Technic 2022 Set Discussion

[Berthil]

I remember an interview or presentation during the online AFOL day from the LEGO House in 2021, where it was stated by wording the color vomit is for instruction clarity AND pleasing AFOLs who want parts in (odd or new) colors. Or it was another online meeting with LUG Ambassadors, not sure.

[karmadrome]

8 hours ago, AVCampos said:

There's not just number of sets, but also number in each set. I have no idea if that changes the result of your calculations, though.

Not really, as DBG and LBG would have the largest numbers here. If one was to consider the number of pulleys per set, one would also have to consider the number of sets produced in that year.

Looking at the two sets with lime pulleys for example, I suppose 42120 was produced in higher numbers than the FLL set, for example...which explains even less why lime was used.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by karmadrome

[zoo]

Not sure if this is the case, but if a specific colour is required in a set they might want to produce a minimum of X exact same parts (shape + colour) and therefor want to spread the use to other sets where the same colour might not be required but sufficient.

[Zerobricks]

14 hours ago, zoo said:

Not sure if this is the case, but if a specific colour is required in a set they might want to produce a minimum of X exact same parts (shape + colour) and therefor want to spread the use to other sets where the same colour might not be required but sufficient.

Yes. For example orange 3x11 panel was used in the Raptor, but also reused the AT-AT walker. It's all about logistics and manufacturing optimization.

[Maaboo the Witch]

There's still the odd unique part though, like the blue sprockets in 42071.

[AVCampos]

Perhaps it was intended to use in an eventually cancelled set?

[edit] or one that was launched but with a colour scheme changed from blue.

[Jim]

37 minutes ago, Zerobricks said:

Yes. For example orange 3x11 panel was used in the Raptor, but also reused the AT-AT walker. It's all about logistics and manufacturing optimization.

This 

[mpj]

On 10/19/2022 at 12:14 PM, karmadrome said:

Out of curiosity, and coming back to my example of 42120 (Lime pulleys and lime pin connectors), I checked the statistics about the usage of the pulley wheel in all of Lego's 2021 sets:

 

LBG: 6 sets

DBG: 6 sets

Lime: 2 sets

Black: 2 sets

White: 1 set

Yellow: 1 set

Dark Turquoise: 1 set

Trans-Orange: 1 set

Trans-Light blue: 1 set

Pearl Gold: 1 set

 

The other set of 2021 that has lime pulleys is set 45400 BriqQ Motion Prime.

So I checked for 2020 sets with a lime pulley, as maybe they might have had some leftovers from the year before - turns out the only set in 2020 with a lime pulley was 45813 "First Lego League (FLL) Challenge 2020 - RePLAY".

 

Conclusion: From my observation, there is no support for the warehouse optimization theory in the case of 42120. They could have easily chosen a DBG or LBG pulley in this set, but they deliberately chose a weird colour that has no reason to be used in this place. Hence, I conclude: Random color vomit. But maybe there is another reason that we are not aware of...

I think we cannot use a single part as an example. Maybe they have a standard quantity of prime material (lime ABS "dust") and they spread it over multiple parts / sets.

 

[Moz]

On 10/19/2022 at 11:28 PM, Berthil said:

color vomit is for instruction clarity AND pleasing AFOLs who want parts in (odd or new) colors

Sadly they refuse to use black for connectors or axles as part of their colour vomit, annoying those who want things in the "odd colour" of black. Sort of the anti-Ford "any colour you like as long as it's NOT black".

I'm just happy we finally got "Technic, Axle 2L with Pin with Friction Ridges" in black, so I can cut down the axle side and get "Technic, Axle 1L with Pin with Friction Ridges" in black that way, rather than trying to buy all 500 of the available ones off Bricklink. 200 of the 2-long axle version for ~5c each and some time with the saw beats 20c or more and each seller has 1 or 2 of them so it's 20c plus $10 postage each.

Now if we can just get a long axle-with-stop in black so I can cut those down too (8L for Euro0.80/$AU1.30 each does not count, give me 12L for even ~30c so I can buy 500 of them).

