Does LEGO no longer support NXT 2.0 at all? I am running Mac OS X 10.15 (Catalina) and the EV3 software can't detect my NXT 2.0 using USB.

LEGO officially stopped supporting NXT in 2015, however, as of 2019, the original NXT programming software is still available on the official LEGO MINDSTORMS web page.
The original NXT programming software and EV3 desktop programming software are both 32-bit, so cannot run on macOS 10.15 or later.
The new EV3 programming software based on Scratch does not work with NXT. So the only way to program NXT on macOS 10.15 is with 3rd party software such as NXC/NQC or leJOS or by installing a macOS or Windows virtual machine to run the old desktop software.


EV3 touch sensor specs relevant for a brick-built MOC I want to integrate the following EV3 touch sensors (45507) into a MOC:

For aesthetic reasons, I want the MOC to be mainly built out of system bricks and plates, with only some internal stuff in Technic (basically just connectors and beams to hold the EV3 parts).

I'd like to know what offset in plate height or stud width I'm looking at when the button is pressed or not pressed.

Also I'd like to know how much weight there can be on the button before the EV3 will consider it pressed or bumped.

Not sure how accurate my rig is, but I get something like 2 millimeters of travel before the touch sensor is "pressed". The HiTechnic Force sensor doesn't seem to give an accurate measurement, but according to my kitchen scales, it takes about 80g force (0.8N) to trigger the sensor.


Which set did this Technic assembly come from? I posted a week or so ago and had great  success identifying a LEGO Star Wars set which is now completed.
So.. thought is would try again. Can anyone help me identify what this could be?

According to BrickLink there are only 4 sets with the arched element in it in Dark Bluish Gray.
From those only 8435 Technic 4WD seems to fit:


How to build a waterproof roof out of LEGO blocks? How would Lego blocks be tiled to provide a water proof roof against the rain?

The lattes or internal support structure of the roof doesn't have to be also made of Lego. Basically the tiles on a roof would be replaced with lego in such a way to be waterproof where the glue holds them together but isn't the water barrier.

Since you are willing to use a non-LEGO frame to hold the roof and glue to fix all together, I would recommend buying baseplates in bulk and gluing them onto a wooden frame as if they were shingles. If the gradient and the overlap (vertical between rows and horizontal between individual plates) are correctly matched, the rain won't get inside.

For more resources on professional shingle roofing see these links:

https://www.iko.com/na/pro/building-professional-tools/roofing-101/how-to-install-shingles/
https://www.wikihow.com/Lay-Shingles


Are there any existing (or upcoming) aftermarket PoweredUp hubs? I bought the Mindstorms v4 / advanced hub (in set 51515). It's a good set, and the Hub has some great features - notably a rechargeable battery, the ability to run "live" off of USB power, and a full 6 ports (the minimum, IMHO; covers most working equipment such as fully-motorized excavators, etc.)
However, the battery lacks capacity, and the drive voltage of the motors is underwhelming. USB-C PD is also lacking, and would be a huge feature as it would allow 9v power from cheap COTS battery packs.
I went searching for a BuWizz/sBrick/etc. type replacement; I can't find anything except for a current Kickstarter (no link, as I backed it and and don't want any perceived advertising here - but it does look interesting, supports Arduino, check it out :) )
Are there any aftermarket hubs in the works you're aware of? Any supporting info such as ETA or experience of the creators, etc., would be helpful.
I'm starting to think I may need to DIY; the PUP connectors themselves are available only from China (are there any patent concerns?), but are cheap enough. It looks like the specs and i2c protocol bits are all reasonably well documented. IMHO, an ideal setup would:

support a higher drive voltage for the motors.

the onboard https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/LB1836M-D.PDF supports 10.5 abs max.
even a consistent 9V would be a HUGE improvement; a 3s1p lithium ion pack, plus a 90%+ efficient buck converter board to ~9V seems feasible?
side benefit of 9V is it could also be driven from a USB-C PD board set to 9V (although muxing this with the battery isn't trivial or supported by any of the cheap boards I can find from Aliexpress or US hobby sites.

support lots of channels; 8 or more? Most microcontrollers or SBCs should be able to drive at least this many channels of motor controllers.

BuWizz has announced the BuWizz 3.0 Pro which has Powered Up compatible ports.
The product page says:

Expected Delivery: End of March 2021


Easy way to get the weight of a Bricklink order Is there an easy way to estimate, to the nearest 100 g (or so) the weight of a shopping cart in Bricklink so that I can estimate the shipping charge (sellers may quote ranges such as "250 - 500 g: $X, 500 - 1000 g: $Y" so I wish to stay in a cheaper band if possible)?

I can find out the weight of a type of brick (such as this) but summing by hand is a chore. Just wondering as it already has all the necessary info...

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.


What LEGO set is this bag with minidoll? Can anyone help me identify the set that these parts come from?
The bag is number two.

I believe this is Heartlake Hot Air Balloon (41097).

The red striped torso only appears in a few sets, and it's fairly obvious from the rest of the parts which one this is.

Here's what that bag builds specifically:


Which brands (fictional and non-fictional) have appeared in the Town/City theme? A few years ago I wrote an article about the fictional organisation logos found in the City theme.

I'd quite like to revisit this, as I'm sure I must have missed some. I also only focused on the fictional brands, but I know some licensed brands have appeared too.

My current list is:

Fictional

Police
Fire
Hospital (Star of Life logo)
Postal service (envelope and bugle icon)
Railway (double arrow logo)
Refuse / recycling agency (eg 4206)
Highway maintenance agency (motorway icon) - eg 6653 and 6521)
'Octan' (oil/energy company)
'AirLine' (now uses the bird logo)
'International Transport' (eg 161 and 6367)
Cargo company (yellow box on blue world logo) - eg 4551

Real

Shell (1966-1980, before Octan was introduced, e.g. 1256)
Ferrari (eg 8673 - part of the 'Racers' theme but minifig scale)
Toys R Us (7848)
Maersk (1552, 1831, 1651, etc)
Deutsche Bahn (eg 7735)
BNSF (Burlington North Sante Fe) eg 10133
Lego (eg 4549 and 10156)
Exxon (eg 6679 6375)
Danone (only once - 1591)
Color Line - eg 2149

Are there any others?

I can't believe that nobody else else has posted the most important real company that appears within the LEGO City theme... the LEGO company itself!

There is a good list of promotional sets on Brickipedia, that includes the set theme. Many of the town / city sets include logos or brand names of real-world companies.

Other sets that include real-world brands (some of which don't count as Town / City, according to the Brikipedia themes list) include:

Esso appeared on some very early sets.
DB (Deutsche Bahn) appears on various trains, including 7725.
Sports sets such as, 3432 which has NBA logos on the player's chests, or 65221 that included a Spalding basketball.
1656 Viking Line cruise ship.
Interfrigo, set 147.


BAFTA Bob the builder set value? I have a boxed sealed LEGO set from 2002. I attended the Children's BAFTA dinner, with several celebrities. Each had an exclusive Bob the Builder set as a gift under their seat, which included a LEGO BAFTA trophy and a LEGO Bob the builder scene. Pretty sure it's rare. At the time I also got it signed by Neil Morrisey who does the voice for Bob the Builder. I gave it to my godson. It's still in the attic. Wondered whether it's worth much. Any ideas? Never found it on the Internet.

For something like this, there will not be a standard price. Really, it would depend more on the number of people looking for this. Post it on ebay, see what you can get.


What set is this green sled from? Anyone know what LEGO set this little green sled is from? The pieces rest on a black 6x4 studded plate. The corner cheese wedges and edge rails on the right and left are a dark green (not black).

This is part of Set # 10198-1: Tantive IV

based on the Dark green Panel 1 x 2 x 1 and
Tile 1 x 2 with Avionics SW Copper, Red & Silver Pattern


Why is my EV3 status light pulsing? (ev3dev) I am using EV3 micropython (ev3dev?). When I upload the below program to my EV3, I see on the screen the usual play button image which looks approximately like the below ASCII art:
              _______
            /         \
           /    |\     \
          |     | \     |
          |     |  )    |
           \    | /    /
            \   |/    /
             ---------

However, the EV3 status light pulses. By "pulsing" I don't mean the light flashes on, off, on but instead that it gradually dims then brightens. I don't know what that indicates, but my program (intended to smoothly and gradually accelerate a motor by remote control) does not work.
My program:
#!/usr/bin/env pybricks-micropython
from pybricks.hubs import EV3Brick
from pybricks.ev3devices import (Motor, TouchSensor, ColorSensor,
                                 InfraredSensor, UltrasonicSensor, GyroSensor)
from pybricks.parameters import Port, Stop, Direction, Button, Color
from pybricks.tools import wait, StopWatch, DataLog
from pybricks.robotics import DriveBase
from pybricks.media.ev3dev import SoundFile, ImageFile

# This program requires LEGO EV3 MicroPython v2.0 or higher.
# Click "Open user guide" on the EV3 extension tab for more information.

# Create your objects here.
ev3 = EV3Brick()
ir = InfraredSensor(Port.S1)
pitchlm = Motor(Port.D)
yawmm = Motor(Port.B)
rollmm = Motor(Port.A)

pitchspeed = 0
rvz = 0

def remote_motor_gradual(posbutton, negbutton, increment, retvarname):
    ''' Gradually increases/decreases return value based on remote button;
    if positive value is being returned and current input is negative,
    value decreases 2x faster than if no buttons were being pressed.
    Parameters: posbutton, button to make return value go up;
    negbutton, button to make return value go down;
    increment, amount  of increment when NO button is pressed;
    retvarname, name of final-result variable (use a different one for each use,
    e.g. xretval).
    Before using retvarname, put somewhere before this def "nameyoulluse = X where X
    is the number you want the return value to be.
    '''
    if posbutton in ir.buttons(1):
        retvarname = retvarname + increment * 2
    elif negbutton in ir.buttons(1):
        retvarname = retvarname - increment * 2
    elif retvarname > 0: # if it is greater than 0
        retvarname = retvarname - increment
    elif retvarname < 0: # if it is less than 0
        retvarname = retvarname + increment
    return retvarname
while True:
    rollmm.run(remote_motor_gradual(Button.RIGHT_UP, Button.RIGHT_DOWN, .05, rvz))

That is just the default state of the light when pybricks-micropython starts.
You can get help with Pybricks programming at https://github.com/pybricks/support.


