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Knock off legos

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That's what ultra-precision costs. One of our clients has a gauge that can detect variances of 1/5000" using a small bubble on the end of a pin. It cost $1.2 million. A mold that's designed to make millions of units and hold them to a 1/64" spec for $250K is actually not a bad deal.

Yeah, that is an electroprobe I imagine, I used to use those.

Is basically a high level indicator. A indicator is a general purpose mechanical shop tool for calibrating things, before anyone goes that route.

Inter Rapid, Swiss, makes some of the best mechanical ones.

We used to have several of those around to work in microns in QA when the tool shop needed one.

The small bubble is a ruby I imagine.
 
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Building Precision Molds is serious business.

Yes, many are polished to mirror quality for a seal when they are under pressure when the plastic it injected, and have removable inserts.

Like the vast amount of things that are made out of plastic.

They are high end tooling, you should see some of the high speed progressive dies out there.

Consistency is the biggest factor too, it's incredible that Lego has been able to keep consistency throughout the years. A new block will fit on an old block. Now days you rarely see consistency in products. They'll do a batch, then the year later the product is totally different. This is a big bummer for something like lead acid batteries where you want one that has the exact same characteristics as one that you already have, if replacing one cell in a string for example.
 
Yeah, that is an electroprobe I imagine, I used to use those.

Is basically a high level indicator. A indicator is a general purpose mechanical shop tool for calibrating things, before anyone goes that route.

Inter Rapid, Swiss, makes some of the best mechanical ones.

We used to have several of those around to work in microns in QA when the tool shop needed one.

The small bubble is a ruby I imagine.

Not sure what it is, I'm just told never to touch it or I'll never be able to afford to replace it 😀
 
That's what ultra-precision costs. One of our clients has a gauge that can detect variances of 1/5000" using a small bubble on the end of a pin. It cost $1.2 million. A mold that's designed to make millions of units and hold them to a 1/64" spec for $250K is actually not a bad deal.

Yep, that's what I was saying about good molds vs bad. My dad's company does the ultra-precision ones. Being a few thousands off means the mold gets scrapped. Larger ones are way over $250k.

mold_manufacturing_thumb.jpg
 
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A friend of mine has that. When he got married he wanted to sell it. I passed because i didn't have room to show it. so his GF/wife tossed it in the garbage.

Now i enjoy telling them that it was worth a grand..

Should have thrown her in the garbage instead.
 
The Black Seas Barracuda. That was the one that got away. No amount of begging could persuade my mother to get it for me. No doubt to a parent $120 for a building set must have seemed positively ludicrous in 89.
 
I need to find a source for affordable LEGO TECHNICS.

We have a couple handfuls of the smaller sets + Mindstorms. We find them much more enjoyable than the LEGO bricks.
 
I must build an empire.

//edit

omg, google image search for Legos is a terrible idea. FUCK YOU NOSTALGIA, FUCK YOU.

I saw your post in my email notification.
I LOVED the trains

There is a guy around here that has a table at all the local model train shows and it's all Legos... HUGE train setup and an entire city of Legos. It's just incredible
 
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