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Colouring bricks with the sun
This question is related to How do I change the color of a brick? and the exact opposite of How to minimise or remove sun-stains/fading from blocks?
Is it feasible to artificially age bricks in sunlight to get new colours? For example, I noticed that white bricks turn into various shades of off-white.
Are there any unwanted side effects of doing this, for example, bricks becoming fragile?
How long would the process take in general, if I put them outside all day in a reflective box?
Finally, is there a chart which shows which colours turn into what?

Interesting, but somehow I don't think anyone has ever been perverse enough to study this thoroughly.

I admit it sounds perverse, but I got the idea from the observation that white bricks are much more plentiful and varied compared to bricks of earthy colours — and yellow is a terrible approximation of skin tones!

Or even turn bley to old grey :)

In general the colors would take on a yellowish hue. The colors that are most damaged by sunlight are white and blue. White can turn all the way to dark tan, and blue will take on an ugly yellowish color. On the other hand red would fade into pink. But again; the sun does damage the bricks. They will turn brittle and somewhat powdery, like all plastics do.
If you want to change the color of LEGO bricks I recommend vinyl-dye that fuses with the plastic so there is no build-up and it won't scratch off easily. There is a limited color choice, but this is an excellent way to change the color if you really have to. My favorite brand is Plasti-kote Vinyl Color available at auto-supply stores. Quite expensive though and hard to find. Another brand is Krylon Fusion for Plastic, readily available at Wal-Mart and other places. The fusing is not nearly as good as with Plasti-kote, but it is still quite durable. The price is better and there are more color choices.
Another method would be using RIT dye (use the powdered form not the liquid), but I don't like this method as much because although the colors can turn out nice (they are pastel colors - kind of like what you find in LEGO Friends sets), but they do fade with age.
If you want to try the sun-method, just place outside some cheap elements and you will see what happens. Please note that the colors will continue to turn darker (in the case of white) even after you removed them from the sun. Kind of like how a sunburn continues to get worse even after you go in the shade...(c;

Thanks, it looks like all colours tend towards yellow. I wonder what about yellow itself... As summer's coming, I'll do some experiments :)

TheBrickBlogger, can you re-dye bricks which have been previously dyed?

I'm surprised to see "white and blue" as most damaged colours - I would have spontaneously liste light gray rather than blue. No question on white, though.

Gnubie, I have never tried re-dying an already dyed LEGO element - unless you count adding a second coat - which works fine. I don't see why it couldn't be done, but I suspect at some point there is going to be some build-up.

@Gnubie from experience, yellow pieces (old, from the 80s) turn orange in the sun. Like they are getting a tan.

LEGO once used a brominated fire retardant in its ABS plastic. UV light causes bromine pairs in the compound to split and reconnect with oxygen atoms, taking on the brownish hue of elemental bromine.
Fire retardants containing bromine - known as PBDEs - are now considered toxic and many large companies have voluntarily stopped using them. The EU has banned the use of some bromine compounds in plastics. Some US states have also regulated them. I do not find any information online specifically about PBDEs in LEGO, but I believe LEGO may no longer use these compounds. I do not know when they might have stopped.
So if you want to intentionally give LEGO pieces that aged brown look, you will want to use older pieces sure to contain the bromine. Sunlight will work most quickly, but any UV light will do.


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Can I take an old LEGO winch apart?
I have an old LEGO winch that looks like #73037

It has been "restrung" but it is very stiff and it looks like it has some of the old string stuck between the rotating and non-rotating parts. It also feels a bit gritty so there might be dirt stuck in there.
It looks like the top on each side might come off and if so I would be able to remove the stuck string and clean it.
Does anyone have any advice about taking it apart without damaging it?

You just can't. This part is fused together with sound-waves so it doesn't separate anymore.
Source and more info: fusing Lego together

Thanks for the advice. The winch may be too old to have been fused by this process but I can't know for sure. Nevertheless, I'm not going to try and open it!

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NXT Bluetooth "Failed!" when turning on
When I attempt to turn on my bluetooth, the response on the display after about 5 seconds is "Failed!"  Then I'm sent back to the main menu.
I've reset the unit and updated to latest firmware (1.31) to no avail.
I'm curious about the "doomsday" button on the inside of the battery compartment--you have to remove a battery to push it (thus the unit is not powered up if you push it by accident), so it obviously could cause significant issues if it is pressed.  I am an electronics tech--I know what to do to power it up and press the button, but there is no reference to what it is there for, so the little voice of reason says, "don't."
Thanks!
--Lamafozzy

As I understand it, your question is more "What does the hidden button under the NXT battery?" rather than the bluetooth issue - is that correct?

The hidden button under the NXT battery seems to be a reset button, which has to be pressed for 7 seconds to have any effects. I assume it resets the brick in its factory condition, but I didn't find any specific documentation from LEGO on it.
However, there was an issue a few years back which caused the brick to freeze and click permanently (which was called the "NXT Click of Death"); and the solution included a hard reset using that button. (It's just one out of many pages on the subject, by the way)
Will this solve your Bluetooth issue? I don't know. If there's a problem with your firmware, then it's possible, since you'll need to reflash one anyway (since it will be reset to factory settings). Maybe trying alternate firmwares might shed some light on your brick's condition, too.
If that doesn't solve it, I would advise to contact the mindstorms customer support - worst case scenario, they establish your NXT brick is indeed defective, and they'll probably provide you a replacement.

So, I guess it is a "master reset" which is on a deeper level than the "technic reset button."  I will give it a shot and let you know if it helped.  Otherwise, I suspect there is an issue with my bluetooth card.  Obviously, it is on a microprocessor-to-bluetooth chip issue as it will not function on a level that would indicate that the micro is able to configure the bluetooth chip.  Thanks! I really appreciate the assistance.

BTW: I am not talking about the reset button through the mounting hole under the USB port.  There is another button inside the battery compartment that is only accessible if you remove one of the batteries.  I just read one of the links you posted and it suggested that the trick is to use the reset button I referred to as the button in the "Technic hole" in the manual on pg. 60.  Tried that--it didn't work.  There is no reference to the button I'm talking about in the manual and so I figure it is "Bad Juju" to press it unless I know exactly what it does.

Well, on the other hand LEGO usually doesn't put any "bad juju" in its toys - they're meant to be safe for kids after all. So even if it, erm,  bricked your brick, you'd probably still be able to get a replacement. But if you're in doubt, then by all means, contact the customer service first.

No, the button located under the battery pack is there to make the brick know that it is powered by a rechargeable battery pack. The battery pack has a pin that presses this button, this changes the battery charge level voltage thresholds to adapt to different technology.

Yes--I agree that LEGO does not put "bad juju" in its toys--just geek terminology for something that might create way more effort than it's worth.  In fact, I am extemely impressed with LEGO's ideals and committment to quality (if the rest of the world would have the same mindset we would all be in a better place).  Thanks again, Joubarc.

Well, thank Philo, I feel his comment is more useful than my answer anyway (Philo, feel free to write a full answer of your own)

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How to make a conveyor belt with LEGO parts?
I am making a small robot with an Arduino and Technic LEGO powered by stepper motors. I am planning on moving small rocks throughout my machine. Does anyone have an idea of what kind of Technic LEGO parts I can buy to make a variable length conveyor belt? I have a lot of gears so it's the underlay that's my problem. Does some kind of elastic LEGO parts exist that I can use for this? Chain-like or rubber or hard plastic. IT Would be best if I could make it as long connected as I want.
Maximum size of the small rocks is about the same size as an 1x1 LEGO brick, so the conveyor does not need to have a width of more than 2 cm.

Rough dimensions would be useful here. How big are your "small rocks", for example?

@Kramii Thanks for the comment, i've tried to clarify the size now

Or, you could use rubber bands.

You will need to decide between 3711 Technic Chain Link and 3873 Technic Chain Tread, or possibly use them together.
Each link of chain is about 1 cm long and 0.8 cm wide

 and you can get them in packs of 108 (Chain Link Set Product Code: 2000645)

The Chain Tread are wider,

but seem to be available only in smaller packs, such as
Set # 9938-1: Conveyor Belt Links (Nominally 36 links)
Set # 1149-2: Bulldozer Chainlinks  (nominally 52 links)

Thanks for the reply. Do you know what gears fit to those smallest chain links you posted?

To my knowledge, all LEGO gear teeth are the same size (regardless of the overall size of the piece) and they fit that chain.

You are correct that the teeth on all of the non-bevel gears will work, but the small 8 tooth gear doesn't work well on the ends due to the minimum radius of the chain.

In this great GBC machine built akiyuki, you can see 2 types of conveyor belts.  The first one is made of the small tread links  (3873). The second and third ones are made with the large tread links (57518)

He provides many videos and pictures through his blog and YouTube channel.

Dropping stones onto your LEGO doesn't sound like a kind way to treat your expensive Technic parts; I imagine that small bits of stone and dirt will fall through a belt of Technic Chain Link  or Technic Chain Tread , what with them being a chain rather than a belt. This will then lead to other bits of your contraption becoming polluted with abrasive gunk.
Akiyuki also built a brick sorter with a simultaneously tedious and exhilarating video of a machine sorting arbitrary LEGO parts; Photos and an extended discussion in Japanese at レゴのレゴ選別マシン　その1).  The conveyor belt perplexed me as I didn't know what it was made of.  I thought it might be some kind of fabric or custom-manufactured belt.
Searching the interwebs pulled up this video of an effective conveyor belt built by a small child, comments to which make it clear the belt is paper.  It's actively driven by rubber tyres at one end, and idles at the other (I'd suggest using  41531 Technic Cylinder 4 x 4 with Pin Holes and Center Bar as a crowned pulley rather than tyres).
This is the same material that Akiyuki uses as you can see in this low-angle shot up into the tensioning mechanism of the paper conveyor belt in Akiyuki's brick sorter.

