F0NIX

Thank you TheBrickster! Do you or anyone else here have some tip for improvement? I would also like to know if there is anyone else that is using those RC trains in combination with the NXT? Seems like most people here in this forum is using the older 9V system...

First of all, I'm new to this train stuff. I live in a town with no history of trains (Tromsø). Nearest real trainstation is about 259km driving from where I live :) But I said "real" because we have a pub that is called "Jernbanestasjonen" (translates to Trainstation). On the outside there is 2m off railtracks hanging on the wall and the inside is decorated as the inside of a passenger train coach. They also just for fun have a calling system that time to time advertise for the incoming train from Vladisvostok that allways is delayed.... :) Well, I have been on a train a few times in my lifetime when traveling in the south part of this country (Norway) or other countries. That is enough of introductions, but know you understand why I have not been into this train stuff until now. I have some old train tracks (the old 4.5v system with plastic tracks) and some old train sets. But last year I first bought the 7897 Passenger Train and some tracks. Later I bougt the 7898 Cargo Train Deluxe. I also bought the NXT IR-link for my NXT system. And was planning having som fun with them. First I built a pedstrain bridge to have over the traintrack that was going to hide som sensors for the NXT system. Then I needed a trainstation.... But how to build one when you dont know how they look like?? I searched the internet and found a nice Norwegian train-fan site with lots of pictures of trains and trainstations in Norway. It is called http://www.jernbane.net, it is in Norwegian only. It has a forum and a service for members to upload their images. All of the train tracks in Norway is listed here. So I just browsed there and found an old station where the design was pretty close to another building I allready have built: The Swedish House I will make more and better pictures of that building, but for now you will find a few more in my Brickshelf folder. Here is the original: And on the jernbane.net site a found a the station Ørgensvika, that is a real station along the traintrack between Oslo and Bergen. You see the same colors and design is pretty close to the "Swedish house" I've built ;) So finaly after all this storytelling, here is my version of this station: Here you see the frontside, frontside with the cargotrain and the rear side of that building. The ramp is just fixed to the building with some technic pins so it is easy to remove. My plan was to hide the NXT and the NXT IR-link inside that building. Here are a picture of the pedestrain bridge over the traintrack: You could just see one of the two light sensors hiding inside that construction. My plan was to use them to detect wich direction the train was going. But for now they are a bit too close so the NXT has a hard time reacting on them. So I will think about this a little and try to find a better way to do this. This trainstation is one of many building I plan to put on display in a exhibition here in my home town in a few month. I would love to get feedback both on the construction of the building, but also hints and tips on controlling the trains with the NXT (I have four NXT and two RCX complete sets and one IR-Link).

I think OP is overreacting. This MOC is great and show many of the LEGO sets in its right element: rescue boats to mention some.. If this is not "allowed" to build, why is LEGO making ambulances, rescue boats/helicopters/cars, fire-, hospital-, police-stations. And thiefs! And weapons!... no, get a grip, LEGO is depicting human life, and we are not always very nice to each other. And sometime horrible things happens. I think its great that children can play out this and not be too afraid of this. And maybe the children can learn something from it too? And you also have to remember that LEGO is a adult hobby too. But I agree that there should be some type off warning. And Brickshelf does not have any features to flag or put a comment on the picture to warn people if there could be "tacky" images. Flickr is much better in that way.

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you that I'm near 100% finished with the model now. The part that still have to be done is 8 of the 10 paintings. And one small little detail thats going to be finished tomorrow. But the model is up for display now at the Rica Ishavshotel here in my home town Tromsø. It is at display at just that site because the administration of TIFF (Tromsø International Filmfestival) use that site as a meetingpoint and a hotel for the most of their guest at this festival. So most of the happenings in the evenings is going on there. The workers in the TIFF organisation use the real "Verdensteateret"-building as their daily office usualy. And they was both proud and happy to view the model of their worksplace at the festival. Well, I like the building too ;) So, here is some pictures for now. I will put up some more detailed pictures when I get some free time to get them... The front and rear: I've also put in a LCD screen with sound and movie support so the minifigs can see real live films ;) (Front and rear view inside the cinema hall) Some may even recognize the movie I'm playing here? And here is some outside view off the cinema hall: On the last picture here you can even see the two "paintings" I've finished so far. All people I've met say it is much better to see this model live than on the picture in the newspaper or on the TV-programs that has been around this model.

This is a thing that has changed over the years for me. In the beginning it was price: piece ratio and theme. And then it was more of Price and design, but still a little of number of pieces. After that It got more to get a good designed set with the right parts (unique parts or parts in the right color). But lately when the collection is getting larger and I have enough bricks for almost anything I usually build (I've just passed 100k pieces), the design is today the factor that get me to pick up a set. Parts I need can be fond at BrickLink. And as I have a steady and good income from my work, the pricetag is a less factor in the desission.

