What's your LEGO 'status' today?

MaffyD

I think I'm in love:

https://rebrickable.com/users/Mechalex77/mocs/

They're just so cute!

SumoLego

It seems excessive to get a Daily Bugle just for a Daredevil and Punisher minifigures.

But, I now have a weird not-quite complete set of Defenders.  (I need me an Electra and a Jessics Jones.)

Fizyx

LEGO status is just so, SO disappointed with myself.  Been kind of busy the last couple days, and so I was putting of my purchase from LEGO in order to get the coffee cart, which I really love, and which was at a SUPER reasonable price point, cause I figured that I still had time left to figure out what to get in the order... and I managed to miss it completely.  I am an idiot ;_;

Charmiefcb

After running short on shelf space stackable plastic tubs are my new favorite thing. Plus I have the Batmobile Tumbler coming my way. Then hoping Home Alone and Santas Visit are in stock for the annual Christmas order December 1st.

Diamondback_Six

Charmiefcb said:

After running short on shelf space stackable plastic tubs are my new favorite thing. Plus I have the Batmobile Tumbler coming my way. Then hoping Home Alone and Santas Visit are in stock for the annual Christmas order December 1st.

For both LEGO and Mattel Jurassic I went with huge rolling plastic footlockers, around 50-gallon size. (in the US, $20-25 Sterilites from Walmart) I usually break things down into "just fit into the box" subassemblies, pack the smaller sets into the big ones' boxes with them then flatten the empties and slide them into the larger boxes too.

Jurassic Park Gate's box BARELY fit.

datsunrobbie

Basty said:

At first I thought I was crazy for buying 50+ empty BAM boxes but they have really been great for helping me slowly sort out all my loose Lego.

Where did you find the BAM boxes in bulk? I saw a few on eBay, but the prices were a bit more than I could afford if I was to get enough to be useful to me. 

Brickfan50

@datsunrobbie You can buy it on Bricklink (link). Price information here.

Basty

^Exactly that. I was just lucky I found a seller with a ton of them. Don’t buy from eBay as they are just far too overpriced there. 

KingAlanI

Browsing Target, #43111 is the first Vidiyo set that's caught my eye. For most I haven't liked the gimmick or the price per piece

KingAlanI

Brickfan50 said:

I give up. Given the support you receive from your wife, you are doomed when it comes to collecting. I'll see you again on a broadcast in the twelfth season of "Hoarders: Where Are They Now?"

(tongue-in-cheek)

Seems hoarders often have useless junk they think is precious valuables and/or it's unsanitary, not just unorganized collectibles

WatfordScottyM

Bought some Speed Champions for my son ahead of Christmas.  When it came to putting them in the secret present storage location I realised I'd already bought the exact same sets a few month back.  Doh!!

I suspect I'm buying too much Lego.

andhe

Basty said:

^Exactly that. I was just lucky I found a seller with a ton of them. Don’t buy from eBay as they are just far too overpriced there. 

@datsunrobbie. I got a large lot that I got off someone else on here for the price of postage, if you were UK I'D offer the same as my project never came to fruition.

MaffyD said:

I think I'm in love:

https://rebrickable.com/users/Mechalex77/mocs/

Those are great. Fun scale. I follow a guy on instagram who is gradually working his way through every space vehicle building them in micro-scale. My favour shots are always the space fig playing with them.

Addicted2Oxygen

Feeling a bit deflated and confused. Submitted an idea to Lego. Got rejected because it contains a 3rd party IP. 

That IP. Santa. 

They also gave me this list to check for invalid IPs: https://legoideas.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/356076-license-conflicts-and-resolutions which has nothing related to Santa that I can see.

And no further discussion with them, because they are too busy. Sigh. At least I have a nice display piece. 

Wondering if changing references from Santa to Father Christmas would be sufficient.

KungFuKenny

@Addicted2Oxygen
That is strange! Do you have a link to the project so we can check it out? Or has it been removed?

datsunrobbie

andhe said:

Basty said:

^Exactly that. I was just lucky I found a seller with a ton of them. Don’t buy from eBay as they are just far too overpriced there. 

@datsunrobbie. I got a large lot that I got off someone else on here for the price of postage, if you were UK I'D offer the same as my project never came to fruition.

