howitzer

The limit of 32L axle indeed is the reason why I opted not to even try it with the old worm gears. It's true also that you could have the worm gear in the carriage and pair it with stationary rack gears but not being realistic I didn't consider it either. Yeah, the spacing is 2L. I haven't yet built a solid support structure for the bearings so I haven't tested them properly but we'll see when the project goes forward.

I have had the idea of a metal lathe bubbling in my mind for a long time, and this is the perfect contest to make it reality. Originally I thought it impossible to do properly as there was no way to make long enough screw for the feed but that changed with the release of 73763 with which can arbitrarily long screws be made. Another significant problem was the need for a suitable main bearing which can take the weight of the spindle and has a large enough hole through for the bore. This was enabled by the hoop parts 3250 and 77107 along with the steel ball 99948. I tried GBC balls but as expected, the rolling was very rough and not what I wanted for this kind of thing. While I'm not attempting to replicate any real product exactly, I'm showing here the lathe I bought years ago to give the general idea of what I'm aiming to make: I intend to replicate most of the important functions such as: Variable speed for the spindle Centering chuck (not sure yet if three or four jaws but we'll see) Manual and automatic feed, manual cross feed and manual top feed Thread cutting with automatic feed Tailstock It's a big project though and I have limited time available for building so there's no telling how many functions I'm able to build, but I hope to get it to some degree of completion. So as the first part of my project I set out to make the main bearing from the aforementioned parts which is shown here: Few more photos at https://imgur.com/a/RwcEqqJ Wish me luck!

It was released back in 1981 to be compatible with 4262 and other similar parts, which have thickness of a normal plate. 3/4 pin only came in 1996 to help connecting liftarms of half-stud thickness to full-thickness pinholes.

It would suck if there won't be any backward compatibility at all with PU motors. Also I can't see them making motorized sets where every motor etc. includes rechargeable batteries, as those require special handling in shipping etc. so I think there'll be some kind of hub that can take AA/AAA-batteries and the usual motors with wires. An integrated battery would also make motors much larger, which would be undesirable regarding set design, especially when there's multiple motors.

The two topmost parts could finally help make ball-socket connections small enough to be useful for structural connections (attaching panels at weird angles and such), though I guess the socket isn't tight fitting as it's probably meant for suspension and such where free movement is required. The bottom left looks also really cool as it allows another way of creating half-stud offsets which is always nice to have to complement the existing ones.

Hey, you stole my idea! I'm also in the process of designing a metal lathe for this contest, but didn't post anything yet because I'm waiting for a few crucial parts to arrive in mail. Anyway, my plan is in larger scale and custom main bearing so it'll be interesting to compare your approach and mine.

- Useless machine (a machine with a switch, which upon pressing activates mechanism that turns the switch back off)

You'll need the XL motors if you're going to use the Liebherr profile in the C+ app, it recognizes which kinds of motors are connected to the hub and won't work if they are of wrong type. I don't know if the L motors are powerful enough to move the thing but if you're using them, then you'll have to create your own program as well. I guess you could test the motors' strength by building the base and then loading it with some weight to simulate the weight of the whole thing and seeing how it moves (or not).

Arocs had part count of a bit below 2800 parts, so at that scale it's entirely possible to make a large, very functional true Technic flagship set. But I'm not holding my breath, if it really is another car it'll be just a huge disappointment as I can't see them making anything interesting or new with cars.

Wtf is it doing in some star wars set anyway, doesn't look like it's absolute necessary for the design to work? Well, I guess they are making use of the new part as much as possible to get it in the market in more sets and we'll see later the set that it was designed for. Anyway, no matter, this will become a very useful part.

WOOOW

That design by Akiyki is indeed great, though unsuitable for my purposes (I need a design where there is an opening in the centre, as large as possible). Also what I need should be fully functional in any orientation. But I have an idea and now I'm waiting for the parts to arrive to test it...

Many turntables in official sets use one wheel or another, so that's indeed a possibility. Also 1x1 round plates have been used with great success, see for example

I agree. Besides, engines can be used in other applications beside vehicles, emergency generators are a well known example but they have been used in things like air raid sirens.

I was thinking of my entry for the most recent contest and realized that I need a large bearing for it and while searching for solutions I realized this isn't much talked topic in the forum so I was wondering if people could share their bearing designs for others to use. All kinds of designs would be interesting, regardless of type and purpose. So here's a one quick and dirty bearing design that would fit my purposes, except it has some slack and the GBC balls aren't perfectly round so they don't roll smoothly.

Seconded. --- As for the studful Technic, it should be allowed as long as the build follows the building principles of the studful era of Technic, meaning there's no tons of non-Technic parts added simply to make it look pretty but only used sparingly when necessary. So no exterior casings from bricks (unless they are Technic bricks) for example.

It originated as a boat weight, for example 4030 Cargo Carrier had I think 6 of those. It's not usable as any sort of connection point.

A separate animal contest would indeed be great for the future. I have one animal-idea and one non-animal idea and if animals are allowed with no actual animal-contest in the future, I'd have to choose between the two ideas for this contest, which is kinda sad :(

So are animals allowed or not?

Why not both? I mean, let's do an animal/biomechanics contest now and non-vehicle/non-animal contest next when it's time for another contest?

I can see two options here: 1) No fictional animals or animal-like things allowed, only real ones. Limiting, yes, but quite easy to decide if an entry qualifies or not. 2) Fictional animals or animal-like things are allowed. Deciding what qualifies is harder, but perhaps not impossible - though I can see lots of nitpicking and rules-lawyering ahead if this option is chosen. Personally I'd perhaps lean towards option 1) as it would make people concentrate on the simulation of biomechanics instead of finding the wackiest looking fictional animals, but I can see the appeal of option 2) as it might draw more entries to the contest.

The only problem I see with the non-vehicle contest is judging the entries: how to make a fair comparison between vastly different sort of builds? On the other hand, this is also an advantage: a contest about cars has nothing but cars and that forces all entries have almost the same features, which gets boring fast.

Full support on this.

Nice review as always! I'm not into motorcycles much but looks like this is the best of the three 1:5 scale ones, although the differences are small. The engine is definitely interesting and something new, even if it lacks the realism of old style engine. It looks good enough to me, but I'm not one to nitpick on looks anyway so others might disagree. It's nowhere near interesting enough for myself to consider buying, but that's mostly due to subject matter and not because I think it's a bad set.

Perhaps not compared to today, but compared to past: The sets in the 80's and 90's increased in complexity and flashiness constantly, until came the decline at the turn of the millennium. Then beginning in the late 00's Technic seemed to be on the road to recovery with many new and interesting and increasingly complex sets in the 10's and then stagnating again in the last few years. So I see these golden ages most importantly as ages of progress - the theme constantly moving forward with innovation, instead of stagnating and repeating the same over and over.