30 ms·
Lego has designed a set that can't be taken apart
- gwbas1c 5y agoV2 will just replace the few legos that can't come apart with a custom whole part molded from solid plastic.
- hprotagonist 5y agoIt seems accidental. Instead of "we have a new brick type that only goes together once", what has happened is that there's a configuration of normal lego bricks that can get pinned into place.
- oaiey 5y agoIt is an accident ... but one which happened already a dozen times. Their manuals are the only thing which separate them from their knock-offs. Material quality is no longer. A reviewer will see this immediately. Someone screwed up. They should hire an intern to simulate that and run a check in their modelling software.
- sersi 5y agoAs someone who hasn't played with legos in 20 years but who is eagerly looking forward to my son being slightly older so that he can start with legos, did the material quality of legos degrade so much?
- oaiey 5y agoLego is literally a plastic industry leader. Not only a toy industry leader. So no, their plastic quality has not suffered. But some of their competition is producing literally in the same building in China.
- neolefty 5y agoThe material quality of the competitors has certainly improved! We bought some knockoffs while living in China that were pretty darn good. We learned which were better than others for sure.
- sersi 5y agoAny recommendations? I'm based in Hong Kong, so can easily buy from taobao.
- bllguo 5y agoi think it's more that knockoffs are catching up. i certainly dont feel that my newer lego is any worse than before. i suppose you could say newer specialized pieces are inherently more fragile? i wouldnt make that argument myself though.
- TAForObvReasons 5y agoChildhood pieces have survived years of abuse, but some recent pieces from the last few years have had issues, either outright breaking or crumbling. For example, the 1x3 sloped pieces in some of the newer sets are super fragile near the edge. Similar pieces from many years ago survived. It's unclear whether the modern set designs are putting new strains on weaker points or if the material quality is worse, but either way the result is a doubt about the longevity of the pieces
- EamonnMR 5y agoSome colors, notably brown, are just more brittle.
- evilotto 5y agoThere were certain pieces in my childhood sets that broke regularly. something like "1x1 plate with horizontal clip". The clips broke off very easily if there was something attached.
- ansible 5y agoAny Lego piece with a clip has been a problem since inception. The worst were those grey pieces with clips on both ends and a 150-degree bend in the middle. So easy to break.
- vl 5y agoOverall the quality of modern Lego is excellent. My two objections are over-franchising with too many too niche sets (playability of generic sets is better) And, as usual, way too many police sets. What is it with Legoe and police? How many police sets kids really need? How about a hospital or other city structures?
- nkellenicki 5y agoYou're forgetting the set design in the first place. All the knockoffs do is copy the set with their own bricks. The few other brick manufacturers that design their own sets are clearly inferior in set design. Even Mega has a long way to go.
- oaiey 5y agoThe smart knockoffs buy creations from fans so called MOC (my own creation). And these can be really good. But you are right a factor to consider.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fartcannon 5y agoI assumed this was going to be an Apple brand deal.
- zekrioca 5y agoSomeone should sue this website.. Its refreshing rate to allows its weird Ads breaks even the Reader view on my phone..
- jedinborough 5y agoI have plenty of LEGO that are never coming apart again...it's a testament to Kragle.