Sticky-tape, paper and a smooth LEGO surface underneath the paper to ensure solid support (you don't need to use tiles; try a SNOT technique instead).  Presumably you could up the paper to something more robust in the face of having stones dropped on it.  You might want to also line the sides of your conveyor to prevent the stones scratching the sides.

Another option is to use LOTS of 60483 Technic, Liftarm 1 x 2 Thick with Pin Hole and Axle Hole as shown in:
https://youtu.be/X89pXBJaPWI?t=7s


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Why are there "unique" characters in many sets?
When I was young, about 30 years ago, I'd had no problem to have two policemen, two yellow astronauts or knights. Then I had some lack of Lego sets and didn't know what was happening on this field.
Now, when my son begins (or rather "has begun") his Lego adventure, I realized, that there are theme sets based on movies, stories etc. But there are sets containing the same character.
When he was about 3-4, he was an admirer of Disney/Pixar Cars movie. Lego had a collection, firstly four sets 5813, 5814, 5815 and 5816.
As the Lightning McQueen is in three sets, there is no reason (from my point of view) to repeat Sheriff in 5814 and 5816 sets. So my son has two Sheriffs.
Some years later he changed from Cars to Lego Ninjago. On every occasion (birthday, Christmas, ...) he was receiving Lego Ninjago sets. Now he has eight Zanes, three Coles, three Kais, two Jays.
The same is now, but in smaller scale, in Lego Chima.
As I was looking at the Lego StarWars theme this is even worse. Ok, I can agree to have 8 clone troopers, but for what reasons have three Darth Vaders?
In my opinion this is not a good marketing practice. If for someone the sets are expensive, he would buy one set and (perhaps) a Luke Skywalker minifigure. He can re-think whether to buy a new set with a character he already has.
If each set had a unique minifigure, I would be more likely to buy more sets, just to make a collection.
It's also not ok (for me) to have the same characters for example in Lego Heroica.
I know that sets are larger and smaller, and there are people who buy cheaper ones, and they also should have something interesting, but why then copy the same characters to larger ones?
Does it has some rational explanation?

Minifigs aside, I still think the worst case of this is 79000 - Riddles for the ring which contains a duplicate of the one ring. Seriously, there are two in the box. The one ring. And I suppose it's not limited to that box either.

@Joubarc You need to have (at least) two of them. If you'd had one, it couldn't "rule THEM all" :) But it can be a spare part

I don't mind getting extra minifigs. I usually break down the parts of the minifig and use the body parts to create different characters.

@Ambo100: So, who are those other characters in your universe who wear the same helmet as Vader? ;)

As a child, I was really into Star Wars and had lots of star wars figures. However, it was always annoying that Star Wars vehicles and playsets didn't come with figures. The Ewok Village has no Ewoks in it. The X-Wing has no pilot. Etc.
This policy let Kenner (now Hasbro) sell the figures at full retail on a per-figure basis and let collectors buy only what they needed, but for me it meant that my figures never matched my vehicles or playsets.
Lego sells products that directly compete with Hasbro's line of Star Wars vehicles and playsets. Lego could take the approach that Hasbro did, and sell the minifigs separately, except that they were forbidden from doing so by the terms of their license agreement. This is why the earliest Star Wars minifig packs were discontinued and replaced with the army builder sets, which had some minimum number of bricks required to make them "building toys" and not "action figures".
But if Lego sold the figures separately, you'd still have the problem of sets that lack play value, because they require additional purchases. Instead of having the X-Wing with R2D2 and Luke Skywalker in pilot outfit, you'd just have the X-Wing. The X-Wing itself would be maybe $3 cheaper but you'd have to spend $6 just to get the figures that go with it (I'm basing these numbers on the prices of the collectible minifigs). Stores would have to stock huge displays of minifgs. Or they'd only stock a few different ones, and you wouldn't be able to find the right fig to go with whatever ship you had.
The other alternative, where hero figs are sold in small sets and supporting figs only in large sets doesn't really help: Often a kid only gets ONE kit at a time.
Having several minifigs already in the package means the set is complete; you can enjoy it without purchasing anything else, and if you lose one of your Darth Vaders, you probably have a spare somewhere. Oh, and siblings don't have to fight over who gets to play with Luke Skywalker.

"you'd just have the X-Wing" - I don't think the OP advocates anywhere in the question that Lego should make vehicle sets without any minifigs, just with more generic minifigs or at least not as much overlap of unique characters across sets. An X-Wing with a generic rebel pilot and a generic R2-like droid is a very complete set, after all, and can be enjoyed without purchasing anything else - and the same applies to two of them, which cannot be said if that means having two Lukes and two R2-D2s IMHO.

It seems like you understand why there are unique minifigs, but I'll point it out explicitly anyway. Unique minifigs add character to sets, and add to playability. For example, I always wanted this guy as a kid:

Without him, my pirates were just  a leaderless band, but once they have a fearless leader with a peg leg and hook, things become a lot more exciting. As you pointed out, unique figs are also a necessary part of the licensed themes. What would Star Wars be without Darth Vader?
The core of your questions seems to be why these unique figs end up in so many sets such that you have duplicates and triplicates of them. I'm sure this isn't TLG's goal, but there are some marketing reasons which cause it to happen.
First, TLG ideally wants each set to be a whole product. This generally means that the sets should be able to stand on their own, and upon seeing a set, a customer would actually want to buy it. Keep in mind that your rationality as a parent isn't always the same as others who may be buying Lego for your child, or children themselves. Here's an example of set to help me explain what I mean:

That's Gandalf Arrives (set 9469). As you can see, it is a pretty small set with Gandalf and Frodo. These are both core characters, and they each appear in several sets, but this set wouldn't be able to stand on its own without them. While this set may have less appeal to you or your child because you might already have these minifigs, the set has greater appeal to children who don't already have these minifigs. It also has greater appeal to your sister-in-law who needs to pick up a Lego set for your child's birthday party. She won't know what minifigs your child has already, and she's just looking for a nice reasonably cheap set with good playability.
Second, TLG uses unique minifigs to create desire to collect the whole product line. While there is duplication among the major characters, if you want to have all of the minor characters available, you pretty much have to buy every major set in the theme. This makes a lot of sense from a marketing point of view. For example, if you already own Helm's Deep (9474), does a small add-on really have much appeal to you? Uruk-Hai Army (9471) is a small set which attaches to the side of Helm's Deep:

This set may not have much appeal. It's just a basic castle wall with some men fighting some bad guys. However, this is the only set which contains the guy (Eomer) who brings in the cavalry and ultimately makes the battle a victorious one. This adds to this otherwise somewhat boring set, and makes it more appealing to consumers.
As an aside, many Lego fans want to get a complete set of minifigs, but can't afford all the sets, so your extra Vader's have good resale value on sites like Bricklink where they sell for about $10 used.

Well, the marketing point of view is now clear. But somewhat it is not good for me. If I bought the guy you put on the 1st picture, it's ok, there can be two, if I get another one. But if I have two Darth Vaders one is completely useless. I'd like eg. a clone trooper instead, that's always not enough of them. My policy (I have no marketing experience -- that's why I ask) would be to put main characters in small sets and minor in the larger ones. Poor children would buy smaller, while rich -- smaller and larger. Thanks for the answer.

It would be nice if you didn't have to get duplicates, but in the mean time, there's a good secondary market for used figs. You can sell your duplicates, and buy the ones you don't have on sites like eBay and Bricklink.

Secondary market aside, A person might want a Darth Vader in more than one MOC. Or have a Vader clone in some Star Wars spoof.

Good point. An extra Vader could even have some use in non-spoof MOC as well: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Vader_(clone)

Also if you have multiple children having multiples of the main people (Darth Vader, Han Solo, etc) is a good thing to help keep the peace.

I think this answer should be a comment, not an answer. It's helpful but doesn't really answer the given question.

In my opinion, this is a marketing ploy, especially in licensed themes, to make people want to buy all the sets. This is especially true in the Superheroes theme where the iconic superhero minifigures are often the selling point of a set. Look at The Hobbit line for example. To be able to obtain a complete company of dwarves, one needs to buy all the sets of the wave, save for an exception: The small "Riddles of the Rings" set. Throughout the whole wave, Bilbo Baggins is included thrice, and buying all the sets except the aforementioned examples would net you with 2 Bilbos, despite being different variants. Here comes the Riddles of the Rings set. It is the smallest set of the wave, and contains two, fairly desirable characters, Gollum and Bilbo, despite not being exclusive. Keep in mind that one of the sets containing Bilbo is very large, and the other is a limited edition set. By buying this smallest set, kids would already be satisfied to be able to obtain Bilbo.
As other people mentioned in the above, it needs to be a complete set. You can't have an X-Wing set without Luke Skywalker just because he also star in a Snowspeeder set that was only released a year ago. He is pivotal to that scene, and so he needs to be there.
Remember that LEGO is still a company trying to make profit, and it is far more profitable to include the characters in multiple sets so everybody can have him, as opposed to a highly desirable character only included in one colossal set.
Although I have to agree The Lone Ranger is pushing it a bit too far :)

Expanding from some of my comments:
Another interesting use of "duplicate" unique characters is as generic characters in builds from other themes.
For example:

Indiana Jones can become a new sidekick for Han Solo (just give him a blaster), a new raptor trainer trainee, or a generic cowboy, park ranger, or other type of outdoorsman.
Emmet from The Lego Movie is a construction worker, so you can add him to a CITY construction site as an extra worker. With his high-visibility vest, he can also serve as a transportation worker on a railroad build or a rescue worker.
Gandalf can be a new wizarding instructor at Hogwarts, a wizened Jedi Master, or even a generic scholar or educator figure (new teacher in town, and he's a little odd!).
Dumbledore fell into some sort of time-space anomaly and now finds himself at the battle of Helm's Deep.
Palpatine can be a Death Eater.
Elsa has always wanted to be a Jedi.
C3PO can be a new Stark invention.
The Elves of Lego Elves are now raising Baby Yodas.
The Elves of Lego Elves can be a band of Elven warriors on a Lord of the Rings layout.
The characters from Legends of Chima are now a new Star Wars faction.

