. (It automaticly select the closest resistor value from the E24-range). The wizard also select a bit larger power (watt) size on the resistor. The LED need 20mA and 3.2v to light up. The current will never exceed 20mA as long as it is working in room temperature. And to calculate the power (heat) in the LED you can use this formula: P (power) = V (volt) * I (Current) = 3.2v * 0.02A = 0.064W. And that is not much at all. I have run the 5 LED from a 9V LEGO battery box for three days continous up til now and I can't feel any heat at all from the LED's. They keep a steady room temperature. The power generated in the resistor is: P = (9v-3.2v) * 0.02A = 0.116w. And even with 12v supply it is only (12v-3.2v)*0.02A= 0.176w, and still far away from the 0.25w tollerance of the resistor. So heat is no problem. (The resistor is not inside a LEGO-brick). And for those who are afraid of drilling up their lamp posts, it was actually a lot easier as I first feared :) I started first with this type of setup: A 2L axle into a PF XL-motor, an 2x2 round brick with axle hole on to that axle, and then I could mount the lamp post on to that round brick again. The 2mm drill bit I secured in a small vice. Then it was just a matter of pressing the powered motor and rotating lamp post on to the drill bit, slowly. It seems like it mostly found the center of the lamp post by it self... well, when you used it carefully :) But that worked too slowly so I used a battery powered drilling machine instead. Of the 110 done so far there was only 8 of them that I was a bit unlucky with and the drill bit got out on the side. But those was not too bad either, the hole is still completed from top to bottom and the damaged area can easy be covered with some white paint on the leads and no one will notice :)

Not sure where to put this msg, but since it is mostly house and street related I put it in the Town group. I have for a long time wanted to put som light in the LEGO town. And had for a long time ago figured out how to do it, teoreticaly... Had to collect enough courage to make some modification to some LEGO bricks. Normaly I try to stay away from that. But I have bougt 200 lamp post 2x2x7 (part 2039) in white, trans clear minifig heads and 2x2 radar dish, to complete the construction. Then I took a 2mm drill and made a hole from top to bottom. Bought a 3mm LED (this was a 3.2v 20mA 2000mcd Ultra Brigth White LED) and some thin wires. I cut a 9v LEGO electric wire with connectors in half and soldered a 470ohm resistor in series on one of the lead from the LED, the other straight on the other 9V leads. This is the final assembly: Here is a sample image from a little "town" scenario: I even tried putting a LED inside the chandalier (translation? Lysekrone in Norwegian) in the Grand Emporium set. More pictures can be seen here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=449085

Have anyone testet the new NXT DC Rechargeable Battery Item #: 9693? What is the diffrence from the old NXT Rechargeable Battery Item #: 9798? Does any of the battery packs take damage if used with the 10V DC Transformer connected for a long time? I want to use the NXT in a display at events and such, but also want to be able to have that rechargeable battery option so I can use it without connected to a transformer at other times. Or is it better to make my own box for continous use of DC transformer for longer periods? I was thinking the battery packs may work like an UPS when the DC transformer was connected to any of those rechargeable battery packs and the NXT was in operation... Any thoughts and inputs?

Thanx for the barcodes! I have now testet a program on my iPhone that can read and decode the barcode and show what minifig is in the bag. "i-nigma code reader" is a free app for your iPhone, just download it from App Store and run it, it uses the camera to read the barcode. I have tested it on all the barcodes and after just a few seconds it show a webpage with the correct minifig name! Great! Now I'll go out hunting some minifigs! :D

Changed a a few bits: redesigned the lamp posts. Added a clock. Added gutter to the corners of the house.... Some cargo laying around was a good idea. I'll see what I can do. I do have the full Cargo Train Deluxe set with the truck, forklift and such. Adding them wil give a nice touch, I think.