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The Official RFD LEGO General Discussion Thread

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Dec 17, 2019
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Chubnyah wrote: Good to have a battery expert in the mix since it seems like alot of Lego builds uses alot of batteries. I read a bit about the Ikea and Amazon batteries - i believe, like you said, they are made in japan. What i didn't know was whether they were comparable to eneloops. I bought eneloops recently myself to fuel this obsessive hobby of mine now but good to know i don't necessarily need them.
The Amazon ones are no longer made in Japan, unfortunately - made in China! as far as I've seen! I bought some before they switched, and yes, they should be as good as he Eneloops.
I didn't know about the Ladda's myself - good to know!

The Energizer as seen in AvroeArrow pic were generally made in Japan, and were sold at Costco too.
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kevkwan wrote: The leaks of the Ninjago City Garden set on YouTube looks gorgeous. Must resist buying it, I don’t need another theme to get into especially considering I don’t have Ninjago City or City Docks. And those sets are going so high on eBay..

However, somehow a voice inside of me says "won’t your city look cooler with it... " Crying Face
This is one of those lego sets that is a no brainer much like the Ninjago City and City Docks but since you don't have those two, now is the time to begin otherwise you will be missing 3 sets Face With Stuck-out Tongue And Tightly-closed Eyes

one day you will get the City and docks..... but meanwhile get this first....

I will, at midnight waiting.... :)
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Oct 14, 2020
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Ralphael wrote: This is one of those lego sets that is a no brainer much like the Ninjago City and City Docks but since you don't have those two, now is the time to begin otherwise you will be missing 3 sets Face With Stuck-out Tongue And Tightly-closed Eyes

one day you will get the City and docks..... but meanwhile get this first....

I will, at midnight waiting.... :)
10th anniversary for Ninjago paired with a modular spanning over 5600 pieces and golden wu included with 20 minifigures... yeah... i'll be smacking that refresh button.

https://www.toysnbricks.com/2021-lego-n ... 145-76156/

Eternals set announced.. only one looks nice imo.
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Chubnyah wrote: 10th anniversary for Ninjago paired with a modular spanning over 5600 pieces and golden wu included with 20 minifigures... yeah... i'll be smacking that refresh button.

https://www.toysnbricks.com/2021-lego-n ... 145-76156/

Eternals set announced.. only one looks nice imo.
thank god that I'm not into eternals... I have to stop buying into themes. yup no more themes for me.... that is what I say.... I'm going to pile up all my Friends lego sets and sell them... what was I thinking???
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Chubnyah wrote: Good to have a battery expert in the mix since it seems like alot of Lego builds uses alot of batteries. I read a bit about the Ikea and Amazon batteries - i believe, like you said, they are made in japan. What i didn't know was whether they were comparable to eneloops. I bought eneloops recently myself to fuel this obsessive hobby of mine now but good to know i don't necessarily need them.
The original launch Amazon Basics LSD cells were made in Japan. I believe all the recent ones are now made in China. If you want made in Japan cells nowadays, it's either Eneloops/Pro or the white Ikea LADDA 2450/900 cells. I would hesitate to call myself a battery expert, but I have done some years of research on batteries due to various custom flashlight builds that required multiple high discharge NiMH cells (mag85 hotwire requires 9x AAs) and multi-cell li-ion builds. Some of those li-ion builds could result in turning that fancy metal flashlight into a frag grenade if you weren't careful about the batteries. You don't want to know how much I've spent on battery chargers. The LADDAs are in fact better than regular 2000mAh Eneloops but not as good as the 2450mAh Eneloop PROs. But for a bang for buck perspective, they are unbeatable versus the PROs.

Ralphael wrote: Thank you very much and "you" were one of the reason that I also posted about batteries hoping that someone might speak up. I did read about the ikea batteries several months ago when I was researching eneloops pros and it was a toss up between buying "Brand Name" Eneloop pro (in black colours nevertheless) and in a briefcase presentation (as if we needed it) and the yellow ikea ones... well guess which ones I would have chosen which is why I decided not to buy at all.

Thank you again.... and I'll do some serious planning tonight.... to see how much ikea will charge me for shipping. Not too keen on visiting ikea in person but I'll see...
You're very welcome, glad I could be of some help. I personally never bought any Eneloop Pros due to the lower cost/benefit ratio for my usage. If I was a professional photographer that uses the flash a lot to make money then yes, Eneloop Pros are worth it. If not... then the higher price did not scale up with the capacity and performance.

Also, only the current white LADDA 2450/900 mAh cells are the good cells. The older LADDA (I think they were silver/green and 2000/700mAh) were not as good. Hey, at least you can finally buy them online now because the LADDAs used to be in-store purchase only.