Please identify these two kinds of Lego bricks (circa 1990's) I recently bought a lot of Lego that was mostly 1990's bricks, and I had a few things I couldn't identify.  One I found on Bricklink, but the other two are baffling me. Here is the first one, a different sort of hinged plate that I hadn't seen before:

You would think these would be "modified plates," but I couldn't find them.
Even stranger are these pieces (two varieties):

These obviously allow for perpendicular placement of other pieces, and again I would think they were modified plates, but they aren't, at least in Bricklink.

I'm most curious to see how these pieces were used in sets.
Thank you!

The first two are:

Hinge Plate 2 x 4 with Articulated Joint - Male

Hinge Plate 2 x 4 with Articulated Joint - Female

They are still used in modern sets sometimes.

The last two are called "bracket" pieces. They have not appeared in any recent sets.

Bracket 2 x 3 - 1 x 3 (Train Signal Stand)

Bracket 2 x 2 - 1 x 4


What is this minifig? Saw this on Facebook, what is this minifig?

Some people say it is from Atlantis but I'm not so sure.

This minifig is indeed from Atlantis, it is a Atlantis Manta Warrior


What piece is designed to hold the "drawer" piece? Cruising the good old PAB, I come across a piece called simply, the "drawer". From the image, I can conclude that this piece is meant to act like a real drawer, by pulling out of something.

Question: What is that something? What is designed to hold the drawer?

The part you are looking for is 4532a - Container, Cupboard 2 x 3 x 2 - Solid Studs. There is also a 4532 version with hollow studs.


How can I build Victorian Style windows? How can I build Lego Victorian style windows, like those on the White House or Capital Building?

This is one style I have done, which, as far as I know, was an original idea by me:

This Flickr user's model evokes nice victorian windows without using any glass

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lgorlando/3914963760/

as does this one

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lgorlando/4099206027/

See also this amazing series on window techniques

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28192677@N06/5713290533/in/set-72157626335716516/

which includes this beaut

Also consider these stained glass designs. Stained glass is VERY victorian, although not the way you meant :)

http://www.brothers-brick.com/2010/12/04/christmas-window/


Can the experts Identify these sets, grey octagon platform and tan plates? A friend gave us a bunch of sets with only a few sets of instructions.  We were able to figure out a few of them.  Not sure what these are.

Mostly, both pictures come from Set #79006 The Council of Elrond, but...

...Minifigure white chest piece comes from: Set Col03-15 Rapper, Series 3 (Complete Set with Stand and Accessories).


Lego Commando Droid original or fake Legs I have some LEGO Commando Droids. The torso, head and arms are original with the LEGO logo, but the legs have no logo. They do however have numbers on them (here 2, on others 4 or 3) The legs are in terms of form and material identical to the original legs.

It seems unusual that somebody would go through the effort to fake the legs but not the rest of the droid.
It also not uncommon for official LEGO parts to exclude either a part ID or LEGO copyright stamp, this could be because the part was manufactured before it was the standard but most likely through design considerations.
It looks like there are no flat/continuous surfaces where either of these markings could be made legibly and without spoiling the characteristics of the part.
Looking at official set photos as well as reviews seems to prove that these parts are most likely real.


Compare part lists between Stud.io models? I've created a MOC using Stud.io, bought the pieces and built it. Since it was unstable I've changed the model in Stud.io, and now I would like to buy just the pieces I've added. I could compare both version of the model manually to get the differences, but that would be somewhat cumbersome and error prone, so I'm wondering if there is some tool to compare two models, or two parts lists?

I'm thinking about something that could for example take two BrickLink XML files, and produces a new XML containing only the parts (and amount) not present in the older version.

Since there doesn't seem to be a tool, I've written my own one. In case anyone else want to use it, check it out here: https://github.com/ChrZae/bricklink-xml-diff

Take care tho, it can only really process the XML generated by Stud.io, the XML-format itself has more fields which I didn't care about (also no guarantees it will always work correctly).


How to fix a broken LEGO Star Wars Corellian Defender set I was playing with my Corellian Defender which took me up to 4 days to build. It broke unfortunately and I am very sad since I love it very much.

I need some tips to rebuild it back.

How to fix it depends on how broken it is - if you've got a few large sections that need to go back in it might be easier than if they have been broken down to the individual elements.

The first step is to ensure you still have the instructions - if not, they should be available on LEGO's site: Building Instructions and search for "75025" (there are two books so make sure you get both 1/2 and 2/2).

With the instructions to hand, you should then be able to work out what you need to remove to re-attach the parts that have come off - I find that taking a few additional elements off is often enough to add back the parts and I can then rebuild the additional elements.

In the worse case scenario you need to establish which step in the instructions best represents the bulk of the remaining model and then disassemble everything else back to that point.

Alternatively, invent a new ship with the pieces ;)


where can I find simple Lego ideas I have just acquired a bunch of bricks and specialized bricks. Where could I get a lot of ideas?

Anything to do with a city would be good. I have already tried the LEGO club.

That's a pretty vague question, but here are some general resources on city building:

Rebrickable has a large selection of MOCs. Browse through it and see if you can find something fun there.

You can look through all of the official City sets. Brickset is a good place for that.

Twinlug has a fun Micropolis standard you can use to build a large layout together with other fans.

When you get serious, you might want to get into the modular buildings - it has become a pretty common standard to build for as well.

Hopefully that gives you a start.


Difference between LEGO Castle and LEGO Kingdoms Can anyone explain what the difference is between LEGO Castle and LEGO Kingdoms. I don't understand why they are not in the same product group. Also LEGO Kingdoms is no longer listed on the lego.com website.

LEGO Kingdoms is a sub-theme of LEGO Castle. LEGO Castle is one of the oldest LEGO themes, and through the years it had various sub-themes like Knight's Kingdom, Fantasy Era, Dark Forest, etc.

The current LEGO Castle theme is simply called LEGO Castle without a sub-theme name and I think that is causing the confusion. The previous LEGO Castle theme released between 2010 and 2012 was called LEGO Kingdoms. The only set that is still available from LEGO Kingdoms is the #10223 LEGO Kingdoms Joust set.

At the online LEGO Shop you will see that the two themes are listed separately. The reason being that they are actually two sub-themes of LEGO Castle, even though the current one doesn't have an official sub-name. So to be clear, LEGO Castle is the theme, with two current sub-themes; LEGO Castle and LEGO Kingdoms.

LEGO has always listed sub-themes separately. For example when LEGO Kingdoms first came out there were still some LEGO Fantasy Era sets left from the previous years, and although they were both sub-themes of LEGO Castle they were kept in separate categories. The same thing is happening now, except this time one of the sub-themes have the same name as the main theme. I hope this is not too fonfusing...(c;


LEGO for a 1 year old I have a son who has just turned one. I like my LEGO and my desk at work is covered in minifig's etc, the problem is my wife isn't as keen on them. I was wondering can anyone recommend a set that would be appropriate for me to get for my son so I can bring my hobby home without feeling the wrath of my wife, or is it a bit too soon to introduce him to LEGO?

LEGO bricks aren't suitable for children under 3 as they are considered a potential choking hazard.

LEGO also sell a DUPLO brand of construction toys which are twice the size of regular bricks. DUPLO bricks are designed for children aged 1½ to 5 years old.


How to send through Bluetooth motor angle position and mirror that position on another motor? I've built a steering wheel that checks the servomotor position using NXC function - MotorRotationCount(). Now, I want to send that position to second brick using Bluetooth and apply that servomotor position to another servomotor controlling the car's steering. I've figured out how to send the data between bricks but I can't find a way to mirror that servomotor position. Is it possible?

Yes it's definitely possible. See the motor functions here. I would try the following:

Receive the controller's position over bluetooth.
Use MotorTachoCount (byte output) to get the position of the steering motor.
Compare controller's position to the steering motor's position.

if(controller > steering) drive steering forward.
else drive steering backward.
Repeat 1-4.

There are a few enhancements you can make as well, once you get this working. For one, it may help to set the steering motor's power proportional to the difference between the positions. For example, pwr = 0.5*abs(controller - steering) . Adjust the 0.5 by trial and error until the steering is responsive, but not over-responsive. This will make the steering faster if the difference is large, and slower when the difference is small. It may also be worth looking into the motor PID functions to make the steering even smoother.


How should I store unused stickers? What is the best way to store stickers for future use? I have some unused LEGO sticker sets in plastic bags. The one on top in the bag has become brittle and is flaking.

Think about what causes the stickers to deteriorate:

Heat loosens the bonds in the glue, which results in stickers peeling.
Exposure to natural light will cause the colours in the stickers to
fade over time. Unlike LEGO bricks, stickers fade faster under natural light.

With those points in mind, keep stickers in a cool, dry, place away from sunlight like in a cupboard or drawer. Zip lock/food bags are also helpful for organising stickers which is why they can also be used to store instructions and catalogues.

Stickers transferred from the sticker sheet onto other surfaces will also be affected by dust, oil and any other particles that will affect the lifespan of a sticker. Make sure the surface is clean and dry before applying stickers.

You can use a hairdryer to easily remove stickers from bricks.


Why did Lego use the same number for two different sets? For example, Ricky Racoon on his Scooter from 1979 is a completely different set from House with Garage from 1996, but they share the same number (324). Why did Lego recycle numbers like this? Do they contunue to re-use old numbers?

I recall someone asking this to a Danish employee at a public event in the US around 2003. In a very humble voice the LEGO employee simply said "We forgot." LEGO employees were admitting before that to using brickshelf for old instructions because they didn't have digital company archives yet.

It's possible they knew about the numbers and saw no problem with reusing the retired number. It's we obsessive fans that are the problem! When I was a kid, making my first LEGO master catalog, I was upset to discover 540 had been reused, for Swiss Villa, 1973 and Police Units, 1979 (before they assigned it to Basic Building Set, 1985. Argh!)

You can find many examples with this Peeron search Change the -2 to -3, etc to find more layers. Open a set, then edit the URL to -1 to see what it clobbered (sometimes Peeron has the newer set inventoried first as -1.)

So you can see how they are still doing it. But mostly it is done to impulse items, promos, basic bricks, and non-brick lines. I can't find a core set bumping off another set number after 2000 (see Scorpion Buggy for example.) Maybe they have stopped after that?


