Is it at all that they're aggressively pushing more bio-friendly plastic variants that are simply much more difficult to work with, or have a whole new learning curve?

17 minutes ago, howitzer said:

 I mean, injection moulding plastics is what they do, this is where they should be at their very best, the world leader in the whole industry. And they have been, for decades, until now. What the hell is going on in there?

Most likely profit optimization. Sell the product for even more, while cheaping out on production quality and quality control. A sad reality for many big companies that can rely on their brand name and/or market dominance to sell the product.

Right now most of the Kids probably don't even care, or don't even notice it because they just take some things as they are, and don't question it.

Edited May 7, 20213 yr by Gray Gear

2 minutes ago, Gray Gear said:

Most likely profit optimization. Sell the product for even more, while cheaping out on production quality and quality control. A sad reality for many big companies that can rely on their brand name and/or market dominance to sell the product.

But if this is intentional, why would they do it now that competition is getting real and other companies are catching up with the quality while offering products that TLG doesn't, conquering chunks of the market? Why not decades ago when they still had the IP protections in effect to push any real competition down? It's true that TLG has a really strong brand, but that alone won't keep them afloat forever, there must be a high enough quality product too so that consumers aren't turned away in droves. Well, I could speculate that someone in the upper management has gotten greedy and doesn't really care what happens in the long term but just wants even more quick profits...

@howitzer You have a valid point, right now where there is a real competition forming on the horizon it is literally the worst time ever for TLG to have quality issues. Why cheap out now? But quality issues like that don't come into existance by themselves, so TLG must have made changes of some sort.

 Maybe one of the managers is an undercover spy from china  Not very likely, but looking at some decisions that doesn't seem that far-fetched 

I don't think the quality issues are intentional, but are probably happening due to management trying to decrease production cost in some way while hoping the resulting problems stay small and can be resolved reasonably quickly.

Set 31119 seems to have a some interesting pieces :
7 times (we seem to get this one quite commonly this year…)
16 time  (last seen in 2001)

I’m excited that the black bushings are back! I’ve been hearing rumors that black half bushings might be coming, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

@TechnicRCRacer Honestly I am always suprised how weirdly limited LEGO's color palette is. I wouldn't even think about a such a common part like a bushing being unavailable in black, like the most common color ever.

When I order Bricks the color choice often looks like this: [TRIGGER WARNING for purists ]

Spoiler

 

Edited May 16, 20213 yr by Gray Gear

 I love the new Lego Palette! 

But seriously, where are you getting this from?!

 

Edited May 16, 20213 yr by Scoar Sonander

New technic ring spotted in set 41686 it has 4 pinholes, 2 axle holes, an outer diameter of what looks to be 11L and thereore an inner diamiter of 9L. I can think of so many uses for this such as turntables, pipes, barrels, tunnels, and maybe a mini bucket wheel excavator.

360 rotation:

EDIT: oops  I didn't see that two people posted it in the Technic general 2021 set disgussion thread but oh well.

Edited May 21, 20213 yr by SNIPE

3 hours ago, SNIPE said:

New technic ring spotted in set 41686 it has 4 pinholes, 2 axle holes, an outer diameter of what looks to be 11L and thereore an inner diamiter of 9L. I can think of so many uses for this such as turntables, pipes, barrels, tunnels, and maybe a mini bucket wheel excavator.

 

360 rotation:

EDIT: oops  I didn't see that two people posted it in the Technic general 2021 set disgussion thread but oh well.

Awful lot of Technic there, for a non-Technic set...

New part in 76193. Can be also used for connecting and extending technic hoses. Finally! Seems Megablox had this for a long time.

7 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

New part in 76193. Can be also used for connecting and extending technic hoses. Finally! Seems Megablox had this for a long time.
 

So basically a glorified 3mm rigid hose? Also, that ring in the middle makes it impossible to attach a clip, so even less useful...

Edited May 21, 20213 yr by syclone

42 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

New part in 76193. Can be also used for connecting and extending technic hoses. Finally! Seems Megablox had this for a long time.

36 minutes ago, syclone said:

So basically a glorified 3mm rigid hose? Also, that ring in the middle makes it impossible to attach a clip, so even less useful...

I have read in a review that the middle is solid, so no airflow and so not usable for technic hoses :(

 

 

I guess it’s just a replacement for the Friends lipstick piece since it’s used in similar situations (like the Caterham Ideas set).

12 hours ago, R0Sch said:

At least you can put it in axle holes or barholes (eg in technic pins) and unlike the lipstick pieces these are straight.

I would use them to connect the 42056 wheels to the technic disc brake wheel hubs but they won't make much difference, and it means using an ugly LBG pin 1L with stud in the disc brake and the wheels pinholes.

 The only other way is either a 2L rigid hose and two pin 1L with stud. but this hose has no center stop so it can be pushed into the outer hub through the holes on the disc brake and jam the wheel. (bad)

Or using a 3L friction pin, in black preferably. But this only works if you put the pin so its stop ring is at the wheel, not the disc brake. But this means you have a 1L gap between the disc and wheel now.

And yes the above methods are flush with the wheels pinholes, not having a bar, pin or axle sticking out.

Edited May 22, 20213 yr by SNIPE

13 hours ago, Lira_Bricks said:

I have read in a review that the middle is solid, so no airflow and so not usable for technic hoses :(

 

 

Yeah, saw the Bronco review too now. That's a wasted potential then. So just another lipstick piece in ABS... :(

With a thin enough drill bit, you could probably drill a hole through it though.

Tedious, but worth it to have hose extensions.

We already have hose extensions, with a nice bush attached so they can be joined to things.

True, but those don't always match the position you want to mount the hose in. In some cases a pin perpendicular to the bush direction in that piece would work better.

Typical bush part that all too often cracks on my end after some years, I'd greatly prefer a pinhole.

26 minutes ago, pleegwat said:

True, but those don't always match the position you want to mount the hose in. In some cases a pin perpendicular to the bush direction in that piece would work better.

17 minutes ago, N-4K0 said:

Typical bush part that all too often cracks on my end after some years, I'd greatly prefer a pinhole.

3mm hose fits any bar sized hole shich includes inside pins and axleholes. Any connector can be passed through, even thin liftarms. Or system parts like these: 

Some examples of what I mean:

 

Hence why I don't see any useful purpose in Technic of that part, since it would require extra steps to make it work AND that ring in the middle will prohibit ANY connections

Yeah, I don't use hoses much anyway, but I usually use that pin with pinhole and lead the hose though the hole and use it that way to hold the hose, but I mostly end up using hoses as decorative parts on 6 or 8 cylinder tractor engines and such.

Relatively rare pars comes cheaper I guess. Here is a new 2021 set:

Added: I wish there was one more set, a snow sweeper with a worm made of multiple orange rotary changeover clutches. 

Edited May 30, 20213 yr by Void_S

59 minutes ago, Void_S said:

Relatively rare pars comes cheaper I guess.

One can hope... But these gears have been appearing in small System sets before, for example:

31 minutes ago, astyanax said:

One can hope... But these gears have been appearing in small System sets before, for example:

Yeah, indeed. The new one is even smaller, so I posted it here.