CP5670

This is an excellent overview of a great theme. The background section is interesting. I had seen the blurb about "transporting vital resources" but the German translated one is new to me. They do seem to be some sort of cargo shipping company. I actually have a sizeable M:Tron poster that came with a Particle Ionizer set I got on ebay. The scene is similar to one of the catalog images you posted (the one with the monorail in the background), but larger. Perfectly well. *y* I only had two of their small sets as a kid, but used to love the magnets and stared at the catalogs all the time. I got the entire line on ebay many years later. M:Tron seemed to have an unusually large number of pieces with their M logo printed on them. I don't think any other theme had so many logo pieces, apart from classic space. I have this catalog and love this scene. "Surrender, or we'll beat the crap out of you with our wrenches!" :-D

I was thinking you could somehow attach a 16-tooth dark gray gear (the one that spins freely around axles) to the nut, which would make the axle move in and out when the gear turned and convert the gear's rotary motion to linear motion in a fairly compact package. Although there are other ways of doing the same thing that don't use such rare parts, and the 2008 Technic sets will come with pre-built linear actuators anyway.

Good to see that it's out. As I mentioned in the other thread, I wouldn't pay $100 for it, but many sets have a tendency to show up cheap on ebay while they're still available. I'll look for it there. This is a bit OT, but I was curious if you've been there before. What is the PAB selection like? I'm not that far from this store either and would like to go at some point, but it is still a 30-odd minute drive and I wouldn't want to spend time with it if it's nothing special.

That may be the best one so far. I love how they pick a fight with the Roboforce dude. X-D

Yeah, UFO was a great theme. I still think the Warp Wing Fighter was one of the best space sets of any kind, and there were a number of other good sets in the theme. The minifigs were also very well detailed for their time. You can actually do some cool things with those quarter circle panels. The printing on the gray ones limits their use to UFO sets, but the trans-neon (and later on, black and trans-green) ones are quite useful. Insectoids never really did it for me though, except for maybe the Planetary Prowler. Most of their sets had skimpy cockpits and lacked interior room (although the largest one was better), and the wing and leg pieces weren't useful elsewhere. I also didn't like how their light and sound pieces, although kind of neat, didn't interface with the existing 9V system.

I was thinking of getting one of those off BL several years ago, back when the price used to be more like $15 or so, but I realized that I hardly ever use the couple that I already have. :-P They came out with the modern turntable the year after this set, which mostly negated the need for these screw axles. I think their only use now is to hold non-Lego objects onto models, like the Technic pen in 8094. I guess you can try to make linear actuators out of them, but they're often too rare and fragile for that.

I love the vehicles in the Star Justice set and have no problem with transparent stickers, but I can't see myself paying anywhere near $100 for it. It looks more like a $60-ish set to me. I might try to get it cheaper on ebay or something.

Another nice review. The slow shutter speed pictures are great. I think that was the only set with 8 distinct functions for a very long time and was only displaced by the 8455 Backhoe in that respect. The turntable on the back doesn't turn very well though, as the weight is all distributed on one side. The screw axle prevents it from popping off but there is still a lot of friction in it. I don't have mine built anymore but it might be worth trying to put a weight brick or something on it. Yeah, it's quite a bit bigger. When everything is fully extended, it becomes something like 26" long. Although the 8455 actually has more/better functionality.

Setting: Home, at pretty much any time of the day. I'm always up all night and am the only one around the house. *sweet* Workspace: My projects are scattered around my bedroom floor. I often point a table fan at whatever I'm working on so my hands don't get sweaty, to avoid getting too many fingerprints on bricks. Food: none, maybe something to drink Music: none Movies: none When I'm done: I usually find some pieces that I'm running low on and make a note of them in a text file. When they reach a certain number, I go to Bricklink and buy everything I need.

That looks quite nice. I wonder if something like this can be done to restore discolored white bricks.

This looks like a one-time freak thing and shouldn't be anything to worry about. The main quality problems these days center around color/density issues. I remember getting a 1x10 plate with an 8480 Space Shuttle many years ago, which had an odd deformation at one corner. It looked as if the plastic hadn't completely filled the mold and there was a kind of rounded slit along the edge there, although it still fit okay with other pieces. I still have it somewhere.

I might have had it happen once at some point. Can't remember. It's very rare though, and typically involves some common plate or something. On the other hand, if you're talking about MISB sets bought off ebay, I have been ripped on that twice. One set had an undone seal and was missing a bag (seller ignored my emails, and I only found out after leaving feedback) and another was advertised as unopened but was used (this seller was much better and gave me half price off it). This is out of over 150 things I've bought there though.

I think I prefer 4 studs just so they match with the scale of everything else, although I was never a fan of the old cars even as a kid (late 80s/early 90s, like the kind that come with 6394 or 6395). They looked strange and lopsided to me. The World City police car or the one that comes with the town plan are ideal in my opinion, just in terms of the scale. On the other hand, 6 or 8 studs for the trucks looks great, and I like the modern trucks much better than the old ones. I think 6 studs should remain a minimum for them.

I like looking through them too and only have one from earlier than 1986 (a Technic one). Although I probably wouldn't pay more than a few dollars for them.

Now that I think about it again, you may be right. I guess my memory sucks. :-P I'll find out for sure in a few days.

Yeah, I'm almost certain it's Krypto. I remember seeing something like that on one of the boxes. I can verify it next weekend when I go to my parents' place (my old Lego boxes are stored there). They started including short blurbs on the boxes of larger sets from around 1992, at least for the US versions. The descriptions always ended with something to the effect of "only you, the Lego maniac, can decide what happens." *sweet* I like the use of the white carpet for the terrain in that comic.