- CRConrad 5y agoFrom the comments section of TFA: >> By Nabii in Denmark, 30 Nov 2021 11:49 Funny name; "Nabii" doesn't sound very Danish to me. >> This headline seems created to create clickbait. Hoping it will get picked up by other sites and pushed into the wider info-sphere? Geesh, defensive much? >> It's only a matter of time before I'm being told "LEGO makes sets that can't be taken apart now, that's why I don't buy it". Yeah, so? If that's what's happening, WTF is wrong with letting people know about it? >> It's almost irresponsible to take a single $700 dollar adult set and extrapolate it into saying sets for 7 year olds will in future be made so kids can't take them apart and play with them the way they are designed to be played with - as a building toy. What the heck is "irresponsible" about that?!? This guy is sounding weirder and weirder. > This has made people comment above 'sad to see what this company has become' - Well how about 'it's sad to see what this website has become'. At this point, I was beginning to consider getting a user ID on the site just to reply along the lines of: "Better watch out how much of a fanboi you sound like when you're posting from Denmark, or people will start wondering if you're a Lego employee astroturfing". Then a bit further down there was this reply: > By Huw in United Kingdom, 30 Nov 2021 12:05 This whole comment is differentiated by a yellow background, in stead of white like almost all the others, so it's apparently by someone associated with the site -- perhaps a moderator or something? > Thank you for your input, Mark. Oh look, it seems Huw knows who this is -- he doesn't refer to them as just "Nabii". > I agree that the headline is deliberately click-batey, but it appears to be true, and nowhere did I do any extrapolation. "...did _I_ do..." -- Oh, so this is apparently the author of the article. > It's an isolated case and perhaps given the set is an 18+ display model it's excusable. Hm, yeah... OK, I guess -- but I would perhaps not have been this generous. > Perhaps you could ask your colleagues to explain why this particular solution was felt to be necessary? Muahahahahaa! Seems my guess was correct.
- h2odragon 5y agoI'd say someone earned a free AT-AT for the bug report. On the one hand that's a minor quibbling little problem there, "I have to use tools on this one part when disassembling it", and then the dearth of such problems during their run is an amazing testament to their engineering process. That they have fans that can catch this issue and explain it so well is another testament to the standards they've maintained. Can we call "lego instructions" an example of software design? I think we must. Programs designed to run on meat CPUs of unknown specs.
- motoboi 5y agoWhat a time to be alive.
- CRConrad 5y ago> Can we call "lego instructions" an example of software design? I think we must. Programs designed to run on meat CPUs of unknown specs. So in this category of software, the vendor / product name has to be a four-capitals acronym? LEGO, IKEA...
- kortex 5y agoLego instructions are the unparalleled 5-star tier on my "ranking of assembly instructions." No words (at least when I grew up, I haven't made a set in a long time), complicated assemblies, yet it's totally clear every step of the way. Glossy, high-res, colorful diagrams. Modular sub-assemblies. Every step is so clear. Ikea gets a 4-star rating, sometimes 4.5. Words? Immediately dock 1 star. If using a manifest ("part A, B, E used in this step"), which is necessary because not everything is as distinct as Lego bricks, and you don't provide a scale printout so I can sort the M6x10's from M6x12's, dock a point. Another point if you don't label the diagram with callouts and expect me to visually discern two similar parts by their 10pixel wide render. Using fasteners of very similar geometry (see above) for no discernible reason, dock a point. Low print quality of diagram with the toner chipping off? Insta fail.
- city41 5y agoYup, still no words. The benefit that provides them is probably quite large, so I doubt they'd move away from it.
- jonnycomputer 5y agoLego is a display-piece company now; like a plastic model but no glue required.
- 83457 5y agoThere are two types of people in this world. Lego shelf and Lego bucket.
- ragebol 5y agoAnd then there's closely related Venn diagram of any-color-will-work-lego-house people vs. single-color-walls people EDIT: the current two child comments are of parts in that diagram, great. No judgement, I just wonder what type my son is going to be :-)
- teekert 5y agoHaha, didn't even realize the second kind existed until I watched my wife build from the big bucket with my son, I was like "What is THIS?"
- ethbr0 5y agoThat's the core beauty of Lego, I think. There are so many meta games one can decide to play with a single bucket, and at least one caters to pretty much everyone under the sun. And then you get amazing synergies when people who play differently combine their efforts. Which is one of the reasons I'll admit I cried during the first Lego movie ending. They nailed that aspect.
