Date
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LEGO Personal Inventory
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Amber Niblock
Hey, guys! I've been hitting many of you up on social media lately with all my LEGO questions, but I know some are not on social so I thought I would ask this question here. Do you all keep a personal inventory list/database of all the LEGO pieces you currently own? If so, do you use a program? I don't want to use a spreadsheet so I'm hoping there is a good program out there. I believe Bricklink only allows you to keep inventory if you are a seller? Any advice on the best website/program to use would be greatly appreciated!
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KateKintail
A number of people use BrickSet: https://brickset.com/sets I’m pretty bad at remembering to update it, but it’s great for an online repository.
Kate |
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Matthew David Taylor
I use Brickset to keep track of sets, but I don't add loose parts to that (though, I think it does have that functionality?). Brickset is tied in with ReBrickable so you can see if you have the parts to build a set or MOC. On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 1:15 PM KateKintail <kate.m.mcdevitt@...> wrote:
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Abraham Friedman
A bunch of people use BrickStock.
I believe it’s $20 for the full version which integrates with BrickLink (I think) but I think you can get a free version that does everything else but that. Abe |
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Justin Rupp
Once I receive it next month, I'm going to be using Piqabrick. Have it just scan the brick, type in the number I have, it can even tell me which drawer I have them stored in.. should make my life so much easier. Justin On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 3:40 PM Abraham Friedman <abraham.friedman@...> wrote:
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Amber Niblock
I signed up for Brickset but I don't see a place yet to upload individual parts, just sets and minifigures but maybe I'm missing something.
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Amber Niblock
I downloaded it now I just have to get it installed properly to see the full functionality! Thank you!
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Amber Niblock
Justin, what do you mean by receive it? Is it not available for download online? I heard there's an app coming for another program by a different third party too but it's in BETA so who knows how good that will be.
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Abraham Friedman
Justin,
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I’m really curious as to how well this works for you (when you get it). I just have too many reservations about the product so I’m waiting to see how well it works by people I trust. I’m always concerned about cloud based systems because you don’t have control of your data, they can stop it at any time, and they control the price you pay for it. And speaking of price, it seems a bit expensive for a 5MP camera and a handful of LEDs. It all will come down to how well the software works because that’s the real cost because the hardware is probably about $10 worth of material. I could see it worth it if it really improves management of LEGO inventory because that’s a real problem that we’ve really not solved well. I’ve been waiting for somebody to do a good optical recognition system and I haven’t seen anybody make it available to the public or even in a commercial product. Very interested in seeing this. Hopefully you’ll get it soon. Abe
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Justin that sounds amazing - as long as it works as expected. I too will be looking forward to your review.
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LeeAnne On Jun 9, 2020, at 9:05 PM, Abraham Friedman <abraham.friedman@...> wrote:
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Ooooh, I've been wondering this same question since I'm inundated with bricks. I'll give brickset a go, since I mostly acquire my pieces through set purchases. Thanks Amber for asking the question!
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I haven't really found a good way of taking inventory myself. It is possible I could start keeping track of the parts/sets I buy now, but that doesn't really help catalog my huge inventory of existing parts. Short of a machine that can physically count and catalog all the individual bricks of different types by just dumping a bin of parts into it, I don't see how it would be possible to take inventory of my existing collection. The biggist issue though would be how do you keep track of parts you use in a build? I'm not about to take the time to record data every time I add a single part to a new MOC. Counting them all once the MOC is finished would be next to impossible without completely dismantling it again, not to mention extremely painful in how much time it would consume. After like 6 months or so of using up parts in builds, any inventory I had taken would be inaccurate to the point it is virtually useless. Not to mention it would likely take at least 6 months to manual count all my parts to begin with! However recently I have started to track a little bit of data with a Microsoft XL spreadsheet. Basically just when I am building something and notice I am running low on/am completely out of a certain part or know I will need X for an upcoming MOC. |
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Justin Rupp
I will be happy to write up a review of it when I get it. When I says "when i get it", there is a physical device that I will be receiving in the mail. The device that does the imaging of the brick in order for the software to figure out which element it is. The pricing is because they originally were going to have a subscription plan where you pay them monthly/yearly to keep the service running, and they decided to instead just have every device come with a lifetime access to the service.. so you are basically paying up front for their cost to run the image recognition and inventory service. The company that is making it has been creating similar devices for other industries and uses, so I have confidence in the ability of the device to do what it says it will and also that the company will be around hosting the service for a while. I do share your fear of cloud services that go away.. only time will tell though. The most recent update from the company is that shipping will begin very shortly (this month), some of the manufacturing got delayed due to COVID-19 (since the employees could not even come into the office, and the supplier of some of their electrical components had their factory shut down during the outbreak). On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 8:55 AM Ben Rome <benhrome@...> wrote: Ooooh, I've been wondering this same question since I'm inundated with bricks. I'll give brickset a go, since I mostly acquire my pieces through set purchases. Thanks Amber for asking the question! |
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Daniel Pikora
Another fun wrinkle: since Piqabrick is assembled in Italy and the electronics are manufactured in China, we've actually had multiple waves of delays already. I'm looking forward to playing with this when it comes in, but I'm not sure how well we'll be able to feed data out of it into any other sorting/tracking system - I figure the real use will be quickly identifying weird parts (Bionicle weapons, anyone?) Personally, I don't recommend tracking every piece in your collection. It's worth having some parts around that you can trivially trade, play with without needing to grab a sorted bin, let yourself use up, etc. Until relatively recently, most of my collection has come from used bulk lots, and more recently I've gotten plenty of loose parts from Pick-A-Brick, fill-a-bag opportunities, trades, and special opportunities (some of which can't even be discussed in mixed company). Trying to catalog every last part simply isn't worth the time/effort for me. A part ceases to matter for sorting purposes once it's built into a MOC I intend to keep around for years, and tracking that sounds like more pain than it's worth. The same situation applies for anything sent away for a display, left with someone else in a LUG, sold, traded, etc. Knowing "if" I own a given part isn't helpful, knowing "where" is only slightly better, and it only really helps if the part is currently in my hand. Granted, most people haven't spread out as far as I have - but there are some well-established cycles that people go through with these things. Anyone who hasn't read the classic "evolution of LEGO sorting" really should: https://news.lugnet.com/storage/?n=707 Dan On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 12:09 PM Justin Rupp <dither@...> wrote:
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