Random part of the day: Plate 3X4 With 4 Knobs
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random part is 17836, 'Plate 3X4 With 4 Knobs', which is a System part, category Plates.
Our members collectively own a total of 3,938,099 of them. If you'd like to buy some you should find them for sale at BrickLink.
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42 comments on this article
Someone stole the minifigure :0
I actually like this part a lot. Getting every CMF, you get a TON of them, but I have found ways to use them in my spaceship building. It's a good way to make large sections more tiled like. The row of exposed studs gives it an interesting aesthetic, one that I like to use.
It's GREAT for sticking straight on the 3x4 crates. Absolute match in heaven. So glad it started appearing in other colours, like white.
And, you know, it's fine for displaying minifigs on, I guess.
Of the nearly 4 million of these owned by Bricksetters, I account for about a million. I don’t really have that many but it feels that way :~S
So what is the difference between this part and 88646 ? Today's featured part ran alongside the former and eventually replaced it.
@Rimefang said:
"So what is the difference between this part and 88646 ? Today's featured part ran alongside the former and eventually replaced it."
Bricklink has a picture of both of them side-by-side, and I haven't found a notable difference between the two. Guess they're just alternate numberings.
One of my favorite pieces. A great ratio of stud to tile if you get what I mean.
I hardly have any of these as, aside from buying one of my sons a group of HP S2 figs for his birthday, I don’t do CMFs (yet). When I come across a CMF in a bulk bin, I almost never have this piece in with it and I have to source one before I can sell it. Maybe @ElephantKnight picked ‘em all out first!
I have so much excess of these that I unanimously use them for black walls in my Brickfilms.
@Shadowcloner said:
" @Rimefang said:
"So what is the difference between this part and 88646 ? Today's featured part ran alongside the former and eventually replaced it."
Bricklink has a picture of both of them side-by-side, and I haven't found a notable difference between the two. Guess they're just alternate numberings. "
17836 has smaller stud divots on the underside for the 4 studs. Larger stud divots reduced .008374 grams of plastic per unit and saved the company from going bankrupt.
I really wish the minifig series would change up the colours of these, they make for excellent cheap plating.
As someone who loves displaying LEGO but has very few baseplates these things are a godsend! I think it's a shame they don't come in more colors. I've always thought it'd be cool for the plate to match the bag color, could help collections pop more!
@Shadowcloner said:
" @Rimefang said:
"So what is the difference between this part and 88646 ? Today's featured part ran alongside the former and eventually replaced it."
Bricklink has a picture of both of them side-by-side, and I haven't found a notable difference between the two. Guess they're just alternate numberings. "
The ejector pin marks are in different positions, that's all I can find. Ejector pins are what pushes a finished part out of an injection mould; on Lego parts they usually show up as circles or circle segments that have a slightly different surface finish to the surrounding plastic.
To the point, 88646 has six circular ones on the inside of the piece (i.e. the same surface the text is on), while 17836 has four semicircular ones on the underside edge, which is more in line with other plates (hardly visible in Bricklink's comparison image).
Looking at a few examples I have on hand, and without further proof, I suspect 17836 was created when the part started being used outside of Collectible Minifigures (and thus also produced outside of the CMF factory). It carries a 2013 copyright date, which fits with it first appearing in 2014 sets. CMFs seem to have also switched over from 88646 to 17836 eventually, though I haven't bothered figuring out in which series.
I thought I owned that many myself
@MeisterDad said:
" @Shadowcloner said:
" @Rimefang said:
"So what is the difference between this part and 88646 ? Today's featured part ran alongside the former and eventually replaced it."
Bricklink has a picture of both of them side-by-side, and I haven't found a notable difference between the two. Guess they're just alternate numberings. "
17836 has smaller stud divots on the underside for the 4 studs. Larger stud divots reduced .008374 grams of plastic per unit and saved the company from going bankrupt."
[Citation needed]
@SolidState said:
"I really wish the minifig series would change up the colours of these, they make for excellent cheap plating."
A couple of series have, actually. Series 18 had them in orange, and The Lego Movie 2's series had them in white. Also, not a recolor, but The Lego Batman Movie's second series had ones printed with a Batman logo.
Seems a little low considering how many minifigures there are
Yeah this is one of those parts where I have a bin set aside exclusively for them. Useful for displays and such, and certainly something that accumulates fast when you get a lot of CMFs.
I much prefer the Kraggle stand that originated with the Green Army Men.
These are so useful, love them :D
^ I love those. Had great plans to use them for plant MOCs but haven’t yet figured one out. :o)
@yellowcastle:
I was specifically referring to the clear ones used as Kraggle in 70809, of which I have at least a few hundred. Clear goes with anything, and works fantastic for posing minifigs on a display. Green is less useful. Most of mine are used as intended, in my Green Army Man Army, but I did have a few leftover from using the GAM body for regular soldiers. I know some of them ended up on a plated baseplate that I use to put the Flintstones in our layouts. They serve as guide blocks to make sure the base of the house sits in the right spot and can’t shift around.