You can even build versatile teams:

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Palpatine, Gandalf, Dumbledore, and Majisto (from classic Castle) are your wizards - pick any of them when you need another stock spellcaster for some purpose.
Iron Man, War Machine, Black Panther, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and The Mandalorian are a new band of pirates attacking a Classic Space settlement. Time to call Batman to help reinforce defenses at the Monorail! Don't forget to recruit a few Clone Troopers as mercenaries!

You can also think generally about themes that can work well together:

Space-farers: Star Wars, unlicensed Space, and space-themed City builds work well together. The CITY Lunar Space Station is now in orbit around Corellia, and its astronauts are now CorSec agents.
Fairy-tale world of magic: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, classic Castle, Disney Princess, and some Ninjago elements go together to make your own fairy tale.

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Old LEGO movies
As I remember, it was about 1990 maybe some years earlier, there were movies, made by LEGO, they were about 3 minutes long, maybe longer.
It was of course not computer-generated videos but normal, animated movies created with bricks and photographs were made every single frame. It was very fluent and smooth (maybe some animation tricks were used), much much better than those what people make now, but the idea was the same as here.
It was not from minifigures, but each person (character) was made by many bricks.
I only remember a movie of some soccer players, but there were more of them.
I can't find them on YouTube, I only get present computer animated videos or just amateur movies like the one above.

I'd swear I saw one sometime ago, with some red-and-white character which could "dissolve" in the field or something.

@Joubarc Can be. I remember there was also something like morphing plane.

Yesss!
I've finally found it.
They were called "LEGO Sport Champions".
Here is the link to watch them on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/LEGOsports/videos

What you're talking about are often referred to as "brickfilms".
Reddit even has a subreddit for them: /r/brickfilms. (Honestly, I wouldn't even have remembered about them had I not just stumbled upon the subreddit yesterday.)
Searching YouTube for the term "brickfilm" also gives you a number of results, some tutorials and many actual brickfilms.
(I'm pretty sure Lego itself did not make or sanction any brickfilms. Like any medium or sub-medium, 90% of brickfilms are probably not very well-made.)

Thank you for your answer (I vote up for try and providing interesting link). Unfortunately, that's not I'm asking for. The movies were made by Lego in 1980s. There were absolutely no minifigures -- characters were made from "normal" bricks (they were larger of course).

Ah... Can't help you there; I wasn't even born then.


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Set to run a program within another program using NXT-G
I'm using NXT-G to program my robot to do few tasks autonomously for so many possibilities. When using C programming, we can call a function from different file into the main program. So, I wonder if it is possible to write a program that can run another program for one possibility and run another program for other possibility?

As far as I remember there is no possibility within NXT-G to programmatically execute another program. Moreover, as I understand it the default firmware simply doesn't have that possibility (the command to start a program is a direct command which must be sent via bluetooth and can't be used in a program). Maybe other programming languages using other firmware can do it, but I don't know about that.
However, you could encapsulate certain parts of your program in your own blocks, which I would say are similar to C functions. As such, it will simplify your main program, and you can reuse blocks in different programs (but the blocks themselves are included in the program file, it's not like a library which would be a different file). You should probably read a tutorial on how to make your own blocks to decide if it's a valid solution for you.


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Why can't I reproduce this SD card box in LDD?
I've built an SD card box a few years ago. Now I am trying to reproduce it in Lego Digital Designer.

However when I tried to reproduce the closed version, LDD refuses to snap it in place.

In real-life, my box just snap very nicely. Why am I not allowed to do that in LDD?
Here is the WIP .lxf file

The issue here is that the hole in a Technic brick isn't at exactly the same height as the stud on the side of a System brick. Here's a slide from a great presentation which explains the details:

This difference is barely noticable when building, especially in your scenario because the hinge adds some additional play, but I believe that LDD won't allow these to connect because they are actually off by .12mm.
I tried to take a few pictures to demonstrate what I mean, but they didn't turn out very well. Here's a System brick (tan) connected to a Technic brick (blue). You can just barely see the .12mm difference at the top:

The difference becomes more obvious when more bricks are added so that the error is allowed to compound:

Seems legit (seeing the headlight brick example in the presentation slides). Just one question: is .12mm equal to 3/10LDU? That seems odd (I'm still a beginner in technical LEGO stuff)

You are correct that .12mm is the same as .3 LDU, and this does seem like a strange offset. My guess is that this decision was made in order to create the absolute minimum difference between these parts. I'm guessing that most children who build with these parts have never noticed this minor inconsistency.

Great answer. I never knew about that offset. Thanks!

LDD uses exact numbers, where as in real life ABS and polycarbonate have some give or flexibility that a computer program can't factor in. There are many documents about LEGO part stress that explain what a "legal" vs "illegal" build is. Any illegal build will not work in LDD. I break the rules all the time too, but LDD is looking at it from a pure math sense, which you can't cheat. Try and create a curved wall made of stressed 1x2 in LDD. You can do it in real life, but not in the program.

Try de-attaching the black piece and then attach it to the 2x2 and plate and attach all the pieces at the same time

Interesting... I just tried this myself (with real bricks) and the two parts definitely snap together nicely. No stress or anything. I'm wondering if the issue is the 1x2 plate. Maybe LDD can't deal with a hinged part having to snap into two places at once. What about if you remove the bottom 1x2 yellow plate? Would it snap in then? In that case perhaps first attach the 1x2 to the healight bricks, then attach the hinge-plate to the hinge, then rotate it towards the plate and see if it would snap on the 1x2 plate.


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Factories that could make off-patent bricks?
I'm quite interested in finding a factory that can produce a small-ish run of high-quality plastic bricks that I can use in my classes and possible to re-sell as stand-alone kits.  I only need a few different shapes, namely 2x4 bricks and 2x2 bricks, which are off-patent.  Does anyone know which factories, other than those owned-by/bound-to LEGO Group, have experience in making LEGO compatible bricks and would likely be open to producing another run?
Background
I run Ascendly.com which runs after school programs to teach grade school kids engineering.  My flagship course, Jr. Structural Engineering, uses LEGO bricks to build structures and to learn about the engineering process.  I only use a few bricks in the course:

2x4 bricks
2x2 bricks
16x32, or larger, baseplates
1x2 bricks (optional)
1x1 bricks (optional)
1x2 45 degree slope (optional)

For any one class, I ensure all of the bricks of a certain size are a consistent and unique color. So, all of my 2x4s would be blue, and all of my 2x2s would be green, for example.  This keeps the students focused on the shape of the structures, makes it easier to see how the other students used their blocks, and avoids worrying about color aesthetics.
Buying bricks in bulk of any specific color is problematic.
Related Question(s):

Where are LEGO parts made?
Are the molds for LEGO bricks maintained in house or is maintanance partly outsourced?
What kind of plastic are LEGO bricks made of?

Update
Just to add some context, I have good relationships with my two local LEGO stores, and they've helped me order about 50 pick-a-brick boxes over the last couple of years, but I'm hoping to find a more reliable and scalable source of building blocks.  Bricklink and LEGO are good sources for now, but I'm wondering if I find can a high-quality brick at 10x my current volume, something I'm positive the stores, and I suspect the LUGs, aren't in a position to accommodate.

I think it's worth taking Mega Bloks into consideration here. Although "compatible with Lego" is a bit of a stretch, they are indeed a cheaper Lego brick but with astoundingly low quality. If you're looking for cheap bricks for students to learn structural techniques from, I'd give them Mega Bloks (along with a rubber mallet, so they can tap together the defective blocks that refuse to fit together).

I'm actually more concerned about quality than price.

It looks like the best answer is 'nobody does it as well as LEGO' - thanks to all of the other suggestions.  I'm trying to talk to corporate LEGO and I might put in a cuusoo suggestion.

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of specific factories that are currently tooled to make compatible bricks that you could get in touch with. I have noticed an eBay user that consistently sells Canadian made compatible basic bricks, so it might be worth contacting them to see if you could work out a deal.
There are also many companies who will do custom ABS injection molding if you can provide them with the CAD files for your design. Because the molds have to be created for your parts, there is a large up-front cost to doing things this way.
Just in case you aren't aware, there are a number of stores on bricklink.com that can source extremely large orders. At the time of writing this, there are several stores which could supply you with over 10,000 red 2x4 bricks, for example, though I'm guessing that may not be sufficient for your needs.

Thanks for the pointers.  Unfortunately, 10K of bricks isn't nearly enough and I routinely wipe the whole inventory of item on bricklink.  I'm sort of expecting to have make a fresh mold, but it would certainly be nicer to avoid it.

I also just noticed this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_clone which might help.

Have you tried asking about this at a Lego store? They almost always have basic 2x4 bricks in the PaB wall, and I'm pretty sure they are able to order them by the case for you.

I've utilized the LEGO stores extensively, but their inventory is quite unreliable for the quantities I'm interested in, even when ordering them ahead of time.

I suggest calling Lego customer service (1-800-835-4386) to ask them about a bulk order. Professional "brick artists" like Nathan Sawaya buy their brick directly from Lego. The bulk prices are decent as well. For example, through the LUGbulk program, we got 2x4 bricks for about 9.6 cents each (these sell for $0.30/ea on the Pick-a-brick website).
Also, here is a long list of manufacturers who can do custom ABS injection molding: http://www.thomasnet.com/nsearch.html?which=prod&cov=NA&what=Custom+Injection+Molded+Plastics&heading=95958385&k=abs&x=16&y=9&navsec=modify

Although I've already talked with LEGO, I hadn't heard of the LUGbulk program.  I could be an option, thanks.

Ahem. The first rule of LUGBulk is Don't talk about LUGBulk prices. ahem.

