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Subject: 
Re: Bulk Ordering Allowed in USA!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 14:32:54 GMT
Viewed: 
862 times
  
In lugnet.general, Phillip Ogden writes:
Not to be argumentative but,
I think it is a little more difficult than you are stating.

I think someone had already mentioned, the plastic is quite warm,
(hot even) when it comes out of the mold.  Thermal expansion may
(I'm no engineer) be a factor in the design of the mold. That is to say,
if you exactly duplicate the dimensions of a room temperature brick
in the mold, you will probably find that your finished brick will be too
small to connect properly with "real" bricks.

I would love to see a project like this succeed, and would hate to see
several thousand dollars worth of design and machining/edm work
end up producing incompatible bricks.  I worked in a mid sized machine
shop for quite a while, and saw plenty of disasters that "should" have
worked
except for some small overlooked detail.

It is probably possible to calculate the expansion coefficient (sp?) and
factor that into the mold design, but I doubt that it is a trivial task.


I would say pretty trivial.  All one would have to do is carry a high end
digital caliper with them next time they go to Legoland Carlsbad.  There is an
old mold on display.  From the readings on that mold, you should be able to
arrive at a mold to brick ratio for any thermal expansion that might happen.

I actually think the easiest way would be to find a better formula for ABS,
like from Tyco, which had the same quality as Lego bricks and sell/give/trade
that info to RIVTEK so that Megablocks quality comes up to snuff.  Then, in
trade for that info, one could request certain parts to become available
through them.  I would have no problem switching to another brand if the
quality was there.  As the saying goes, "If you don't take care of your
customers, somebody else will."

Mike Poindexter



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Bulk Ordering Allowed in USA!
 
Not to be argumentative but, I think it is a little more difficult than you are stating. I think someone had already mentioned, the plastic is quite warm, (hot even) when it comes out of the mold. Thermal expansion may (I'm no engineer) be a factor (...) (25 years ago, 25-Oct-99, to lugnet.general)

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