Hot answers tagged piece-information
12
The full-base 1x1 round bricks were produced from 1955 until 1963, during the period when LEGO pieces were made from cellulose acetate (CA) plastic, but were sold until about 1966. According to Gary Istok's Unofficial LEGO Sets/Parts Collector's Guide the solid-stud full-base 1x1 round brick was only ever made from CA plastic. After the supply of them ran ...
11
The studless have SEVERAL advantages over the studded design especially when you want to include moving parts. Just the clearances between connections is important. Sariel sums it up in his book well. He says there are advantages to both systems (stud-full, for example, are more rigid) but the fact that the stud-less look more realistic and, of course, the ...
11
The regular connector have simple angles which are multiples of 22.5°. #4 is 45°, #3 is 22.5° and #5 is 67.5°. That's pretty boring stuff, but there you go.
The 53.5 angle isn't as bizarre as you would think and there's a very good reason for it (and less boring to me, but YMMV).
That reason is that it forms a Pythagorean triangle, and specifically the ...
9
I guess I could send the question to math.se, but I think we can figure that one out ourselves; it's just a bit of trigonometry after all, right?
Let's see:
- The large side is 20 ldu (standard brick width).
- The small side is 16 ldu (2 plates) - 4 ldu (half a plate), that is 12 ldu (half the height of a brick).
So the angle is tan-1(12/20), which is ...
9
Although I can't think of any sets that make use of this technique, I have found that the Slope, Curved 4×1 Double No Studs fits perfectly under the new-style arches.
8
Each time I've heard someone from LEGO speak about quality, they tend to insist on on simple message: they can't do anything on a problem they don't know about. This may seem very obvious, but they feel it needs to be repeated anyway.
What this means is that they want every single customer with any quality problem to actually report it. Apart from the fact ...
8
I would tend to say that any part produced for only one set would qualify, especially if said set is priced high. Looking at the inventory of 10179 Millenium Falcon UCS for example, the following candidates come to mind:
Light Bluish Gray Boat Mast Rigging Long 28 x 4
Dish 10 x 10 Inverted (Radar) with Radiating Spokes Pattern on Concave Side although it's ...
8
The problem isn't with molding machines, but with storage. Every distinct element (part/colour combination) has to be stored until it's no longer going to be used in production; presumably some are stored for spare parts and other ancillary uses.
The robotic warehouse has only a certain number of slots (a mere 0.5 million), so there's only so many ...
8
Most elements will have their official "Design ID" imprinted on them - this is typically the longer number, and can usually be used on the Pick a Brick site or sites such as BrickLink and Peeron to track down additional bricks. Note that this is different to the "Element ID" that is printed in the instruction part inventories which has the colour encoded ...
7
For the short answer, Duplo studs are indeed taller than twice the height of a Lego stud. And don't rely too heavily on measurements you get from ldraw (and not just for Duplo).
For a really long-winded history on this...
First, note that when I authored the original Duplo parts I never actually measured them with a ruler or calipers, as there was no ...
7
Simply put, because each combination of part AND colour which is currently in production means that there is one machine and one mould devoted to it, and the number of both is finite.
This may be oversimplified, but that's the gist of it. Take for example the new Friends slide which is currently produced in 'bright reddish violet'. If LEGO wanted to produce ...
7
As usual with LEGO, the best solution is often to make your own.
You can make quite impressive brick walls using tiles, like this (image from Brickshelf):
There is a tutorial for something similar here.
A range of other techniques can be found in an article called Avoiding the "Big Gray Wall" Syndrome at Classic-Castle.com. In fact, Google LEGO castles ...
7
This happens in Technic models as well, at least for pneumatics tubes. I would tend to assume it's a simple production issue or simplification - as this requires less work from LEGO.
That way, they only need one length of tube per model, instead of having one part ID for each of length of tube. Considering LEGO wants to control its number of elements ...
7
As suggested by bumbumfish, it is indeed required by the molding process to be able to remove the part from the mold. This does exist in many other parts, such as Technic frames:
The alternative is a mold with moving parts, but this is more expensive, and can't be used anyway where there is not enough room for the mechanism (e.g. inside frames).
6
As I answered on another question, LEGO officially released its internal palette in 2010. It showed 51 colours in use, although their company profile spoke about 58.
This is the Palette LEGO used in 2010, meaning that only these colours were in production then. Unfortunately, LEGO doesn't release this info on a regular basis (I'm frankly quite surprised ...