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Moz
add comment about 8L axle with stop

[kbalage]

7 hours ago, Moz said:

Sadly they refuse to use black for connectors or axles as part of their colour vomit, annoying those who want things in the "odd colour" of black. Sort of the anti-Ford "any colour you like as long as it's NOT black".

Your concept of "color vomit" is "color coding" from LEGO's side, simple as that. There are alternative brands satisfying your needs, but for me personally (and for most average customers) the building experience of those is much worse. 

[allanp]

On 10/28/2022 at 7:31 AM, kbalage said:

Your concept of "color vomit" is "color coding" from LEGO's side, simple as that. There are alternative brands satisfying your needs, but for me personally (and for most average customers) the building experience of those is much worse. 

Must ....resist.....urge to.....reply!!!! 

Ah screw it!

I have seen some builds from counterfeit brands and they are all black. This does indeed look boring and not fun to build. I do fully agree with you there.

However that doesn't mean I think Legos approach is right either, at least not for Technic. Surely there's a tasteful middle ground between the boring all black of the counterfeiters and TLGs ugly rainbow approach?

This might not be as important for other themes but for Technic there is a complication that others themes don't really have. Many sets of other themes don't have internal novelties. When they do have internal novelties (such as seats inside a car or a table inside a house) then obviously those parts are made in colours that look right for those parts. You wouldn't colour the seats of ecto1 in bright and ugly colours "because they are on the inside" would you? Of course not. They are actually entirely black despite being on the inside of the car. Well, for a Technic set the inside mechanics, like a gearbox, is just as much of a detail as the seats of a car or the table of a building. The whole point of Technic is the internal novelties they have. The look of the Ferraris gearbox should be just as important as the look of its body work and the colour coding should reflect that.

 

[kbalage]

1 hour ago, allanp said:

However that doesn't mean I think Legos approach is right either, at least not for Technic. Surely there's a tasteful middle ground between the boring all black of the counterfeiters and TLGs ugly rainbow approach?

Ugliness is totally subjective :) I just checked the gearbox of the Daytona as an example, don't really see what could be more pleasant without removing the color coding of the gears, which is again a system property and not a choice of aesthetics.  Almost everything around the moving parts is black, red or grey. Building the gearbox is one of the most challenging parts of the whole process for most people, color coding helps with that.

As an example, one of the most frequent issues with the Defender's build is to swap a dark bluish grey gear with a black one. The size should be visibly different, still people pick "a dark" gear and force it in place just to figure out the issue much later. IMHO gears are color coded with visibly different colors for a reason and it is good this way. 

[allanp]

@kbalage gearboxes have it twice as bad. Not only do they look ugly, or perhaps I should say incorrect or inauthentic colour wise, but they are (and therefore look) incorrect mechanically. They are basically unrecognisable to the real thing. Maybe I wouldn't be so harsh on the colours if the form was far more accurate .....maybe! Having similarly sized gears called out in the instructions, with a red X over one and a green tick next to another (even better if they can mould the number of teeth onto the gear itself and just call that out in the instructions, like they do with numbered panels) would probably be much more foolproof than the brightest of colour coding, as it directs the builders attention more accurately than a bright piece in a sea of other bright pieces. Having higher numbered bags (less pieces to look through) would also help. I admit I wasn't aware of the example you sited with the dark grey and black gears being mixed up but we do see examples here where people have still made mistakes where the colour coding is much more obvious. We also see TLG gearboxes having numerous issues even when built correctly (not the designers fault but the limited parts they have to work with). So while I do sympathise with TLGs position and why they must make the building process as easy and foolproof as they can, I'm not convinced any amount of colour coding is as fool proof as our intuitions would lead us to believe, or that there isn't better alternatives to overly bright colour coding. There are also many builders that really do hate it, such as Jang bricks who is always complaining about the bright blue pins for example.

But regardless if all that, thank you for the civil discussion. While we may disagree I do appreciate your efforts in laying out TLGs position (as well as you own) as fully and helpfully as possible. I hope my own opinions are seen as at least trying to be constructive as opposed to just whining!

