[Software] Brickficiency - Find the cheapest BL stores to buy parts

[Vee]

I am now a little more used to Brickficiency and I have a suggestion. There is already a way to blacklist a store. My suggestion is to add a "white list" in the same format of the blacklist. The application would look for a whitelist and, if it finds one, it would use ONLY the stores in the whitelist to compile all its possible combinations.

What is the idea here? The idea is: when I run Brickficiency, almost never I am capable of getting results for 4 or more stores. I am always limited to 2-store solutions (that usually are not good) or 3-store solutions. 4-store solutions and up take longer than I am willing to wait (like ten, twenty or more hours...).But if you have rare parts in your wish list, because few vendors carry them, there are less combinations to test and so the chances of finding a 3-store solution become slim and Brickficiency will return nothing. Waiting for a 4 or more store solution, as said, takes too long.

My idea is: I have my Wanted list, then I remove the pieces that are rare or too expensive, then I run Brickficiency on the remaining pieces. I get usually a bunch of useful 3-store solutions but since I have removed the rare and expensive parts, I still need to find some store for them. So, what I would do is to whitelist all the stores that are part of all 3-store solutions and add to the whitelist the stores that carry a reasonable price for the rare and too expensive parts (such research is done manually!). This way, the universe in which Bricklist would work on would consist of all those stores from its 3-store solutions (that I already know carry the best prices in general for the parts) added with the stores that carry the expensive parts. Brickficiency should then be able to quickly find a 4- or 5-store solutions that then have all the parts using only the whitelisted stores, even if not with the best prices per item but still very good prices overall.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Vee

[Guitargeek681]

Hello,

I am new to this forum, and have a question regarding this program (which, by the way, I think is an absolutely awesome idea).

I imported my Bricklink Wanted list for a lego train I am trying to find pieces for, and after the program did it's thing, I opened up the generated HTML file. While it tells me that "5 stores have this part", "122 stores have this part", etc., it does not tell me which stores specifically have the part and for what price. Am I missing something here? I cannot seem to click on or expand anything to fetch more details.

Any help in resolving this issue would be much appreciated.

Thanks, and happy holidays.

[Classicsmiley]

Did you get a + N Store Solutions section, at the bottom of the report? It will only show you the prices if it actually found a solution based on the parts in your list, countries searched, and number of stores allowed per solution. At that point there will be an expandable list that shows what parts can be purchased at what stores.

[Vee]

Yes, Brickficiency needs to find at least one solution, be it a 2-store solution or better, for the report to be useful. Anyway, even if it didn't find any solution, it will show you how many stores carry each piece, as you have found. This is useful. If it didn't find any solution means that you have rare pieces, pieces that are carried by few stores, hence the number of combinations possible decreases dramatically and hence you have a much lesser probability to get a solution. Remove from your wanted list (move it to another wanted list that you can deal with manually) the rare items, the items that are carried by a few stores (20 or less, for instance) and then run the application again, for 2 or 3-store solutions. It may then be able to find solutions and then it will help you narrow down to the stores you can use.

You will also find that although Brickficiency finds solutions (when it does), some parts that it tells you are available in the vendors it selected actually are not. This has happened to me constantly, which then will make you manually increase your n-store solution to a (n+1)-store solution or worse.

[Lego Otaku]

I'd like to implement suggestion for future revision. How about ending after finding xx solutions rather than keep going? I've been stuck on one that is up to 3840 combinations checked and not 1/4 way done for 4 stores solution. So if it is set to stop at 5 store solutions, it'd stop wasting so much time trying to find other combination that may only be $1 cheaper. This only need to apply to 4 and 5 stores, smaller stores are easier and quicker most of the time.

