allanp

The high number of Technic sets released in any given year isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means Technic is selling well enough to demand more sets be released, and instead of having 8 A-models with B models we instead get 16 A-models, half of which don't have to be compromised by being made up of parts from another model, and there's more sets to choose from. So having lots of sets released in one year has a lot of potential benefits to us fans I think. And it's not like every set from "the good old days" was a total winner either. But the question is, is that potential being realised? I'm not sure that it is. Take the potential benefit of there being more choice for example. It certainly doesn't feel like there's more choice when your options are mostly just cars made in different scales. I wonder if they hired Oprah to assign models to the designers! "You get a car, and you get a car, and you get a car!" "Can I design a JCB Backhoe with 14 Pneumatic functions instead and new more powerful compressor and daisy chainable, highly accurate micro servos for the valves? Or a new 8480 space shuttle with cool new, high torque, daisy chainable micro motors and awesome miniature planetary reducers for the canadarm? Or a working pneumatic steam engine or traction engine with a new low friction sliding spool valve to make LPEs easier to make (could even combine the traction engine with an upcoming fairground set to power it, or make a factory floor with machines powered from a single ceiling mounted line shaft, could even make that into a subtheme of different line powered sets like a loom and so on), or a whole new Technic subtheme of studded universal sets to act as a bridge between regular Lego and studless Technic to make Technic more accessible, or make a new version of the helicopter from the control centre 2, mounted to an arm with low fiction pivots and perfectly counterbalanced and uses the new helicopter swash plate components so you can manipulate the remote controls to actually really fly the thing up/down/forwards and backwards to try to pick up the stranded technic minifigures on a hook, or an insane forklift truck with 30 stud long pneumatics for the 3 section mast, or what about......?" "Nope, but you can design something different, you get a hypercar!"

I like the dark blue parts in the Ford GT. But nothing is really saying "buy me" so far. I am intrigued by the ford GT though, as mentioned the front wheels don't look to be attached using a 3 pin hub, but instead by a centre axle. Is there something different going on with the front suspension there? As for the leaked list, I consider promobricks to be very reliable so maybe this list is true? That would mean there are at least 6 cars this year, likely 7 with the IP vehicle. I get that cars sell but man that's excessive! What could the cars have to differentiate between them besides scale? 42160 and 42161 have parts counts that indicate a similar scale to the Bolide, but they also have the highest set numbers which (if we exclude 42146) has always been reserved for the most expensive flagship set of the year. So either they have some single piece body shells or they are 49.99 euro sets (possibly pullbacks to differentiate them from the Bolide and Nascar Chevy) that would really belong to the 2023 or 2024 first half but were released in the 2023 summer wave instead. I suspect the latter! The price and piece count of 42156 is hard to fit together. Price seems too high for a non PU set but too low for a PU set, so maybe there's a small amount of PU, 1 hub and 2 motors? Or instead of that, maybe there is some significant investment in new parts that would account for the price? I'm hoping for the new parts theory but I really don't know. It could be that Peugeot just charge too much for their licence! The real car has an electric motor driving the front axle and a V6 engine coupled to a 7 speed transmission driving the rear axle. As for the Skidder John Deere 948L-II, I'm thinking this could be similar to 42080 with 2 or 3 pneumatic functions powered by simple battery box and L motor powered compressor. The dark bley cylinders would look great on the front arm and yellow cylinders would work for the front grapple. If true then it's an obvious insta-buy! The Nasa rover presents a few possibilities the more I think about it. It has a higher set number than the Skidder John Deere 948L-II (higher price) but a lower piece count. So is PU involved here? The real rover has small motors inside each wheel to drive them, and small motor on top of each of the 4 corner wheels to steer them. IIIFFFFFF PU is included then a new very small motor with lots of internal gear reduction would be welcome here. 18+ IP vehicle. Could be anything, not much to go on here but I'm thinking something like 42110 perhaps?

For your needs I'd probably go with the motor and battery box combo found in the Lego ideas lighthouse.

Has the Zetros arrived? Maybe before you build it you could use the hub and motors to try out the PU app and see how you get on with it.