And for your inevitable next question, the Ikea 8-bay charger is... okay but very slow (210mA in AA, 110mA in AAA, 10-12hrs). I would recommend any of the Sanyo/Panasonic/Eneloop branded 4-bay chargers. They are the safest and have the best combination of slow/fast charging modes and smart cut-off circuitry for a general use charger. They are not cheap (black BQ-CC17 independent channel charger is $27 on amazon). Sometimes it's better to buy them in a charger+battery combo ($35 for charger + 4x reg. eneloops on amazon). Don't buy the cheap no-name brand chargers or even the Duracell/Energizer branded Fast chargers that advertise 15-30min fast charge. They will literally burn through your cells due to the extremely high amperage and sometimes less than safe circuitry. The best "fast" charge modes are those that are roughly 1C (1x capacity) that does the fast charge mode in ~1-1.5hr. e.g. for regular 2000mAh AA Eneloops, it should charge at max 2,000mA/2A or less, for the 2450mAh LADDA then 2450mA/2.4A or less in fast mode. Same 1C rule applies for the AAAs, 1x capacity. Check the charger output voltage/amperage specs before you buy. For the slow charge mode, 2-6hrs is fine. The slower it is, the longer your cells will last over the years due to the lower heat stress. I normally use a Sanyo NC-MQH03U charger 90% of the time, these were bundled with the old Sanyo/Eneloop combo packs from Dell & Costco. For anything else fancy/finicky/refresh/etc I use a MAHA Powerex C-9000 charger (way overkill for regular users).
Legoholic wrote: The Amazon ones are no longer made in Japan, unfortunately - made in China! as far as I've seen! I bought some before they switched, and yes, they should be as good as he Eneloops.
I didn't know about the Ladda's myself - good to know!

The Energizer as seen in AvroeArrow pic were generally made in Japan, and were sold at Costco too.
Yeah, I learned about the LADDAs on candlepowerforums. The hard core guys did some extensive testing on there. I just found the TLDR line and bought the LADDAs. :D I think you meant the Duracell precharged, but yes, they used to be made in Japan (probably at the Toshiba factory) and sold in 4-pks at SDM and like 8-12 pks at Costco. I never did see the MIJ Duracells at Costco when I started buying them, only ever saw the MIC ones. Then they switched to China production just like the Amazon Basics. I stopped buying the Duracells from SDM after they only carried the MIC ones. After that it was all MIJ LADDAs for me.
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Just looking through the city 2021 set reviews... here’s my thoughts... (i’m biased because i’m one of the few who actually will be buying into the new road system and like it)

I really like the shopping street and $14 blue car set but i’m not feeling the modern house and larger set with car wash...

The modern house is quite bare bones and the car is only 4 wide so it’s out of place with the other city cars... passing on this one

The big set with the car wash is interesting... the car wash looks neat but it looks like it only fits the tiny cars and would not fit a standard 6 wide “city” car... the pizza shop is nice but that’s about it... i’ll pass on this one

the $14 blue car is nice, yes for this one

the shopping street is just perfect... i will be adding to the backs of the stores to make them deeper though... also the yellow car looks like a taxi so i’ll swap the yellow pieces for any other colour based on whatever parts i have... other than those two mods it’s a perfect set for me.. yes to this one as well

Road plates sets are also a yes... will get a couple of them...
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You know @AvroeArrow , I was all set to go with the ikea LADDA AAA route with 15 package in my cart totalling $134 for 60 batteries and ikea says "Due to low stock we are unable to complete your order, please try again later".... I even had a quick eneloop charger in my Amazon cart for $41....

yup, I hear you asking "why don't you try a lower number" and I heard you asking.... so I tried 5 packs.... and.....
ikea says "Due to low stock we are unable to complete your order, please try again later"....

no stock at the store either. I think everyone needed rechargeable(s) for the lockdown.

sooo.... going full ikea LADDA will have to wait for another few more years..... unless I go eneloop.... $74 for 12.... yeah no.....
Last edited by Ralphael on Dec 29th, 2020 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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priceman wrote: Just looking through the city 2021 set reviews... here’s my thoughts... (i’m biased because i’m one of the few who actually will be buying into the new road system and like it)

I really like the shopping street and $14 blue car set but i’m not feeling the modern house and larger set with car wash...

The modern house is quite bare bones and the car is only 4 wide so it’s out of place with the other city cars... passing on this one

The big set with the car wash is interesting... the car wash looks neat but it looks like it only fits the tiny cars and would not fit a standard 6 wide “city” car... the pizza shop is nice but that’s about it... i’ll pass on this one

the $14 blue car is nice, yes for this one

the shopping street is just perfect... i will be adding to the backs of the stores to make them deeper though... also the yellow car looks like a taxi so i’ll swap the yellow pieces for any other colour based on whatever parts i have... other than those two mods it’s a perfect set for me.. yes to this one as well

Road plates sets are also a yes... will get a couple of them...
I'd agree - the town center.. which is the one with the car wash is too pricey for what it offers. That and the fact you will need to mod the car wash to fit the regular sized vehicles we are more used makes me wonder why they did this.

I like the modern house design but the sizing again feels off for the vehicles.

It is almost like they know they shrunk the road plates so they shrunk the vehicles along with it.
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Chubnyah wrote: I'd agree - the town center.. which is the one with the car wash is too pricey for what it offers. That and the fact you will need to mod the car wash to fit the regular sized vehicles we are more used makes me wonder why they did this.

I like the modern house design but the sizing again feels off for the vehicles.

