bonox

If you're going for old parts, you may as well campaign for old colours at the same time! Bring back classic space I say!

very nice. Might you consider the front wheel of the 8420 as being closer to the 21/18" set?

there are some examples of MOCs following that idea on rebrickable, but yes - things like that I believe would be a great asset to selling the capability of the Technic theme that haven't been seen for many many years. Now i'm thinking of a working windmill with archimedes screw that could be used to 'lift' 1x1 round plates or even balls as a GBC.

What's the likelyhood of releasing a new shuttle, let alone a crawler to go with it now that both are redundant and only found in museums. Mmodelling a dead product doesn't seem to fit with the future ideas theme they've picked up on with the volvo and everything else they make has a basis in current equipment. They'd be much better off imo revisitng the idea of the old universal sets and showing that you can create something with technic that is not a vehicle. The old plotter, the dinosaur, Danger Will Robinson robots etc

I noted it in my post that you didn't quote, but the chemistry isn't the same as far as molecular level, however electrically, the chemistry is pretty much identical. - both rechargable battery types produce 7.2-7.4 volts (even though one uses six cells and the other two). Significantly below the 9.0+volts you get from a non rechargable set. The integral under the discharge curve is an energy summation, not a power output, which is not what was asked in the question I responded to. In these simple DV motors, power output is just voltage times current. From the 250mA and 750mA discharge curves, the Lego rechargable pack is a long way behind the multiple AA NiMH batteries he samples so my first word is quite simply the answer to the question. "No", the lego LiPo pack does not "make up for the difference", which it could potentially do with a buck converter or similar to keep the output at 9.0 volts regardless of the battery voltage. The longer question you've alluded to is the power advantage of the non rechargable cell type Philo tested doesn't last for very long; once you get over the initial load time and the alkaline voltage sags (the first 250mAh energy drop) the effective power output of the rechargables is higher than the non rechargables assuming both can maintain the same current output.

@johnny1360 no - the chemistry of the batteries is pretty much the same. They're approximately 7.4 volts and not 9v nominal. It comes from 6 times 1.2volts for NiMH chemistry (most rechargables) and two times 3.7volts for the lego 84599 lithium pack. The current limit is the same because it's limited by the battery box and lower than the theoretical output of the cells, and power is the product of voltage and current. Brushed DC motors output power is based proportionally on input voltage, so a 9V non rechargable set of batteries will have a higher 'power' potential than rechargables. Keep in mind that power is quite different from energy and it's energy that leads to running time. http://www.philohome.com/batteries/bat.htm

If you want to do it, make sure you note at the stage involved that you'll be bending/stressing the part to get it installed. If you don't, people will think the instructions are wrong and you'll get poor feedback. If you publish and get some people building, hopefully you'll get some response from them about how it could be done better, than you might then update into your BI. It might just need another pair of eyes. Often when you're the designer you get so heavily focussed or invested in how you did it that it can be hard to see another way.

I buy half meter lengths from the local hardware supply place. Pretty generic stuff - take an existing one to reference and hand feel the stiffness for what you're comfortable with. You then need to cut to length and if you're doing a good job, flatten the outer coil at each end to provide a square end for the plastic to bear on. Needle nose pliers work for me.

Indeed. Since the crawler and the mog, there have been many MOC's that use the same springs (Lucio, i'm looking at you ) and i've resorted to aftermarket re-springing the older version (the 2909c0n)

Wow - stunning update and it's really wonderful to see it coming together and the changes along the way to improve it. I'm getting really excited about seeing a copy of this one next to Gerger's 6400.

This is a fabulous and complex model and really needs good quality original parts for the gearbox to work. You've just found one (more) reason EB hates knockoffs.

supplied by who? Not only are knockoffs contrary to the rules of this forum, but you can't expect to complain about performance of non OEM parts in any setting!