I double checked the rules, and they don't say anything about confidentiality.

The dollar value limit on member participation in LUGBulk will limit 2x4s to about 2500 per annum; this is nowhere near the quantity the poster is pursuing.

When I mentioned the LUGBulk price, my intent was merely to provide a cost comparison, as in, Lego is willing to sell 2x4 bricks below 10 cents a piece. I didn't mean to imply that LUGBulk would be a good way to get 10k+ bricks.

In a recent document about the Pick-A-Brick cups comparisons, there was a segment that caught my eye. (bottom of page 7).

Official LEGO stores also sell a $70 box of a single piece type. This
  isn’t something they advertise, but you can ask what they have
  available and they will sell it to you. It’s also called a “K2 box.”
  Measuring the volume of this box is irrelevant since they are not
  packed using strategies (as you can discern from the piece count below
  by comparing 1x1 brick amounts to 1x2 brick amounts, etc.).

You could try contacting local stores and asking if they have any K2 boxes.

That's probably the best way to go

The boxes are great for, say 5 boxes at a time, but stores have limits on what they are able to get.  So, I'm hoping to find a better and more reliable source.

This sounds like something to ask the corporate offices. They may be able to arrange shipments that even the LEGO stores can not. For instance, Thomas Nielson is the VP of manufacturing at TLG http://dk.linkedin.com/in/thomasnielsen?trk=pub-pbmap
If the stores can't get it to you, go to those who supply the stores. It certainly sounds like you generate enough volume.
Just my thoughts...

As you can see from other answers, it may prove easier to try to get genuine LEGO bricks and there are numerous possibilities to do so:
As mentioned in OddTodd's answer, the LUGBulk program may be an option, but you'll need to find a local LUG and convince them of the parts you need. As seen in the comments, limits may be an issue.
Contacting the LEGO customer service is certainly a good way to go, especially if you mention it's for educational purposes. Usually, you should be able to order a large quantity of specific given bricks, but I'm not sure they'll easily apply a bulk discount. Don't forget LEGO has an educational division which might be a better place to start, although I'm not sure they sell bricks separately.
OddTodd also mentioned that LEGO Certified Professional have possibilities to buy parts in bulk, and while it shows LEGO has the possibility of doing so, I think there's a very important underlying point in there: you could contact a LCP yourself and see how he can help you. In addition of providing you material, he could make a visit at your school and talk about LEGO and his work, which may be interesting for the kids.
I can think of two other routes you can try, as there are two other sort of people who have readily access to large quantities of bricks: LEGO shops and LEGOland parks.
LEGO shops have a pick-a-brick wall where you can fill some buckets with whatever bricks are available at the moment. While this will certainly not be interesting for you, you may want to contact the manager and see if they're willing to order bricks specifically for you. One great advantage of this, if they're willing to help (again, mention the educational angle), is that they'll usually be able to buy parts by weight (for instance, 2kg boxes). Asking won't hurt you in any way.
Similarly, LEGOland park designers also have the possibility to order in bulk, but it's of course limited to their needs for the park buildings. However, if you happen to live near one, contacting the manager there might be worth trying, you never know.
One key point in all this is that the parts you need are extremely basic, which means it should be easier for you to convince people to sell them to you. Since a LEGO shop must order boxes of bricks on a regular basis, I'm confident it's the easiest route, as one or two boxes more should be easy for them.
As for the "not-LEGO" option, maybe you could contact the customer service of other existing brands and see what they can do (you could even use that as leverage in your discussion with LEGO, if you're so inclined... I can imagine "But MegaBloks can provide me 10000 2x4 bricks for less than that" may be a valid argument). I don't think people not currently manufacturing bricks would be willing to help, even if they have the tools to mould parts (moulds themselves are costly), but you could ask.
Check these two questions for more info on alternatives to LEGO:

Are companies producing custom molded LEGO pieces legally entitled to do so?
Alternative products compatible with LEGO

I updated the question to clarify that I buy a bunch from the stores now, but they sort of struggle buying more than 10 boxes at a time.  Its sort of hit-or-miss, which is a tough way for me to run a business.

That's indeed important to know, I had no idea you where after this kind of volume (seriously, do you eat them or what?), and most of our answers aren't very useful in light of that - since you knew most of it already. But if even LEGO stores can't help, then I can see why you'd be looking at competitors. On the other hand, such a big volume makes it feasible for third-parties. You may want to check Big Ben Bricks for a start. Or seriously consider buy your own moulding machine (BBB might help you there too I guess)

I haven't tried eating them - sounds grisly.  In my classes, each student gets their own kit so they don't have to share.  They get a 1.5 litre box of 2x4s, and a 1.5 litre box of 2x2s, which for a class of ~16 kids ends up being about 9,000 bricks.  Each simultaneous coach and/or school needs their own set - so it adds up quickly. You can see a picture here: http://www.ascendly.com/page/jj-rohrer-ascendlyjj-23/

Maybe you could try to apply to be a LEGO Certified Professional yourself - that would sound logical to me.


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What are the size of Lego Technic Parts?
I'm creating a LEGO Mindstorms catalogue for a school project. I measured the LEGO parts and I made an average size. My goal is to create new parts with a Rapid prototyping machine and I wanted to make sure that I used the good dimension.

possible duplicate of Exact dimensions of studless Technic beams

I don't know where you got that image, but you could always try and print the brick using the dimensions shown.
Using the brick (#32316) shown in your example it might be possible to produce a 3D model using the 32316.dat file that's available in the LDraw library. The next problem would be placing the brick in a model and exporting it as a file type that is actually compatible with CAD software.
I'm not sure how accurate the bricks in the LDraw library are as they're primarily for illustration purposes as digital models.

There's some notes on using the LDraw parts for 3D Printing on Is it possible to build LEGO bricks with a makerbot 3D replicator print

Thx Ambo100, i made this image usign CATIA. i didn't wanted to spend too much money on trying different configuration. :)


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What is the true angle of a cheese slope?
What is the true angle of a cheese slope?

Bricklink lists it as "Slope 30 1 x 1 x 2/3" while LDraw and Peeron list it as "Slope Brick 31 1 x 1 x 2/3". Why do these sources disagree, and what is the real angle?

I guess I could send the question to math.se, but I think we can figure that one out ourselves; it's just a bit of trigonometry after all, right?
Let's see:
- The large side is 20 ldu (standard brick width).
- The small side is 16 ldu (2 plates) - 4 ldu (half a plate), that is 12 ldu (half the height of a brick).
So the angle is tan-1(12/20), which is approximately 30,96°. So it's closer to 31, but gives 30 if truncated down.
As for why the sources differ, I couldn't find documentation on the naming process they both use, but I can easily imagine that someone measuring the angle with a simple protractor could be mistaken by a degree. Another possible explanation would be that the people behind the BrickLink naming chose to round the angle down to simplify things, as a 30° angle feels more natural than a 31° one; while LDraw people may be more used to precise measurements and felt that 31° was closer to the truth. Again, this is all pure speculation, I didn't find naming conventions or guidelines for either.

does your math account for the fact that the shape isn't technically triangular?

It takes into account the triangular part of the slope only, not the small recess required to allow the stud connection which is present in all slopes, if that's what you're talking about. That's why I substract 4ldu and the height difference between the bottom and top of the triangle is 12ldu. I did neglect the smoothing of the angles, though.

I couldn't find an answer, and perhaps it's not a good question to ask, but does anyone know why the cheese slope is only 2/3 standard brick high and not 3/3? Or why TLG did not produce slopes of this kind? It would obviously provide smoother results with the standard roof elements.


text:
Is the Antikhythera clock design available as Open Source?
After reading and watch the video about the Antikhythera Clock, I am curious if the design reference (or better yet the instruction manual) is available as OpenSource.
Why? Because it would be cool to have one of this sitting on top of my desk.

This may sound patronizing, but did you try to contact the designer himself? There are contact informations at the bottom of his page (while you're at it, ask him to come post his answer here :-))

Why? Because it would be cool good enough for me.

If you could not get it, then you might try Hans Andersson's clock :)
http://tiltedtwister.com/timetwister.html
And here's the instructions manual:
http://tiltedtwister.com/tmtwdownload.html


text:
Any reasons for the introduction of the new-style raised arch?

The new-style raised arch (to the left, 92950) got introduced in 2009, and has been gradually replacing the old-style arch (to the right, 3455) across the board. However, after four years, not only haven't I run into a single set where it was structurally a necessity, but it also actually looks worse in all the sets I own. So I find myself constantly replacing new-style arches with old-style arches.

Just one of many examples: the wheel well of the VW Camper Van. The raised arch introduces a questionable corner on the back side, and an utterly hideous bump on the front side, both of which are completely uncalled for. Replace the new arch with an old-style one, and suddenly the curve is perfectly smooth on the back side all by itself, and on the front side you can easily make it smooth as well by putting that cheese slope onto a headlight brick with a 1×1 plate, thus effectively moving it ½ plate back.
Now, I understand that in the Tower Bridge, say, the old arch wouldn't work for the middle windows, as it is just a bit too low the way they are designed. However, here's the punchline: the new arch is a bit too high, introducing a gap that doesn't look right. In fact I only got rid of it by raising the middle windows by ½ plate, using some SNOT magic. That can hardly be the point.
So, has there been any kind of official statement explaining the redesign of this part? Or, failing that, do you own any sets that absolutely require the new-style arch for structural reasons?

If I remember correctly, the old arch (the right one) is empty inside, so if it's placed on another brick the studs would go inside. Is the new one also empty?

@Voitcus: yes, it is empty as well. In fact if you look at them from the bottom at a straight angle, the two parts look absolutely identical.

Although I can't think of any sets that make use of this technique, I have found that the Slope, Curved 4×1 Double No Studs fits perfectly under the new-style arches.

