February 4, 20178 yr Author 11 hours ago, LXF said: While recently visiting Technicopedia's main page , I found out that the link saying "Technica" is outdated , it looks like the domain name is on sale Thanks. That front page has never been updated so some of that stuff is pretty old. I'll try to remember to take care up it in the next revision.
February 5, 20178 yr 18 hours ago, LXF said: While recently visiting Technicopedia's main page , I found out that the link saying "Technica" is outdated , it looks like the domain name is on sale That's a shame - Technica had a wealth of information on 00s and earlier parts.
February 5, 20178 yr The Wayback machine lists the last time it crawled it - March last year https://web.archive.org/web/20160305194421/http://isodomos.com/technica/technica.html but by the looks of things - it hadn't had any updates for over a decade! (since April 2005!)
February 5, 20178 yr Author 8 hours ago, JunkstyleGio said: The site seems to work just fine http://www.technicopedia.com/ The comment was about Technica, an older site that Technicopedia referenced as inspiration. The names are similar so I understand the confusion.
June 4, 20204 yr @Blakbird, your site is amazing and definitely provided a valuable resource to me when I first came back to Lego after a short break. After reading through this forum for a couple of months, I was shocked when I found that you were getting rid of you collection, probably because I'm somewhat of a collector and I saw your collection as something aspirational, a goal I could also work toward for the rest of my life, and the fact that it didn't work out for you made me feel some foreshadowing on my life, perhaps. Does this mean you are continuing to work on technicopedia? I've always been impressed with your models and renders, and I'm sure I've read through this entire thread as well as others and have come across it in the past what software you use, but can't seem to find it now. Could you refresh me? Are you open to any help with the site? The reviews are great, but I think I looked more at the category pages than anything. Have you ever thought of having a feature where you could compare the sizes of two models? Like front, side and top views and you could select two different models to compare the scale? Or even just to list the scale in a table somewhere, so if you wanted to collect all the construction equipment of a certain scale, you could find it easily?
June 4, 20204 yr 5 hours ago, Blakbird said: Does this mean you are back?! If so, then welcome (back) to Eurobricks friend
June 4, 20204 yr It made my day. Technicopedia partly insipred me to get back to Lego Technic after dark ages.
June 4, 20204 yr Amazing to see you working on the site again, it's such a valuable resource to the community!
June 4, 20204 yr Author I thought it might be interesting to drop in a new photo with no explanation and see what kind of commotion it caused. I was right. So here's what's happening and what's not happening. I do find myself interested in working on the site again. I've written about all the models up through 2001, and I have at least pictures of the models up through 2016. My primary method involves building each model, creating a complementary digital model, taking photographs, and making animations of each function. Most of that is no longer possible because I don't own the models anymore. So I'm not seeing any way to complete 2002 forward without access to the physical models. For models 2017 and later, not only do I not own them now, I've never owned them or built them. That makes it pretty much impossible to write about them in any intelligent way. If I had access to free review copies of the models like some other people I could make it happen, but I was never in that elect group. What I can do is at least make some nice group renders of the models that came out each year. The picture I posted was the models from 2017. Some of the models from 2018 did not exist in LDraw yet so I fired up my trusty old MLCAD, refreshed my memory on how to use it, and created them myself. It was fun. So I've now got pictures for 2017 and 2018. I'm working on 2019 but a lot of models are missing and creating the files takes a long time. 15 hours ago, mkbryant said: I've always been impressed with your models and renders, and I'm sure I've read through this entire thread as well as others and have come across it in the past what software you use, but can't seem to find it now. Could you refresh me? Are you open to any help with the site? The reviews are great, but I think I looked more at the category pages than anything. Have you ever thought of having a feature where you could compare the sizes of two models? Like front, side and top views and you could select two different models to compare the scale? Or even just to list the scale in a table somewhere, so if you wanted to collect all the construction equipment of a certain scale, you could find it easily? I use the LDraw system of CAD tools. I model in MLCAD, view in LDView, and render in POV-Ray. Any kind of "active" feature on the site is pretty much out because I only use straight old HTML. No scripts or cgi. "Scale" doesn't really mean anything in Technic because there's never been any consistency. Every model is in it's own scale. The only time they were close is when they were using the Technic figures which forced them into a certain scale to make them fit. I do list the dimensions of each model though. If you want to visually compare the size of any two models, you can do so by downloading the LDraw files which are provided.
June 4, 20204 yr We miss you Eric. Wonderful to see that you are still in the game! Edited June 4, 20204 yr by aeh5040
June 5, 20204 yr Author Thanks all. Glad to hear that some of you still remember me after my extended absence. I managed to put together an LDraw file of 42079 in only a day so I thought that was pretty good. It's amazing to me that a set of this size has almost 1000 parts.
June 5, 20204 yr 4 hours ago, Blakbird said: I managed to put together an LDraw file of 42079 in only a day so I thought that was pretty good. Impressive indeed! I have some experience with LDCad but I couldn't hope to be so fast. Well maybe if I could finally remember & utilize all those hotkeys...