Rename Submodel in Studio 2.0 Is it possible to rename a submodel in BrickLink's Studio 2.0? I couldn't find any appropriate function within the program.
Last time I've done it the "hard" way by modifying the .ldr files within the .io archive (the archive password can easily be found "out there"). But that should not be the recommended way, should it?

It's as simple as:
Right click on the submodel in the step list → rename.
I don't know, why I didn't see this earlier. I would bet, I tried that before.  ;-)


Need help identifying this set These came in a clear bag labeled with the number 2.  Dated 2011.

Was it 10667 Construction? The date is a little off, but the parts look right.


Is it possible to use the Dexter WiFi Sensor with Robot C? My wife bought me a Mindstorms NXT system a few years ago and I bought a Dexter WiFi sensor for it, by the time I got a chance to work with it, I found out the sensor had been "retired" and that the sample drivers no longer worked with the new versions of Robot C?

Has anyone managed to edit the drivers to a working state with Robot C 4?

According to the dexter website, there is sample robotC code which means, yes you can use the Dexter WIFI sensor with robotC. Maybe there are robotC libraries for it in the download section on that website.

This forum thread also loosley states that you can use the Dexter WIFI sensor with robotC

Hope this helped.


Need help with part identification... can't find part number No apparent part number that I could find. Help with IDing this part? Thank you!

Found it while looking for a different part in the inventory! It is 2463 Brick, Modified Facet 3 x 3 x 2 Top


What are the memory requirements of EV3-G software blocks running on NXT bricks? The NXT brick has about 130K memory available for user programs.

With the newer firmware required for downloading EV3-G programs that memory has been reduced to 118K.

How much memory is used by the various blocks available in EV3-G?

What tricks can be used to cram many programs onto the NXT brick's limited memory space?

I'm a coach of an FLL team that is using the NXT brick.  Should they use EV3-G or stick with NXT-G?

See Comparison of 10 blocks shows memory usage of NXT-G and EV3-G are nearly identical.

The move steer and move tank blocks take 5kb each while the large motor block takes 4kb. If you have a long string of move blocks in your program, it will take up big chunks of memory. We've gotten around that in the past with using myblocks. Myblocks are only copied to the NXT once and called each time it is needed in the program. A pivot myblock might take 7kb but you can use it as many times as you like without taking up more memory. We make a myblock for just about every common move used in our programs. It pays to make a myblock if a string of code will be used more than once.

I would stick with EV3 software if you plan to move to the EV3 hardware in the next season or two. I personally liked NXT-g better but we upgraded our hardware to EV3 this year.

Edit - I just compared the NXT blocks to the EV3 blocks and there is quite a difference. The NXT-g move block only takes 2.4KB and the motor block takes 1.1KB. Our pivot myblock that takes 7KB in EV3 only takes 1.6KB in NXT.


What is the Airport Shuttle logo meant to symbolize? The Airport Shuttle set features what is apparently supposed to be a logo of the Airport Shuttle monorail system, both on the train itself and prominently on top of the city stop (and possibly in more places). It looks like a capital letter T in front of a circle.

Is there any information available as to what this was meant to signify? I.e. is it meant to symbolize anything about the set (a cross-section of the airport stop?), or is it modeled after a real-world symbol of a comparable transportation system?

First of all, here's a slightly enhanced, upclose image of the logo.

My best guess is that it's meant to represent a railway T-Intersection as seen below.

I believe this is especially possible, considering how the T tapers down to the bottom, similar to a railway T-Intersection.


Is there a standard distribution of minifigs when you purchase an entire case? The last couple of times I purchased a case of collectable minifigures, each one had three complete sets (16 x 3), plus an extra 12 remainder of random minifigs. My last case I ordered only had two complete sets, and the remainder of minifigs had a much wider variance (five of one minifig, none extra of others).

Should each case contain three sets, or is it truly random?

Every box contains the same distribtion of minifigs. For example see this review on www.eurobricks.com of series 13 has the same distribution as my box. (links to his other CMF reviews are on the bottom of the first post)

For most series boxes contains 3 full sets and 12 remaining ones.

Series 9, 10 & 11 contain only 2 complete sets, with 2, 4 or 6 bags of the same minifigs. These boxes where also available as 'half' with only 30 bags. This way these boxes contains 1 complete serie.


Are there any Star Wars vehicles that have not yet been produced in a Lego kit? This includes all six films and the Clone Wars spin-offs.  Every vehicle I can think seems to have been produced as part of a kit at some point.  Are there any that haven't?

As far as I know, all of the most common vehicles have been produced, but I could be forgetting something. There are many obscure vehicles which have not been produced, but I don't see any reason to try to list them all. Some examples would be many of the pod racers from Episode I, many of the hundreds of vehicles shown on Coruscant, or several of the speeders seen in the Mos Eisley approach in Episode IV.
The most notable vehicle that I can think of that has not been produced to my knowledge are the Royal Cruisers from the prequels:

Update:
I had previously been mentioned the Nebulon-B Frigate featured in Episode V and VI:

The Nebulon-B has now been produced:


Where can I find the misspelled Luke Skywlaker pen? There was a LEGO Star Wars snafu in which a buildable pen was released, and "Skywalker" was incorrectly spelled as "Skywlaker". This was quickly remedied, and a corrected version was released.

I would like to find one of these "Skywlaker" pens. I have checked eBay, LEGO shop, Amazon and Bricklink and have not been able to find it. Does anyone have tips on where to look for these one-of-a-kind items?

The closest I could find is a forum thread where a member called "slow 2.0" writes that (s)he has two of these and might be willing to sell one of them. The catch is the thread is from 2010 and the user hasn't been active in the forum since 2014.

Update Since the thread no longer has the image, here is how it looked like:


Need help identifying set from 2011 Bag came with no instructions. Just these 103 pcs

Going from the Tan Panel 2 x 2 x 1 Corner (# 91501), I've dug into bricklink: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=91501&in=S

This particular piece has only been in 9 sets, and the one I can see that matches the rest of the pieces is 10692-1: Creative Bricks


What is the best way to store LEGO rubber tires? Should they be stored with or without rims inside?

Or should they be kept away from plastic for long term storage?

I can't speak to "best". But as a point of reference, many many of my lego tires are many years old and they are usually stored on rims. The older tires were often not removable from the rims. As I rarely build cars, I take no special care of the tires, and I've found that there doesn't seem to  be any particular problems. The rubber ages over time, but this is true of all rubber in all circumstances, and the storage method doesn't seem to have affected them much. I have these large tires from an old space set from 1983

that are in excellent condition; sadly, the rims they were mounted on

were fragile and many of those are broken. But the tires are okay.


How long does it take the build the Ewok village How long does it take to build the Ewok village

Build speed depends very much on your ability as a builder to understand instructions, organize the pieces in advance, and pick & place those pieces in the right position in your build. Additionally, the complexity of the set (simple versus complex building techniques, e.g. SNOT (Studs Not On Top) techniques are considered complex) might make a similar sized set more difficult. The complexity is often determined through the Age range specified on the box. So there is no exact answer here.

But as an indication, the set 10236 LEGO Ewok Village contains 1990 pieces and is rated 12+. That age range makes it a moderately difficult build (There is 14+ and 16+ for more complex builds).

First you need to take time to part out the set, put like elements together (LEGO suggests sorting by color, you could also sort by type of piece which will make your job slightly easier - put 1x1 bricks together, leaf pieces together, 1x4 plates together etc.). Opening the box gently by slicing a sharp knife through the seals on the flap (so you don't damage the box), emptying and opening the bags and dumping it all on your work surface takes 1 minute. To pick a piece and sort it, I am assuming takes you 1 second - since there are 1990 pieces this means the sorting activity alone will take you a good 30 minutes (33 to be precise).

Now it is time for the build. Assuming that you can put a piece into your build in about 10 seconds (includes find time, reviewing the instructions, sometimes flipping the page, and averages out for easier and more difficult building steps), with 1990 pieces this means you will spend 332 minutes on your build, or roughly 5hrs and 30 minutes, excluding any breaks.

Putting it all together, assuming my estimates and assumptions are correct, your total build time should be between 6 and 6.5 hours.

Good luck and have fun, because that Ewok Village set looks pretty awesome!


How do I move assembled LEGO sets? How do I move large sets put together?  We do not have the instructions or original box.  We are moving from one home to another.

When I was a child and our family moved, I took apart the larger sets into easily manageable pieces. For example, taking off wings and antennas of starships. Then I tetrised all the pieces into shoe boxes and other closable, stackable containers that could then be transported by almost any means. This method required reassembly at the destination but thanks to the planned breakdown it was easy to do. If I remember correctly the boxes were lined with cloth to dampen vibrations and prevent scratches, so nothing really got damaged.


8034 software RIS 2.0 - how to work it under Ubuntu 14.04? Can I get to work RCX 2.0 software RIS2.0 under Ubuntu 14.04? I've installed it under wine, but the graphics of my notebook was to high for it, and the next phase of installation - the looking for the tower did not work at all.

Just to close the circle (and not just hide this info in the comments), I don't have high hopes this will ever work satisfactorily. At least without not a fair amount of hacking.

As per WineHQ, USB support in Wine is weak at best, and so BricxCC via Wine is probably a non-starter, as well, for the same reason.

You might have better luck with a COM port based tower. These can be had from eBay rather cheaply. Wine has documentation about presenting serial ports in Linux or OS X to COM ports in Wine.

Many of those USB serial dongle/cables that use FTDi chips can be used in Wine, as these can be used as COM ports (using the same facility I mentioned above) but the Lego USB tower is a special device that doesn't abstract well; it uses a very custom protocol above a thin USB layer.

Or you can switch to a less pretty IDE based solution like NQC or LeJOS that runs natively on Linux. The USB tower works reasonably well using native Linux enumerations and comms. It's a very simple half-duplex medium speed protocol with simple error checking and (AFAIR) no flow control.


Need help identifying 2011 Lego bag #3, Friends mini-doll legs with dark green pants with brown shoes and dark red bricks? Trying to figure out what set this bag #3 from a 2011 set is from, unable to upload picture due to size limit.  Bag has a figure that is not like traditional LEGO figures, green pants, bends at the legs, brown shoes with feet that look like a real persons legs, then shoes, hair is brown and looks like a hedgehog piece of hair, with pointy ears, body is green with a gold belt and a tattoo on left arm.  Several silver pillars and purple and pink in bag.