That's very interesting, I wonder if LEGO did actually think about it when they redesigned the part. Considering they usually try to consider as much parts interactions as possible, it's not impossible, but we have yet to see a set where they use it.

This is fascinating. It never occurred to me to even check this combination. Unlike with 6091 and 6005, which form a useful structure together, this combo here is obviously useless other than for a wall pattern. Most importantly, I first got the slope in Flo’s V8 Cafe, which was introduced only last year where I live, or in 2011 according to BrickLink. In other words, TLG held back the complement to the new raised arch a whopping two or three years. Why that would be, escapes me.

Ah, but of course we also have the Slope, Curved 2×4×2/3 No Studs, with and without bottom tubes, which got introduced in 2009 and 2008, respectively.  Still not a combination that I have seen used anywhere, but at least that's now a whole system of (at least) four parts, and the years start to make sense now. And of course TLG can always build upon this to introduce more parts in the future. Really interesting. Still, going by the year, the 2×4×2/3 slopes must be the actual answer.

The key word in your last comment is "system" - LEGO likes that all its parts play nicely with each other, regardless of whether they actually use the combinations or not.

So yeah. If you can add the 2×4×2/3 slopes to the answer, mentioning that they were released at the same time as the arch, I will accept. In fact I can edit that info in myself, if that's too much hassle for you.

With a lot of part redesigns, there's usually a factor which is considered very highly by LEGO: cost reduction, and more precisely the amount of plastic moulded.
Another example of this is the way posts under 1 x n bricks are now hollow. I've heard a more subtle one recently: the sides of the Arch 1 x 5 x 4 are thinner than before, which doesn't seem to matter except when you try to attach studs underneath - they don't hold. I tried with some brown arches from Medieval Market Village and I can confirm it. Funnily enough, the part seems to have been redesigned again since then.
Of course, LEGO probably won't redesign a part just for that reason alone, since creating a new mould is very expensive, so they will most likely do it only when they want to redesign the part anyway or when a mould has to be replaced.
I have no way to know which reason is behind the 1x6 arch change, but it's likely they felt the new design fitted more with the system as a whole - seeing donutsftw's answer, I can't help feeling he may be right. Not only is the interaction between these two parts nothing short of perfect now, but it's possible LEGO has thought of something else that makes more sense with the new arch too.

If you mean "cost reduction" by using less plastic, I can't agree with you. I suppose this brick is not very often and less material here seems nothing. However, perhaps RegDwight could compare weights of the two bricks? I'm pretty sure it's not more than 1-2 grams, and as I asked in another question it seems there are larger possibilities to reduce production costs.

Well maybe that's not the main reason, maybe it never is, but I still believe that if and when LEGO redesigns a part, then they'll usually considers all ways to use less plastic in the part. But yes, I agree that it's unlikely it's the only motive to redesign, especially given the cost of moulds.

About the 1x5x4 arch, according to comments on this photo LEGO may revert to the old version somewhere in the future

I don't know, I can't test it, but for me it seems, that in the new arch it is possible to insert a 1/3-high brick (length 4 studs) in the hole, so the studs of the piece would not touch the arch itself.
In the old one it is almost surely not possible (haven't tested). There is of course a question what this should be achieved for.

Nope, that's the joke. The recess is only 2/3 of a plate high (or 2/9 of a brick). So the plate sticks out. And you are right that the studs don't touch the arch, so the plate sticks out and doesn't stay in place.


text:
Why are LEGO sets put in such big boxes?
I am wondering why LEGO puts sets in big packages. All bricks are put in small plastic bags and from my experience the packaging could be at least half of what it is.
There is so much told these days about ecology (especially in the EU, where LEGO has its seat), the smaller boxes would lead to better use of containers, so less CO2 during transportation and so on.
I understand that larger box "promises" something BIG inside, but could also lead to some disappointment.
When I was a kid and had my own sets, I'm sure they were relatively smaller.

Good point. The box for the Technic Unimog is really big and they could have likely got away with a box that was 25% smaller.

I think you're just discovered a "downsizing". This word has many explanations and definitions depending on aspect of life, where used. But in influence and manipulation the meaning is clear and partially explained by Josh. Your brain assumes the bigger package is, the bigger value it has or the bigger contents you're getting.
The general idea of downsizing in influence and manipulation is that you're getting the same amount as in case of competitive product, but you think you're getting more because of bigger package. An alternative version of downsizing assumes that you're getting less than competitive company offers, but you think you're getting the same, because of the same packaging. And — of course — the price is the same as that of the competing company. Thanks to packaging, it does not have to be adjusted to lower amount customer is getting.
The key to the success is that in most cases, the differences between reduced and competitive products are so slight that customers don't realize they've bought less paying the same (not adjusted price). But since the not noticeable difference is multiplied by thousands or even millions of sold products, customers see no difference and the company saves or earns extra millions of dollars.
This works in every or nearly every aspect of shopping. If you'll see two milk shakes, two washing powders, cakes, butters, milks, anything and one of them will be in a bigger package than the other, you'll most likely automatically pick up the bigger one. Your brain assumes that this is better for you. LEGO is no exception here and I'm pretty sure that if they wouldn't receive negative response and push from eco-oriented organisations (what RegDwight explained) they'd continue their politics.
This works brilliantly (for the manipulator, not for you, of course), especially if you're doing quick shopping in a large mall and you reserve seconds or even split seconds for the process of selecting a particular product over another one. You're often fouled by manipulators using downsizing — bigger packaging does not necessary mean higher volume. I saw (too) many examples where the customer selecting a bigger package was in fact getting a smaller volume. But due to the very limited time for decision, they only checked the size or weight at home, or [erhaps never.
Some sources claim that a big pinch in the bottom of each or nearly each wine bottle is in fact another example of downsizing, not a handy catchpoint allowing the bartender to hold the bottle in one hand. If you pinch-up the bottom of the bottle that much, you can produce a bigger (wider) bottle, that contains the same amount of wine a competitive company offers. But since your bottle is wider (thanks to pinch-up) your customer will most likely choose your bottle, not the competing one.
Downsizing in influence is sometimes called "A British Airways olives example" after the first documented use of this mechanism. Which, at the same time, explains why it is so common and so often used to foul us. Many years ago, British Airways managers calculated that removing two olives from drinks served on board all their planes would reduce the overall costs of flights by millions of pounds in a year's time. They went ahead and thus downsizing was born. Customers were getting less than competitive flight companies offered, but the difference was not noticeable, so nobody complained. When this small difference was multiplied by a number of flights British Airways serves on each routers during entire year, company savings were at level of tens of millions pounds.

Sorry, this is hogwash. You take one buzzword, downsizing, and then you exaggerate everything about it out of all proportion. The bottles example is utter nonsense, and the "tens of millions pounds" is probably the most striking instance of something you only just invented on the spot, but it's by far not the only one. The whole answer reads like pure speculation assembled out of thin air as you go along. I'd suggest to drastically tone it down, providing references for all the egregious claims, and going away with the claims you cannot prove.

More to the point, though, downsizing is not a term that applies in the first place. Downsizing, by (any) definition, does not describe a status quo; it only describes a change. Like, taking the Town Hall that has 2800 parts, and then silently reducing it to 2300 parts, without changing the package size. That simply does not happen with LEGO. Also, upon closer examination you will find that all the typical reasons for downsizing listed in your answer do not actually apply to LEGO as much as you make it sound, and some do not apply at all, in point of fact.

Interesting answer, but this is bricks.se, psychology.se is a different site.

@RegDwight: Everything I wrote in this answer are true facts, based on verifiable sources, mostly books and articles on influence and manipulation. My only mistake was, that (since I'm Pole) I used a word "downsizing", we use in Poland to describe mentioned mechanism. Since it has clearly English-based meaning, I assumed, that it exists also in English. Turned out I was wrong. As I checked right know, this word is not used in English in the same meaning as in Polish. I can't find proper English word for this meaning of "downsizing" in Polish. A "cut-off", "reduction"?

@RegDwight: I'm not talking about reducing number of elements from 2800 to 2300 parts without changing the package size. I'm talking exactly about OP's question and what is presented on image in following answer -- packages much bigger than should be, according to contents. I have only Polish references (here and here), which are pretty useless here. However first has, on second picture, an exact example -- contents of "Kret" are only 40% of bottle size.

@RegDwight: About mentioned "British Airways olives". I was writing from memory about event that took place nearly thirty years ago. So my mistake was that I highly overestimated "the effect amount". It was only £350,000/year in case of British Airways (here) and only $40,000 in case of American Airlines (here and here).

I think that trejder's point of view is ok (not because I'm a Pole too :-) ), but in Josh's answer in fact there is the same thing, but less about this "manipulation stuff". I think TLG is not "the only honest (big) company in the world" and is manipulating its customers as any other.

Actually TLG are listening, and in fact are replacing boxes with smaller ones right now as we speak.

These new boxes will have a FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification “which lowers the CO2 impact of its packaging by about 10%.” You will be able to start seeing the smaller boxes this year and by 2015, all of the products will be in smaller boxes. With this change, LEGO will save about 4000 tons of cardboard which is about 18% of their current consumption. These new boxes will come from sustainable forest so less trees will have to be taken down.
[...]  LEGO is also involved in other plans to lower their carbon footprint. About 25% of the emissions are from manufacturing of the bricks themselves so they’ve made plans to mold the bricks more efficiently. The company also has invested in wind energy to improve their energy consumption.

Emphasis mine.
Now, as to why the boxes were huge in the first place, I can't tell. I heard all kinds of theories over the years, from "so the parts have room to move and don't get damaged" to "it looks more impressive on the shelves". But as this recent move demonstrates, all these reasons could either be worked around, or were negligible to begin with.

Thanks for the info, +1 for you. As you've written, this problem is seen by the Lego Group. I think making the parts move is making them "work" in worse conditions, normally it is solved by some foam or any other flexible material.

