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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)

#331

Post by mcphage »

abustamam wrote: post #330
mcphage wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I've never heard of them, possibly because they don't spend as much on marketing as lego It’s a newer brand—they changed their name to it some time last year. But they seemed to spend a lot on advertising last Christmas—at least on YouTube, it seemed like tons of reviewers were talking about their sets. That’s how I found out about them, at any rate. And I’ll say—the one I got came together nicely, and looks gr…

Interesting. Gotta check those out! Not that my family needs more LEGO... The remains of our Millennium Falcon after my nieces came over glare at me everytime I look at a new LEGO set.

I don't want to sound like a shill, because I don't know them at all, and I still spend enough money on actual Lego. But I am really happy with it. Pieces were great, quality was great, I love the lights, I hate Lego's stickers. And the piece count was 2x or 2.5x what I'd get from Lego at the same price. And I love steampunk, and Lego doesn't have a steampunk line. I'll absolutely buy more from them, so (for me at least) their big Youtuber push last year worked.

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

#332

Post by FarmerPotato »

FarmerPotato wrote: post #261
ryukoposting wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me names, but I'll go to bat for stickers. Even when I was a kid, I wasn't keen on graphic designs on the pieces. I liked the uniformity of consistently-colored pieces. Most graphics only make sense in the context of the set they were packaged in. Stickers give the customer flexibility. Use them when you build the set, and remove them later if you take the set apart and don't want them anymore. Killing Mindstorm…

Silverlight. 3.0 was built on Silverlight. And I guess other 3rd party proprietary stuff. I coached FLL 9+ and Junior FLL 6-8. FLL moved on to Boost and Java programming. These days I only do high-school FIRST.

Another detail: National Instruments declined to update the Mindstorms software. Just wasn't a profitable business case. (The LabView vi libraries, I dunno if they worked past 2015.. I stopped upgrading.)

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

#333

Post by ryukoposting »

FinnKuhn wrote: post #317
ryukoposting wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's fair, though I'm sure we would disagree on plenty of edge cases in the definition of a "display-oriented" set. It just feels to me like AFOLs poopoo on any set for having stickers, without considering the advantages stickers have from the POV from the POV of a child with few LEGOs and fewer dollars.

In my case I think we can agree that the Lego Icons series is mostly display sets I think. At least those are what I was thinking of and that is how Lego markets them as well.

They do tend to use printed graphics on those, right?

My #21334 is technically Ideas, not Icons, but it's in that same aesthetic sphere and it uses printed bricks.

My #10266 is the most "display-ish" set that has stickers, but it's also well within the gray area between "plaything" and "display piece."

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

#334

Post by ryukoposting »

FarmerPotato wrote: post #261
ryukoposting wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me names, but I'll go to bat for stickers. Even when I was a kid, I wasn't keen on graphic designs on the pieces. I liked the uniformity of consistently-colored pieces. Most graphics only make sense in the context of the set they were packaged in. Stickers give the customer flexibility. Use them when you build the set, and remove them later if you take the set apart and don't want them anymore. Killing Mindstorm…

Silverlight. 3.0 was built on Silverlight. And I guess other 3rd party proprietary stuff. I coached FLL 9+ and Junior FLL 6-8. FLL moved on to Boost and Java programming. These days I only do high-school FIRST.

I finally had the time to get back into FRC mentoring last year, for just one season. I changed jobs and had to move across the country before this season started. I miss it dearly.

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

#335

Post by StilesCrisis »

kalleboo wrote: post #313
StilesCrisis wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the one I was building too!

Are they the pieces that are colored like Pixar characters? https://jaysbrickblog.com/reviews/review-lego-21357-disney-p...

It was this: https://jaysbrickblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/21357-D...

The symbolism was entirely lost on me. It's too subtle as a reference, and annoying to build when you can obviously see it's just a big square.

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

#336

Post by ChrisKnott »

Freak_NL wrote: post #275
ChrisKnott wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this is true at all. What do you mean by “general bricks”? If anything there is more brick-built stuff nowadays. For example the Creator 3-in-1 Castle (which I got for my son for Christmas) is pretty similar to castle sets I had as a child but basically way better and with brick built horses rather than large mould ones

The 3-in-1 sets (where the set numbers actually begin with 31) should really be the first thing you look at when choosing a set for a child, and they deserve more praise. There are a lot of cool 3-in-1 sets out there. That castle (31168) is really good (and those horses are too!), and the haunted mansion (31167) is just cool with minifigs which are a hit with any kid. For a small and cheap present that hamster (31376…

Other ones that to me felt like completely fair value and better than anything I had as a child were the Creator Bunny, Space Telescope, and Space Robot. Something like £18/£25/£25 the second two having light bricks included.

JK Brickworks has an alt build for the bunny that doesn’t require a massive amount of different pieces and makes it lay mini eggs.

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

#337

Post by jamesfinlayson »

utopiah wrote: post #318
jamesfinlayson wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was in one of those Netflix documentaries - I didn't realise it at the time but there was an 18 month period from 2003 to 2004 during which no new Harry Potter or Star Wars movies came out so sales of the licensed IP sets was down.

Is it episode 7 of "The Toys That Made Us" (May 2018)? If so that'd make a lot of sense, same thing for Google where founders hated advertising but when it was either going under or getting rich by doing the 1 thing they didn't to go, they chose wealth.

Yes that would've been it.

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

#338

Post by thot_experiment »

iso-logi wrote: post #297
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.

Yeah that's a completely different approach, I buy lego to have access to more pieces so that when I dump them all on the floor and build whatever comes to mind I have more to play with.

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

#339

Post by FinnKuhn »

ryukoposting wrote: post #333
FinnKuhn wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case I think we can agree that the Lego Icons series is mostly display sets I think. At least those are what I was thinking of and that is how Lego markets them as well.

They do tend to use printed graphics on those, right? My #21334 is technically Ideas, not Icons, but it's in that same aesthetic sphere and it uses printed bricks. My #10266 is the most "display-ish" set that has stickers, but it's also well within the gray area between "plaything" and "display piece."

The one I have is definitely full of stickers.

#10298 Vespa 125

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

#340

Post by abustamam »

mcphage wrote: post #331
abustamam wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Gotta check those out! Not that my family needs more LEGO... The remains of our Millennium Falcon after my nieces came over glare at me everytime I look at a new LEGO set.

I don't want to sound like a shill, because I don't know them at all, and I still spend enough money on actual Lego. But I am really happy with it. Pieces were great, quality was great, I love the lights, I hate Lego's stickers. And the piece count was 2x or 2.5x what I'd get from Lego at the same price. And I love steampunk, and Lego doesn't have a steampunk line. I'll absolutely buy more from them, so (for me at le…

Exactly what a shill would say ;)

No but I appreciate your recommendation. I find that product recommendation on HN tend to be higher quality and/or more relevant to me than generic lists (I added so many books and games to my backlog from HN comments because many HNers have really good taste).

Maybe I'm saying the quiet part out loud. I hope no one tries to advertise on HN after this.

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