The minifig is a Friends doll, to be precise, it's Farran Leafshade from the Elves theme.

He appears in two sets in those green pants. Given that you mention the bag you have has #3 printed on it, and the 41076 Farran and the Crystal Hollow set has only 2 bags in it, I believe you have part of set  41075 The Elves' Treetop Hideaway in your possession.

As an FYI: The 2011 printed on the bag indicates the year the bag design was copyrighted - it has no correlation with the year the set was made (which was 2015 for the set in question).


Identifying Parts Used For The Escape Hatch of Sariel's Tiger XL Model I am working on a similar model of Sariel's Tiger XL in prep for my own designs of a few other German WW2 tanks, and need some help identifying a part or two.

Does anyone know what are the two parts on the left image that stand in for the escape hatch? One looks like a spanner, and the other one behind it is circular.

First three from what we can see...

Part: 4735 Bar 1 x 3 with Clip and Stud Receptacle (Robot Arm).

Part 2958 Technic, Disk 3 x 3.

Part: 75c03 Hose, Rigid 3mm D. 3L / 2.4cm.

Last two hidden from view...

4 & 5. Part: 4085d Plate, Modified 1 x 1 with Clip Vertical - Type 4
    (thick open O clip).

I can't see, but I can imagine two crossed vertical 1x1 clip plates, pierced by the flex tubing to hold up the robot arm.

Sing! Now, build it out.  Now, build it out.  Now, build it out...


What are the best sources of information for upcoming LEGO sets? LEGO sometimes offers me a "LEGO Calendar" with upcoming events, sets, sales, and coupons.  Whether or not I get this calendar is hit/miss and it only notifies me of the next month's news.  I've searched the internet for new release LEGO sets and have had problems finding a reliable single source for all sets.  Usually a site focus on one series, E.G. Ghostbusters.

What is the best place(s) to go to find this type of information?  I found the official catalog.  It doesn't go as far ahead as other sites.  Preferably information covering the next year.

The LEGO store calendars are available online about a month ahead of time. It lists the upcoming promotions, specials, new sets, store events, etc. They are the exact same ones as what you would get in the mail. You can find them in the right-hand side-bar here: http://stores.lego.com/en-us/

As far as going as far ahead as the following year, you are not going to get official information on this, as LEGO doesn't reveal their future sets more than a few months ahead the most. You will have to follow rumors and leaks, which may or may not be correct. I would suggest that you become a member of either Eurobricks or Brickset and follow the discussions on possible upcoming sets.

Also, it is a good idea to follow LEGO news at the beginning of the year, as new LEGO sets get revealed at the various toy-fairs in January/February. Pretty much all LEGO fansites will closely follow the news coming from these events. The sets displayed are usually go as far as the summer, but they will not include the large exclusives, which usually get revealed separately.


EV3 Rapt3r's head cable interfering with slithering My Rapt3r is working great, except that the cable that goes from the head to the "Intelligent Brick" physically interferes with the slithering on the side on which it is plugged (port 4).

Physically interfering in the sense that the cable being somewhat stiff prevents the motor from turning all the way on that side.

If I unplug the cable the slithering is much more balanced between the two sides. Is there a better way to thread that cable than what is shown in the instructions?

That's bad. Try to unplug and plug fast and see what happens. Or try to connect the cable on the port that is beside, and then, connect it to its port. I hope that works.


Is there a MILS-like standard for medieval villages and castles? I'm aware of the MILS standard for building large layouts including city and train elements:

This could obviously be adapted for use in medieval layouts, but is there something like this that has already been standardized and put in use by LUGs?

The Modular Medieval Village Standard put together by the Rochester, NY LUG (RochLUG) provides this. It features an underlying support layer very similar to MILS:

Most modules will feature a randomized cobblestone road providing transit between structures:

Structures of various kinds can be added to the modules:

Many modules created by different people can be connected to create convincing medieval villages:

Complete details of the system can be found in the PDF shared by RochLUG.


What method do you use to safely remove creases from fabric sails from the Pirate sets? I have creased sails. Is it safe to iron them, or is there a better method?

A very, very low-heat iron should be fine, although you will have to bear in mind that some of the sets of sails have stickers on. I would advise either going around the stickers (the heat could cause them to melt or peel off) or ironing the back of the sail.

I guess the material for the sail is the same as the part from 6091 - King Leo's Castle - which has been surprisingly resiliant to wear and tear over the years.

Another option would to be place the sail under a stack of heavy books for a few days.


What set did this Technic container come from? This box has a lot of Technic LEGO pieces but I don't know which set this is from. The box is small, violet.

That's Container, Throwbot / Slizer 'Flying' Case Lid

This item in Purple color was available in two sets.


I need help Identifing this set by the picture I have a blurry picture of a set I found at a LEGO fair, and I would like to  know what it is:

Thank you.

That picture is quite blurry, but I'm pretty sure it's 8466 4x4 Off Roader from 2001:

The wheels in the picture look like they are metallic silver, and I think this is the only set of this size with metallic silver wheels and lime accents.


Can you identify this yellow LEGO vehicle? I bought my grandson a box of LEGO and this was in it. I have tried searching for 3 days with brick numbers to find the set but can’t get any joy. If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be extremely grateful.

The set name is Cool Cruiser (5767). This is a 3-in-1 Creator set with pictured model being one of these three:


What is this upside down roof peak or boat hull? Here's another mystery piece from my collection. I'm not 100% sure it's genuine LEGO, but I would love to know whether it is, and if so, what part. It attaches to the bottom of a 2x8 brick securely. No markings to identify branding or part numbers, but other legos it came with were from 1970s era.

It kind of looks like it ought to be a curved roof peak, except it's upside down. Maybe the bottom of a boat hull? But what about the notched slots on the bottom?

* there is a small crack in the narrow end of the brick. The left side is what both sides should look like.

It looks to me like this is a Weighted Keel 2 x 8 x 4 (x149). I don't personally have this part, but it looks like your part is this part broken in two:

These were mounted under the floating boats of the late 70s and early 80s.


Why are there always holes in Duplo bricks? For some reason, all the Duplo bricks that exist out there have holes in their studs. I haven't seen a Duplo brick that doesn't have holes in the studs, and I doubt such thing even exists.
System bricks can actually connect to Duplo bricks with these holes, but is that the only reason for the holes? Is there is a Duplo brick that doesn't have holes in its studs (if yes then please point it out in the comments or in your answer)?
What are the other reasons for Duplo bricks to have holes in their studs, if any?

Plastic molds are designed to have an even thickness wherever possible (I think it helps with cooling), so a having a hole in the stud made sense to keep the brick's walls consistently thin. The hole could have been placed on the underside of the brick, but putting it on top had the obvious advantage of being compatibile with standard bricks.
Interestingly, DUPLO baseplates have their holes on the underside rather than the top. I believe this is because baseplates are vacuum formed instead of injection molded.


Finding out what sets these bags belong to? I recently opened up a Sterilite box of LEGO from a garage sale to find some unopened bags.  How can I figure out what sets these belong to?

The Bags have numbers on them if that helps...424R8 is on a Bag 2 and a Bag 4.  324R8 is on Bag3 and a Bag 5.  211R7 is on a Bag2.  407R8 is on Bag 3.  450R6 is on a Bag 5.

Based on

PLATE OCTAGONAL 10X10 W. SNAP
PLATE OCTAGONAL 10X10
Scrolling through the instructions

First bag 2, first bag 3, bag 4 and first bag 5 (pictures 1, 3, 5 and 6) are from 75953: Hogwarts Whomping Willow


Infrared sensor behavior I'm developing a small program with the LEGO's Ev3 development tool. I'm trying to make the robot rotate, 30° at time, and if the infrared sensor detects something then make something and stop. Here is my current program:

The result is odd: it makes a few loops, than I can see the sensor turns off for a few seconds and then it is completely unresponsive, even if I stop the program and run other programs! I have to turn it off and on again to make it work.

The sensor is on port 4, and it works with programs developed on the ev3 itself.

Try waiting longer - one second or one and a half. And you were using the ultrasonic sensor but in the program you use infrared sensor block.

You can switch to port view prior to running your program to verify that your sensor is of the expected type and works.


Part identification - 5 parts Please could someone help me with identifying these parts. I could not find a part number on them. I've tried reverse image searching too - but having no luck. Once I have the part numbers I will work out what sets(s) we purchased and go from there - I just need the part numbers to begin.
Images below.

1: two pieces from sets like 6919 - the sticker is magnetic, and fits on 30213 to make 30213pb01
2: an Insectoids torso - 973pb0037
3: an Insectoid head - 3626bpx31
4: might be a Harold Potter head - 3626bpb0155 from set 4711
5: seems to be an Insectoid helmet - 30214


9398 reduction change I am studying implementation of 9398 crawler reduction.
Here is the stripped part, in order to see the gears and their relation - the image is made with the excellent tool which is LDCad.

My idea is to use this Lego design for other model and I need to know how would I calculate the effect of changing it a bit.
My intention is to replace the two 16 teeth gears 94925:

with a pair of 12 and 20 teeth (32270 and 32269):

and to remove the last reduction pairs, the ones in portal axle:

so it would be as follows:

Would this become faster/less powerful or slower/more powerful?
My aim would be to keep it pretty close to how it performs now.

Also, is there a way to combine gears in order to add a distance of half of a stud between the motor axle and the next or the second one? In the image below, I have moved the parts and created a gap between the gears, in order to point what I intend to move, but the contact must be assured by some gears, obviously by replacing the existing ones. Would be there possible?

This modification won't change the rate of reduction.

You can calculate the ratio of the angular velocities of two adjacent gearwheels as

i12 = w2/w1 = n1/n2

where w is the angular velocity and n is the number of teeth of the gears. Hence the original reduction reads as:

i12*i23*i34*i45*i56 = 12/20 * 16/16 * 20/28 * 12/20 * 12/20 = 27/175 = 0.1543

while the modified is:

i12*i23*i34*i45 = 12/20 * 12/20 * 20/28 * 12/20 = 27/175 = 0.1543

What you did is you simply removed the 16/16 and replaced the 12/20 gears, which results in the same reduction because the order of the multiplication is arbitrary.

To the second question:

You can change the 12-20 gears to 16-24 ones to fit the increased distance. In this case, the new reduction is

i12*i23*i34*i45 = 16/24 * 12/20 * 20/28 * 12/20 = 6/35 = 0.1714

Note that the new gears may intersect parts not shown in the figures.