This is terrific. On top of saving the environment, this will also save many of us a lot of closet space.

The reason I heard most about big packaging is more in the line of "more impressive on shelves", but with a twist: the idea would be that the image of the model on the box should be as big as the model itself - which can lead to the problems you can imagine, especially with Technic. Looking at your sample, I feel the box on the left looks "better". Also, there's a marketing angle: customers may feel they get more for their money if the box is bigger, especially if there's another brand on the shelf which has lower prices...

That's the reasonable answer, but when I open the box and see just two small bags of parts... Disappointing! But maybe I am not the typical customer :)

@Joubarc that is an interesting twist, and originally that may well have been the case, but right now that reason is as bogus as any other. The Town Hall is actually smaller than its picture on the package. Same for the VW Camper Van. And the R2-D2 on the package is almost twice its actual size — in one direction, but we are talking about a 3D model, so you are led to believe it would be 8 times larger overall. I lost count of how many people were underwhelmed by my R2-D2 after having seen the package. And these are not the only sets like that, the list goes on.

When I asked a LEGO employee this, I was told, "Because the retailers tell us to". They went on to tell me that consumers' perceived value of $200 toy is influenced by the size of the box it's in.  If some other random toy is on the shelves next to $100 LEGO sets, and the random toy is in a huge box and is only $9, the reptilian part of your brain goes wild and wants the $9 bargain.  Look at LEGO sets on the shelves and you'll see there is a strong relationship between price and box size, but not so much with the volume of plastic parts inside. My understanding is that they've been able to talk their way into slightly smaller packaging, but there's still a huge amount of air in there.

That's reasonable, I was thinking about this, too.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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How can I find the value of a LEGO set over several years?
Bricklink has this handy feature on its site which allows you to view the average selling prices of a particular set based on previous auctions.
I like this feature, but unfortunately, it only displays trades made in the last six months.
Are there any tools that can track or display historical selling prices on sets. Preferably using data from popular LEGO auction sites like Ebay and Bricklink.

Yes, you can see the price development of sets on the Brickfact website. The prices are calculated daily by sales on Ebay and Bricklink.
If you want to keep track of the price development of all your LEGO sets you can you use the Brickfact portfolio tracking app. You can enter all your sets there and see the individual price development as well as for each of your sets.

I will mark this as the accepted answer. The other two answers had very good resources but they no longer work unfortunately. I heard the Brickpicker Brickfolio service was meant to return at some point but I have no idea if that is the case anymore.

Not sure about several years, but Brickpicker covers one full year. Here are the stats for the Green Grocer, for example:

Or the ones for the UCS Millenium Falcon:

And so on, you get the idea. They have more and other stats, too — e.g. the following quick overview for every set:

They pull their data from eBay, through some third-party tool they licensed.
Now, I think they only let you look up like three sets at a time — then you have to register. But the registration is completely free. They cover their costs via affiliate marketing, i.e. links to Amazon and the like.
They can also sync your account with (i.e. import your sets from) Brickset and Rebrickable, but I never gave that a try. I'm not much of an investor anyway, just your typical AFOL. In fact, according to them, the prices for some of the discontinued sets I still have unopened have actually plummeted.
I suppose if I were in for the long haul, I would just take a screenshot of their stats every twelve months and then string them together in GIMP.

I'm not familiar with any tools that do this with eBay or Bricklink price histories. I'm pretty sure that Bricklink removes all data older than 6 months, so if this information is available, it would have to come from a third party who scraped it from the site.
I have used a tool called Tracktor to look at Amazon price histories for LEGO sets. Sadly, this tool is most useful for sets that are currently in production, as there aren't many listings for out of production sets on Amazon. Here's an example showing the price of Medieval Market Village (10193) over the past couple of years:


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Does the jumper plate have a Danish nickname?
Does the "jumper plate" (1×2 plate with centered stud) have a Danish nickname like the "Erling"? Who is the designer of this part? And does there exist a catalog of designers of specific bricks?

I cannot find any cases of the Jumper Plate brick having a Danish nickname, the closest you might get to a Danish nicknamed would be a literal translation: jumper plade.
The Erling brick is a very rare case of a brick being named after its creator. I imagine most bricks created nowadays are produced by not one but several people. It's possible that such a catalogue of brick designers exists, but is not publicly available.

And even "Erling" might be more of a fan nickname than an internal one, but it's hard to know for sure.

Although it is not a nickname, the official internal name of that part is 'Plate 1 x 2 with 1 Knob' according to Brickowl


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Which resolution is necessary to print bricks with a 3D printer?
I would like to print LEGO compatible figures. Which resolution is required for the 3D print in order to firmly fix the figures on LEGO bricks?

Let me guess... the minimum resolution that allows 0.1 LDU accuracy? (Since there are 1 LDU offsets and also 0.3 LDU offsets) in the world of LEGO?

See also this answer to Has anyone made their own custom LEGO bricks.

Producing affordable 10 micron 3d printers remains the single greatest engineering challenge of the last hundred years. ;)

This sounds like something that would best be achieved with a resin printer. Layer height can approach the tolerances required.

Depends on your tolerance. :)

In the manufacture of LEGO bricks the machine tolerance is as small as
  10 my (0.01 mm).

Source: Company Profile. An introduction to the LEGO Group (2010)
For me, 3D printing resolution would need to be pretty close to that.

Most are not. Most are 100 micrometers. Would it be sufficient?

The tolerance is given in the question. A child must be able to connect the bricks and they must not fall off. Which resolution is needed to achieve this?

Goven that all teh dimensions in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lego_dimensions.svg are in 100 micrometer increments, in theory I'd say 'yes'. In practice, I'd want to try it out on a borrowed printer before sinking large sums of money into it.

I don't understand the question. TLG have done tons of research on this, and they are a business so they don't want to be wasting money. So if they settled for the tolerance of 10 micrometers, then a tolerance of 100 micrometers is obviously not enough. Simple as that.

@RegDwight Not as simple as that, since we're talking about commercial production vs DIY. Lego (and any other manufacturer of anything) can't afford to check each piece by hand, so their tolerances need to be much smaller than those of someone printing a couple of bricks at home. Even at 100 bricks a day, that would still allow you to check each brick and recycle any bad ones.

According to WikiPedia:

The moulds are permitted a tolerance of up to two micrometres, to ensure the bricks remain connected.

But, as I noted in a comment, that is in an industrial environment, where great care is taken to ensure that not just a one-off piece is right, but that the entire batch of pieces is right. They probably take a six sigma approach or something similar.
In a DIY setting, that is not necessary. A certain percentage of faulty pieces can be tolerated, as a home manufacturer probably has the time to check each piece and recycle the faulty ones.

The image above shows the main dimensions of Lego pieces. Based on its source and the measurements given in this answer, we get 8.0mm per 20 LDU, or 0.4mm/LDU.
Since the smallest offset seen so far is 0.3 LDU, you would need at least a 0.12mm resolution to print that brick. But if you're printing pieces with a resolution of 1 LDU, you'd need a printer with at least a 1 LDU resolution.
So it depends on the resolution of the pieces you want to print.

I have actually tried 3d printing lego on a prusa i3 printer at I think 5 microns using PLA. I found that they worked fine initially but they quickly started to lose their grip. I think the issue was the layers grind against each other which wears them down rather than the brick walls flexing to grip. You certainly won't be getting anything close to the quality of real lego but you could print some cool custom parts.
Here is a picture of the finished result of one of my brick prints:


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Technic 8071 assembly problem
I am busy attempting to assemble Technic 8071, and have encountered a problem.
On page 83 of the first manual, a yellow gear (4203493) together with a grey splined rod (4211815) is added to the sub-assembly in diagram 13.
A little later, in book 2 page 4, diagram 14, two sub-assemblies are being joined, but the yellow gear is in the way. If you remove the yellow gear, everything goes together just fine.
I have backtracked through the instructions and re-assembled everything carefully, but there remains the possibility that I have made a mistake. Right now, it looks to me as though the documentation is incorrect. Can anyone confirm either that they have encountered the same problem, or that on the contrary, they have assembled the kit successfully? Is it just that I'm looking the wrong way at the diagram?
Edit: Added a couple of pictures

I have now realised my error. the smaller sub-assembly was incorrectly put together. The manual is correct. Thanks to all for your help.

Well that's actually a nice concept for a contest (I mean, we're all tired from build-in-the-bag, right?): mirror building!

Seeing the manuals, I'm fairly confident the instructions are correct.
The 11L beam from the second part (introduced in book 2, p 2, #1) looks like it should slide right next to the yellow gear (thus, not right on top of the right 7L beam (introduced in book 1, p 79, # 4) but one stud to the right, which shouldn't be a problem). To clarify, the 11L beam should be exactly in the middle, at equal distance of both yellow gears, right on top of the part with three holes protruding from the turntable on the right.
I'l admit I didn't build it myself yet though, so maybe I overlooked something.
Moreover, I don't really see what could go wrong, especially in book 2. Even in book 1 I can only imagine swapping the right 7L beam with the other part in #3 of page 79, thus having the two 7L beams next one to another, but that kind of mistake should be easier to spot than to make. Could you perhaps post pictures of the two parts as they are before you attempt to assemble them together?

I've added pictures. I hope this makes my problem clearer.

Indeed it does. Your small part (the one with the white beam) looks like it's mirrored from what it should be. The 11L beam should be on the right side, not the left one.

This is the image from the Book 2, Section 14, Page 4 on the instructions from the Lego Website - source. Does yours look like this?
To me it does look like it's not quite right - if you lift the yellow gear out, move the second part into position and then put the gear back it in it looks like it might fit, although the yellow gear wouldn't turn.
I'd advise contacting Lego support, or see if you can pick out the way the person put it together in this YouTube timelapse video.

The timelapse is interesting but goes way too fast... However, considering no-one posted a comment about a mistake, I find it hard to believe there is one.