6
I'm not sure whether to consider these real Lego parts or not, but many of the old HO scale vehicles and greenery are incredibly rare. For example, the Jaguar is quite rare in any color, but especially in red and black.
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Some of it may be your own perception changing, such as a room you remember being big when you were a kid, but which you find small as an adult. So when you perceive bricks as being softer, it could actually be that they aren't, but that your perception changed. (If you were to walk barefoot on LEGO bricks for one hour per day, your feet would eventually ...
5
I think the most important aspect is a matter of geometry.
With studded beams, you're constrained by the form factor of the regular LEGO brick, which isn't a cube but a 5:5:6 cuboid. This means that every time you need to change the orientation of things, you'll have to think about how you're going to do it, and use plates and whatnot between beams. It's ...
5
There are more antistuds based on your description, you have to account for the flat bricks that have no studs and any sloped bricks that have at minimum twice the number of anti studs. While there are the inverted sloped pieces the standard wider bottom are more prevalent and there are more variations in length and width. Also many of the flat wing pieces ...
5
Looks like there are really two different questions here. Allow me to address the question regarding grooves on the tiles:
What's the difference between tiles with and without grooves?
Basically, on tiles without grooves, the vertical edges run continuously straight from top to bottom. On tiles with grooves, there is a small lip at the bottom of the ...
5
In short: Yes.
There are actually quite a lot varying in base colour and stone/brick design.
As mentioned by another poster, many are from the castle theme, but there are also interesting ones from Duplo which may help with your layout if you are trying to cover a large area as the Duplo blocks are larger.
Some examples are below, but for lots more take a ...
4
This was a common problem with ball sockets in Bionicle figures released between 2007 and 2010. The first wave of Hero Factory figures, which the pictured elements are from, also used this style of socket, as well as regular bricks with ball sockets released during that time.
The problem has been addressed by The Lego Group, and the new ball socket elements ...
4
It seems like the studs have an advantage and here's two reasons why:
1) The base plates have only studs and no antistuds. So many base plates were made that this is stacking the numbers in favor of the studs. There are a lot of studs on those big grids.
2) There are many pieces with extra-studs like this type:
but I don't remember pieces (other than ...
4
I went to Brickcon 2012. I asked Joe Meno about his red Monorail and he was most helpful. He flipped it over to expose the undercarridge and he was able to show me LEGO tires with fifteen hours of running time. The tread does indeed wear off and the tires actualy begin to split. The rubber doesn't cling to the rails themselves, but residue does begin to ...
4
Click on the MyBrickLink tab on the top row, then My Settings in the second row of tabs, then the My Shopping Settings link. Check the box next to "Show Weight in Shopping Cart". Then, when you view a cart full of items in a particular BrickLink store, scroll to the bottom and it should tell you the calculated total weight.
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While researching information for this question, I stumbled upon the answer but thought I would post anyway to share my findings.
The Bricklink entry for the 9700 Technic Control Center set has a secondary picture which is the front cover of the instruction booklet.
The 5 Electric, Plug Holder 4.5V/12V elements can be seen in use as holders for the ...
4
First thing to do would be to get together any building instructions you have and attempt to build those sets one at a time noting any missing elements as you go.
Once this is complete and if you still have unsorted pieces, you could use a website such as Bricklink.com to try to identify the sets and then use Peeron.com to source the building instructions ...
3
712pb01 Plate, Round Curved 4 x 8 Left with Red Line on Curved Edge Pattern
To be honest, I don't know if this is especially rare. I do know, however, that to find the rarest part we'll need to factor in:
1. Parts that appear in small numbers in very few sets
For example:
"White Minifig, Headgear Hair Female Pigtails" piece only appeared in a few sets.
...
2
Since it is for a science project, I would suggest you take the official weight and compare it to the weight you come on your own. This will not only get you your weight but will score your project higher. The best way to do this would be to take 100 pieces and weigh them on a postal scale (if your school doesn't have access to one, your parent's work might, ...
2
Robert Cailliau has summarized how dimensions of LEGO bricks derive from:
The base measure 0.8mm (that's where the 1.6mm already mentioned derives from)
The play measures 0.1mm (for additional space between pieces)
The height of studs 1.8mm
It looks like the number as the same as given in other sources, but there is disagreement about the height of a ...
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