[JGW3000]

This is a great app, but it has only worked once for me

here is what I was searching for:

Found 9 lots:

24 x Used Dark Gray Technic, Axle and Pin Connector Angled #5 - 112.5 degrees

48 x Used Light Gray Technic, Axle Pin without Friction Ridges Lengthwise

48 x Used Dark Brown Technic, Link Tread Wide with Two Pin Holes

72 x Used Light Bluish Gray Technic, Pin 1/2

4 x Used Black Technic, Liftarm 1 x 13 Thick

24 x Used Black Technic, Plate 2 x 4 with 3 Holes

6 x Used Dark Bluish Gray Train, Track Plain Rail Straight (no slots, no notches on end)

24 x Used Dark Brown Plate 2 x 6

24 x Used Black Technic, Liftarm 1 x 4 Thin

here is the report

Calculating 2 vendor solutions...

Thousands of solutions checked: 0

No matches found.

Calculating 3 vendor solutions...

Millions of solutions checked: 0

No matches found.

Calculating 4 vendor solutions...

Millions of solutions checked: 0

No matches found.

Obviously something wrong, as I can manually find a 3 vendor solution

Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

thanks for your help

[Lego Otaku]

Did your manual check include mixed new and used parts? Limiting to new or used can reduce the available sources. Also I've had downloaded want list not work right. Once it was looking for white technic axle and got 0 source of it but my want list didn't have any white axle anywhere so I had no idea where that came from. When I retried from the start, I was able to get solutions and there was no mention of white axle the second time.

I've tried using and I found something. If I try with "ALL" selected it takes me about 16 hours to find me a few 3 or 4 vendor solutions. All of them are oversea with the cheapest combination totaling almost $50. If I run the same wanted list but limited to USA only it finds only 4 vendor solutions but the total is only about $55.

Cheaper shipping within USA vs overworld + shipping time, I think I'll stick to USA only unless I have a huge list of obscure parts that can't be substituted with modern equivalent part(s)

[legolijntje]

I would like to repeat my very highly wanted feature, since I wanted to use it again yesterday.

I want to be able to also blacklist some countries instead of only whitelisting countries. In my case, I don't mind where the sets come from, but I don't want USA, Canada and Austrialia, because of the high shipping costs. But, now I have to fill in all countries except those 3. That's quite annoying

Furthermore, thanks for the program. after some trying, I managed to find a 2 vendor solution totalling (including shipping) at about $50. If I had done it manually using Bricklink, I would have been at around $100 (using Bricklink's "By Shop" feature)

Another small point: I can't place the .exe in my program files folder. At least, it doesn't work correctly in there: after it calculated the solution, it doesn't save any html files (it doesn't save .bsx files from the wanted list either). I think it's some security feature in Windows 8, but has anyone a solution for it? I would like to save it at my other LDraw software.

[Bob De Quatre]

I would like to repeat my very highly wanted feature, since I wanted to use it again yesterday.

I want to be able to also blacklist some countries instead of only whitelisting countries. In my case, I don't mind where the sets come from, but I don't want USA, Canada and Austrialia, because of the high shipping costs. But, now I have to fill in all countries except those 3. That's quite annoying

I second that demand. I have to do the exact same thing and it's really annoying.

If possible I think it would be nice to either keep the bricklink loging information and retrieve the list of wanted lists.

I got nice results with this software, and I use it in combination with my own webapp to keep track of the stores and prices.

[JGW3000]

OK, even though I picked all 'new' parts, and selected 'all' for countries to search, I am getting this error message, which of course is total nonsense

"It appears that no stores that a> ship to you and b> are on your list of valid countries have this part. You may want to revise your part list or consider adding more countries to your query",

Any suggestions? Brickficiency worked once for me and it was great, like to be able to keep using it

thanks

[Lego Otaku]

I found another oddity with Brickficiency. I was planning to BL a Millennium Falcon 10179 and I had a basic list just for the internal. Since it would be out of sight parts, I choose to make it any color in my Wanted list. However Brickficiency don't work right with no specific color and ends up randomly assigning color to parts in my wanted list. Such as Trans-Clear Technic, Brick 6 x 8 Open Center which happens to be the rarest color on BL (20 available) or White Plate, Modified 2 x 4 with Pins which does not exists in BL at all.

Could future versions check for color, and if there is no color specified assume cheapest possible color, not rarest or weirdest color? In the meanwhile I need to manually recheck the want list and check for cheapest color then assign it.