- matthewmorgan 5y agoCan we just agree that the plural of lego is lego :P
- agumonkey 5y agolego = lego : lego
- JasonFruit 5y ago1 lego, 2 laygo
- dangerbird2 5y agoHow about this? | singular | plural nom | legum | legi voc | lege | legos gen | legi | legorum dat/abl | lego | legos
- evan_ 5y agoLego bricks/elements
- pbhjpbhj 5y agoDepends, there are legos: technik, Duplo, standard, space, etc. But multiple lego bricks are just lego
- YinglingLight 5y agoSo, this is Comms. Legos = symbolism for 'making plans' Comms are a way of communication using symbolism embedded in news headlines, articles, films, music, even memes. A headline such as 'President Bush trips over a Lego piece' describes a fictional event, but it exists solely as a Comms Vehicle. Thus, the article represents a Plan that cannot be Stopped.
- colechristensen 5y agoThe aggressive advertising on this site broke iOS Safari
- patentatt 5y agoContent blockers, pi-hole, and/or nextdns does the trick. I see no ads on this page and it works fine in iOS safari.
- rizky05 5y agowell not on my iphone, installed adblock for safari
- LeifCarrotson 5y agoUsually, I can guess when a site is likely to suck without adblock or on a different browser, but here my expectations were completely subverted. On Firefox (desktop) with uBlock Origin and a Pihole, it was a pleasant read. The site loaded quickly, and it worked nicely with a system dark theme and in reader mode. There are no obvious gaps where sponsored content would be inserted. The header and sidebar look complete yet unobtrusive. It looks like a well-made page that should cooperate nicely with a mobile browser. I'm sorry to hear your experience was so bad!
- V__ 5y agoLego is really a shadow of what it once was. Brand partnerships seem more important than the quality and fun/playability of the products. It's becoming more and more a collectors toy rather than something for kids to play with.
- dagw 5y agoMore charitably, those brand partnerships and $700 collector sets is the thing that let them avoid bankruptcy, become profitable, and still be able to also sell toys for kids to play with.
- Sohcahtoa82 5y agoI've always considered the $700 collector sets to not be toys. They're models that will be built and put on display rather than played with, and will never be torn down to be added to the big bucket of Legos.
- MattRix 5y agoSets like this are clearly designed for adult collectors, but they they still have lots of fun kits for kids. I’d argue that some branded sets like the Mario series are more interesting and fun than almost any sets from the past (other than technic and mindstorms).
- bennyp101 5y agoNonsense - there is no reason they can't provide display type models for people who enjoy building them to showcase (Like Airfix models for instance), whilst still providing the standard build-destroy-change cycle of products. My kids are getting into Lego currently, and the quality is just as good as it has been. My Lego works perfectly with their Lego, and is just as fun! My wife has been buying the Harry Potter Lego, because she likes to build them and display them, whilst I like to dig out old instructions and build old stuff with the kids, which they can change and tweak. Swings and roundabouts etc
- bluetomcat 5y ago
- thomascgalvin 5y agoThis appears to be unintentional, but it does remind me a bit of the somewhat recent trend of "Legacy" board games, where you make permanent changes to core pieces, like putting stickers on the game board or tearing up cards. That's interesting to me, because "replayability" has always been one of the core considerations in game design, but with a Legacy product, locked-in choices and permanent consequences are one of the selling points.
- ethbr0 5y agoThat's something that came out of MMOs, by my read. Impermanence is a tonic to cure obsession.
- jimktrains2 5y agoCan you give an example of what you mean?
- thomascgalvin 5y agoPandemic Legacy is probably the best known, and I think there's a version of Gloomhaven that is massive, but also single-play.
- dgritsko 5y agoRisk Legacy is another fun one, although it also suffers from the same "permanent changes" issue (feature?) described above.
- matthiaswh 5y agoYou say "suffers from" as if it is not the core intended feature of the game. It's the same way ice cream suffers from being delicious, or baseballs suffer from being hard.