On closer examination, I think it's actually possible to push those four little pins in. They need to be pushed to the sides though, not inwards, so you have to jam something really thin into the holes and pry them in that way. It seems like it would require four hands to get them all in at the same time, but I might be able to do it with some effort. :-P I'll try it tomorrow when I have more time. The two parts of the motor are connected very tightly and there is no place to get leverage with a knife or anything like that. They don't seem to be glued in any way though, as I can twist them very slightly. I found another page on this motor, where you can see the four things I'm talking about. Although it looks like that guy screwed up his motor altogether.

I've seen a few cases like this where the box pictures are slightly different from the actual model. The Airtech Claw Rig compressor is another one that comes to mind. The changes sometimes seem pointless and make you wonder why they bothered. :-P The other stickers on mine have held up pretty well, although I didn't try to remove them after I put them on. The flag started to break after a year or so and just fell off its axle at one point. I taped over it and it's holding up well now, although it's a little frayed along one edge. This is actually the earliest set I've seen that uses this crappy sticker material (which is unfortunately very common today). Even other Technic sets had good stickers for many years after that.

Looks like you have the original 1989 version with the yellow top cylinders. :-) I got one too several years ago, although I probably paid too much for it. :-P On a side note, if that pneumatic tubing feels harder and stiffer than the modern type, I highly recommend that you don't use it and buy some of the newer stuff off Bricklink instead. TLC originally used a different material for the tubes and this stuff degrades the nozzles (on pistons, switches and so on) over time. The old tubes also grip the nozzles much more firmly and if you aren't careful when removing them, it's actually possible to rip off the nozzles completely. X-O I had this happen a few years ago, although TLC replaced my broken pistons for free. I got rid of that stuff for good after that, although the pistons on my Power Crane still have slightly discolored nozzles.

Nice pictures. I also sort out the pieces the same way if I'm rebuilding a model. *y* This set packs a lot of functionality into a fairly small size, but was rather expensive for its size ($70) when it was still available, compared to other sets of that time. You can also rig up the Technic flag sticker that it comes with to the main model. I've done that on mine. You may want to reinforce it with tape if you're going to leave the model on display though, as it will break up over time due to UV exposure like many stickers do. I had to do that with mine after it started to crack, although it still looks pretty good.

Thanks for the replies. I want to try to open the motors but can't figure out how to do it. The top has four small holes at the edges with what look like some sort of push pins inside. It seems like you should be able to push paper clips in them to pop them off, although they didn't seem to budge when I tried. I think the problem may be something simple, since the second motor just died abruptly and wasn't exhibiting any slowdown or other strange behavior when I last used it. The electrical connection seems okay, since the motor heats up slightly if I leave it on power for 30 seconds or so. I was actually going to use this thing in a space project as some kind of generator. I could probably get another one off Bricklink, but considering the price of these motors, it doesn't make sense to buy more if they're so prone to breaking. Yeah, it's possible that a particular batch was bad. As I mentioned, the second motor I got ran noticeably faster and with a higher pitched sound than my other micromotors, many of which have gotten far more use but still work fine. The part number on the casing is also different. It may be a case of TLC replacing the internal motor with a different version (crappier in this case) but leaving the casing the same, which they also did with the gray Technic/Mindstorms motor.

The existing trans neon green and orange are fairly good with blacklights. The M:Tron and Blacktron stuff looks really nice if I hold it up to the CCFL in my computer case in a dark room. Although I wouldn't want to do it for extended periods and risk any UV discoloring.

I would love to see Deus Ex done like this, although that game is probably too old now to be popular enough. The game has a lot of comedy bits (sometimes unintended) despite the serious nature of the story. JC Denton could look something like this one I made a while ago. X-D Now that I think of it, the Monkey Island games would also be great. You could use all the existing Lego pirate pieces.

Do any of you know how to fix these things? I found this article on it, but I can't figure out how the open the motors (and have to run the article through a translator). Some old Lugnet posts I found suggested trying to move it manually while on power, but this is practically impossible since the motor is heavily geared down and there is no way to get a sufficiently strong grip using only the stud on the top. (I even used these, which have the strongest stud connections I could find) Basically, the story is that a few years ago, I got a DOA micromotor out of an (unopened) 6483 Coastal Patrol set from ebay. It didn't move or make any sound at all. I used the Lego website replacement form and they sent me a replacement, but didn't ask me to return the broken one. The replacement worked great, but interestingly had some minor scuffs and looked used, and also seemed to run quite a bit faster than any of my existing ones. Last week, I noticed that the replacement had somehow locked up in the same way. :'-( I don't know what happened to it, as it was working fine a month ago and had just been sitting in my spare parts area since then. I went through their replacement form again, but this time I just got a generic email that the item had been discontinued. So I've got two dead motors now and might as well try to do something with them. I've read that these motors are prone to breaking like this, although I have a few others that work fine despite having been used for many more years. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. :-)

I ordered a (small) batch of stuff from PAB last week, for the first time, and got it in only three or four days. I placed a somewhat larger order yesterday after that experience and hope to receive it some time next week. As far as I'm concerned, it's a very good thing if they're coming out of Denmark, as that means you're very likely to get high quality bricks instead of the Flextronics produced stuff. Although the package I got just said it was from "DHL Global Forwarding" and had an Illinois address, so it wasn't entirely clear where it had originated from.