[deehtha]

5 hours ago, allanp said:

Must ....resist.....urge to.....reply!!!! 

Ah screw it!

I have seen some builds from counterfeit brands and they are all black. This does indeed look boring and not fun to build. I do fully agree with you there.

However that doesn't mean I think Legos approach is right either, at least not for Technic. Surely there's a tasteful middle ground between the boring all black of the counterfeiters and TLGs ugly rainbow approach?

This might not be as important for other themes but for Technic there is a complication that others themes don't really have. Many sets of other themes don't have internal novelties. When they do have internal novelties (such as seats inside a car or a table inside a house) then obviously those parts are made in colours that look right for those parts. You wouldn't colour the seats of ecto1 in bright and ugly colours "because they are on the inside" would you? Of course not. They are actually entirely black despite being on the inside of the car. Well, for a Technic set the inside mechanics, like a gearbox, is just as much of a detail as the seats of a car or the table of a building. The whole point of Technic is the internal novelties they have. The look of the Ferraris gearbox should be just as important as the look of its body work and the colour coding should reflect that.

 

I agree that the internals should look nice. But, the internals should be more color coded, but not randomly. Each functional system should be a different color scheme so that you can follow the motions as they move.

The thing is, TLG makes toys for a broad market, those of us who don't like the color-coding are a much smaller minority compared to the people who struggle with the gears in the Defender.  

 

It's not like TLG is releasing sets like this:

 

[TeamThrifty]

Well.... What a complete failure 2022 is for decent sets. 

Whats gone wrong? Where's the flagship? 

First time since the end of my dark ages that i've nothing to buy myself for xmas... 2022, the year lego forgot about Technic? Disaster. 

[Maaboo the Witch]

15 minutes ago, TeamThrifty said:

Well.... What a complete failure 2022 is for decent sets. 

Whats gone wrong? Where's the flagship? 

First time since the end of my dark ages that i've nothing to buy myself for xmas... 2022, the year lego forgot about Technic? Disaster. 

The flagship this year was supposed to be a Liebherr LR13000 crawler crane, but it's been delayed to next year; according to Promobricks, TLG have had to downsize it somewhat.

Agree though, this year has sucked for Technic. 42133 is cool though, you could always get that if you haven't already.

[TeamThrifty]

..i'm thinking of picking up 42128. @Jim 's review of it is excellent, 'technic how it should', which sounds ideal for me. Should provide a few hours of relaxing building....

[Jim]

4 minutes ago, TeamThrifty said:

..i'm thinking of picking up 42128. @Jim 's review of it is excellent, 'technic how it should', which sounds ideal for me. Should provide a few hours of relaxing building....

Best medium Technic set you get...for that money!!

[howitzer]

There were couple of really good sets (namely, Airbus and ATV) but beyond those, not much going for this year's lineup. Hopefully 2023 will be better.

And yeah, 42128 is great.

[TeamThrifty]

42128 is a definite! £130 ish is also a lot less than flagship money... Excellent. Things are looking up for xmas day and boxing day. I shall buy it this week and my other half will wrap it up for me to open at xmas. 

[abkdt41]

I like all the budget options upcoming for 2023

[Kronos987]

21 hours ago, Jim said:

Best medium Technic set you get...for that money!!

Thanks to Jim’s, I just picked this up at my local Costco. 

[Maaboo the Witch]

Nothing like a discussion about a set from the previous, better year to enliven a discussion about the current year. 

Oh well. Better luck next time, TLG! Bring on 2023. 

[Jundis]

29 minutes ago, Maaboo35 said:

Bring on 2023

Better say: "Bring on H2 2023" cause H1 is a big letdown...

[artemisovsky]

Maybe amount of purchased sets is a bad determinant but every odd year was interesting for me.
For example, below is a list of the number of sets that I have bought:
2017 - 3
2018 - 0
2019 - 6
2020 - 1
2021 - 3
2022 - 0
2023 - ?
Based of this summary, 2023 could bring good sets (at least for me if regularity will remain correct). We haven't seen any leaked images yet so let's stay positive.