Lego Sort from Road Trip

 

Finished sorting all the acquired LEGO from the trip.

I generally do a rough sort by color and then by type-plates, bricks, tiles and other.  But since this haul was overwhelming tan, the other colors were just thrown into a tub and sorted by part type later.

Here is am still trying to sort through the large tub of tan.

It is mostly sorted here.  I thought at the time I had gotten enough 2 x 6 and 2 x 4 tan bricks that I needed for the next cliff builds.  Turns out I went through them very fast.  So now I am searching Bricklink trying to find the least cost at one place so as not to get eaten by shipping costs.

I know I have said this before, but it bears repeating if only to confirm what other people might be seeing.  If you buy bulk bricks like I do, then you need to prepare yourself for spending time sorting and putting them away.  I would say at least 10% of my time goes into the sorting and storing process.  Is it worth it?  Well a piece that you have but cannot find is not very valuable. 😎

Curved Cliff - Part 1

This hole exists on both ends of the display.  There needs to be a connecting cliff between the last module on the front and the next module (often the last module).  But turning a corner at less than 90 degrees with strictly rectangular pieces is difficult.

My first attempt at just building the base.  First I needed to add the six stud wide rectangular spacers.  The space shown above in the first two pictures is just too small to do anything useful with.  On either side of the module you can see these spacers.  (Since these spacers are ones needed elsewhere, I will have to replace them).  The turning module on the right side is the small angle.  Using either the small angle or the large angle one, made it too difficult to find the mating wedge plates for the back side.  So I used a 45 degree wedge plate to form the second angle.  I will discuss this build in a another blog post later.  For now what you see is a place holder so I can get through the more difficult part of building a cliff wall.

 

Here I added to the substructure and began the walk way.  This had to be broken up so that it would fit in the standard Sterlite box.  The connection is located where the four Technic bricks are.  The break is in the middle.  I did not like where the breaks were and I am concerned that there will inefficient use of packing space.  I then decide the center piece would be as wide as it could be on the far back end.  That is mating piece on either side of the center piece would be where the angle ends (not including the hanger sections).  

 

This is the final sectioning of the substructure.

This completes the substructure with the walkway.  The two places where there are no Sand Green tiles are the joints and will be covered with 2 x 4 tiles at display assembly.  Next I an going to start building the cliff wall.  When that is complete, I hope to have a better idea of how the area behind the cliff will look.

Distributing Light

 I have never been happy with the light distribution in these control centers.    The single light in front of the Blacktron logo not only washes the logo out, but does not provide sufficient light for the entire control center.  The change is really not that hard.  I just have to pull the single LED back and then run a new set of wires to the added LED.

Here the wire and LED are removed.

A second LED is prepared to be installed.  Note that both LEDs are mounted on 1 x 1 round tiles.

I went back and installed Technic bricks so that I would have holes to pas the wires through.  The two pictures above show that on either side of the Blacktron Logo.  Also I used 1 x 1 round tiles to hold the wires in place.  As stated previously, the 1 x 1 round tiles leave enough room to pass two 30 gauge wires through the gap.

 This shows the completed wire run and where the LEDs were mounted. 

And the final result at night.  The light distribution is far better.  The detail of the entire control center is visible.  The two LED solution is far superior.  It also allowed me to move the two monitors on the ends out so they can be seen better.

Here it is with the ambient lights on.  Even in this lighting environment, the two LED solution provides the illumination that you would want.  Compare this picture to the one at the top of this blog post.  You can tell this is the better solution.

Lego Exposition - Washington DC

 During part of this road trip to the East, we visited the National Building Museum. At this time they have an exhibition called Brick City.  Here are some of what is on display.

Early LEGO sets.

I really liked this one.  I have been wanting to place a cafeteria/mess hall in the Space Outpost.  While this is a market, I think it will serve as a great inspiration for this detail.  More pictures follow.

The detail in this display is incredible.  

 This is a cut away of the National Building Museum.  The remaining pictures are of that model.

What I find appealing of this model is the office space.  This is another feature I need to improve in the Space Outpost and this will serve as inspiration.

Road Trip

 

Long road trip for the last month.  Drove from Nevada to Virginia, traveled around Virginia and Maryland and then back to Nevada.  A long the way I found multiple Brick Stores (Bricks and Minifigs and similar).  I was able to spend time in three of them and collected quite a few bricks, plus getting some for the grand kids.  Above you can see a portion of the Tan version I found.  It took me almost a week to wash, sort and put away the haul.  

Next on the schedule is Brickpalooza in Roseville CA on Dec 9.  My goal is to fill in one of the angled holes with the rock wall and the start of Blacktron quarters, cafeteria and recreation room.  Additionally I need to update the Space Gun controller such that it is contained in the platform.  Once the area behind it is filled in with the rock wall, there will be no room for the controller.  For this I have been working on upgrading the firmware in the Brick Buddy ONE to be compatible with all the other controllers.  More on this later.

Finally some of the beautiful  places to see in this country.

Southern Utah on State road 25.

Crossing the Colorado River over the far north end of Lake Powell.

These two pictures are of Utah State Route 261 as we descend off Cedar Mesa to Mexican Hat, Utah. Mostly single lane gravel/dirt road.  These two show the best part of the road.

Monument Valley.

Sunrise on the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Somewhere in eastern Tennessee.

Along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

And the same mill, but from August of 1976.

Somewhere in Western Kansas or Eastern Colorado on US 50.

Space Cannon Rebuild

Prior to going to Brick Fest Live in Sacramento, the Space Gun needed some maintenance.  Wasn't quite sure which motor connector was connected to what motor.  Both of the small guns would not turn.  And it appeared that the main gun would not turn.  From this picture it is hard to see, but when the cliff is finished there, the power canisters on the back are going to have to move.  There will not be enough room for all of that to and still maintain the walkway.

 I took it partially apart.  The main gun gun was not sitting on the turntable correctly and kept coming off.  There needs to be a better connection system than what there is now.

On one of the small guns, the horizontal axle had some how pulled back (to the left here) and was no longer engaging the gear.  Thus the axle would turn, but the gear would not.  This caused the mating gear not to turn and in the end the small gun.  You could hear the motor turning, but nothing was happening.

The other small gun had a different issue.  The horizontal axle was in enough to engage the gear, but it went just far enough to cause the vertical axle to be pushed to an angle.  This picture is an exaggeration, but it shows the problem.  The vertical axle was being pushed down by the small gun when it was attached.  Then the vertical axle would slip off the end of the horizontal axle and cause the box to grind.  Sometimes the axle would pass through the 2 x 2 round plate with axle hole and not be connected to this round plate.  That also would cause the small gun not to turn, as this round plate was connected to the vertical axle and then this round plate was connected to the turntable that made the small gun move.

This module is still using an old Brick Controller and needs to change to one of the new ones.  When this is done, some of the gearing can go away since I will be able to PWM the motor for speed control.  At that point there will be some major modifications for the Space Gun.