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> ps. i just had a funny idea for a website where you could enter your
> piece inventories and the it will calculate the weight of your
> collection. I'm not sure what use that will serve. :)
If you had the weights of all the elements, it would be useful to someplace
like Brickbay, where it could be used to automatically calculate shipping
charges based on weight.
(not that i'm suggesting that you weigh out all the pieces or anything.....)
Troy
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In lugnet.market.shipping, Troy Cefaratti writes:
> > ps. i just had a funny idea for a website where you could enter your
> > piece inventories and the it will calculate the weight of your
> > collection. I'm not sure what use that will serve. :)
>
> If you had the weights of all the elements, it would be useful to someplace
> like Brickbay, where it could be used to automatically calculate shipping
> charges based on weight.
>
> (not that i'm suggesting that you weigh out all the pieces or anything.....)
Hmm... what would it take?
Assume that ABS plastic's volume relates directly to its weight-- and then
all you need to do is calculate volume using Ldraw parts. So weigh something
like a 2x10, a 2x4, a 1x1, and a few odds and ends... then check to see how
closely related the volume is to the mass-- and once you get a fairly stable
constant comparing volume to mass (well, ok, weight) then you could calcuate
stuff pretty easily, I assume...
And assuming that you feed in things like part inventories to calculate
their wieght as a set, then check the piece counts, you could probably get
some "average pieces by weight" measurements so you could get a better
estimate at how many pieces were in "11 lbs of Lego" or whatnot that you see
on ebay occasionally...
Just a thought...
DaveE
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In lugnet.market.shipping, Troy Cefaratti writes:
> > ps. i just had a funny idea for a website where you could enter your
> > piece inventories and the it will calculate the weight of your
> > collection. I'm not sure what use that will serve. :)
>
> If you had the weights of all the elements, it would be useful to someplace
> like Brickbay, where it could be used to automatically calculate shipping
> charges based on weight.
An interesting thought... variables would be opaque vs translucent ABS (TLC
appears to use different molds, so there may be differences in thickness), parts
per baggie, etc. Also, raw volumetric calculations might give a hint to what
size box would be required. The box size in turn, would yield a rough box
weight. Fascinating stuff for automation. ;)
Ray
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In lugnet.market.shipping, Troy Cefaratti writes:
>
> If you had the weights of all the elements, it would be useful to someplace
> like Brickbay, where it could be used to automatically calculate shipping
> charges based on weight.
I'm not so sure that would be helpful..., well, at least not in
many cases. I ship MISB sets out of BrickBay, and I have never
once paid for shipping charges based on weight---it's always gone
by volume. LEGO packaging has just too much air in it, so it is
ridiculously light for its weight. The shipping companies don't
want their cargo space filled up with huge boxes with "nothing
in them", so they charge you based on volume. It is not uncommon
for me to ship a package weighing under 2 kg and be charged as if
it weighed over 6 kg!
The folks shipping pieces might have better luck applying this.
But even if they left out all of the protective packaging, I
still suspect that the air inside and around the pieces themselves
would throw the usefulness of piece weights out the window.
Now something I could find useful would be a database that says
the size of the LEGO set boxes. For the most part, there are
standard box sizes used across all the product lines. So you
could assign a letter or something to each different size box.
Then add that box size letter to the LUGNET database or something.
As I shipper I could then use the LUGNET database base to look
up the size of any (normal box-type) LEGO set. Using those
dimensions I can very quickly calculate the shipping costs.
Currently I just measure the sets, but hey, there's no cool
high tech stuff about that! ;]
Somebody could also then come along and make a geeky plot of
the increase in set volume versus per piece count over the years,
and also plot "set density per MSRP dollar" versus year. Maybe
we'll see that LEGO is shipping more air and charging us more
money for it :]
KDJ
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LUGNETer #203, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
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