Are there LEGO compatible CAD Files For Injection Mold Manufacturing? I've designed some fun building brick sets that are compatible with LEGO but I know the market for them is smaller than what LEGO would be interested in.  I've contacted some manufacturers at alibaba.com to see if they could produce the sets for me however most of them want me to send them 3D model files.

I can convert the LDRAW files to OBJ files, but are they accurate enough for use for manufacturing?  Has anyone else tried this?

Look here: http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:LEGO

But be aware- as a single person manufacturing a LEGO compatible item, you might be open to litigation. You would probably win, but winning very frequently bankrupts people either way. Do you really require a unique piece that LEGO does not make? There are many custom sets around that are a kit of LEGO manufactured pieces.


I have a LEGO minifigure and I'm trying to determine the value of it I have a minifigure and I am trying to determine it's value - I'd like to know whether it's worth holding on to it for longer, or if I would get a reasonable price for it now.

At the moment (12/09/2018) there are a few other people offering that figure for sale on BrickLink, varying from £110 to £230 (actual asking prices are in various currencies listed on the results page).

More importantly however, is the Price Guide page - from there you can see that one figure apparently was bought this month for about £72, however in July one was purchased for around £108, while another was purchased for about £83.

From that, you could probably get a sale at around £100, but it might take a while to sell.


NXT software on Windows 10 isn't detecting NXT brick I have the Mindstorms NXT software and brick (CPU), and I worked with them a long time ago running NXT on a Windows XP. Now, I would like to retrieve the brick to teach my son, and I installed the NXT software on Windows 10. The application runs well, but it does not detect the brick. I have read that NXT software is not supported on Windows 10, but other sites tell that NXT works well on Windows 10.
Could someone give me more details on how to install and run the NXT software on Windows 10?

You need a newer version of the Lego Fantom Driver.
You can download it here as part of the whole software kit:
https://education.lego.com/en-us/downloads/retiredproducts/nxt/software
If you want JUST the driver on it's own, scroll to the advanced section at the bottom of this page:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/mindstorms/downloads
And grab the NXT Fantom Driver file

Unzip the downloaded file, then follow the usual "install driver from disk" under win 10 procedure.
The driver works perfectly fine under windows 10:

But some of the driver installers for 64bit have an error in the install script, and need to be patched before they work.  If your driver setup (Assuming you use the exe setup method) fails, the instructions to patch the driver can be found here:

Your installation will fail if you are using a 64bit-Windows. The reason for this is a slightly defect setup.ini-file, which refers to a LegoMindstormsNXTdriver64Supp.msi which does not exist.
I don’t know when Lego will fix this (current version 1.2.0 still has the problem), but there is an easy workaround:

Download the File, Unzip it

Go to „NXT Fantom Drivers\NXT Fantom Drivers\Windows\1.2\1.2.0, open setup.ini in your favorite editor (still using notepad???)

Search for the line „[LegoMindstormsNXTdriver64Supp.msi]“

In the next line, enter another, valid path (even if it has nothing to do with the Driver-Support). e.g. change it to   „Path=Products\LEGO_NXT_Driver_64\NXT_D02\LegoMindstormsNXTdriver64.msi“.

Save the file

Start the normal setup.exe

When the installer asks you which components you want do install, deselect the „LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT x64 Driver Support“ LegoInstaller

Finish the rest of the installer with the defaults, everything should run smooth now. The Driver-Support files are not necessary for normal use


How can I tell if minifigures are custom-made or LEGO Originals? I see that on Amazon you can find a lot of minifigures but I can't tell if they are cheap knock-offs or not.

If you can't hold them in your hand and inspect them closely for the usual LEGO production marks, as it would be the case with buying from Amazon, your best bet would be asking the seller and checking whether the individual parts exist as official LEGO pieces. A custom piece that doesn't appear in any official sets or catalogues clearly indicates a third-party make. Note however that the inverse is not true, if all parts of the figure can be found in official sets, they still could be custom-made. At this point it all comes down to the honesty (well-informedness?) of the seller and your trust in her/him.


Building techniques for designing a LEGO City Street scene? As the question suggests...
I'm trying to build a city street in "midiscale" similar to that of Hong Kong, but I have no idea on where to even begin with something like this. This project is being built in LDD 4.3.10.
I can't build skyscrapers and cityscapes for the life of me, but I want to create a city street to replicate a scene from one of my favorite movies, hence me asking this question. I can't find any decent .lxf files that even remotely fit this bill.
The scene I want recreate is from Pacific Rim (the first one), where Gipsy walks into Hong Kong with a boat bat to face Otachi. This is the scene I want to create:

I have the Jaeger and the Kaiju, it's just the cityscape that I don't have.
Does anyone have any building techniques? Anything at all?
I know this is asking for a lot, but would anyone have a .lxf file that they would be kind enough to share?
Below are screenshots demonstrating the size of each of the entities, namely the Jaeger and the Kaiju. A Minifigure has been added to give a greater sense of scale ->

Apologies for Otachi's right claw, hand thing not being on the ground. It is a pain in the butt trying to articulate these joints.

Calculations / Pre-process

I started off by guessing that your MOCs are about 7 minifigs tall.  If a minifig is 4 bricks tall that makes the overall height 28 bricks tall.
It looks like the tallest buildings are about 20 stories tall and the shorter buildings are 5 stories tall.
So you're looking at 4 plates or 5 plates per floor to build these.  4 plates per floor would end up with buildings 26.66 bricks tall.  5 plates per floor would lead to a 33.33 bricks tall building.  Since the 4 plate version is closer to our goal height, and we can cheat by making a few of the lower floors an extra plate tall, that seems like the best way to go.
Then I took the picture and made a diagram of where I expect the buildings to go.  Based on this it seemed like the building should be 12 or 15 studs per side.

Process
I realize this question was asked for LDD, but since it is no longer supported I'm not going to fight with it.  Stud.io or Mecabricks are actively maintained and supported.  I'm a bit better at Stud.io so I'm going to proceed with that.
For organizational purposes I'm going to put each chunk into a step and name the step something logical.  There is way too much in each step for LEGO standards, but I'm not worried about buildable instructions for now.  If instructions become an issue these steps should be split up further.

I laid out a couple of baseplates and created some boring sidewalks for the main road where the MOCs are stationed in the picture.
Then I added a brick ruler that is 28 bricks high so that I could conveniently have a visual reference for the goal height from step 1 under Calculations.  I did this with a stack of 2x4 bricks in alternating colors.
We needed more baseplates to go under the buildings so I added 2 more pn3811 32x32 baseplates.
I wanted to make sure the layout was going to transfer into bricks so I used 4x12 plates to layout the buildings from the sketch.  This will also serve as a "basement" to get the buildings to start above the sidewalk tiles.   I added building numbers that will come up again later.
I put in 2x4 tiles to make the side streets.  I went with Dark Bluish Gray to match the road baseplate color.  Since I'm giving the side streets 6 studs of width the remaining 1 stud width on each side could be filled in with a curb or sidewalk.  Filling in the road helped me realize I had a couple of buildings 1 stud off, so I was glad to catch and adjust that before it was more painful to fix.
There need to be something to tie the baseplates together so I put in a line of tiles 2 studs wide.
Whew, that's a lot of setup, but now we can get to working on one of the buildings.  I want to make sure the closest tall building looks decent.  I'm going to start by having a layer of plates that are inset by one stud and then a layer of bricks.  I wanted to do something SNOT for the vertical feature of that building, but I couldn't think of an easy way to float the 87087 "Brick, Modified 1 x 1 with Stud on 1 Side" out there.  I went with 1x4s jutting out and made it look like it goes up the whole building by filling in 1x4 plates.  Once I got a floor I wanted to go with I turned it into a submodel.  I then copied and pasted this submodel 19 more times.  Once you have the 20 floors you can finish the top in a few was.  I just through some plates on top to make it look uniform.
The next building down the street ("building 2") presents more challenges.  I'm guessing it is 5 stores tall.  The top 3 floors are one style and the bottom 2 are another.  I'm guessing the bottom 2 are a parking garage.  There's a lot of light coming out of the front of this.  I'll leave the light issue as an exercise for the reader or a new question.  There wasn't much chance of doing repeating elements so I didn't create any subassemblies for this building.  The 27c01 windows aren't available in tan, but since this is all in the computer I'll cheat to keep it looking nice.
The last building on the main drag (building 3) is hard to tell much of anything in the picture.  I bricked up a boring cube to fill the space.  I turned two levels of bricks into a subassembly to make the repetition clearer.
The building behind building 2 (building 4) is obscured in the picture by building 1 so I filled in with another boring cube.
The building behind building 3 (building 5) is another 20 floor tall building.  I made 4 layers of 1-wide plates that looked like an interesting approximation of the picture.  I cheated again on some of the colors not being available in that plate size.  I made the floor into a subassembly and repeated it 19 more times.  I covered it with some plates.

Final Top View

Result

This isn't anything that I expect anyone to build.  It needs lots of refinement, but I won't take that joy away from you!  :) I hope this demonstrates the building techniques that you were looking for.  If anybody wants the file I'll find a place to post it.


What are the programming languages that can be used on Lego Mindstorm EV3? My son is interested in robotics. For me, I would like maximum flexibility for programming. For my son, I guess something simpler would be preferable so that his interest is not killed by complexity right from the start.

What are the programming languages that can be used on Lego Mindstorm EV3?

I am new to Lego Mindstorm.

With ev3dev pretty much any programming language you can run or compile for the ARM board can be used. All you really need to be able to do is read and write to a file. This is because ev3dev is based on Debian Linux and has drivers to communicate with the hardware through virtual files.
That being said, typically you will probably want to use a library which abstracts the low-level API. The following are currently well-supported.

Python
Java
Go
C++
C
Prolog
Vala, Genie, and other GObject-based languages
Rust

You can find the full list and some other 3rd-party libraries on the ev3dev Programming Languages page.


How accurate is the ultrasound sensor when moving? Can I use an ultrasound sensor while the Robot is moving, or will it give bad data?

Short answer: The ultrasonic sensor is perfectly accurate while moving!

