[CADA] CADA General Discussion Topic

[R0Sch]

That new 3M wide differential in the Arctic is very cool. It's the one thing that is missing in all of LEGO's 1:16 scale Technic cars. Wonder how long it takes team Billund to release one too.

[Zerobricks]

9 minutes ago, R0Sch said:

That new 3M wide differential in the Arctic is very cool. It's the one thing that is missing in all of LEGO's 1:16 scale Technic cars. Wonder how long it takes team Billund to release one too.

Lego already did, few years ago? Not to mention an even stronger version last year?

[R0Sch]

18 minutes ago, Zerobricks said:

Lego already did, few years ago? Not to mention an even stronger version last year?

My bad. Don't know why I thought it's smaller than LEGO's version... Should get some sleep.
But it's still nice to have 4 bevel gears instead of 3. More realistic too.

P.S. Seems CaDA reduced the price for the black 4L pins from 0.35$ to 0.10$, but after I ordered 20 pcs. for the higher price.

Edited July 28, 2023 by R0Sch

[nintiendo]

On 7/29/2023 at 4:26 AM, R0Sch said:

My bad. Don't know why I thought it's smaller than LEGO's version... Should get some sleep.
But it's still nice to have 4 bevel gears instead of 3. More realistic too.

P.S. Seems CaDA reduced the price for the black 4L pins from 0.35$ to 0.10$, but after I ordered 20 pcs. for the higher price.

What's website of 4L pins you're talking about?

[eric trax]

17 hours ago, nintiendo said:

What's website of 4L pins you're talking about?

https://decadastore.com/products/cada-bricks-technic-pin-long-without-friction-ridges-4l-jh2103

:)

[shroomzofdoom]

19 hours ago, eric trax said:

https://decadastore.com/products/cada-bricks-technic-pin-long-without-friction-ridges-4l-jh2103

:)

For the record, the link says 'without friction ridges'...the page correctly states 'with' friction ridges. I have quite a few and can can confirm that they have exceptional clutch power.

[MarkyMark42]

Am I the only one starting to think that the AMG One is never coming?

Or is there news to the contrary?

[brunojj1]

2 hours ago, MarkyMark42 said:

Am I the only one starting to think that the AMG One is never coming?

Or is there news to the contrary?

The real AMG Project ONE had a long phase of development as well, until they could remove "project" from the name. Years went by until the first cars finally could be delivered to the customers in 2023. The German authorities gave no permission to the original street legal specs. They literally told the AMG company: "You are not Ferrari or Lamborghini. You have to follow the same emissions regulations valid for the C-class". It´s true, all thanks to the green party ruling in Baden-Württemberg. Greta, please stay away from my country!

Same thing for the CaDA set #C61503W Mercedes-AMG ONE which will be released years later than planned to the EU market, after fitting a certain compliance elaborated by lawyers. Nothing to add from my side here, I´m done with the design a long time ago.

You will hear more by end of this month. Stay tuned and don´t be disappointed! It will still stand out among others "homologated" cars in your garage  !

[efferman]

3 hours ago, MarkyMark42 said:

Am I the only one starting to think that the AMG One is never coming?

CaDA is not a copycat which throws a set on the market two weeks after it was uploaded on rebrickable. Please be patient

[Melooo]

2 hours ago, brunojj1 said:

The real AMG Project ONE had a long phase of development as well, until they could remove "project" from the name. Years went by until the first cars finally could be delivered to the customers in 2023. The German authorities gave no permission to the original street legal specs. They literally told the AMG company: "You are not Ferrari or Lamborghini. You have to follow the same emissions regulations valid for the C-class". It´s true, all thanks to the green party ruling in Baden-Württemberg. Greta, please stay away from my country!

Same thing for the CaDA set #C61503W Mercedes-AMG ONE which will be released years later than planned to the EU market, after fitting a certain compliance elaborated by lawyers. Nothing to add from my side here, I´m done with the design a long time ago.

You will hear more by end of this month. Stay tuned and don´t be disappointed! It will still stand out among others "homologated" cars in your garage  !

Released years later in EU market?? Its really a pity. I heard that the AMG one will be released in China this mouth! Many new parts and new tires from Michelin, very looking forward to seeing the whole view of this master' work!

[brunojj1]

6 hours ago, Melooo said:

Released years later in EU market?? Its really a pity. I heard that the AMG one will be released in China this mouth! Many new parts and new tires from Michelin, very looking forward to seeing the whole view of this master' work!

It will be released this month in China and a little bit later in EU. Don´t nail me down on a certain date. It should have been released 2 years ago, if you ask me. 