June 5, 20204 yr I'm glad to see some activity on Technicopedia. I always considered it a great historical resource on Technic. I especially like all the writeups and of those, especially the thoughs on each year and how the Technic theme evolved over time with new parts and such. So I hope that even without owning the sets, you can still shed your light on the "events" each year. Such as the emerging sub-line of 1:8 supercars, the increased focus on licencing, the decline of B models, etc., and the new pieces each year. It's understandable you can't forever keep up with each and every individual set. Especially as sets tend to get larger and larger. But for individual sets, there are other sides doing really good reviews nowadays. So I hope you can still find your "niche". Maybe Technicopedia shouldn't be a "set review site" but an "encyclopedia" that offers more of the broader story. In my opinion, that's what sets your site apart from others. So, maybe you could offer links to existing reviews by others you consider to be good. Such as on Eurobricks, on Techlug.fr, or Sariel or other's youtube videos, etc. Then, your site can focus more on the theme of Technic, rather than on each individual set by itself. The "year overview" images above help a great deal with that. There's definitely something with the colors though. Most obviously, dark azure is way too bright and looks as if it's medium azure. Also, dark blue and medium blue (42066) are off. Especially the Chiron 42083 looks weird, but 42070 and 42066 also look discolored. I don't know if your rendering program allows to adjust the RGB values of colors though. In any case, keep up the good work :D
June 5, 20204 yr 9 minutes ago, Erik Leppen said: Maybe Technicopedia shouldn't be a "set review site" but an "encyclopedia" that offers more of the broader story. In my opinion, that's what sets your site apart from others. I second this. Technicopedia is the worlds greatest museum, full of fascinating and wonderful artefacts from a time before my own. I've spent days roaming it in awe Great to see that the exhibition is being updated.
June 5, 20204 yr Glad to see you are back! You have given me the GBC Bug and Technicopedia is a great database which I visit regularly.
June 5, 20204 yr I agree with previous comments, Technicopedia almost irreplaceable resource for encyclopedic and historical information, and as such it's unique, as there doesn't seem to be any other site with in-depth information about Technic sets. Any kind of update, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated.
June 5, 20204 yr Hey @Blakbird, just a quick question. Does/did your 8283 have frictionless pins in the boom extension mechanism? I've looked quite closely and the rearmost pin looks grey rather than black.
June 5, 20204 yr Hi Blackbird, First of all, I'll do my best in english but I haven't practiced for a pretty long time... please forgive my mistakes. I've just seen you're coming back to Lego and to technicopedia. Before this day, I had never registered on any forum in my whole life, but I just did it here to share my story with you. As a thank you, from my point of view, I hope you'll receive it that way, and that it will encourage you to pursue with your decision. I'm 37, and the happy father of 4. When I was young, I received a few Lego technic from my godfather, namely 8843, 8815, 8828, 8064 and 8074. Played a lot with them, lost contact with my godfather, and never received any Lego more. I had totally forgotten about them, until I ran into them when my parents moved out in the summer 2018. I instantly fell in love again with them, and re-built them with my elder boy, 6 years-old at the time. What was supposed to happen happened, he fell in love too, and so did my N°2, then 4 years-old. So I thought I should buy a few sets more, from the same period, to be at my parents' house, at the disposal of my 4 children and of their 18 cousins... Enter Technicopedia... Wow, what a gold mine for information! I started with buying a little lot containing 8857, 8832 and 8839, because it was close to my parents' house. Loved it, so did my children. So I thought I should go on, and build a collection of vintage sets, to offer gradually to my children (Christmas, birthdays, even tooth fairy or Easter) for their very own collection at home. I bought several big bulks, and every time they go on vacation and I stay home, alone, for work, I re-assemble sets. Your site was my biggest inspiration (after of course the selection of parts that I found in the bulks!) to choose the sets that I wanted to rebuild. It is still my main inspiration to select which set I should offer to my children, based on their age and interests. Now they begin to have quite a good collection together (my children chose to share all their parts, even my 4 your old girl, who's getting into it...). And I still have a lot, lot more hidden in my attic. WHen I offer a model, I discover it too! Magic... (well, except a few models I built when they were away, to display at my office - by the way that got one of my colleagues out of his dark age... All it took was to hand him the 8854 for a few days) Unfortunately, I don't intend to participate in the forum, or to moc ; I just read some topics from time to time ; and I will stick only with the vintage technic (pre-1998), as I don't have the ressources (neither time nor money) to get interested in the recent ones. I only know the 42092 rescue helicopter, for my elder boy got it from his godfather (and the 42082, that my colleague bought immediately after building my 8854). So actually, you got it, Technicopedia is already complete to fulfill my needs (except for the b-models!). I've stopped buying bulks, got enough I think (though I miss a number of sets that I would love to have - but can't afford), but I still visit Technicopedia very often, to watch your animations and dream about the treasure I've got in the attic, waiting for my children's birthdays and christmas... and that I will discover along with them. I let you imagine how hard it is, every single time, to choose... and consequently to not choose the other sets. THat's what I wanted to share with you. If you go on with your site, I'm sure it will benefit a lot of people. For me, it's got it all already. And I thought I had to thank you for that. Best regards
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.