- iams 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dDTbA1fq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dDTbA1fq8 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-season-1 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-s... https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Cooperative-Playtime-Z-Man-Games/dp/B00TQ5SEAI/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3D8NFG1QHFPE4&keywords=pandemic+legacy&qid=1638543034&sprefix=pandemic+lega%2Caps%2C230&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Cooperative-Playtime-Z-Man-G...
- eloisius 5y agoThis site is so thick with ads that I cannot stand to read it on my phone. I made it through a paragraph several times and weird reload-like stuff keeps happing, making me lose my place so that the obnoxious video ad stuck to the top of the viewport can replay. And that’s after solving two captcha challenges to find all the busses. The internet is terrible now.
- randyrand 5y agoMy phone got super warm and I lost a few percent just reading it a couple minutes. Pretty terrible experience.
- pwg 5y agoReading with javascript off (UBlock Origion in default deny all JS) resulted in zero ad, and the ability to read the full article without interruption.
- ErikVandeWater 5y agoIs it possible they've created a new device to separate them, similar to the existing brick separator?
- bflesch 5y agoThere is a Frankfurt-based toy store owner who has been very vocal on Youtube about the quality and value problems in recent Lego sets. Lego has sued him multiple times but Streisand effect set in and he has gained a large audience. If anybody who understands German langauge is up for some great irony from a charismatic toy professional on this topic, you should have a look. WARNING: You will waste some hours on this.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9OKWm_x2RI&t=1504s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9OKWm_x2RI&t=1504s
- solarkraft 5y agoAFAIK the lawsuits were mostly about him using "Lego" as a part of his brand (Legoheld). He had to rebrand and now exclusively uses the generic term "Klemmbaustein" (press-fit brick) instead of the name Lego and also now mainly promotes other brands. The story is pretty well known on the german internet.
- undersuit 5y agoTrademarks seem kinda abusive in a language like German with a tendency to make compound words. Farwell Lego Hero.
- bierjunge 5y agoYou recall it wrong, his brand is "Held der Steine Inh. Thomas Panke" (hero of the bricks, owner Thomas Panke) and his old logo contained a 4x2 brick, but without "LEGO" marks anywhere. LEGO claimed it could be confused with their bricks. More info (in german, but deepl/google do pretty decent job at translating): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Panke#Kontroverse_mit_Lego https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Panke#Kontroverse_mit_L...
- Semaphor 5y agoAccording to the wikipedia link, both of you are correct. One was about his own brand, the other was about him using "Lego" to refer to the bricks of other brands (which he only started doing after they sued the first time).
- avar 5y agoIt can't be taken apart because you'll need something like a sewing needle to pry an axle out of a Technic piece? That seems trivially surmountable. I've had much larger problems just prying two small 1x2's apart.
- colanderman 5y agoAgreed -- once you've stacked two 1x2 plates... might as well just treat them as a single part from then on. With two pairs of pliers of the correct shape, you might be able to get them apart.
- JorgeGT 5y agoThere is a LEGO separator tool for this: https://www.lego.com/es-es/product/brick-separator-630 https://www.lego.com/es-es/product/brick-separator-630
- kemayo 5y agoThose do work for most pieces, but the stacked-plates issue is tricky even with one. Stacked 1x2 or 1x1 is the worst because it's almost impossible to even bring leverage into it.
- colanderman 5y agoStacked 1x1s are trivial -- rotate them 45 degrees! A 1x1 in the middle of a large plate though can be a challenge though. While the remover tool works for e.g. 1x2s, 1x1s don't quite have enough surface area, so the tool often slips off. 2x plates I find tend not to give as much trouble, if only because they require more force to have been pushed together perfectly flush in the first place. (My context is teaching Lego professionally to middle-school children for a few summers. You get given all sorts of fun things to take apart, and having a pocket knife around isn't a good idea. My other takeaway from that experience is that the LabView-based Mindstorms software is/was total shit.)