[MarkyMark42]

Thanks for the update @brunojj1. Looking forward to trying to get my hands on one

[DrJimbo]

I'm sharing my (very late) review of the Fantasma car. I was quite excited about this set based on reviews, but was let down by the implementation. In theory the variable speed gearbox and the rear wheel steering looked great, but in reality there were too many gears and linkages for the systems to work well. The doors did work, and was very cool, but were really sensitive and fragile, so once they needed any re-work they were difficult to get behaving again. I've seen videos (perhaps in Japanese?) demonstrating these functions working well, but I could not get them going as smoothly, (or for the rear wheel steering, at all). I'm a very experienced technic builder, so found this very frustrating. 

I think there are a few things going on here, and 2 make me wary of getting future CADA sets:

First, and unforgivably, errors in the instructions that meant not all the gears could be accessed in the final model. By the time I found this out, I was too far gone in the build to want to go back. 

Second, the part quality from CADA is not quite there. It is some very high percentage of Lego quality, and good enough for most purposes, but there is, for example, clutch power variability, and some stickiness I think contributed to the poor functioning. I believe I am an experienced enough builder to make the mechanisms in this one successfully. 

Thirdly, some functions may be too ambitious - they may be beyond the capability of plastic bricks to implement - I am thinking of the doors here.

Fourthly, there can be pointless functions, perhaps to distinguish from some of the recent LEGO Technic sets with too few functions. Here, there was a very elaborate train of axles, gears, etc from rear to front, that when the last parts were in place was revealed to.... wiggle some panels near the front wheels that were only visible from the underside. Hmmm. Call me underwhelmed. 

Other aspects of the build were interesting, and the final outcome was very solid - the form-locking was incredible. However, I think I am getting bored of sculpting authentic looking supercars out of lego pieces and panels. 

Anyhow, I leave you with the 'Fantasma' and his little step-brother. 

[LvdH]

Some info came out of China about the C61503 AMG One. Apparently it will be released next week. It's also rumoured to cost nearly twice as much as other CaDA supercars (even RC ones!), €240 when converted from the Chinese price of RMB $1900. I guess it could have been expected for having multiple single use parts made specifically for this model as well as having an AMG license. But I'm not sure if I am willing to pay that price for a non-LEGO set of which the part quality is questionable, in my experience.

Any way, the car looks very good and it seems to have some working KERS system using a pullback motor. Very curious to see how that works.

[langko]

3 hours ago, LvdH said:

It's also rumoured to cost nearly twice as much as other CaDA supercars (even RC ones!)

The  RMB $1900 is a little over $400 aud for me, which I’d also be unwilling to pay - for the same reasons you mentioned. Anyways I’m interested to see the reviews on this! It looks like it has some unique functions.

Shame the remote still doesn’t have a left-right toggle for steering, it would make things a lot simpler compared to the steering wheel add on they have going on… 

[nahpets]

Yes it’s a lot for a Cada set considering they are also hard to resell. 

Will have to wait for the instructions to see if a Lego version is possible with some modifications.

[MarkyMark42]

Would be much happier with a non-rc version. I only want one as a shelf queen

[Melooo]

Yes the Cada AMG one will be released on Aug15th. The official price is 1899 CNY, which is the price you can buy a Lego 1:8 technic supercar. Some people say that actually the Mercedes AMG dominates pricing of this product because if the price is too low, it does not align with AMG's brand value. 

[nintiendo]

On 8/7/2023 at 11:49 PM, DrJimbo said:

I'm sharing my (very late) review of the Fantasma car. I was quite excited about this set based on reviews, but was let down by the implementation. In theory the variable speed gearbox and the rear wheel steering looked great, but in reality there were too many gears and linkages for the systems to work well. The doors did work, and was very cool, but were really sensitive and fragile, so once they needed any re-work they were difficult to get behaving again. I've seen videos (perhaps in Japanese?) demonstrating these functions working well, but I could not get them going as smoothly, (or for the rear wheel steering, at all). I'm a very experienced technic builder, so found this very frustrating. 

I think there are a few things going on here, and 2 make me wary of getting future CADA sets:

First, and unforgivably, errors in the instructions that meant not all the gears could be accessed in the final model. By the time I found this out, I was too far gone in the build to want to go back. 

Second, the part quality from CADA is not quite there. It is some very high percentage of Lego quality, and good enough for most purposes, but there is, for example, clutch power variability, and some stickiness I think contributed to the poor functioning. I believe I am an experienced enough builder to make the mechanisms in this one successfully. 

Thirdly, some functions may be too ambitious - they may be beyond the capability of plastic bricks to implement - I am thinking of the doors here.

Fourthly, there can be pointless functions, perhaps to distinguish from some of the recent LEGO Technic sets with too few functions. Here, there was a very elaborate train of axles, gears, etc from rear to front, that when the last parts were in place was revealed to.... wiggle some panels near the front wheels that were only visible from the underside. Hmmm. Call me underwhelmed. 