A regular NXT robot will move at a maximum speed of several meters per second (usually about 1 or 2 m/s max.). Ultrasound, on the other hand, travels with about 330 meters per second through air. So during the "snapshot" the ultrasound sensor does (basically it sends a ping, listens for the pong-echo, and takes the time difference), your robot appears to be frozen for this brief moment.

So this is why, whenever your ultrasonic sensor makes a measurement, you get a freze-frame snapshot of the current distance to the nearest object it detects. In reality, the sensor sends out pings all the time during default operation, and you just get the very latest measurment -- but essntially, this feels the same.

Since the ultrasonic sensor is digital and offers its data via the I²C protocol, this is where the main latency comes from. On the other hand, you shouldn't poll (i.e. read out) your sensor too frequently, if that is what you're worried about. In several tests we've concluded with hundred NXT kits, that a polling rate of 50 Hz (50 times per second, delay of 20ms between each poll) does work perfectly with no problems at all. When you're using NXT-G, you shouldn't worry at all: You won't get values faster anyway. When you're working with other languages, and you feel your ultrasonic sensor doesn't work so well in a tight loop with constant polling, try to insert this little 20ms break!

Far more important are the objects you try to detect. This is due to the wavelength of ultrasound. You can't detect objects with dimensions of just a couple of centimeters.

The US works best when facing walls, perpendicular to the sensor
It has big problems detecting furr, carpet- or cloth-like surfaces (the ultrasound doesn't get reflected)
It has big problems detecting smooth surfaces, facing the sensor at skew angles (not 90°) -- the ultrasound gets reflected away
It has problems detecting round objects (e.g. a water bottle or a football) accurately. The ultrasound gets reflected too widely, so you'll see the bottle or ball "bigger and wider" than it is in reality.
It will miss tiny objects

The first rule is, as always: Experiment on your own! For more resources, try the LEGO NXT Hardware SDK or at least the pictures in this german paper, pages 24, 27ff.


What is this "patent pending" part? I found this part in our LEGO collection, and I'm really curious what it might be, it looks old and says "Pat. pend" on the back. Do you know? Thanks!

It's a tie plate from the original 4.5V train system, specifically from a "switch point right":

http://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=x879cx1#T=C


What are all the different ways that LEGO pieces join together? Has anyone made a list of all of the different types of connections between LEGO bricks?

Obviously there's the stud connection - but there's also the ball and socket joint, the more recent click-hinge, the pole-to-minifig-hand connection, and so on.

I suspect there are a quite a few that are specific to a few pieces (eg door hinges or train magnets). What I'm most interested in though are the connections that are part of the overall 'system'.

Currently in use:

Stud and "antistud" (diameter 4.6mm)
Longer studs (Minifig torso)
Minifig legs
Minifig neck and head / accessory (eg backpack) - also compatible with studs
Clip and bar (in a way, similar to stud, but with diameter 3.2mm)
Wheels (3.2mm axles)
Flower connector (similar, but even smaller, present in a surprising number of parts, including spider and Technic chain link)
Technic hole and pin (compatible with studs)
Technic axle and axle hole
Turntable
Click hinges
Ball joint sockets
Brick hinges (I'd wager this one is the next one to disappear)
9v/RC track connection
PF electrical plug
NXT electrical plug
Train magnets, embedded
Pneumatic hoses to pneumatic elements and bar elements
Sliding door in grooves
Visors on helmets

Decommissioned:

Flat hinges
12v track clip
4.5V/12v electrical plugs
9V electrical plugs
Train magnets, free (connects to flowers too...)
Tube plate hinge (with red tube)
Wheels (metal pin, as in blue era train wheels)
Wheels (Plastic pin, as in grey era train wheels)
ZNAP
Homemaker arm joints


Arduino-izing LEGO Technic - ideas for a car / vehicle to choose I am starting a project - Arduino-izing LEGO Technic - and now I need some ideas for a car / vehicle to choose.

This project starts out as a quest to find a way to combine the ease of LEGO Technic chassis building with cheap commodity electronics to motorize and remote control it. I am looking for a car / vehicle that is able to work for this. This could be a simple chassis:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Build-your-own-Custom-Arduino-Remote-Control-and-L/
https://www.hackster.io/Notthemarsian/take-control-over-lego-power-functions-ee0bfa
https://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Remote-Controlled-Car-1/

This should be a part of a robotics workshop and therefore I need a LEGO-based platform for younger kids who grew up with Lego but cannot afford to spend hundreds of dollars to buy power functions, LEGO motors, IR remote, and EV3. Thanks to numerous examples on the net and several and Youtube tutorials on integrating Arduino with LEGO, I will try to start out with an interesting example.

Starting point: the kids should be able to complete this project with a small budget and I hope to incorporate this into my robotics workshop in the future.

The main thing is, I need to have the rear axle to be attached to a single N20 motor to move the kart forward and reverse via a TB6612FNG motor driver.
Front steering can be controlled by an SG90 servo motor.

Remote control should be able to be accomplished by a cheap IR remote/receiver solution based on

Arduino
Zigbee
Bluetooth

I understand that the IR remote hardware (and the method) is pretty hard part to implement and learn about a remote control system so it was a perfect option for this car.

Since this is just a proof-of-concept project and the design follows function - I need to have an idea.

The main question is: which LEGO car to choose?
How about LEGO Technic-8071 - the Service Truck?
What would you suggest?

I'd be tempted to use the Batmobile (76112) design:

Basically, you have independent motors for the left and right wheels. This allows you to steer quickly and easily without the fuss of a traditional steering system.

The Batmobile is $100 MSRP, and can be found on sale. The included motor controller is Bluetooth based, and can be remote controlled via a smart device or custom software on a laptop. Basically, that set meets your needs if you can afford it.

If that is too expensive for you, I'd still encourage you to consider using a similar design using official LEGO motors. It's relatively complicated to integrate off-the-shelf motors with LEGO (I did this a lot as a kid), and the official motors are actually quite cheap these days. You can pick up Power Functions M Motors for $7.49:

That's $15 for the pair. You'd just need to cut off the Power Functions connector and connect the motor to your driver. This saves you the fuss of mounting your motors and integrating them with LEGO gears and wheels.

This is really outside the scope of your question, but on the electronics side I personally wouldn't use an Arduino. I'd probably go with something that has wireless built in, such as something ESP8266-based. Then, all you need is your microcontroller and motor driver for a working system. The system can be remote controlled from a PC or smart device. You wouldn't even need special software on the remote, as the microcontroller can broadcast an SSID and serve up a web-based controller to the connected device.

So then your BOM would be:

2x PF M Motors ($15)
NodeMCU or other wireless controller ($3)
A few Technic beams, gears, axles, wheels, etc ($5+)
Battery box ($2)
TB6612FNG or similar dual motor controller ($1)

You could probably do the whole thing for ~$30.


Is this black and red speedboat model from an official set or a MOC? Please help me: is this from an official set or an MOC?


API for Android or iOS connecting to EV3 by bluetooth There is official API for Windows, WindowsPhone8 and WinRT https://legoev3.codeplex.com/ it lets you connect to EV3 brick and control it remotely from your WindowsPhone.

Are there any libraries available for Android (Java) or iOS (Objective-C)?

I would like to write custom app for myself that will let me steer my own robots (using either Android or iOS device).

I have started a c++ iOS API at https://github.com/dsjove/legoev3cpp. Contributions are welcome.


How do I robustly tilt a strength-1 wall? Background

I am still working on my model of a ride-on mower, which has a seat that looks like this:

As you can see, the seat is mounted onto an inclined surface, which I realised to my satisfaction and which causes the seating area of the seat to be inclined as well. However, this means if I build the back of the seat in a rectangular manner, it will be inclined forwards, which is unrealistic (and uncomfortable for the driver). Therefore I need to tilt it backwards.

Goal

I have a 6×1 wall mounted onto one side of a regular 6×n plate and want to tilt it by at least 10° and at most 40°. With regular hinges, this looks like this:

However, if I use regular hinges, the result is not very robust and the wall falls down easily. I am therefore looking for a more robust solution.

Some specifications:

Whatever is needed to tilt the wall may not extend below the plate. (I need that place for something else, namely the complicated mounting.)
Whatever is needed to tilt the wall may extend somewhat forward (onto the plate) on the sides (resembling the above seat) but not backwards.
All components should be available in black. (I used red in the examples for better visibility.)
The inclination may begin somewhat above the plate.

My best solution so far are minifigure legs (which are pretty robust on their own) combined with a clip tile to hold the wall in place:


Help me identify this Batman set I've tried to look up what I thought were specific bricks without luck, so please help me. I know it's a Batman set, but not much more. The red shield is #17979, its red transparent. There is a hook behind with #24144 and a "bat-rang" #26-01

I did new research on Rebrickable and found out it is #76086 - Knightcrawler Tunnel Attack


Do you use the plastic buckets for purposes other than organizing your bricks? We have several bucket sets like #5560.

Now that our collection is growing, it's becoming harder to find what we need in the buckets even though we have them sorted by color. Plus they are in a rather tall, wobbly stack in a corner and they keep getting knocked over.

So I'm thinking of organizing the bricks into small drawers and getting rid of the buckets entirely. But that leaves me with a million ugly pink and blue buckets that have no purpose.

I'm big on repurposing items rather than throwing them away. So tell me: what can I use these buckets for rather than storing LEGO bricks?

Well the buckets themselves have value.
If you can't use them you could sell them to people who want them.

Your example set #5560 has an original box only listing on BrickLink, as do many other of the brick boxes, run a search for "brick box" you'll find lots.

The prices vary from a few dollars, to ~$20 for you example. They don't seem to be big sellers, but there are some sales.

If you have a lot of them and/or you want them gone quicker set up an eBay listing for all of them.


Connection between two NXT bricks Is it possible send information from BrickNXT_A to BrickNXTB_B?

For example I have a touch sensor connected to IN_1 of Brick_A and I want send the result of the sensor status (1 or 0) to Brick_B. If the touch sensor status on IN_1 of brick_A is 1, then the motor connected with OUT_A in brick_B, turn for 1 rotation.

How to do this with NXC? My difficult is the connection and sending information between the Bricks.

Yes, it is possible. Have a look at the "Comm module functions" section of the NXT help file. For example, since the touch sensor status is a boolean value, you could use the SendRemoteBool and ReceiveRemoteBool functions. You can communicate wirelessly using the Bluetooth functions (BT*) or you can have a wired connection using RS485 by connecting input port 4 on each brick to each other.