MaffyD said:

I think I'm in love:

https://rebrickable.com/users/Mechalex77/mocs/

Those are great. Fun scale. I follow a guy on instagram who is gradually working his way through every space vehicle building them in micro-scale. My favour shots are always the space fig playing with them.

Thanks @andhe, I appreciate the offer. With over 2000 minifigures sorted out I'm having a hard time keeping track of where they are stored.

vanvonfull

I dropped #21313 ship in a bottle in the basement last night.  Picking up all “water” pieces was annoying…

vizzitor

Addicted2Oxygen said:

Feeling a bit deflated and confused. Submitted an idea to Lego. Got rejected because it contains a 3rd party IP. 

That IP. Santa. 

They also gave me this list to check for invalid IPs: https://legoideas.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/356076-license-conflicts-and-resolutions which has nothing related to Santa that I can see.

And no further discussion with them, because they are too busy. Sigh. At least I have a nice display piece. 

Wondering if changing references from Santa to Father Christmas would be sufficient.

It wouldn't be the sort of odd copyright status of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, would it? Apparently the Rankin Bass animation has an odd problem with it's copyright that maybe Lego have tried to deal with for their own in-house sets before, maybe?

GrannyLEGO

vanvonfull said:

I dropped #21313 ship in a bottle in the basement last night.  Picking up all “water” pieces was annoying…

I have had to pick up far too many pieces from the floor but the thought of the pieces of #21313 all over my floor gives me the shudders!!!

Addicted2Oxygen

This was the actual wording:

“Unfortunately, your Product Idea requests the release of a model or concept that overlaps with an announced or currently active third party licensed property (IP) 'Santa's Sleigh (40499)' that exists within The LEGO Group's product range. For a list of such licenses please refer here.”

My design contained Santa, a sleigh and reindeer as part of it. It could be seen as a beefed up reimagining of the #40499. But as far as I can tell it should not be an issue, unless Santa is a 3rd party IP, which I am surprised about. It is not on their IP list. My only conclusion is that they felt it was too similar to the existing set. This does not seem to be an issue with many other ideas submissions though.

If that is the case, so be it. Annoying, as I began designing and building before #40499 was announced, but if they are the (unclear) rules fine. No need to start a change.org petition over it.

I will retry once #40499 is no longer on sale and see what they say. 

Will get some pictures posted in the building thread later.

Addicted2Oxygen

Pictures over in the MOC thread for anyone that is interested.

gratefulnat

Visiting my parents in southern Pennsylvania after many years. Enjoyed a hike through the local woods and stumbled upon some funny characters having a little party.
Neighbors had been mentioning missing honey, now we know where it has gone.

WesterBricks

Current status: still extracting the #10261 Roller Coaster from this huge collection. I need a 1x1 dark azure brick, can anyone see it?

Basty

WesterBricks said:

Current status: still extracting the #10261 Roller Coaster from this huge collection. I need a 1x1 dark azure brick, can anyone see it?

Here is my guess:

Astrobricks

My advice is to start searching for literally anything else :)  Works every time (almost).

Switchfoot55

^Spoken like a veteran searcher!

Honestly, I often do exactly this when it's down to just one brick. Seems like I find the single piece I was looking for within the next 5 minutes. 

Godspeed

Modeltrainman

In the past there have been two Christmas GWPs. I wonder if it'll be so this year...

KungFuKenny

gratefulnat said:

Visiting my parents in southern Pennsylvania after many years. Enjoyed a hike through the local woods and stumbled upon some funny characters having a little party.
Neighbors had been mentioning missing honey, now we know where it has gone.

I’m impressed that Pooh and Piglet traveled with you all the way from Switzerland… did they get first class upgrades due to being celebrities? 🙂

autolycus

WesterBricks said:

Current status: still extracting the #10261 Roller Coaster from this huge collection. I need a 1x1 dark azure brick, can anyone see it?

It’ll be the last place you look.

autolycus

Modeltrainman said:

In the past there have been two Christmas GWPs. I wonder if it'll be so this year...

There was a rumor/leak at the beginning of September that said the two GWPs were called Santa’s Front Yard ✅ and Mr. and Mrs. Claus’s Living Room. So… could still be an even more Santa-y season! Visit, Sleigh, Yard, and Living Room is a lot of Santa in one year!!