I have this set and didn't encounter any problems. Not at this step, not at any other. (Unlike with easily a dozen other sets, where the instructions were wrong, in point of fact, in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of reasons, so I know LEGO aren't impeccable.) And everything was functioning properly when it was assembled. Sadly I've long disassembled it, so I don't even know what all these gears did anymore. And of course I don't remember by heart if my instructions actually looked the same as in the image above, so I guess I will have to check that to be completely sure.

Yes - that's pretty much the same image. Lifting the gear out doesn't help. It's really in the way! :-)


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Is this antenna a LEGO piece?
I came across this piece while sorting:

It appears to be similar to 2569, but it's clearly a different part. 2569 doesn't have the ridges and has a spherical tip rather than the cylindrical one on this part. The parts are roughly the same length.

I didn't see the word LEGO anywhere on the part, so I strongly suspect this is from a knockoff brand, but I wanted to make sure before I remove it.

I've never seen that part until now, and it's certainly not in the antenna or bar bricklink categories. I'm fairly confident it's not LEGO.
However, it would be far more interesting to know what it is, but that's not easy to search. A few Mega Bloks parts have been catalogued, but your part isn't there either (I could only check categories bar, weapon and tool/gear before I got sick, though). Considering that database is far from complete, it doesn't mean it's not Mega Bloks, though.
Actually, I think there's a good chance it IS Mega Blocks: the antennas on the Repzyllian Trekker and the Gyro Fighter look very much like yours.

I have one and it is Mega Bloks. You can clearly tell the difference as Mega Bloks always appear lesser quality with slight ridge markings. I got mine from a bundle including Lego, Mega Bloks and COBI. But as Mega Bloks has very limited search facility there are no catalogue numbers


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Which LEGO boxes are compatible?
TLG has produced a number of sets which come in reusable plastic boxes. I'm curious to know which of these are able to be easily stored together. Primarily, I'm wondering which boxes can be stacked, but if there are any that are compatible in other ways, that would be interesting, too.
As an example, these two boxes can be stacked on top of one another:

There are other variations, even in production currently, which aren't compatible with this style. For example:

I'd like to know which boxes are compatible with others.

There has been a staggering amount of different size and shape LEGO buckets, tubs and boxes. A lot of them are stackable with each other (meaning the same size and shape box produced at the same time can be stacked). I think narowing down the question would be helpful. Are you looking for LEGO boxes currently in production? Or all boxes LEGO ever produced? I just did a quick search on Bricklink and over 300 results came up just for LEGO buckets (similar to the ones you are picturing above): http://www.bricklink.com/catalogList.asp?pg=1&q=bucket&catLike=W It would be huge work to try to work out the compatibility of all of them.

I was hoping for a relatively complete list. I was assuming that there were a few basic styles which were all compatible and then a bunch of outliers. For example, looking through the Bricklink search you provided, it looks like there are a lot of containers which have 4 studs on top. I assume these are compatible, but I don't have any of them, so I have no idea if they actually fit together.

I see what you mean. Yeah, if the tubs were produced around the same time (you can check the date of production at Bricklink), you can safely assume they are compatible with the tubs that look similar in size and shape. If you still have doubts, I would suggest contacting the seller(s) who have them listed and ask them to make sure the tubs can nest together nicely. I don't know any other way to check. I have never seen a comprehensive list like that. Maybe it's time to make one. ;)


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NXT motors not moving?
I've been looking around the net for a solution to this problem, to no avail.
After taking my NXT v1 out of storage, I tried using a motor, but it sortof just, moves back and forth once, then 'brakes' and resists any movement.
I did forget to take the batteries out when I stored it, and it was stored for about 4 months.
I don't think its the motor, as all three, in all three ports and in different combinations do the same thing. Everything else is as normal on the NXT, even the rotation sensor measurements. Its only applying power to the motors that causes problems.
Just as a side note, if I try to add motors, it interferes with my program. One example is when I make a program with a Forward 5 block on the NXT, it stays on that block forever, with or without the motor connected.
Another example is in a NXT-G program, it does the same thing, sticks on the motor command.
I will call tech support as a last option, I'm just wondering if anyone has any idea what could be wrong, and any way to fix it.
Thanks.

To work properly, the Forward 5 block on the NXT as well as the Move block of NXT-G require that TWO motors be connected on ports B and C. That's probably the problem you see... To test a single motor, there is the motor block.

Ugh, I literally just figured it out. Thanks for your help :)

Also would have upvoted but not enough reputation...


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How should I connect two LEGO cylinders with pistons to measure the movement caused by sea waves?
As part of a school project I need to make a model of a snake electricity generator.
I would like to build this with LEGO elements, and for that, I need to measure the movements of the cylinders relative to each other by mean of the piston connecting them.
I have an extensive LEGO collection, but I have difficulties imagining the best configuration so that the piston has the maximum moving range.
In addition, the system needs to be floating, as the movement of the cylinders is caused by waves at the surface of the water.

Hi florent - as this site is English speaking, can you please translate your question. This will give you the best opportunity to have your question answered.

Using Google Translate and wttching the video makes me (ever the pessimist) think it's really a poor fit for LEGO Technic. With that in mind, there are a ton of LEGO masters that do things that just boggle my brain...

Hi Florent, and welcome to bricks.se - you'll notice I translated your question, as the operating language for this site is English. I hope you'll get answers, but bear in mind they'll be in English as well. If you need help from French-speaking LEGO enthusiasts, I suggest you contact the French-speaking LEGO association Freelug.

@RedDwight - I learned something today, thanks to you.

It's difficult to suggest parts without knowing what sets are in your collection.  Here are some thoughts to help with assembling this project.

Notice that the snake consists of the following pattern:
float tube -> pump section -> float tube
The float tubes are the elements that keep the heavier pump sections afloat.  You'll need something similar to recreate this with Legos.  You could put balloons inside of the float sections instead of making the Lego portion watertight.
The float tube / pump section pattern is connected at right angles for each subsequent section.  This is the key in allowing the snake to flex in three dimensions (X, Y, Z).  There are a number of parts that you could use attached to the outside of cylinders to create this connection.
The arms driving the pistons are encased in a flex conduit that is larger than the arm itself.  It's hard to see in that diagram, but the arm driving the pump never bends.  Said another way, the arm only moves in one dimension - back and forth.  I don't know of any Lego parts that would allow for this configuration.  A technics rod plus a flex conduit would look pretty close to what you need.  But the Lego pieces with holes are generally sized to allow the rod with a pretty close fit.  And you need something with a sloppy fit in this case.
Measuring the motion is going to be challenging.  My first attempt would be to put a spring loaded slider against the piston along with a ruler next to the slider.  You could then measure the motion assuming you find a solution to the fit issue from #3 above.  If you wanted to convert that motion to an electrical measurement, you'll need some sort of transducer.  A mindstorms motor might do the job, but I have no idea about how to program and monitor for that type of a thing.
Finally, decide upon what aspect you want to measure to indicate the motion.  The edges of the tubes are actually moving in two planes of motion.  As the edge moves away from the piston, it rises up a little bit to accommodate the pivot point.


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How can I get replacement stickers for a new lego set?
I recently bought a Lego Fire Boat (set number 60005) but for some reason, when I opened the box and shook out the contents (as I normally do) no sticker sheet fell out. I was wondering if you could help me out here, as this set is the jewel of my crown. I need them to create a (rather unusual) fire rescue MOC and film but I cannot do this without the stickers. If you can help me here, it'd be much appreciated. Thanks guys!
Ciaran
P.S. can you give me somesolutions?

Although this question is specifically about new sets, the answers in the question flagged as duplicate are valid even if that one is about an older set. Besides, the solution goes for any product you buy: not satisfied? Go to your reseller and explain the problem. Failing that, contact the producer. The LEGO customer service is very friendly and their number is on the box you bought.

LEGO Customer Service will be probably be happy to help you out. They've been happy to replace missing or broken parts for me in the past. They have an online service for requesting replacement parts here:
https://wwwsecure.lego.com/en-us/service/replacementparts
I don't think sticker sheets are listed in the inventories on that page though, so you'll have to add it manually using the "I can't find what I'm looking for" link at the bottom. Once the sheet is added to your cart, you just need to checkout and provide an address for shipping purposes.
If you have any problems, you can also contact customer service directly from this page:
https://wwwsecure.lego.com/service/contactus/

Link rotted away, this seems to be the new one for replacement parts:  https://wwwsecure.us.lego.com/en-us/service/contactus


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Ideas for large NXT projects
I currently have 6 NXT sets. Can anyone think of some large scale projects that I could attempt using most of the NXT bricks and pieces together?

I don't think this question should have been closed.

One interesting project would be to build a manufacturing process, e.g. use the 18 motors to automate the production of little Lego cars or planes. It's a big project though, I once started building a factory to assemble little Lego planes with the Lego sets from a summer camp I was working at, but the kids started complaining that I was using up all the pieces :)


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Power Functions battery box and receiver limits
What combination of motor/Receiver/battery boxes are possible/supported?
example: 2x XL motors, 1x M Motor, 1 light using 1 receiver and 1 battery box.

The present line of battery boxes all provide 800mA of current and have overload protection to ensure that this level is not exceeded. Here's what the LEGO website has to say about powering motors:

As a rule of thumb, you can drive 2 Power Functions XL-Motors, 3 Power Functions Train Motors or 4 Power Functions M-Motors at the same time from one Power Functions Battery Box.

That's the basic high-level view. LEGO provides more details about each motor. You can check these out on the element specs page. Here's a list providing the current consumption for each motor type under "normal conditions":

Servo - 150mA
M - 150mA
L - 225mA
XL - 300mA
Train - 225mA
Lights - Negligible ("You can generally power as many as you need in addition to the motors")

So, in order to stay within TLG's recommendations, you shouldn't be running anything totalling more than 800mA from the above list off of a single battery box. Also be aware that if you are doing things which require a lot of mechanical power, such as heavy lifting, your motors will draw additional power. A stalled XL motor will overload the battery box by itself, for example.
As far as I know, overloading the battery box doesn't cause any long term problems, so there isn't an issue with testing your configuration to see if the battery box can handle it.