Lego set for 17 year old This might sound a little bit silly, but I'm 17 and I've never built a LEGO toy, so I was looking for a first one, to see what it's about. What sets would you recommend I should look at, that are complex enough for someone my age not to get bored?

I wouldn't really get an NXT, because I don't want to program a robot, I just want to build something, and I think an Arduino would be cheaper and more complex. Bionicle and Architecture seem interesting, but Technic looks like the most complex of them all.

So... what sets should I look at?

You're probably the only one who can answer that question, but here are a few thoughts anyway.

If you're interested in mechanic complexity and how machines work, Technic is indeed a good way to go. And as you hint, it can evolve into robotics, whether with a NXT or with anything else you fancy.

If you're after building complexity, I wouldn't recommend the architecture sets. The few I build weren't very challenging, and I find their price a bit on the heavy side. The bigger ones (21005 - Fallingwater or 21010 - Robie House may be more challenging, though.

However, sets with a high number of parts will usually mean the build is more complex. For example, 10214 - Tower Bridge has 4287 parts, and if you compare its price with the 2276-parts Architecture Robie House, you'll find it much more interesting.

Similarly, the various modular buildings also have high parts counts and are fun to build and display afterwards; plus, they go well together when you get the chance to have more than one.

As an aside, notice the "display" aspect I mention is important too - what do you want to do with the set you'll end up buying? If you're after replay value (creating new things constantly, the Creator theme has great sets with good play value, which are reasonably priced.

On the other hand, if you're concerned about your set keeping some value, or if you're a fan, license sets may be a good choice, especially Star Wars which also has some very big and complex sets.

Last, keep in mind LEGO also give age ranges for its sets. They're estimates, but a set marked 16+ is likely to be more challenging to you, so you'll want to look for these. You can easily browse the sets by age on the online LEGO shop, and even set limits for price and number of parts.

In any case, whatever you end up buying, don't hesitate to come back and share your own experience.


What is this yellow hinge piece named? Recently, I've been flipping through a scan of the March 1995 edition of the LEGO Mania Magazine. Something in the corner of page 11 caught my eye:

This is the 5th step of the "Flip & Build" segment. I am absolutely puzzled; what is that yellow element that forms that arm? (And by extension, how does it clip to that 1x2 black plate?)

Bear in mind that this is from 1995, so it's no surprise if this piece is discontinued now despite being common back then. Really, what piece is that?

I think this is the yellow element: Hinge Bar 2 with 3 Fingers and Top Stud

And this the black "plate": Hinge Plate 1 x 2 with 2 Fingers and Solid Studs

Both elements are hinges, so they can connect.


Is there a baseplate with connections on the bottom? Today, I bought a baseplate (10700). Sadly, the female connectors on the back are not "LEGO compatible"...you can't plug any LEGO bricks into them.  I want to build a LEGO cart so dash can pull dot (a big mechanical moving robot can pull a small nonmoving robot). I need to plug the wheels on the bottom of the large brick and a fence to block the little robot in on top. I listed all items in category Bricks on Pick a Brick and found no match.  Similarly for bricklink.

Where can I find a large flat brick (at a minimum 4 inches by 4 inches) so I can build a wagon?

If all else fails, I can super glue some thin bricks together.

You can certainly combine a number of LEGO parts to build the sort of element you are hoping for. If you want just one part to do this as simply as possible, I'd recommend a 16x16 plate:

This part is about 5 inches by 5 inches and has studs on top and antistuds underneath. You can find it on Bricklink:

http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=91405

There have also been some large bricks (up to 12x24) that might work for you:


I bought a second hand pack of pieces and it looks like it may be a specific set Hoping for help to identify a set of lego pieces. It definitely has a car wheel base, and the base boards are green.close

A lot, but definitely not all, is likely from Race 3000.


Can someone identify this LEGO Model? Brown Technic set with huge dark grey wheels? Can someone identify the name and/or set number of this LEGO Model?

It's set 4481 - Hailfire Droid. You've got it tilted vertically, it needs to rotate 90 degrees - the black rocket launch pods need to be on top.


Help identifying Lego bricks from a picture for a Geocache I'd like to recreate a Lego design I've seen for an ammo can Geocache - its a box that opens with a hinged lid. I've found the parts for the handles (CLAMP 1X2) and hinge pieces (PLATE 1X2 W/SHAFT Ø3) on the top but I'm really struggling to find the large flat plat with hooks on the right side.
If you can help identify this particular piece I'd be grateful. If you have any idea what's on the right side too or any other bricks I need then suggestions are very welcome.
Thank you!

The flat plate with hooks, on the left of the image, appears to be Tile, Modified, 3 x 2 with 2 Open O clips
Without an image from another angle, it is hard to tell what the connection on the other side might be - it could be Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with 2 Open O Clips (Horizontal Grip), or perhaps a pair of Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with Clip on End (Horizontal Grip), but it could equally be something completely different.

After a quick Reverse Image Search, I found this set for sale on Geocaching.com with images of other angles, including the Bag of Parts - and this model appears to use a pair of LegoPlate, Modified 1 x 1 with Open O Clip (Horizontal Grip), instead


Is connecting LEGO studs on Technic pins legal? I see it in MOCs all the time, and I’ve seen studs connect on half pins in official sets, but what about full pins?

The presentation that senior Lego designer Jamie Berard held at Brickcon 2006 and that spawned the entire legal vs illegal discussion can be found here:

https://www.hellobricks.com/pdf/jamieberard-brickstress-bf06.pdf

The particular case you ask for is discussed in slides 9 and 10:


Is there a catalog of Lego building techniques? As a Lego noob watching Lego Masters, I spot certain techniques being used time and again, without any real explanation (Lego Masters is great for entertainment, but offers little to no instruction). For example, curves can be created by alternating 1x2 bricks and 1x1 "barrels" (or cones).
Is there any kind of online catalog of Lego techniques? Does such a thing exist? Not only would this allow me to learn more rapidly, but I could also refer to the technique by its correct name.

Swooshable has a great collection of SNOT (studs not on top) and advanced techniques, it is probably the closest thing you will get to an online catalogue.

They seem to have updated their SNOT section with some really pretty renderings, piece information, videos and step by step instructions. Most of the articles for advanced techniques lead to external sites.
There are also techniques for making LEGO fonts and an introduction to building techniques and many other cool things.

There are a also few books I can recommend, they are all from the same publisher (no starch press) but are probably the best resources.
The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide, 2nd Edition
I have both editions but I prefer the second as it is in full colour and much more compact. It covers among many other things:

Common vocabulary
Structural tips (Building round walls, bracing, columns, etc.)
Parts that can be used as substitutions
Advice on planning builds
Mosaics
Sculptures
An index of commonly used parts.

The Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder's Guide, 2nd Edition
The best book there is for Technic builders, it covers the basic concepts, mechanics, pneumatics, motors and other more advanced concepts.

The LEGO Technic Idea Book: Simple Machines
Also covers Technic concepts but from a minimalist perspective. The techniques are presented purely visually so it is up to you to work out how they work. It's a good book to flick through to get inspiration.

If you aren't looking for anything in particular, you can also have a look at the top questions with the 'building' tag on this site.


Which Duplo bricks have practical uses in System building? Traditional 2x4 and 2x2 Duplo bricks can be used to bulk out models and provide a structural support for landscapes, but have there been any other uses for Duplo bricks of all shapes and sizes in System scale MOC's?

I can find two examples, one of a Duplo barrel being used for a water tower and another that uses a Duplo crown to form the pinnacle of a structure.

Check out these links:

this MOC uses a Duplo Ladybug Base.
this modern classic uses a Duplo piece as a major element.


Is there anywhere that you can buy *custom* individual Lego-compatible bricks? There are pieces I'd like to get, like "door rail" inside and outside corner plates, double-sided plates, 1x1 and corner masonry bricks, 1x1 panels (not a corner, more like Lego 4865), as well as pieces that aren't made in the color palette I want.
I've looked at Lepin and I see that they do have some increased color palette options for "door rail" pieces, as well as masonry bricks, but I'd like to go further (they only have 1x2 bricks/plates for each of those options) without resorting to pay $12+ a piece for items on shapeways (that would get very expensive very fast).  Even $2-3 a piece wouldn't be so bad if I could just get what I want in the colors I want.
Is DIY 3D printing currently the only real option here?

There are several ways to obtain pieces that are not in the LEGO pallette that I know of:

Through 3D printing at home. This has become much easier as 3D printers have seen significant improvements in resolution, precision and affordability. The challenge is to make a part that works as well as a regular LEGO brick, as that requires very tight tolerances. On the other hand, dimensions of common bricks are very easy to find in the public domain.

Via a 3D printing service using someone else’s design for a part. Check out Shapeways and even Etsy to see if a part has already been designed and manufactured by another fan. There used to be room on Bricklink for custom items like this, but since LEGO bought Bricklink these products have been removed from the site. Especially in the train hobby there are many individuals printing custom items such as wheels, track, connecting rods, couplers etc.

From a LEGO compatible brand. I would first look at reputable brands such as Mega Construx, Kre-o and the like, before going the illegal-clone route with companies like Lepin. The downside is that there are no part catalogs and trading sites for these brands (like Bricklink and Brickowl for LEGO), so you will need to look at sets and see if you can spot the piece you need. Perhaps some brands have a customer service line where you can ask questions about specific parts. Another downside is that color matching with your build can be problematic, but that likely holds for options 1&2 as well.

Note that many AFOLs consider it part of the fun of building with LEGO to use only available parts to solve a particular challenge.


Best online community for Lego Builders? It seems like different people use different online communities to share Lego-related things, but is there one that's just the best? I suppose I am asking a subjective question, but what I'm looking for is:

Ability to easily share photos
Ability for others to easily comment about the photo (ideally on the photo)
Ability to form sub-groups within community (eg, "My Family," "SoCal Builders," etc)
Easy to find and follow fellow builders

I know Flickr used to allow commenting on photos, but it's such a generic photo-sharing place that unless you know who to follow, it's hard to find new/expert builders...

I would still recommend Flickr as the number one place. It allows everything you mentioned, and the most important thing is that's where most LEGO fans and all the best LEGO builders hang out. It is by far the best community. Just join some of the main LEGO related groups and you will quickly find people to follow.

Also, follow the Brothers Brick blog. Pretty much everything they feature is from Flickr, and they focus on the best MOCs. This is another way to find great builders to follow.