- colanderman 5y ago
- userbinator 5y agoIsn't the orange piece hollow, so it should be possible to push something in it and drive the pin out (moving the red piece into the green one) after aligning the splines? When it comes to attaching the body to the underframe, axles are inserted into holes in the side and, while they do not mate with an axle hole inside the body, they cannot be removed without putting the mechanised beast on its side, shaking it, and hoping for the best. That is definitely what is called a "blind pin" in machining, with a tighter interference fit, and they are usually avoided in components meant to be serviceable, since removing them requires drilling them out. It seems amusingly ironic that with the increase in the difficulty of disassembling consumer products, Lego also follows suit.
- rtkwe 5y agoNo you can't push the red short pin through the grey piece, it's a 6538c [0,1] by the looks of it and those have a small wall in the middle to stop push through. They're meant to be used to connect two Technic axels and just sit on the two ends. [0] https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?id=67471#T=C https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?id=674... [1] https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/EXTN/17834.png https://img.bricklink.com/ItemImage/EXTN/17834.png
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bena 5y agoThe orange pin is hollow, but the red axle is behind it is not. That gray axle sleeve has a stop about halfway through so you can't push an axle all the way through. It's meant to join two axles. You could omit the green sleeve as it is completely smooth on the inside. That will give you better access to the dark gray axle, but the sleeve is probably there to provide structural support to the frame. They might do a small update where they replace the "4 axle with stop" with a "5 axle with stop" and put a bushing on the outside to provide support between the stop and the frame. Provided, of course, that there's a brick's width of room where that assembly goes. Edit: I just looked up the instructions for 75313 and found the section with the assembly. The assembly is the "hip" joint, where the leg connects with the main body. The assembly is connected so that the offending axles are parallel to the ground. The dark gray axle points inward and it looks like, at least on the front legs, it's too close to another frame to extend the pin so that it sits outside the frame. https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/6393612.pdf https://www.lego.com/cdn/product-assets/product.bi.core.pdf/...
- wirthjason 5y agoI saw a term in the comments: AFOL. I had to look it up: Adult Fan Of Legos. I loved legos as a kid and would spend hours building stuff. Now the kits seem more like models to be assembled and put on display and not touched rather than “a paint brush of blocks” where I can use my imagination. It lost my interest. My attention is now on software where I feel I can build anything. I liken it to my lego experience as a child. I don’t necessarily think there’s a right or wrong thing here. It’s interesting to note how our mind changes as we age and grow older. The ”do anything” mentality get displaced with something else. This would make for an interesting PhD topic. :) I found another quote from a related article that captured this feeling. “It’s like a blast to the past, straight to our childhoods,” said Deason, 40, who lives in Connellsville, Pa. “It took me by surprise, but it makes sense: Life is so structured. But with Lego, you can do anything.” Deason has a few million Lego pieces, which she organizes by type and color. The Star Wars and Architecture sets, she says, are the most popular among adults, who almost always look for the instruction manuals. “The younger kids come in and it’s all about their imaginations — playing pretend, building zombie towns,” she said. “But at some point that gets lost. The adults seem to value the final finished project. That’s where they get their satisfaction.”
- jerome-jh 5y agoI still firmly believe Lego is "one of a kind" in the toys category. I personally still use Lego Technics to prototype stuff from time to time. The thing is, kids (and maybe adults too) do not play Lego as they did before. The less toys you have, the more you reuse, reshuffle, tinker. It may be surprising but kids have no time for this today. Build (following the instructions), play, switch. I actually find it interesting in a positive sense that it is possible to design something that cannot be taken apart in Lego.
- CRConrad 5y ago> Now the kits seem more like models to be assembled and put on display and not touched rather than “a paint brush of blocks” where I can use my imagination. It lost my interest. That's how that whole "kit" malarkey has seemed to me ever since it started. What's the fricking use of a Millennium Falcon, or a motorized excavator for that matter, when it's full of bespoke pieces that only really work for that particular end product? The whole idea totally sucks, IMO. When I was a kid, "kits" didn't exist; there were only generic pieces, and I think that's the way it still ought to be. Yeah, yeah, get off my lawn.