Other aspects of the build were interesting, and the final outcome was very solid - the form-locking was incredible. However, I think I am getting bored of sculpting authentic looking supercars out of lego pieces and panels. 

Anyhow, I leave you with the 'Fantasma' and his little step-brother. 

I think "fragile" is the major problem with several CaDA supercars now, I was interested in a few sets but then I figured out they had "fragile" issues (from others' reviews like yours) then I gave up. I don't think designers don't know their models are fragile, they and CaDA might choose to live with these flaws.

I myself found a fundamental flaw in an excavator set, it uses a 2L pin and once you put it through a hole there is no way to pull it out. You build your model once :D

So LEGO is more expensive partly because they're more careful about their products.

[nintiendo]

16 hours ago, LvdH said:

Some info came out of China about the C61503 AMG One. Apparently it will be released next week. It's also rumoured to cost nearly twice as much as other CaDA supercars (even RC ones!), €240 when converted from the Chinese price of RMB $1900. I guess it could have been expected for having multiple single use parts made specifically for this model as well as having an AMG license. But I'm not sure if I am willing to pay that price for a non-LEGO set of which the part quality is questionable, in my experience.

Any way, the car looks very good and it seems to have some working KERS system using a pullback motor. Very curious to see how that works.

Since I already own a few sets I don't think "part quality is questionable", IMHO CaDA part is as good as LEGO (90% give or take :D). For me design quality is more questionable (how much fragile is it?), instruction likely has a few minor errors too but it isn't a big problem.

[DrJimbo]

4 hours ago, nintiendo said:

I think "fragile" is the major problem with several CaDA supercars now, I was interested in a few sets but then I figured out they had "fragile" issues (from others' reviews like yours) then I gave up. I don't think designers don't know their models are fragile, they and CaDA might choose to live with these flaws.

I myself found a fundamental flaw in an excavator set, it uses a 2L pin and once you put it through a hole there is no way to pull it out. You build your model once :D

So LEGO is more expensive partly because they're more careful about their products.

 

3 hours ago, nintiendo said:

Since I already own a few sets I don't think "part quality is questionable", IMHO CaDA part is as good as LEGO (90% give or take :D). For me design quality is more questionable (how much fragile is it?), instruction likely has a few minor errors too but it isn't a big problem.

So I think this is what you get when you pay the lego premium, compared to other manufacturers - not allowing designs that are a bit 'on the edge' (or not really fit for purpose) reach the market, better QC of instructions, and higher part standards - I think there are cases where a 90% good part is not good enough.

I'm not saying lego is perfect, people will have their own exceptions for all these come to mind (Perseverance rover that cannot drive over terrain, errors in instructions (but I think usually cosmetic only), colour variation, etc). But I do still think there is a quality difference that is sometimes important to how much  I  can enjoy the set. 

[thekoRngear]

Lego is not perfect. On the other hand, 90% as good as Lego does not cut it. Let's talk a bit more as to where the Cada parts gone strong and weak :

The 2l 3l thin liftarms and 2x4 beams are super solid and honestly, as good as lego

But the 2l 3l clutch pins/hybrid pins are not as good. Same to say for all the cross axles except for the 2l black axles. It is a major deal breaker

Some panels are thinner and thus more bendable (and more prone to break easily)

These are the summary for the parts as complete break down of all the part type is a little bigger. The batterybox that came with the Italian Supercar is not sustainable. 5/6 months later they just refuse to roll the car after 5 minutes of play and after 8/9 months they behave bad. Of course different vehicle with (possibly) lighter weight things can be different. I do not own new batterybox hence cannot comment on that. The motors are really good

When Lego designs a 1/8 scale, there are several heads working behind it. They go to the manufacturer more than once, and they know their limitations

These Cada sets, with no offence to any designer, come from one head who work so hard designing all that stuffs that going into his final version. From there how Cada handle their finished product is where the success of their future cars lies

Just some honest opinions from someone who owned two Cada sets in past few years

Edited August 13, 2023 by thekoRngear

[Bartybum]

@thekoRngear  I think what you say sums up my opinions of CaDA bricks and sets pretty well, TLC appears to have a better overall appreciation of the limits of the building system, at least in my mind

Edited August 14, 2023 by Bartybum

[Polarlicht]

Really hope they also make non-RC version of this AMG one. Worst case, wait for a discount (which will happen, even on Lego sets on day one) and leave the rc stuff out and sell it lol

[Akassin]

On 3/7/2023 at 2:38 PM, LvdH said:

I think some will appreciate this one. Upcoming model from CaDA, designed by Eric Trax. 

Is there any news about this set?