Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

thewave.engineer

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 343 posts

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

#291

Post by donquixote25 »

jjk166 wrote: post #283

> They're cut from hardened steel using wire EDM, a process that erodes metal with controlled electrical sparks, achieving tolerances within a few microns. They're made by sinker EDM, not wire. The physics are similar but it's a radically different process. > But in an assembly system like LEGO's, small errors accumulate. Stack ten bricks end-to-end and the cumulative tolerance is ten times larger. That's not how the…

I could be wrong but this article reads like AI. I don't understand why its getting upvotes.

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

#292

Post by thot_experiment »

Lego is still the best toy, but man, I really miss the old style Technic sets where most of the pieces were very generic vs today's sets which are less versatile. 8480 and 8250 as examples (my two favorite sets growing up, though I didn't manage to get my hands on 8480 until I got my first job)

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

#293

Post by conception »

hibikir wrote: post #135
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…

If you want advancements in engineering and plastics for much better prices, see the wonders that Bandai has made with modern Gundam models. A Gundam Aerial HG is under $20, and you end up with a large multicolor model that assembles easily, has minimal mold lines, and needs no glue. And that's one of the intro models

Of the biggest difference is that model makes /only/ a Gundam. Legos don’t have that limitation.

But those models do look rad!

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

#294

Post by Henchman21 »

utopiah wrote: post #16
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.

Co-branding is the death of good products, and in the case of toys, the death of fun

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

#295

Post by jjk166 »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #290
jjk166 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they do have a draft. The bricks are designed so you don't notice it, both by the draft angle being quite small, and the parting line is moved up slightly so by the time you get to the bottom of the brick you're back to the original width. https://medium.com/@bsather/breaking-down-the-perfect-design...

I was annoyed at this one time so I took two legos and put them under the microscope. I couldn’t see it. Which is just to say how fucking tiny the scales are here. For production parts we’re looking at drafts around 3 degrees. Which is… not what they have even considering the tuck back in!

3 degrees is the generic "I don't care and don't want to worry about it" draft angle. In many cases 0.5 degrees of draft angle is a non-issue.

3 degrees on a lego brick would be a difference of .3mm over its height. For comparison an amoeba is about .5mm. If you're zoomed out enough that you can see the length, you're not going to be able to discern the angle. The only way you'd see it is to check for the gap between the wall and a precision square.

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

#296

Post by hjkeil »

Tossrock wrote: post #206
rob74 wrote: post #70

Was this written using AI? It does contain some interesting information, but the same information is repeated (with small variations) over and over again in a mind-numbing way that made me stop reading after about half of the article...

It certainly feels that way. Some tells: "Precision, for LEGO, isn't an engineering choice, it's a brand promise." - The classic "It's not just x, it's y", just minus the "just". "One philosophy optimizes for cost, the other for perfection." - Again we see the x/y structure; AI writing often features these forms, eg comparisons (x vs y), conversions (x into y), negated emphasis (not x, but y), etc. "When you have mul…

"That level of traceability makes quality assurance more like a forensic investigation than a random inspection."

This was the tell for me.

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

#297

Post by iso-logi »

thot_experiment wrote: post #292

Lego is still the best toy, but man, I really miss the old style Technic sets where most of the pieces were very generic vs today's sets which are less versatile. 8480 and 8250 as examples (my two favorite sets growing up, though I didn't manage to get my hands on 8480 until I got my first job)

I collect Hot Wheels but have always found Lego to be annoying.

It's a pain in the ass to put together, pain in the ass to move, pain in the ass to collection. The costs are out of this world and most collectors don't even build their sets, they keep it in the box from 20 years ago. At least with Hot Wheels you can see the car inside even when still packaged.

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

#298

Post by iso-logi »

m3kw9 wrote: post #14

If you buy any knock off legos, you are guaranteed 3 things, 1. Crappy instructions 2. Noticing the snap pressure is inconsistent and often too tight our bouncy. 3. Swearing at that manufacturer after every page.

They are called "Lego" not "Legos".

I thought this forum was for intellectual discussion, full of intellectual people. You're a pseudo-intellectual at best.

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

#299

Post by Viliam1234 »

pibaker wrote: post #235
AdamN wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't know what this person is on about. Lego is obviously premium and ... charges premium prices because ... they're a business. People (consumers) who want premium products ... pay the premium. I would be much more frustrated if they became cheaper and reduced the quality of the product.

There is a prevalent view of economy that insists businesses sell their products at the minimum price they can still make a profit at (but not lower or you are dumping.) A Marxist view of economy, if I must. Whenever I meet one of these people, I ask if they are willing to negotiate a wage reduction with his HR. My logic is simple. If you think it is wrong for a business to sell a product at the maximum price they ca…

> There is a prevalent view of economy that insists businesses sell their products at the minimum price they can still make a profit at [...] A Marxist view of economy, if I must.

That's actually how competition is supposed to work in capitalism. If you sell your products at much higher than the minimum price, someone else can make a profit by selling slightly cheaper and taking over your market share.

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

#300

Post by mikewarot »

For me, Legos shouldn't ever include instructions, or anything other than generic parts. The whole idea is to dream up something, then reify it. It's so fetch!

When I started seeing the non-generic "build one thing" sets, with appropriately high sticker prices, Lego lost it's luster. The additional downside of ending up with special purpose pieces, just made it worse.

The precision with which the blocks are made is comparable to Ford's use of Gage blocks to make perfectly interchangeable parts across the globe. It's fascinating just how many of something can be made in this manner, and how the costs just keep slowly going down as the quantity scales up.

Post reply on HN