- thrdbndndn 5y agoI honestly don't understand this article. Why exactly can't the parts shown be taken apart by reversing the action? Could someone explain it for someone who have never played Lego other than simple bricks.
- hk1337 5y agoI think they're expecting for it to easily be taken apart but a lot of things they mentioned would require special tools and risk damaging the parts. Honestly, though, that's part of engineering, you're going to break things to figure out what works and doesn't work.
- rtkwe 5y agoUntil now Lego had been careful to not produce this kind of configuration where destructive disassembly was required which is an interesting shift in their design philosophy (assuming it's not just this slipping through the cracks of course).
- rtkwe 5y agoThe dark grey 4l flush end axel sits flush with the rectangular block when properly inserted so it's not possible to get a grip strong enough to pull it out of the grey piece and the light grey piece the red pin goes into has a wall in the middle so you can't push it out through that end. It's impossible to take out non-destructively.
- Karliss 5y agoImagine a nail without head that has been fully hit into a piece of wood. Reversing the action doesn't pull the nail out unless you weld the hammer to the end of nail. It can't be pulled out either because there is nothing sticking out from surface and can't be pushed from other side because it's blocked.
- thrdbndndn 5y agoAh, thanks! Now I finally get it.
- marcodiego 5y agoLego can't survive on patents forever. They make money by: - being a known brand, - having a good reputation, - superb quality of its parts and - exclusive sets. Lego became a toy company that explore Hollywood franchises fans. The possibility of assembling and disassembling anything is a smaller value-added today.
- rtkwe 5y agoYeah they are probably counting on the fact that this is a Ultimate Collector Series aimed at Adult Fans Of Lego designed to be a display piece not a playset that gets taken apart and remixed into your pool of Lego pieces. It is a new thing though that is interesting given how long they went before making a set that was this hard to fully disassemble. Till now every set could come apart and besides stickers parts were fully generic and didn't get stuck together permanently. [0] [0] Except for things you need the brick separators to fix, those configurations have always existed. I have noticed there's more of those being called for in sets lately. eg: 2x 2x1 flat plates together, it's very hard to impossible to separate those without tools.
- miahi 5y agoI remember encountering something similar in the Lamborghini Sian kit - I think around one of the diffs; I left the axle a bit loose just in case, and that was good, because of course I mounted the diff the other way around and had to take it apart.
- dirtyid 5y agoCan't be taken apart easily. A lot of my old lego pieces have bite barks on them because the fit was too tight regardless of best practice. Apart from the Lego Brick separator, wasn't there instructions for unmating a bunch of common stubborn connections? Maybe they need better tools to cater to more flexibility. A set of ifixit/legoit shims and picks perhaps.
- vlunkr 5y agoIt's amazing that people can look at that model and think that lego has gone downhill. This is one obscure flaw.
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoIronic, the author designed a page that can't be read because of the massive blitz of ads and the crushing impact it had on my cpu
- kemayo 5y agoIt seems like a weird complaint for this specific set, because this is one of those huge and expensive display pieces aimed at rich adults. I would be genuinely surprised if even a small fraction of these kits were ever disassembled -- it's not the sort of thing where you just break it down and throw the pieces back into a box for reuse. If this had shown up in one of the smaller kid-focused kits which are building playgrounds, yes, that'd be a problem.
- ziml77 5y agoThis was my thought too. Are people really disassembling these? To me these things feel more like typical crafts/construction where you make something once and then put it on display.
- HenryKissinger 5y agoYears ago I completely disassembled some of my larger sets and stored the parts into large Ziplock bags when I had to move.