Modeltrainman

autolycus said:

Modeltrainman said:

In the past there have been two Christmas GWPs. I wonder if it'll be so this year...

There was a rumor/leak at the beginning of September that said the two GWPs were called Santa’s Front Yard ✅ and Mr. and Mrs. Claus’s Living Room. So… could still be an even more Santa-y season! Visit, Sleigh, Yard, and Living Room is a lot of Santa in one year!!

I must be tired. I've been doing A LOT of Bible study, kind of/almost read that as 'Satan's Front Yard'... I THINK I got my order in, but it says processing, and by each thing 'please contact Customer Service'...

Diamondback_Six

My order says Confirmed--I had the cart just waiting and pounced within seconds of going live--but coming up with enough for the next GWP is gonna be a problem. :( Wish they could do better about keeping the sleigh and Santa's Visit stocked...

gratefulnat

KungFuKenny said:

I’m impressed that Pooh and Piglet traveled with you all the way from Switzerland… did they get first class upgrades due to being celebrities? 🙂

They were the first to board :-) and they didn't even need to provide any covid documents. I believe they bribed the flight attendants with a few sticky balloons... or so I heard. (see page 440 of this thread if you don't enjoy fairy tales)

WesterBricks

autolycus said:

It’ll be the last place you look.

Of course, that’s when I stop looking. 😁

autolycus

WesterBricks said:

autolycus said:

It’ll be the last place you look.

Of course, that’s when I stop looking. 😁

One would hope so. 😉

My status today is relieved. Ordered the UCS A-Wing early yesterday morning. Now it’s listed on US [email protected] as “Sold Out”. Phew. Got it in the nick of time!!

Also relieved because I had told my brother in an email that I would give him my 1989 Batmobile when I saw him yesterday at a family wedding. I apologized that I hadn’t gotten around to disassembling it. He looked surprised and said he’d ordered one already and hadn’t even noticed my email comment about offering him mine. So… I’m very very relieved I didn’t rush to take it apart.

Charmiefcb

Got my Tumbler today and I'm happy. It started out as such a crappy day as well. Then I got a text saying it was in stock and it became a tolerable day.

560Heliport

Charmiefcb said:

Got my Tumbler today and I'm happy. It started out as such a crappy day as well. Then I got a text saying it was in stock and it became a tolerable day.

LEGO = happiness.

Redbullgivesuwind

Ordered a wicked bricks display two days ago at full price. They have just announced 15% off the whole range with Black friday. That will teach me for being impatient!

Fizyx

I'm just now realizing just how constrained my LEGO buying has been for the last year or so.  With the massive proliferation of both large sets and number of sets in the last few years, I've been trying more and more to make sure that I don't buy any sets direct from LEGO without at least double point or a good GWP, and ideally both, and that I don't buy from other vendors for any more than a minimum of 20% off... but lately that's meant that I don't buy very much and I've spent most of the year waiting for sales.

Until the last couple of weeks that is, when those sales have finally started popping up.  Thankfully, almost all of the sets that are MUST GETS because they are retiring at the end of the year I have been able to get my hands on while still following my rules, and I haven't had to risk letting any of them go out of stock and missing out on them yet.  But I'm also avoiding looking at my bank account, because shoving probably a good 9 months worth of buying into the space of a couple weeks is... a little eye watering, even if I can afford it and it's not really any more than I would have been spending this year if things had been more 'normal.'  (Honestly, it's actually LESS than I would have expected to spend over the year given LEGO's sets released this year, but putting it all together is still a little shocking :P )

piratemania7

Hello fellow Bricksetters!  Long time hiatus - but back now and with a question for you all!  I am trying to put together an automatic train gate crossing for my son who is asking for this for Xmas.

A bit of background - I have pretty much all the parts to make this, he would like for the gates to come down and lights to flash red as the train is approaching.  Thats where I need help.  I've searched a few places online for the electronics and to automate this but am so far coming up empty handed.

Any ideas folks?

Thanks!

Fizyx

piratemania7 said:

Hello fellow Bricksetters!  Long time hiatus - but back now and with a question for you all!  I am trying to put together an automatic train gate crossing for my son who is asking for this for Xmas.