[dvsntt]

I used it a couple of times now. I found it very handy, and am quite happy with it. If it had some additional features, it would be even better, but I don't mean to criticize, I think it is great program. Thanks so much for developing it and making it available!

[mdoupe]

Major update! Version 0.90 just released with the following features:

• Completely rewritten in C#
  
• You can now log in when retrieving price guide pages to ensure you get the proper information from bricklink.
  
• No longer crashes or fails to open the report upon exiting.
  
• Added checking to see if a whole list is available from 1 store.
  
• Added a checkbox'ed list of countries.
  
• Added a sortable list of parts upon opening a file
  
• Config, report, other data files are now stored in the user profile (%appdata%\Brickficiency)
  
• Generally just changed the whole gui.
  

[Vee]

YAY! Thank you!

Uhmm, just tried to download it and got this.

:-(

[legolijntje]

Thanks mdoupe, I'm sure this will be useful for a lot of people including me

I was just wondering: will you continue to support and update the program when the new Bricklink arrives?

YAY! Thank you!

Uhmm, just tried to download it and got this.

http://img844.images...4/1402/ugw2.png

:-(

I don't have any problems with the website...

[Vee]

I don't have any problems with the website...

I still can't connect. Everything else works fine here.

If anyone can send me the new version, I'd be glad. mac at dpvqb dot com Thx!

No need to send anymore. I used my VPN with a French IP address and it worked. Go figure... US blocked?

[dvsntt]

I am encountering an error with the new version when it imports my BL Wanted List. (I also tried saving it as a BSX file and opening it with the same resulting error):

[Vee]

Same here:

I just found a workaround. Use previous version 086 to retrieve the wanted list and create the corresponding .bsx file. Then use newer version 090 to open this file and it should work fine.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Vee

[Vee]

I have another problem but it is not related to version 090, but to version 086 (since version 090 will not import a wanted list anyway). I usually set the condition of all my parts to "N/A", for the used/new status in the wanted list, which means it doesn't matter the condition, I want to see all the options, but Brickficiency import all the items as Used, so it limits the choices of stores to search to those that have the parts used, disregarding completely stores that have them new.

[mdoupe]

I was just wondering: will you continue to support and update the program when the new Bricklink arrives?

I would love it if they rendered brickficiency redundant. If they don't, I will need it just as much as everyone else. ;)

I have another problem but it is not related to version 090, but to version 086 (since version 090 will not import a wanted list anyway). I usually set the condition of all my parts to "N/A", for the used/new status in the wanted list, which means it doesn't matter the condition, I want to see all the options, but Brickficiency import all the items as Used, so it limits the choices of stores to search to those that have the parts used, disregarding completely stores that have them new.

If an item is marked "used" It will search both used and new. Brickstore files don't have a N/A option.

Edited March 4, 2014 by mdoupe

[mdoupe]

Just uploaded 0.91 here: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B6HH_wCQ4odGU1JEeS1oWE5sd1U

Importing should hopefully be fixed. I also added some logging to help me troubleshoot importing and opening.

[mdoupe]

No need to send anymore. I used my VPN with a French IP address and it worked. Go figure... US blocked?

The site's only been up a couple days. Your ISP's DNS servers may not have updated yet.

[dvsntt]

I can confirm that I am able to import and work with my wanted list from BL. Running now looking for Vendor solutions! Thanks again!

Oh, and the blacklist feature is so perfect. That really improves my ability to zero in on my desired preferences. Thanks so much for making this available to the community, I donated 10 USD to you via your paypal link.

[mdoupe]

Thanks very much! :)

[dvsntt]

I've checked it after about an hour of running, and it seems to have "hung" on the first step. The output displays this "Getting Price Guide information for Brown"

I have restarted it, and selected the "logon for priceguide info" and have had the same results. Is there a log file you would like me to send to you for review? Thanks.

It seems to be specific to one or mroe of the brown parts in my wanted list, Removing all the brown pieces has allowed the utility to run. I will investigate it further and see if I cant provide better details.