@gyenesvi that's true. There was indeed some inefficiency having to gear up a geared down motor. There was down, then up, then down again, presumably done to have the older and weaker diff under less strain while delivering the same power by having it spin faster. So what you're saying is that with the new Ferrari diff they wouldn't have to do that, which is entirely true. Perhaps with higher speed you can use the vehicles momentum to carry it over obstacles, which is a realistic practice after all. Maybe if they made a more extreme offroader, maybe lighter with extreme suspension travel and ground clearance, and two hard coupled XL motors and no centre diff (so all of the motors power is available at each axle).....oh and new wheel hubs that accept the new larger CV joints it could be quite fun.

We had a fast...ish offroader with 42099 but the motors were too weak. Geared down to be slower it was much better than the older crawler. I don't think the diffs from the Ferrari would make a difference as you can always gear it differently elsewhere. If you want a faster offroader then the motors are the limiting factor I think. Just made a quick sketch model using buwizz motors, new diffs with red crown gears and 42099 planetary reducers and it was fast (for indoor Lego) and powerful. But I don't expect we will see that kind of power from PU any time soon. Not 100% but if I was a betting man I'd put money on this list being wrong.

Sounds false to me TBH.

So what goodies did y'all get for Christmas?! Of course this would included gifts "from you to you" to build over the holidays. I didn't get anything officially Lego, I did get 3 entirely different things. 1) Buwizz 3.0 with 2 Buwizz motors. I had resisted this for a long time as it wasn't pure Lego but now that I have them, I really wish I had got them sooner. It's brilliant, better than I though it would be. So far I haven't needed any kind of documentation. It just works like PF and boy does it work. I threw together a test chassis with drive and steering and the thing spun its wheels and darted across the living room like a rocket, the power is fantastic! And with the 4 PU ports and 2 PF ports I can use every motor (except the old 4.5v motors) Lego ever made, including the 9v ungeared motor. Yes! And with the built in Lipo battery I don't have to worry about batteries. This is gonna be great to work with! There are some limitations compared to PU, as much as I dislike coding, the code blocks of PU do allow for far more complex ways of controlling and mixing outputs. But for most things I'm sure there will be some work around and will be worth it for the extra power and lipo battery. Verdict: Highly recommended. 2) Green Gecko i6 mk2 6 cylinder LPE complete kit. What a great kit! The kit came with mostly genuine Lego parts except for the 6 small pneumatic cylinders which were Mould King, however this isn't a bad thing as those cylinders have a nice, shiny metal rod as opposed to Legos black plastic rod, and they seem to be of very good quality. All pneumatic parts also come pre modified (ports drilled for greater air flow, valves modified to move freely, etc) and the photo instructions were easy enough to follow, not quite as good a Lego instructions but still more than good enough, and the engine runs great with lots of power, comparable to 2 buggy motors. Verdict: Also highly recommended and a joy to build. 3) A counterfeit Technic clone brand reindeer beetle thing. This was a gift so I really don't want to sound ungrateful, it's the thought that counts and for that I really am grateful, but I cannot recommend this at all to anyone and I'm just gonna let loose on this! It was the worst build experience I've ever had. Firstly the not so bad. The instructions were...okay.....and the many all black parts of the build had no negative effect on the build experience for me personally. I could find parts just as easily as a genuine Technic set and could see where they needed to go just as easily. However the number bags only went up to 5 or 6, so the pile of parts to look through when opening each bag felt too big but that's a problem with genuine Technic also. Why do bigger Technic sets only have bag numbers that go up to something like 5 or 6, while large brick built sets get bag numbers go up into the 70's?! It's really this that makes parts hard to find I think. I have always said that I do actually like some tasteful colour coding of parts like they had in the 90's. I don't advocate for this extreme level of all blackness only because it can look a bit boring if it's too monochromatic, but it really was no problem in terms of the build experience. Everything else however was just terrible. Parts were found in the wrong numbered bags, some parts were missing entirely, the parts that was there were of very low quality with pins really not wanting to snap into the holes, and when you had to snap multiple pins together it took way too much effort, I damaged many pins with excess force. The whole design was also terrible. It starts with a very large and cumbersome front end using too many pieces to build a basic steering and suspension setup and the build only gets worse from there. Many things kept falling off, the roof is held in place by 2 studs and out of frustration I ended up literally supergluing the whole thing. You would think that the designer used poor building techniques in an effort to arrive at some great looking final result but no, it looks like crap! And after assembling well over 2000 individual pieces of crap you get suspension, steering that barely works and a flat 4 engine, and that's it. Oh wait, you do get non functional brake disks and callipers, attached to the outside of the wheel, and the callipers spin with the disks. The only reason I completed the build was because the gift giver wanted to see it finished, but it was no fun at all. Verdict: Crap! In summary, I had a fantastic Christmas and I hope you all did too! Whilst the counterfeit nonsense appeared to be produced by those only interested in making a quick buck, the LPE engine and the Buwizz was clearly made by those who have a genuine passion for their product and they will make fantastic additions to my collection. Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year to you all

Based off that I found a video of it and you're right, it's way more interesting than I thought it was

I was tempted by that set back in the day but wondered how interesting it could be mechanically.