These posts could include more data, like the years the part was produced, a list of colors available, how many sets use them and other designs with the same name.
@kyrodes said:
"These posts could include more data, like the years the part was produced, a list of colors available, how many sets use them and other designs with the same name."
They used to have info like that but it got complicated with design vs element vs mould or whatever and often gave some wacky info. Have a browse in the comments of past RPotD articles to see people’s consternation
Why doesn’t it show how many sets it’s came in? I’d love to know, as obviously there’s the CMFs but there’s also a bunch of sets that it comes in, like the gamers market!
If anyone has a load of new ones they'd like to sell me I'm interested. PM me if so.
Nice--I need more of these!
Ok I am confused, why is this part labelled as 'Plate 3X4 With 4 Knobs'. Does Lego Always label its part with 'Knobs'?? Are they not Studs?? Whats going on!?!?! Is this name from somewhere else maybe?? QUICK My entire life is falling apart?!
Is it also available in yellow? Need those for my Oz cmf minifigs
@jonboy2000 said:
"If anyone has a load of new ones they'd like to sell me I'm interested. PM me if so."
Someone in the UK purchased 1900 new in August, madness!
@TheOtherMike said:
" @SolidState said:
"I really wish the minifig series would change up the colours of these, they make for excellent cheap plating."
A couple of series have, actually. Series 18 had them in orange, and The Lego Movie 2's series had them in white. Also, not a recolor, but The Lego Batman Movie's second series had ones printed with a Batman logo."
There's another white variant - the Team GB Olympic ones, from 2012
Similar to previous RPOD comments Bricklink and Brickowl call this a tile with 4 studs which seems more correct than a plate. Although I have loads more of the 4x6 tile 6180 (with studs around the edge) as covers twice the spaceship or paving area for half the price, with 29 colours available rather than just 6.
The only part I have ever bought on Bricklink.
I use these as minifigure stands when I play Monopoly with family. We use minifigs as tokens, on these bases. Great fun. Very useful.
@Goujon
See other comments above yours and on previous RPotD. It’s mainly due to LEGO’s numbering system where parts get assigned new IDs for reasons that aren’t obvious to us. This part is a great example of why @Huw stopped providing that information, as this specific part number was discontinued a couple of years ago.
@ambr
I’ve never understood why Bricklink calls these tiles. To my mind anything with studs on top is a plate or modified plate. A tile has no studs at all. But what do I know?!
I just bought 50 of these on shop.lego.com on their "pick a brick" page in GREY. I will be using them for my SW minifigs as well as my monochrome minifigure collection, though I still need to order another 150 to give all of my SW minifigs their own minifigure stand.
I got about 4 times as many brick seperators compared to this part. It's not that common in normal sets.
These can make excellent stairs.
Like other people, I have hundreds of these. Thinking of using them to make roofs
@Puppyjonathan said:
"Seems a little low considering how many minifigures there are"
That's because of the different moulds and item numbers discussed earlier. I went through some minifigs to check, and the switch happened in 2018/2019, between Harry Potter Series 1 and The Lego Movie 2.
All CMFs up to and including the first HP series came with the original variation, 88646. Everything after that with this one, 17836.
So the first eight years of Collectible Minifigures are not counted here because they're technically a different part, and would probably add a significant amount to the total.
@ElephantKnight said:
"I actually like this part a lot. Getting every CMF, you get a TON of them, but I have found ways to use them in my spaceship building. It's a good way to make large sections more tiled like. The row of exposed studs gives it an interesting aesthetic, one that I like to use.
It's GREAT for sticking straight on the 3x4 crates. Absolute match in heaven. So glad it started appearing in other colours, like white.
And, you know, it's fine for displaying minifigs on, I guess."
they make great roof tiles for castle buildings, and I've been using them as floor tiles for star wars imperial bases too. i have so many of them...
I feel like I have more of these pieces than I know what to do with... and I don't even have very many collectable minifigures! But that speaks more to the fact that I just don't have any good use for these - I rarely display my minifigures, after all - so having even one is *already* more than I know what to do with xD
@ahughwilliams said:
" @ElephantKnight said:
"I actually like this part a lot. Getting every CMF, you get a TON of them, but I have found ways to use them in my spaceship building. It's a good way to make large sections more tiled like. The row of exposed studs gives it an interesting aesthetic, one that I like to use.
It's GREAT for sticking straight on the 3x4 crates. Absolute match in heaven. So glad it started appearing in other colours, like white.
And, you know, it's fine for displaying minifigs on, I guess."
they make great roof tiles for castle buildings, and I've been using them as floor tiles for star wars imperial bases too. i have so many of them..."
Agreed and agreed! They are great roof tiles, and they are even better Imperial flooring material.