- abliefern 5y agoThere's a large used market, especially for these super expensive sets. Many people will resell sets after having them on display for a few months or years. For some like me 90% of the enjoyment is in putting huge sets together, so it'll be sold on after just a few weeks. But even then, a few pieces being stuck together permanently doesn't matter much. But there is a small monitory of people who absolutely do break up sets to add to their brick collection in order to build custom models.
- oneepic 5y agoIt costs a lot of money (700 pounds, USD$926.27). That alone is a valid reason to be upset.
- kemayo 5y agoMind you, it's not actually impossible to take apart -- just impossible with standard LEGO tools (i.e. "your fingers"). An adult building specialized models for display can probably cope with needing to lever something out of place using a narrow edge.
- chris_wot 5y agoPerhaps there might be a market for alternative Lego designs? Like a Lego modding guide. Which is kind of ironic as the entire point of Lego is to build what you want… so modify the design!
- anarchy8 5y agoThe article title made it sound like it was intentional on their part, and not a design flaw.
- jzawodn 5y agoI'm sure there's a critical flaw that was designed in, waiting to be discovered by the Rebel Forces.
- bombcar 5y agoThe classic presentation on these is Stressing the Elements by Jamie Berard: http://bramlambrecht.com/tmp/jamieberard-brickstress-bf06.pdf http://bramlambrecht.com/tmp/jamieberard-brickstress-bf06.pd... However, illegal setups have slipped through in the past.
- amelius 5y agoYou don't own your Legos, Lego does.
- khazhoux 5y agoSo to summarize, this is a 6785-piece set, and if you decide to break it down after hours and hours assembly, you'll be left with a couple of pieces that can't be separated. Outrage!
- adolph 5y agoProbably Lego needs to add something like these to the orange tool: https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Precision-Screw-Extractor-Set/IF145-118 https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools/Precision-Screw-Extractor...
- avalys 5y agoThis is a borderline inaccurate headline. This is an incidental characteristic of one tiny subassembly in a much larger model. The headline leads one to believe the entire set can’t be disassembled at all and that Lego deliberately designed it that way, perhaps for nefarious corporate purposes.
- tedmiston 5y agoAdditionally, and not to split hairs here, but buried in the middle of the article is the fact that it's a Technic set, not actually a normal Lego set.
- unbanned 5y agoAlso who builds these models and _doesn't_ put them on a shelf to gather dust for 10 years? Unlikely they ever get dismantled.
- ezconnect 5y agoHot wheels tracks are very hard to disassemble no ones complaining about it.
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y agoJust use superglue, and you wont be able to take apart any parts.
- authed 5y agoI'm currently printing a 3D puzzle that probably won't be able to be taken apart (I think I made the gaps a bit too small, but we'll see). But it makes business sense for Legos to do that (short term)... it is basically single-use and discard Legos.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sandreas 5y agoMajor alternative more cost efficient brands to Lego / Duplo (compatible bricks) are: CaDA Q-Bricks XingBao Mould King Wange Cobi Winner Sembo bloxbox ZHE GAO Panlos Klemos Ausini MunichBricks BlueBrixx Unico There are much more, take a google and you'll see that there are many cheaper alternatives...
- etskinner 5y agoAre there any that come close to the tolerances achieved by Lego batch-to-batch? I'd genuinely consider buying them if I know that when I buy more 10 years from now, they'd all work together
- sandreas 5y agoDepends on the category... I think that especially Cada and Cobi have good quality in all kinds of vehicles and planes, Qman and Wange are more into buildings and other stuff.
- globular-toast 5y ago> flagship £700 set Holy crap... I used to love Lego as a child and I knew some of the kits were expensive. They would be our "main present" at Christmas. But now they are the best part of a grand?! I had no idea people were spending that much on things like this. Maybe stuff like this is why all my friends seem poorer than me despite earning similar money?