Any info on price?

It's Batman Vs Scarecrow! It's Christian Strawbale! It's....clearly difficult to think of good batman/farming puns! Seriously though good job on this

I think that's very accurate. The existence of any pattern that we see is no indication that the pattern will necessarily continue or that the pattern was intentionally created (unless TLG specifically say otherwise such as with the UCS cars).

This tends to happen mostly when the CV joints are carrying high loads at their maximum angle. So I would first try limiting the steering angle. I think you can also replace the frictionless pins in the steering with friction pins. It'll still work but it will remove the sloppyness and hold the hubs in place a bit more tightly. I don't own a BuWizz (yet) but is there an option to ramp up the speed over, say 500 - 1500 milliseconds, instead of having instant 100% power? Another thing you could try (if you don't mind a little "cheating") is to make small circular paper shims, like paper washers, to add onto the red 2M axle behind the CV joint to push it outwards just a little further into the wheel hub. These are only small changes but you are really pushing the limits of those tiny CV joints. Unfortunately I also see some wear in the male and female parts of the CV joint from lots of use and lots of popping out, so those copies might have to be relegated to purely manual models and replaced with new. Those new ones will also wear fairly quickly, due to being undersized for their task (the newer, bigger ones are much better as you've seen), unless you apply some lubrication. Perhaps another solution is to redesign the wheel mounts so that they can use the newer larger CV joints, the downside of that is you will have wheels mounted to axles (which will slide off) instead of the usual 3 pin mounting.

But if the crane was released 2022 as originally intended (and we really don't have much evidence to suggest otherwise) then that would have broken the pattern yes? Having said that, in the years prior to control+ there did appear to me to be a two year pattern of complex flagship sets that interested me and simpler flagship sets that didn't, but there were a few exceptions to this, so I think that was probably just coincidence instead of a pre designed plan. Control+ seems to have reset that "pattern", I bought 42100 for the supply of new powered up parts but didn't buy the Volvo hauler or the Cat D11! They are well designed and engineered sets but powered ups reliance on smart hubs and coding (which I'm just not interested in) make sets feel more like mindstorms versions rather than Technic versions, which might explain why there was no room for mindstorms anymore, leaving fans of both Technic and Mindstorms out in the cold.

Ah thanks. It is actually as I "suspected". May I ask why there are only two pumps? Two well powered buggy motors can drive much more than that. The performance is good for it's size and weight already, but the buggy motors don't sound like they are being loaded very much at all. I feel like those two little pumps aren't enough to get the power out of those motors. IIRC two buggy motors have about the same torque as one XL motor (but at a much higher RPM, hence more overall power). I normally have to load up an XL motor with 8 pumps to get a good amount of the motors power converted into pneumatic power. I could probably add more than that but I haven't tested to see exactly how many pumps convert the most motor power into the most pneumatic power.

What pattern do you see between 42100 and Cat D11, that doesn't also apply to the Volvo hauler (besides tracks)? The crane was originally intended for 2022.

Looks impressive . It seems the links to previous pictures are broken. May I see the pneumatic compressors please?