A bit of background - I have pretty much all the parts to make this, he would like for the gates to come down and lights to flash red as the train is approaching.  Thats where I need help.  I've searched a few places online for the electronics and to automate this but am so far coming up empty handed.

Any ideas folks?

Thanks!

I think it's really going to depend on what kind of solution you are looking for.  If you're looking for a LEGO solution, I think this is something that you should be able to do with some Mindstorms parts driven by an EV3 intelligent brick or maybe one of the newer Spike Prime hubs or some of the components from the Powered Up series of parts. All three of those different pieces should be able to handle the train sensing/movement part of the gate just fine, but I'm not sure if the EV3 brick can do the lighting portion. (I'm definitely not the one to ask about stuff like that, although I'm sure there's a number of people here that can answer easily.

However, if you're looking to put something together from scratch, it's going to be VERY dependent on a couple of different skill sets and how comfortable you are with them.  If you really want to get deep into the electronic circuits/micro-controller side, you could absolutely set something up with an electric motor, some LEDs, some sensors, and an Arduino.  It could actually be a neat little engineering project, but you're going to have to want to do some soldering, some circuit design, and some work with microcode.  You can probably avoid some of the worst of going that route by looking into stuff like Raspberry Pi driven robotics kits instead of Arduino driven stuff if you'd rather take the programming up a level and make it a little easier. (And, at the end of the day, what is an automatic train gate except a stationary robot? :P)  I could see this being a lot of fun, but it would be a whole different experience/set of things to do than LEGO.

Overall, I think you're likely best off looking into a solution with the new Powered Up stuff and programming the gate using the color/light sensor to detect the train coming.  You can probably find better guidance on some of this by looking for people who do lots of work on GBC (Great Ball Contraption) Modules, since they tend to use a lot of these things for their own automation. 

jmeninno

^Google 555 timer circuits for the red LEDs.  But perhaps easier with a micro these days.

SumoLego

Redbullgivesuwind said:

Ordered a wicked bricks display two days ago at full price. They have just announced 15% off the whole range with Black friday. That will teach me for being impatient!

I have a shopping cart of displays just waiting to be finalized...

KingAlanI

Interested in #41938 DOTS Creative Designer Box for the 1x1 round tiles white with black letters, but don't want to buy a whole set just for them.

Maybe I'll buy rather than sell on BrickLink for a change. I could buy the set and sell the other parts, but about the last thing I need is more inventory

#76201 and the Captain Carter minifigure is similar

EGRoberts

KingAlanI said:

Interested in #41938 DOTS Creative Designer Box for the 1x1 round tiles white with black letters, but don't want to buy a whole set just for them.

Maybe I'll buy rather than sell on BrickLink for a change. I could buy the set and sell the other parts, but about the last thing I need is more inventory

#76201 and the Captain Carter minifigure is similar

There is so many great 1x1 tile pieces in there.. Surely you can find uses for the other parts! After checking the part list I want a couple of these to sup up some fancy floor designs in my city and make some signs!

Brickfan50

BOINK.
at 5 o'clock. I think my weekend orders from Bricklink have arrived. :-)

kbw

Sitting here today trying to decide if a Lego set is worth $800 and remembering how miserable I was putting together #75192. Lego FOMO is a helluva thing 

Modeltrainman

I've been praising God, thanking God, and overengineering a train. It's more like a plastic cartoon, now, which is fitting, since it's based on an animated movie...

Fizyx

AT-AT popped up about ~3 minutes early on the site, and I was able to get it added to my bag and checked out, using a $300 gift card gifted by the marketing team at work to cut the price to about ~$570 after tax, just before the rush hit the website apparently.  After I checked out, I went back to try and see if there were any sales on other sets... and got hit with the high volume on the site reloading screen.  Seems like I was able to dodge a bullet there! Phew!

gmonkey76

AT-AT didn't go live for me till a couple of minutes after 11pm. Had to try and check out twice until it went through. Was able to order one, but stupid me did store VIP instead of online. Oh well will call CS in morning to see if they can change to credit my order. Now to wait to see when email shows up saying they got the order as I'm worried about a double order and them canceling both, or it not going through.

Lo1sJess

Is there a difference between store VIP and on-line?