It is almost like they know they shrunk the road plates so they shrunk the vehicles along with it.
All the other cars they released in this wave are the standard 6 wide width so i’m guessing they made this one smaller to make feel like a “modern compact electric car”... which does not interest me

the house design is nice but it feels like i could recreate it with $20 with of pieces... i also have dozens of those window pieces from when they were on the pick a brick wall... i’ll likely copy the design and make a similar house with pieces for half the price.... this modern house will sit on my “40% or more discount” list for now...

looking forward to the crooks hideout (summer wave likely)... it looks more substantial but the only leaked pic was from a distributor catalog and was small and grainy...
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Nov 29, 2015
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New to the lego scene (aside from building sets when I was a young child 15+ years ago), and I've been looking at the architecture sets as well as the technic sets. From what I've seen online as far as inventory, most are out of stock and if I can find them on ebay they are ridiculously priced! Is that normal to not be able to find anything (looking for sets such as falling water, lamborghini, etc).

I guess my question is, is that if it is no longer shown on the lego website, the only way to find the sets are through ebay?

Thanks in advance!
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Kreid77 wrote: New to the lego scene (aside from building sets when I was a young child 15+ years ago), and I've been looking at the architecture sets as well as the technic sets. From what I've seen online as far as inventory, most are out of stock and if I can find them on ebay they are ridiculously priced! Is that normal to not be able to find anything (looking for sets such as falling water, lamborghini, etc).

I guess my question is, is that if it is no longer shown on the lego website, the only way to find the sets are through ebay?

Thanks in advance!
The ones that says retired are the ones you will need to go to the secondary market. Ebay/Kijiji/Bricklink are all places you can scour retired sets. Bear in mind, these all go for a mark-up and depending on what you're looking for, sometimes a huge mark-up.

Everything else is fair game for MSRP. It might just be out of stock now but just keep checking.
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Chubnyah wrote: The ones that says retired are the ones you will need to go to the secondary market. Ebay/Kijiji/Bricklink are all places you can scour retired sets. Bear in mind, these all go for a mark-up and depending on what you're looking for, sometimes a huge mark-up.

Everything else is fair game for MSRP. It might just be out of stock now but just keep checking.
Thanks for the quick reply. Noted and I will keep looking! Ive also found a video using Bricklink to build the sets by purchasing the pieces rather then the boxed sets.
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Kreid77 wrote: Thanks for the quick reply. Noted and I will keep looking! Ive also found a video using Bricklink to build the sets by purchasing the pieces rather then the boxed sets.
I would use that as a last resort, especially if you are new to the lego scene. Sourcing bricks and parts can be challenging, especially when you're sometimes dealing with possibly a few hundred different parts.
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Chubnyah wrote: I would use that as a last resort, especially if you are new to the lego scene. Sourcing bricks and parts can be challenging, especially when you're sometimes dealing with possibly a few hundred different parts.
Agreed... wait until you have a good inventory... For example, i wanted to build the midi scale imperial star destroyer... if i had to buy all the pieces it would be actually cheaper to buy it sealed new in box.. i have a large inventory so i only had to spend about $15 on some odd ball pieces i didn’t have

also remember, if you need to buy the pieces from 5 different people then you are paying shipping 5 times....
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Finding this set in stock might be tricky... but it is a good deal. I managed to find one earlier this week... always wanted it but never went for it and thought it was too late... but here is is at half price!
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priceman wrote: Finding this set in stock might be tricky... but it is a good deal. I managed to find one earlier this week... always wanted it but never went for it and thought it was too late... but here is is at half price!
I saw that but ultimately passed on the set. Not sure if i'll regret it later but with the stuff Lego is releasing in 2021, i've got a healthy amount of stuff to buy in a few days....
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Chubnyah wrote: I saw that but ultimately passed on the set. Not sure if i'll regret it later but with the stuff Lego is releasing in 2021, i've got a healthy amount of stuff to buy in a few days....
I really like the lego movie sets... i was not back in the lego scene when the first movie came out so missed the whole wave... i picked up a couple on bricklink but there are still some on my long term want list in bricklink. For the second movie i made sure to pick up all the sets i was interested in but this one slipped through so i’m happy to get it late in the game at half price
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priceman wrote: I really like the lego movie sets... i was not back in the lego scene when the first movie came out so missed the whole wave... i picked up a couple on bricklink but there are still some on my long term want list in bricklink. For the second movie i made sure to pick up all the sets i was interested in but this one slipped through so i’m happy to get it late in the game at half price
I regret coming back to lego late and missing welcome to apocalypseburg.. that is the one i regret not being able to purchase Crying Face
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Chubnyah wrote: I regret coming back to lego late and missing welcome to apocalypseburg.. that is the one i regret not being able to purchase Crying Face
i regret that one even more... had it in my shopping cart when it was ? 30% ? off last year black friday but passed... i honestly don’t regret it too much because it is such a beast... most ppl who bought it will either never build it or build it and not know where to keep it and end up boxing it back up again...
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Wait. What happened to all the Lego sets. I finally got my BMO card and looking to spend $200+ for the credit and so many stuff are out of stock. Literally every train set.

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