Thanks for that. I'm trying to motorize my R2D2, a motor for each leg (tank tracks), a motor for the head and lights

No problem. That sounds like a fun project. Good luck!

Thank you very much for this useful information. I did know LEGO recommendations before, but I didn't know anything about servo and L motors... so thanks a lot.


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How is the LEGO plastic different from Megablok plastic?
It's obvious that LEGO has better quality control, but what about the plastic they use? Megabloks look cheap and the parts seem to vary in color in a side by side comparison next to LEGO brand elements. Why?

I don't know the difference, but I do know that when I was cleaning a bunch, only one brand floated. Can't remember which, sorry.

Could be down to the manufacturing process rather than the materials - we've seen before that elements made in China have had issues with colour matching/quality which TLG has been addressing.

If I remember well, the LEGO elements which had a production issue were due to LEGO mixing it too much color with their colorless ABS when they started mixing colors themselves (before that, they bought colored ABS); so I would tend to believe that less ABS makes the part seem less good, which could be the case with MegaBloks

The thing with ABS is a bit more than that simple. The general rule is that if you want to have different/better plastic you need to play with small amounts of co-polymers. 99-point-something of your plastic is the main co-polymer, but the 0-point-nothing decides about fine-tuning of properties. A bit more than 10 years ago a friend of mine was working for Bayer (the one from aspirin). He gave me at the time two examples of their R&D. One was extreme shortening of hardening time for polycarbonate of CDs. In some years of development it was shortened from ~1min to some seconds. As the 2nd example - he told me a bit about the LEGO plastic. At the time they had a project for LEGO and its aim was to make plastic for molds better. They have machine that was interlocking bricks for several thousands times measuring all the time the force needed to connect and disconnect two parts. They made them self new parts (some of them were never on the market) and were trying to find additives that make LEGO bricks better (long time durability).
So to make whole this story short: I believe that in 99.9% both firms use the same material (i.e. ABS) however I also believe that LEGO plastic is qualitatively better. I will not argue that it's so much better that the price of any LEGO-set is reasonable. IMHO they are horribly over-priced but at the same time I'm still buying them for my kids. I hope they will last for my grandkids. :-)

If you have any more information about Bayer, I would love to talk with you. I collect their test bricks, and the more bricks we find the more questions we have. Bayer was still making test bricks for Lego as recently as 10 years ago? My email is in my profile. Thanks! :)

Both Lego and MEGA Brands use injection-molded ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic to manufacture their elements. The most obvious difference between the two manufacturing processes is that Lego elements tend to have thicker walls than Mega Blok elements. That accounts for the cheaper "feel" and less clutch power. Obviously MEGA does this to save money, although interestingly, there have recently been complaints that Lego has started to reduce their wall thickness for the same reason. (See, for example, this article on a recent Monster Fighters set: http://www.brickset.com/news/article/?ID=3504)
Another difference between the two brands is that Lego elements tend to be shinier than their Mega Blok counterparts. Based on my personal contacts with individuals who work in plastics, this is likely a result of using re-melted ABS instead of "fresh" pellets. If I had to guess, I'd say that Lego probably discards or recycles in another fashion the leftover plastic from their injection molding machines, while MEGA sends that plastic back through the process. Another possibility is that MEGA uses a less expensive plastics supplier with lower quality ABS.
Based on the first comment below, I agree that there is probably something else at play in the shininess of Lego elements relative to their off-brand counterparts. I found an interesting article (http://www.ptonline.com/articles/eliminate-surface-defects-on-molded-parts) that discusses the difficulty of achieving a quality finish on the surface of injection-molded plastic that may also explain some of the apparent differences between the MegaBloks and the Lego elements. Regardless, the wall thickness as discussed above is still the main noticeable difference between the two brands, and it is definitely a result of cost savings on the part of MEGA Brands.

I don't think your guess is correct - I know for a fact that LEGO does reuse as much as possible of the discarded plastic when moulding new bricks, and it is said to be functionally equivalent to new ABS granulates, except it's already coloured (hence they use it only for darker bricks, typically black). However, it could be that they make sure the proportion of recycled plastic is below a certain threshold level. It is possible that the perceived quality difference may be due to purity of the plastic, but I'd bet more on precision in the moulding process being different.

"Both Lego and MEGA Brands use injection-molded ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic to manufacture their elements." -by oddTodd Jun 15 '13
TL;DR: Mega Bloks are NOT ABS.
Based on oddTodd's statement alone, I went to the local resale shop and bought a few Mega Bloks for a few cents.  My intention was to use the Mega Bloks as a source of colored ABS plastic that I could melt into a slurry in acetone.
I used a tapered drill bit to cut the block into shavings, placed the shavings into a glass jar, and covered them in acetone.  I have done this process numerous times with known ABS components to create an ABS slurry.
The Mega Blocks didn't feel like ABS.  They were soft, turned white when bent or stretched, and are absolutely impervious to acetone.  Everything about this experiment reminded me of dealing with polyethylene or polypropylene.


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What is the purpose of the hole in the 12 x 12 boat bow (6051)?
I recently received Renegade Runner (6268), and I noticed that it has a somewhat awkward hole in the bow:

The main bow piece has a hole for some reason, but I'm not sure what it is for. Here's the part:

As far as I could tell, this is a list of all sets which use this part:

6268
6250
6493
6280
6291
6271

In each of these sets, the hole in the front is simply left open. Is there some reason for this?

I would have thought it was simply supposed to mimic the anchor hole, but since 6280 has an anchor and it's not even attached through there, it's not a really good explanation

Looks like an anchor hole to me too. Now I really want a copy of 6493.

Well, it looks too small for canon. Perhaps the piece designer intended it as an anchor hole, but the set designers didn't use it that way? Perhaps it was modelled on a real ship's bow?

I didn't intend to answer my own question, but after reading through the comments and doing some more digging, I think it is clear that this was intended to be a hawsehole (hole that the anchor rope passes through).
The 12 x 12 boat bow in question is a chronological descendant of the 16 x 12 boat bow:

That larger part was created with the launch of the Pirates theme in 1989 and was used in the two flagships of that time: Caribbean Clipper (6274) and Black Seas Barracuda (6285). Carribean Clipper clearly uses that hole for the anchor rope:

The 12 x 12 bow didn't appear in a set until 1992, so my best guess is that this hole was included to match the earlier part, but set designers ended up not actually using it for that purpose.


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Damage Boiling LEGO Bricks
I bought some LEGO bricks from shop on Bricklink and received them yesterday. In order to make sure that the pieces were nice and clean (they were used) so that my two year old can play with them, I boiled them for a minute first. I've done this several times before and never had any problems, however this time, I think I had some pieces warp significantly and I think one was discolored (black piece that turned half white). They warped so bad that I had to throw some of them some away.
I've seen people on this forum talk about boiling LEGO bricks before and I've personally done it before without problems. Was this just a fluke or did I boil too long (maybe 2 min max)?

Hi @mj_ - you might well find some of the related questions (over on right) helpful, especially this answer recommending a mild solution of detergent suitable for cleaning nappies/diapers.

The boiling temperature of water is 212 Fahrenheit (100 Celsius). The melting point of ABS plastic (the material LEGO is made of) is 176 Fahrenheit (80 Celsius). Therefore LEGO should NEVER be put in water that reaches boiling point or anywhere close to it.
If you want to clean your LEGO, the best way is to just put it in a tub with luke-warm water and a mild soap. Let is soak overnight, then rinse it off with clean water. Here are some further references you can use:
http://thebrickblogger.com/2010/12/cleaning-dirty-lego/ and
http://thebrickblogger.com/2010/12/cleaning-dusty-lego/

I can also suggest putting them in a solution of vinegar mixed with water. Its excellent at killing germs and cleaning the legos. See more on vinegar in cleaning here: http://www.versatilevinegar.org/usesandtips.html


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How many standard 2x4 LEGO elements are produced in a single 2x4 mold injection?
Just how many standard 2x4 LEGO elements are produced from a single mold injection? I realize the molds are used over and over again, but how many bricks does a 2x4 element mold produce at a time?

I seem to remember it's 2 rows of 8 bricks, with the plastic flow coming in the middle and being distributed in the mould through a pipe running between the two rows, but I can't find any reference for this.
It could very well be that future moulds are optimised to hold more, though, but that's porbably not going to happen unless there's a good reason. Another example I heard is that when they started producing 5L Technic axles, the new mould contained twice as many axles as the one used for 4L axles - with a net result that the 5L axle costs less to produce than the 4L one, which is reflected in set design. You would think they would also replace the 4L axle mould, but considering the price tag of a such a mould, it's not interesting to do so until the mould is at the end of its life (and even then, it may not be worth it to design a new one rather than to just reuse the previous design).
Edit:
Well, I was wrong on it being 2x8, apparently it's 2x12 (or rather 2x2x6):


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Are all stickers on a sheet used or do you sometimes have spare? Dino HQ set 5887
I built Dino set 5887 recently, but the sticker sheet contains one extra sticker: one of the 'D' things, the pentagram one. One went on one of the walls, the other two round 'D's went on the chopper. I went through the instruction manuals 17 times to find it but for the life of me, I cannot.
Is it correct that I have one spare sticker on this one?

You occasionally get "extra" stickers, especially in the Police sub-theme of City, where the sheets have both "Police" and "Polizei" variations:

Police Plane Sticker Sheet on Peeron

That's definitely an extra. I checked the instructions to confirm this.
I can't comment on how common spare stickers are, as I don't personally apply the stickers in general.

Although I have never seen an extra sticker in another set, you are correct in that this set does have an extra "D" pentagon sticker.