There is also MOCPages, and there are some great gems there, but the site is mainly full of little kids. AFOLs and serious builders hang out on Flickr. It may not be all LEGO related, however once you become part of the LEGO related groups, you will have some much to do, so much to see, and so many people to interact with, you won't even notice that Flickr is not all about LEGO...(c:


Do tools exist to help me translate a real world object to a LEGO design? It can be a big challenge to create a design for a large object. Are there techniques or tools to simplify this, and to help estimate numbers of blocks required?

Lego Digital Designer (~140mb, Mac and PC) is quite useful for creating 3D designs. I haven't personally used it that much but it is quite a powerful tool. It will tell you the number of bricks used in a model as well.

At a pinch, MS Paint (pixel-based), Google Sketchup (find some templates for bricks) and Minecraft could even be used for planing builds.


Evolution of the LEGO part catalog over time I have downloaded the Bricklink catalog four or five times in the past, but the interval was very irregular. I would like to look at the evolution of the LEGO part list over the years. However, I didn't find an option on Bricklink, or elsewhere on the Internet, to download past versions.

Are you aware of any archive of Bricklink catalogs? I haven't looked at other platforms with LEGO catalogs. Any other idea to get systematic information on the evolution of the part list is also welcome, of course.

You might be able to get the information that you are after from the Rebrickable database dumps. This includes set inventories for many sets, along with the year that the sets were released. Here's the full schema diagram:

A query something like this should provide a count of the number of sets every element has appeared in by year:

SELECT year,
       Sum(1),
       colors.name,
       parts.name,
       parts.part_num,
       colors.id
FROM   sets
       JOIN inventories
         ON inventories.set_num = sets.set_num
            AND inventories.version = 1
       LEFT JOIN inventory_parts
              ON inventory_parts.inventory_id = inventories.id
       JOIN parts
         ON parts.part_num = inventory_parts.part_num
       JOIN colors
         ON colors.id = inventory_parts.color_id
GROUP  BY year,
          colors.name,
          parts.name,
          parts.part_num,
          colors.id
ORDER  BY year DESC,
          colors.name ASC

Here's that dataset:

https://gist.github.com/jncraton/b0641ce5f8bc28e10e761a5ce1bafd51

Note that this query includes part variations (mold updates, prints, etc) as unique elements, so you may need to filter it down quite a bit for your use case. If you'd like to run your own queries directly against the full Rebrickable dataset, I maintain some scripts that make this fairly easy to do.


RCX firmware download problem I hope someone can help me with a problem with getting an original RCX 1.0 system working with a current PC.

I bought the RCX 1.0 system back in (I think) 2000 but its been in storage a long time. In the meantime I had children, and now one of them is curious about it and I want to encourage that.

The brick powers-up ok, but the RIS software won't install on my laptop (Win7 x64) and the laptop has no serial port to plug the IR tower into. To work around this I created a Windows XP virtual machine (in VMware Workstation), installed the RCS software on the VM, connected the IR tower to the laptop with an USB-to-serial converter, and bridged the USB port to the VM. This kind of works, in that the RIS software can recognise the RCX brick. However, it says that the firmware is missing and needs to be downloaded. When I do this I repeatedly get a download error.

Update 1: The RIS software displays the message "Initializing and downloading firmware", the LCD on the RCX counts from 0 to 20 ten times, and then the RIS software displays the error "RCX firmware failed to download". I think its trying to download from the PC to the RCS, not from the internet - if I disable the VMs network connection the it fails in exactly the same way and netstat isn't showing any network connection attempts inside the VM.

Has anyone here got a similar setup to work, or has any thoughts on what might be going wrong? Are there any command-line or diagnostic tools I could use to interrogate the RCX and/or upload the firmware outside of the RIS environment?

I'm tempted to just buy an NXT, which will be compatible with modern hardware, but I don't feel ready to give up just yet.

Update 2: I ran a USB sniffer in the VM to view the data being sent over the usb-to-serial connector. Lots of binary data being sent to the serial tower, and some patterns that suggest message framing in an application-level protocol, but nothing I could understand that indicates an error condition. The problem is not at the level of the usb adapter though.

Update 3: In the end I found an old PC with a serial port and the RCX worked without a problem. The RIS software installs and works okay on Windows XP SP2. My thanks to those who contributed suggestions.

This did the trick for me.  My situation mirrors the original poster.

http://neuron.eng.wayne.edu/LEGO_ROBOTICS/software_setup_tutorial.html

There are 4 parts to this.  BrickControlCenter (brickcc), a driver for the IR tower, an image of the firmware and some other piece of software called the NCQ.

I did not install the driver since I was using a USB to RS232 adapter and BrickCC worked just fine installing the firmware.

Added bonus, the brickCC is a full on IDE for the RCX.

Also, Swap memory has to be set to at least 4GB because of some limitation on Director 6 which causes the MindStorm program to stall sometimes as it determined that it's 3MB requirement is greater than the available gigabytes if they're 3GB or less.  Clever.


Mindstorms EV3 - Continuous low battery alarm My son is facing an issue with his Mindstorms EV3. Every time he turns it on a low battery alarm is displayed and it shut downs.
This happens regardless of the batteries, we have tried 12 different rechargeable batteries and 6 brand new alkaline batteries.
Also, I noticed it takes a lot to start up, I don't remember it being so slow before.
The sequence is something like:

Starting up: it takes 26 seconds
Green light: it is on for 2.5 seconds
Orange light with low battery alarm: it is on for 8 seconds
Shut down: then it shuts down and it takes 20 seconds to complete

I have tried disconnecting every cable, and even opened it up and disconnected the display flex cable, but still the same behaviour. I have double checked the button in the battery compartment to make sure it is not stuck or anything similar, to avoid the brick thinking the Lego battery pack is in place.
Given that it stays on for such a short time frame, I am not able to update the firmware.
I have seen similar posts but none with a solution other than returning the brick to Lego, which is not an option to us given it is no longer under warranty.
Any clues or help?
Thanks!

Update: we made it work, after trying many things, see below.

Opened the brick and inspected it for obvious signs of problems but saw nothing. Even tried with the screen disconnected.

We tried, as suggested in the comment above, with a firmware update. Even though the brick will stay on for only a few seconds, it was enough for the computer to recognize it and see were able to begin the update. It completed without problem, showing that the batteries were ok. After restarting it behaved in the same way. We tried firmware 1.09 and 1.10.

We tried ev3dev, from an SD card. It will also shutdown once it finished booting. But after many tries, it booted and displayed the main ev3dev menu, on which we could see the voltage being 5.10, getting lower gradually until it reached 4.60 and it shutdown.

It seemed obvious it was a hardware issue so we decided to desolder the battery contacts and inspect the board properly. There must be something in the circuit sensing voltage, maybe a resistor going bad and being unable to divide voltage properly. We immediately saw the sign of acid going through the board, with that green/blue colour. We cleaned it with a wire brush, resoldered and it worked! Both the brick's firmware and ev3dev worked perfectly, now seeing 9.10 volts.

I hope this helps someone else with the same problem.
Cheers


Resources for building MOCs with pieces entirely from single sets On most websites I've found, people post MOCs that use a random (or seemingly unlimited) supply of pieces. However, I'm interested in building MOCs using only pieces entirely from one set. (For example, I'm interested in reusing the parts from the 10243 Parisian Restaurant.) Are there websites dedicated to this idea?

Rebrickable may have exactly what you are looking for in addition to a lot of other features. You can search for a set and see alternate models that builders have submitted. Here's the page for the Parisian Restaurant. It shows one submitted MOC using just the parts from this set:

There tend to be more results for smaller sets, particularly in the Creator theme as these have many reusable parts. For example, Sunset Speeder currently has 43 alternate models available:

If you create an account, you can add all of the sets that you own and see which MOCs you are able to build using all of the parts you have available.


Is this from a Lego set? Can anyone tell me which set this partial build is from?  Any help to identify it is greatly appreciated!

It's most likely that this is not an official Lego set. There has been such a piece (the purple ones) but it never came in that color, therefore it must have been manufactured from a clone brand. There could be that 00.1% chance of it being a piece from an official Lego set, but based on the poor quality of the build in the image and the fact that Bricklink couldn't find it, I still think it's from a clone brand. Also, if any of the plates have only specific studs with holes in them that aren't in a reasonable pattern (such as outline of house walls), then there's a big chance that the plate came from Mega Blocks and not Lego™.


How is this kind of structure made? Recently I found a MOC made by Headzsets from Instagram, in particular this interesting structure from his EVA work. Here is a picture of his structure:

(https://www.instagram.com/p/BtCymDRHJx6/)

How does he have two 1 x 1 x 2/3 slopes like this? Are there any sets with this kind of structure that I can buy on the market so I can learn this building technique?

Just to add a little to the answer by TheBrickBlogger, the blue piece holding the purple 1x1 slope is likely this one:

Here is a really simple example of one of the many ways this can be accomplished:

The hollow stud allows positioning to be "jumped". Hope this is helpful :)


What are LEGO rubber bands made of? I have noticed that LEGO rubber bands (along with just about everything else LEGO) are fantastically durable.  They last ages without getting crusty and dying like most commonly available rubber bands.  They can even be held in stretched positions for extended lengths of time without showing any signs of wear, or even any noticeable hysteresis.

So anyhow, what are they made of to make them so superior to common rubber bands?

Clarifications:

By "standard"/"common" rubber bands I mean those which are commonly available to purchase at the store, like these.
I am talking about the newer "round cross section" type, not the old "square cross section" type which are more similar to standard rubber bands.  Part #'s x1106, x90, x89, x37, and x71.

They are made of SBS rubber.
According to user "B. Lister" on eurobricks.com, these bands are silicon rubber, used in medical and dental work for long lasting connections and tension.
Source
However, a LEGO representative at a toy safety site indicated otherwise:

The colors and materials in ABS plastic do not rub off or leach and, in fact, meet the same material standards for safety that are required of plastic eating utensils. Tires and elastic materials found in some LEGO sets are manufactured from Styrene-Butadiene Styrene (SBS), a material commonly found in vehicle mud guards and shoe soles.

Source
SBS has some very similar traits to silicon rubber, including sterilization and long lasting properties. I noticed in the other answer that bike tire cuttings worked almost identically. They should! Those inner tubes also consist of a Butyl base.