OMG this is a tricky minefield. I started locally not knowing any better, but boy the floodgates opened when I found I could get 10 kilogrammes delivered from Germany for less than the cost of 1kg from the house next door.

maybe, maybe not. GNU has a surprisingly honest appraisal of "encouragement to sell free software for as much as possible", but that's an element of the distribution mechanism and based on supply (or at least availability) of the original source and 'free' means freedom of use, not zero monetary exchange for it. Also, just because a document is released publicly doesn't mean that copywrite and ownership doesn't apply, which is why stating name and copywrite or distribution ("Not to be resold" for example) on the document can be a great asset as an author. Ultimately, if the document has a largely untracable authorship and no other restrictions, chasing this stuff down is often more trouble that it's worth.

there is very tightly defined mathematical sets for describing packing volumes of certain entities - balls in a cube for example. The problem with lego is that sometimes parts fit inside one another, or snap together, sometimes they don't. Have a look at the PAB Cup packing threads for ideas on how to minimise volume of a collection of similar parts. Your issue is far more complex so at some level you'll need to understand that there is no definable "storage that is the right size". Another issue is that as soon as you start building and displaying at least some items, your required storage volume drops. Perhaps start with the available stud volumes corrected into real units, apply a fudge factor for packing (might not even need one initially), and estimate by building some different containers, folding some up out of old cardboard etc

for what it's worth, the same thing happened up until they ran into deep financial trouble as well....

it was still a look-alike mercedes truck. The pinacle is still the 8480 imo - spare shuttle to submarine

none of the UCS type sets have B models do they? None of the racers sets ever did and they only licensed techic set I can think of with a proper B model is the volvo loader. The rest like both mercedes trucks were brief mods of essentially the same thing.

Nope. I build many MOCs, none of which would be covered by this and regearding the bag number - interesting thought experiment, but you have to sort all the parts to do it. You might as well just sort everything into part groups and then head off with the build - less overall work and probably a better result.

nice background too :)

thanks. I guess i'm drawing links with the description in the trains section that says "drive with the 10 channel bluetooth remote or control them with the free app". Reading too much into it again.

I just slice the pin end off a black pin 3L with bush for a full size one. Cheap and cheerful - works a treat. Quick work with a sharp knife. dye obviously works better for half bushes which have no equivalent to manufacture

Noting that the video doesn't work on my device, the current catalog https://catalogs.lego.com/BrandCatalog/2hy2018/aus-nz/?page=86 shows the trains as having PoweredUp with App and bluetooth connectivity, but the technic units show Power Function, also with "Download the App". Does this mean technic uses this WeDo 2.0 thing? Are they still calling it power functions or not? Given that they've also swapped descriptions on the pump and valve on page 88 i'm not sure i can trust what they've put on the site. Crikey, "Articulated Stering"! Who on earth spell checks and proof reads their advertising?

also many of these things are used in areas where the road gets washed away every year in the wet season. For the mass of cargo carried, plus the distances involved, rebuilding a one or two lane dirt road is a lot cheaper than rebuilding a railway. Keep in mind that this country is the size of western europe or north america, but has a tiny portion of the population of either of those and in the time it takes me to get between major cities I can cross multiple countries in Europe. We do have rail for major transport tasks - but really only between major population centres and between major mining/farming entities and ports. That probably covers less than 1% of the major transport routes. oh, and the only real reason to use a road train is to reduce payroll costs. Everywhere else in the world would just run three trucks instead and put up with paying three drivers. There is a small maintenance and fuel advantage but mostly it's about the pilot.

Trailers are of two basic types under Australian (and international) regulation. These are type A and B. The difference is that a B type trailer is coupled to a rigid turntable on the leading unit (be it a prime mover or another trailer) and an A type trailer is coupled to the leading unit by a drawbar. Often for road trains, this means A trailers are constructed out of a classic 40 or 50 foot semi B trailer connected to a 2 or 3 axle converter dolly and the dolly has the drawbar connected to a pintle on the leading unit. ie like this: Now a road train is typically made up of at least one A trailer and a total length under 53.5metres. The ones that track perfectly are the B doubles/triples. That is, trailers conneted with only turntables - no drawbars, as below: There are limitations here on where you are allowed to run road trains and B doubles/triples, and there is a wide arc around every major city where you are NOT permitted to bring a road train. This means that you have not seen a road train in a city. You've probably seen a multiple B type setup in cities, and generally only two trailers (a B double), but there is opening for B triples in some places. As a rule, because of the rigid forward attachment of a B trailer, they track much more accurately than a standard A trailer, but B only configurations are not generally regarded as road trains. Suggest you find some background reading here. http://www.truck.net.au/sites/default/files/TAPs - description of truck configuration September 2016.pdf Some update info: The north americans refer to the trailers similarly, but the lingo is a bit different - they have terms like Super B. And I said as a rule, "A" trailers don't track as well as B trailers, however there are in development "smart" trackaxle converter dollys to improve tracking of multiple A trailers like an A Double setup (a classic road train). Refer to the pdf above for a bunch of lovely pictures describing the different trailer and primemover configurations.