Nice! It is hard to believe that it is made of LEGO. But you can see it clearly in the close-up pictures. Where does all the pink and gold come from?

Does anybody know a bit more about this set and specially the RC unit with motor? I have a few questions: 1. The controller looks to be the same as in the other PF sets or is this diffrent? 2. Is the steering analogue (eg. not only full left or full right, but you can held it just a bit to left or right) ? 3. Is the steering done by a motor (probably is, if its analogue) but it could also be magnetic. Easy way to test it is to swing full left or right and see if you can push the front wheels in another direction by hand. If it is motor you could probably not do this without adding a lot of force. With magnetic they could be turned by hand without much force. 4. Is the speed analogue? 5. Is there a diffrence in reverse and forward speed? 6. How powerfull are the motor(s)? What effect does larger tires do the car? Quicker, slower? Or just slow acceleration but higher top speed? I think this unit is nice. I would probably buy a few of these when they are avaiable. And when you have a NXT with Infrared Link then you can controll this unit from the NXT There is a review of this set done by "Dieselboy_M" but it did not answer my questions. Even the video he has provided on his page was not much help either in answering my questions.

Does anyone have a solution for displaying LARGE LEGO models? Like a house that is based on 3 large 48x48stud baseplates (about 140x38cm) and 40cm high? I also have another model that is just two 48x48stud baseplates and 36cm high... It have to be something with clear sides and top to be able to view the models on all sides. I have a City LEGO-display that are used in toy stores but it is too small...

My last sets was two 8401 and one 4993 bought with -30% off at 30.12.2008. They had a lot of 2009 sets in but none off what I wanted (farms and pirates)...

Great story and great creations to accompany it. Hope to see more of this type of works.

Update: Here is a few pictures of the inside of the cinema/theatre hall. Im not finished on the inside. There is a few details left on the columns. The paintings offcourse. And the roof. There is going to be a big hole in the roof so you will be able to see the inside. And here is all 5 modules put together (3 for the front house and 2 for the cinema/theatre hall). Sorry for the mess around my working table. But I'm just finished so far and had to take some pictures to view how far I had come. More pictures at my brickshelf folder when made public.

I agree with those who said the MOC looks a tad overpriced. I'm not fan of footbal but still I dont think that looks like a typical footbal stadium... Nice feature that the roof/building can be opened. And because of the size of it I dont think anyone going to buy it to play with. It looks more like an show-piece that would stand in a cabinet at a real football stadium. I realy doubt they would get 20.000 AU$ (around 13.000 US$ with todays rate) for that MOC. With about 22.000 parts is it correct if I say there would be about 3000 US$ worth of parts? And that would lead me to suggest around 5000 US$ at most for this MOC. But then again, if they could manage to get 13.000US$ how much can I get for my nice theatre with about 4000 parts (an rough estimate) in the front building and the soon-to-come cinema hall with around 3-4000 parts? No, I'm not considering selling it. Yet.... But for the right price, almost anything is for sale It would probably be at display at the real building it is modelled after. And if anyone ask, how high should the price be for something like this? Cost of parts + just a tad? I'm not counting building hours. And I'm not going to quit my dayjob for this either.

Which set are you reffering too? I have the 4992 Fire Boat and HAVE built it inside the bag. The hard part was be able to see what you build through the small clear strip of plastic on the back off the bag. And the model is a bit large, but it nearly doesn't fit inside the bag...

Pictures of the orginal now moved to Flickr gallery. Moderator on Brickshelf did not axcept the non-LEGO pictures even if they where related to the LEGO model...

GloriusShadow said: "Very good Island-wind (my name translated ) Is it from where you live? Nice cinema" And yes, its from my home town Tromsø. So far I've only built buildings from my home town. There are still a some nice buildings left to build when this is finished ;) Tim Bit: don't you think the mosaic will be too small to depict all the details? And which way to build the mosaic? Plate size with studs up so you see the smallest size of a 1x plate as one "pixle" in the image? Or are there ways to make even this "pixel" smaller?

I tried searching on the forum but could not find any treads about this. Can you please show me the thread (and maybe the moderator could add this thread to the old one)? But I think this is fun topic, as I said, it adds another level in the challenge of building with LEGO. ... and about the "nutcase", I'm probably one, since I build exactly as the LEGO instructions that come with the set shows, I mean down too the LEGO-logo placed the same directions as in the picture in the instruction

Diffrent LED's that are attached to eachother or is there just one "multicolored" LED? Anyway, a disco or circus could be a nice place to use some multicolored flashing lights. Or what about just a christmas tree with some light effects?