- fpgaminer 5y agoLEGO sets are all more-or-less priced per piece, and the price per piece has on average fallen over the years when accounting for inflation.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- detaro 5y agoThere is some range. E.g. this is 11.8 cents/piece, where some other large "adult" sets are more along the lines of 6-7 cents. And the kid-focused ones have similar ranges, (or worse if you include the really small ones)
- tills13 5y agohonestly? who cares?
- pbronez 5y agoI love LEGO and have recently gotten back into it with my kids. There are tons of wonderful sets to choose from and the designs are much more realistic than they were when I was growing up. BUT... I've consistently had pieces missing from new sets! It's not catastrophic. Usually it's just one piece and I can substitute in another from my collection, though often the wrong color. Lego will send you replacements if you ask them, but that's a pain. Especially since something is deeply broken with my LEGO ID and I can't get into their stupid website. It's not enough to make me stop buying the sets, but it kills the fun when my kid works hard on a set and can't finish it because of a manufacturing error.
- janesvilleseo 5y agoReally? I’ve put a ton of sets together over about 30 years and I have never had a piece missing. I’m constantly impressed that they just always all the pieces. What I have found is that sometimes there is 1 piece stuck in the bag after I have dumped it out. So I keep the bags until I’m finished building the set.
- teh_infallible 5y agoI have received a set with pieces missing. I bought the set off eBay, and the seller swore it was new. I didn’t just misplace the pieces either- one was a wheel, not a tiny part
- Sosh101 5y ago> and the designs are much more realistic than they were when I was growing up That's one thing I don't much care for in the modern sets. Sure the results look more realistic, but it means that half the pieces are now custom made for the particular set, and often have very little use in a general context. It seems that they've moved from a general building system to more of a per set focused approach.
- majormajor 5y agoWhen I was a kid I loved specialized pieces and often re-used them to add flair or distinct touches to my own creation. Having alternatives to rectangles is great! I don't see what all the fuss is about, it doesn't seem either/or to me. The days of off the shelf models having enough general purpose 2x4 or whatever bricks to build totally arbitrary large structures have been gone for at least 30 years, but nothing really seems to be stopping mixing and matching and getting basic blocks for the backbone of a collection. They've just added the existence of $TEXAS display pieces with unique stuff. I even accidentally got some pieces stuck together in ways that required screwdrivers or pliers to get them out. No big deal!
- r00fus 5y agoLord Business has advanced his operations to placing moles in Lego design team, I see.
- AtNightWeCode 5y agoIs this by design or an aspect of the design? As a user of Lego since forever I know that there have been previous flaws that made things very difficult to disassemble.
- IiydAbITMvJkqKf 5y agoI have a Cobi ship at home. It's for all practical purposes impossible to take apart without specialized tools. The construction of Cobi bricks is such that if when you stick two bricks together, they will stick together, whether you want them to or not. It's an absurdly robust model.
- julianozen 5y agoSeems like an apple Lego set
- georgercarder 5y agoLEGO has created a truly immutable blockchain.
- georgercarder 5y agoLEGO has created a truly immutable blockchain :)
- yalue 5y agoThey figured out how to brick a Lego set.
- jerrysievert 5y agoas a lego enthusiast, I have to say that it takes a somewhat recent lego brick separator (with the technic attachment) to dismantle it. most modern sets of over 1000 pieces come with that separator. note: I have over 1000 lego sets ranging from the early 80's to modern times, I love lego.
- jacquesm 5y agoThis isn't the first time the Lego has lost its way and it likely won't be the last. You have to give them credit for being able to re-invent themselves and pick up the pieces every time this happens. The history of Lego is long succession of crimes and failures punctuated by spectacular successes. As much as I'm sympathetic to the toy in its basic form, I'm very much disappointed in the company behind it.
- rbobby 5y ago> £700 set That's a shocking price.
- oneepic 5y agoThat said, it's also over 6800 pieces: https://brickset.com/sets/75313-1 https://brickset.com/sets/75313-1 . There are 678 different kinds of pieces here if you check the csv of parts.
- christefano 5y agoWould this be called “lock in”?