@howitzer As you didn't have any of the UCS cars before then it's good to treat yourself to at least one. I only wouldn't recommend the Ferrari to anyone that has got any of the previous UCS cars already because there's not that much difference mechanically. I don't have this car (or it's gearbox), but I have built the Sian gearbox which is pretty much the same, and I was so disappointed to see they used the same kind of gearbox in the Ferrari, it was that which drove me to make my own bloody parts! And yes, the vertical steering wheel always felt "cheap" to me also, though it never feels cheap to my wallet. And these larger, much heavier cars are using the same length of steering arm as you get in the smallest sets, with a pivot to ball joint centre to centre distance of 16mm (2 studs centre to centre), the steering in all these cars feels cheap and spongey, like it's all made of rubber, whereas in 8880 and all the cars before it the steering felt pretty solid and much better. And while HOG might be unrealistic mechanically, I really don't mind it as it's an unrealistic addition as opposed to being an unrealistic replacement. Here's my wishlist for the next UCS car (Y'all know all this already, but if TLG is watching!) 1) A completely new approach, redesigned from the ground up. The Ferrari is too similar mechanically to the Sian, which itself was only tweaked from the Chiron. 2a) Better gearbox, use my own concept if you must (search for user Radbot1 on youtube) but please give use better parts. These gearboxes (not just the UCS cars) are far too complex with far too many moving axles and gears. 2b) A better view of the gearbox in action. The Airbus helicopter has a slow speed to allow us to see the blades moving. With better gearbox parts you can add a motorisation option (maybe with the wheels jacked up off the ground like 8448) so you can spin the wheels fast and hear that "brrrrRRRRRRRR click brrrrRRRRRRRR" sound as you move up through the gears, and see the wheels spinning faster and faster (like my own gearbox concept). This would be a really cool play feature to play with and show off to your mates, as well as being educational. 3) Better steering, use longer steering arms with Ackermann geometry, make the steering feel solid (have a play with 8865 or 8880 or even 8860 to feel good steering) 4) Better steering control, tilt the steering wheel upwards like in the real cars and when access to the steering wheel is poor (like in all these cars) add an additional, discreet HOG steering wheel (like 8880). 5) Give us something slightly new (old can be new in this case). Maybe have a manual stick shift instead of the flappy paddles (all previous cars had flappy paddles), but don't do it like the 8480 style shifter. Do a proper ball joint mounted gated shifter (like 8880, which felt much better than the 8480 style shifter) but with more speeds than 8880, and use a realistic linkage between shifter and gearbox instead of having the gearstick go directly into the drive rings. 6) Maybe give us something completely new! Like a transverse mounted engine and gearbox front wheel drive car with McPherson strut suspension at the front. 7) The subject matter doesn't.....matter! It could be the latest and most exotic hypercar at that given moment but don't limit yourself to just that. If you can do something more or something different with an older classic or even a different kind of car entirely then please do it. You can make the next UCS car be a Dodge Ram pickup, or a classic (meaning ladder frame and live axle) Landrover Defender, or a front wheel drive family car (the most common vehicle on the road and yet never attempted by TLG) if it makes for a more mechanically interesting vehicle. The choice of subject matter should be slave to the mechanical opportunities it affords, not the other way round.

I didn't realise there were 2 functions for the front blade and 1 for the rear as well, I thought it was only one function for the front. All the controls are centralised as well. Of course I'm waiting for bigger things but this is a great little Technic set.

It's impressive that they got an excavator b model from a tiny dumper truck a model. Proper tracks on the snow groomer is also good. Overall a nice group of builds/gifts for the youngest builders, nothing for us or any older builders as is expected for the January wave. The Bugatti looks good for those interested in that scale of car. The new panels are mildly interesting but I'm much more interested in new functional elements.

Quickly darting my eyes back and forth between your model and the real one, in terms of the look the cab only needs to be a stud taller perhaps, but you've definitely captured the "feel" of the real dumper, despite not having roughly triangular panels available from the main model to build the angled bucket. I guess if this was an official B model they would let you add a couple extra bricks for it, or make those pieces available in the main model, which I guess makes these alternate model challenges that bit more difficult.

wouldn't regular angled axle connectors be strong enough? I guess they might sag or bend over time. Would 4*4 angled beam be good for the supports of the landing bars? The front legs won't have to be that strong but the rear ones will have most of the weight on them.

I think a combination of the Claas tyres and Zetros tyres would be close enough for a JCB 3CX, or maybe 4 Claas tyres for a 4CX. I think a more needed element is a much better motor pump. For a typical flagship sized pneumatic MOC I'm always using about 8 motor pumps to get the desired performance. But isn't next years flagship going to be the delayed 2022 crane? As they have had an extra year to work on the 2023 flagship (and probably the 2024 flagship also as that would originally have been the 2023 flagship) then they should be good. I'd say a good backhoe, with it's immense potential and complexity, could do with an extra year of development anyway to get it right.

That is a good point. I think a big printed/moulded arrow that is directly called out in the instructions would prevent mistakes, but it would have to be very clearly and obviously called out in the instructions in a big red square!