Is there many other people out there that think building a LEGO set without opening the bag adds to the fun and challenge to the LEGO-building process? Or am I the only "nutcase" around here with too little to do and too much LEGO? If no one have heard about it, the conspet goes like this: many sets come with all parts in one plastic bag, the challenge is to complete building the set without opening or damaging the plastic bag. Thus "build-in-bag" consept. The 3219 Mini TIE Fighter is one example, 4992 Fire boat is another. The 4992 is a little harder as therer are many parts and the model is pretty long compared to the size of the plastic bag. Both of these two sets is in a bag with just a small stripe with clear plastic to view parts and the building process through. But that just add to the challenge I have just built the 7724 City Advent calendar and 7979 Castle Advent Calendar, those are in reality 24 build-in-bag sets Some of them are realy easy, but some are a real challenge and take som time and patience to build.

Fokus Kino B-OV-7D; Ishavskatedralen B-OV-7E; Verdensteatret B-OV-8A A few years back I startet to recreat some of the buildings in my home-town. I startet with the strange building that was a cinema "Fokus Kino": This was fun and intresting and I went ahed with other buildings like the famous "Ishavskatedralen" (a church, "The Artic Cathedral"). But now I have a more detailed project: an old cinema and theatre from 1915 called "Verdensteatret" (worldtheathre). I am almost finished rebuilding the front building that has a realy nice facade. Here is a picture of how the first version looked like and the original. And I'm intresting in some help about what building techniques I should use on paintings on the walls? More pictures in my Flickr gallery. The front building is built on a single 48x48 baseplate. The theatre hall is probably going to be 2 or 3 of those baseplates long and 1 wide. The roof on the hall is going to be partial open to be able to look inside. As a cinema screen the plan was to use a PSP :) I have until now found several diffrent approaches for making the paintings in LEGO: 1. Build the paintings as mosaic. Problem here is all the details will almost disapear as the size of the building is aprox minifig size. 2. Build thick walls and use minifigs to depict the people in the paintings. The hard part here is to get all the details and all those bright colors. 3. Build thick walls and use miniland (as in Legoland) size figures to depict the people in the paintings. Thus easyer to get all the details and all those bright color variations. But the size would be a problem. 4. Build normal thick walls. Build the paintings with miniland size figures and take photos of them, and print it and stick the photo to the wall. Thus I'm able to build larger to get all the details and colors. Problem is; its not LEGO-only... (I've made the ornament on the front building this way). Is there any other way to do this? Or does anyone any input/suggestions on the above mentioned techniques? Edit (23.12.2008): Brickshelf moderator did not axcept non-LEGO pictures even if they are related to the LEGO model... Moved them to Flickr instead.

I watched when the crew was mounting this at LEGO World Norway 2008. There is a steel frame inside the hole thing. And each part is bolted together with steel bolts. It is just an outer layer of LEGO bricks glued together and to the frame. It was intresting to watch.

Mounting a target plate on top of that vehicle with a sensor, and making two of these vehicle and you have a nice game :)

I don't like bionicle because the parts have restricted number of uses and ways to be attached. And that is a key element of other LEGO parts, they can be used in many ways and conected in many ways. Bionicle is only for the story, not a realy good one either. Too bad the LEGO-company has used time and money to develope Bionicle, I would rather they used the time and money to develope other areas first... I know the Bionicle sells good, but I don't know why people like them... they are ugly too...

Fantastic! This gave me plenty off ideas :)

I don't think this was the official third building instruction (the filename says "unofficial). I have a instruction on my computer that I have downloaded from the LEGO site. It is called Street Sensation. It looks more like a Formula car. I will try to upload it to a website later today (have to go to work now)... But the one by Nathaniel Kupiers is much better.

I just love this set. And yes, I am a Technic fan :) I have bought one of this set, and may get another one later. The light is realy nice, I have one from this set and one from the Offroader. They are not as bright as I wish they was, but they make an nice effect to a MOC. And since they are made of Light emmitting diodes they dont use much power like the old electric bulb from the old sets. This could probably stay on for many hours on one batterypack. Should be interesting to see if someone actually testet how long they could last (nice to know for exhibition and events). The motor is ofcourse good and as Freddie said, it is a good thing they did not include the bulky XL-engine. The pole switch is made good. It was a nice feature that they made it possible to connect an axle to the side of the switch, it could then be controled from gears and/or other levers. And I had just today discovered that the new 3-stud long universal joints that came in this set. They make it a lot easyer to connect to the new items like PF Linear Actuator that have a special mounting bracket. And for they who don't understand the use of this universal joints: they are realy nice to use on rotating axles that you also want to bend when rotating. Think of the axle from the engine on a car and how to transfer that rotating axle to a differential that moves up and down with the supension on a car. That is just one of the many uses. Another is like I mentioned above; for the linear actuator that would move slightly in constructions like the excavator where two of this is used. The negative side of the parts in this set is: - not bright enough LED's - the light is difficult to fasten or to connect to a brick, works only on studless beams (mostly) and it does not sit as firm as I would like - the power leads on every electrical component is too short. I like to build large constructions. - there should have been an adaptercable for the old 9v system to this. I first thoght that the 2x2 black brick on the lights was this type of connector, but it is just to split the leads and probably contains a resistor for the LED's too.