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Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

thewave.engineer

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Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#11

Post by lqet »

> A 2x4 LEGO brick manufactured in 1958 will snap perfectly onto a brick molded this morning in Denmark, China, Hungary, Mexico, or the Czech Republic.

In the late 90ies, I regularly played with my uncle's old LEGOs from the late 60ies and early 70ies. They were stored in an unheated attic for 25 years. I remember that some of the old bricks didn't "snap" at all anymore to my newer bricks. They were either extremely difficult to stack onto a new brick, or didn't have any friction left.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#12

Post by scatbot »

Lego is one of those companies that is simultaneously amazing and kind of sucks. On one hand the core product is incredible. The tolerances on the bricks are micrometer-level precision and the fact that pieces from the 70s snap perfectly into ones made today is mind blowing.

On the other hand, a lot what the company does today just sucks. Set prices are outrageous. Printed bricks get replaced with stickers and many sets feel like display models than something you can play with. The Mindstorms/NXT line had huge potential but then just sort of fizzled out. And the push towards smartphone-dependent toys feels weird. Who actually wants their kids staring at a phone to play Lego?

It's so sad, because the core product is basically perfect.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#15

Post by samrus »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #9
vidarh wrote: post #6

More than just bricks fitting into each other at a superficial level, it matters how firmly they fit together, and it's one of the areas where LEGO is generally superior to the similar types of bricks. A detail I didn't realise until I was an adult was the difference between the black and grey technic connecting pins. They look interchangeable, and for a lot of things they are. But there's a fraction of a mm raised l…

> it's one of the areas where LEGO is generally superior to the similar types of bricks Imho, this is, objectively, not true (anymore). Pantasy with GoBricks are superior in coloring and fit; Cobi are excellent for things that should not be taken apart anymore (like tank models); Lumibricks are excellent in fit and have amazing illumination solutions that are lightyears (haha) ahead of lego.

True. But lego has stood the test of time. Thats way harder

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#16

Post by utopiah »

scatbot wrote: post #12

Lego is one of those companies that is simultaneously amazing and kind of sucks. On one hand the core product is incredible. The tolerances on the bricks are micrometer-level precision and the fact that pieces from the 70s snap perfectly into ones made today is mind blowing. On the other hand, a lot what the company does today just sucks. Set prices are outrageous. Printed bricks get replaced with stickers and many s…

Nostalgia... Lego was amazing decades ago so we want it to remain so. It's not anymore though. The whole raison d'etre, namely infinitely recomposable bricks to be creative, was lost the moment they realized they were a LOT more money in custom sets. Sets become collectible, perishable, trends can form, secondary markets exists, etc. It's simply about the baseline, not the principle. Sorry.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#17

Post by rrr_oh_man »

samrus wrote: post #15
rrr_oh_man wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's one of the areas where LEGO is generally superior to the similar types of bricks Imho, this is, objectively, not true (anymore). Pantasy with GoBricks are superior in coloring and fit; Cobi are excellent for things that should not be taken apart anymore (like tank models); Lumibricks are excellent in fit and have amazing illumination solutions that are lightyears (haha) ahead of lego.

True. But lego has stood the test of time. Thats way harder

What do you mean by that?

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#19

Post by throw310822 »

scatbot wrote: post #12

Lego is one of those companies that is simultaneously amazing and kind of sucks. On one hand the core product is incredible. The tolerances on the bricks are micrometer-level precision and the fact that pieces from the 70s snap perfectly into ones made today is mind blowing. On the other hand, a lot what the company does today just sucks. Set prices are outrageous. Printed bricks get replaced with stickers and many s…

> the fact that pieces from the 70s snap perfectly into ones made today is mind blowing

Is it? It's not like it's hard to keep producing the pieces to the same original specifications. If they snapped then they snap now.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#20

Post by SteveNuts »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #17
samrus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But lego has stood the test of time. Thats way harder

What do you mean by that?

Not OP but from my experience, the LEGO I had in a bin since I was a kid still fit perfectly with LEGO I'm buying for my kids 30 years later. That's unbelievably impressive to me.
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