allanp

The excavator is looking more complex than I had anticipated too. I'm so glad it's not like the bulldozer where it was all motors and no complexity. That is a relief. 3 motors controlling 6 functions via a gearbox switched by a fourth motor . But the price !!!!!! Although I've really changed my mind about the excavator, I'm sorry but I can't justify paying that much for what it is. If it was a little bit bigger and pneumatic (yes just like I constantly bang on about with pistons at least twice as long and with more efficient/effective motor compressor pump) and the second set of motor functions being used to operate the valves, then i'de buy at least two for the same (or even higher) price.

The picture looks to have about 50-60% of the more common parts included in the set.

That's very good, I really like how precise it is. I bet your getting a 50x power gain or something like that.

That's really awesome, lots of functions there, it even has pneumatics! BTW i've added another picture of "BIG RED" http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...ehelicopter.jpg

Very nice, love the movements and colour shceme. Very creative indeed! Love it!

Thank you Wow that's huge! I'm guessing it has quite a lot of working functions!

You have given me some tough competition too, I saw Avatar for the first time yesterday and thought of your MOC.

That's interesting! In fact, when I think of medievil catapults that didn't use weights to store potential energy, they used lots of ropes that were twisted.

dooooooaaaaaawwwww shuks Thankyou! A four engine cargo plane sounds interesting. I've wanted TLG to release a multi-engined (as in actual engines, not props) plane for ages as I think it would be cool. I've not seen any MOCs of a multi-engined plane either.

I originally planned to motorise the winch and landing gear via the same motor through a gear box and also have the pitch of the tail rotor blades adjustable via peddals in the cockpit but I decided against it as I probably would not be able to finish it in time for the competition. Maybe I will make these changes in the future. Thankyou for your kind remarks (and for telling me how to deeplink the pictures )

Ah sorry. Hope these work for ya! http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0142.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0166.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0167.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0168.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0164.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0172.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0170.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0171.jpg http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/R...UE/dscf0174.jpg

I hope you like it! http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=420770 Features: 1 x M-Motor (which can spin the blades surprisingly fast!) Fully functional duel controls for pilot and co-pilot Joysticks tilt the rotor blades Control levers adjust the pitch angle of the rotor blades Upper knob wheel raises the stretcher Yellow handle releases ratchet to drop the stretcher Lower knob wheel raises and lowers the landing gear Over 80cm long Number of pieces, at a VERY rough guess ~1300 but I could be way off! Design/build/one or two minor bug fix time 40-60 hours

These are great i've built the dino, cable car and plane in the past and they were great. I loved all that gearing down in the plane, watching all those gears spin is kinda mezmorising to me, and you've made it even better!

It looks to be geared the same so I think it would spin at roughtly the same speed, if not just a tiny bit slower. If i'm honest tho, I think I prefere the look of the belt drive. Love the double back wheels tho. 8868 is among my all time favorite sets lego ever produced.

That's awesome, I hope to be uploading pics of my entry soon, 2 weeks really isn't that much time to make a decent MOC but you have done it. I'm pretty much finished with my rescue helicopter now just gotta borrow a camera!

That looks great. Lots of very nice and realistic details there. Well done. I guess you answered your own question! Tho it's probably not something i'de like to do, it seems to have worked very well. It would be difficult to find a better solution, and near impossible to do without spending lots of money on bricklink. You're welcome

These parts have holes orientated in 3 different directions and are ideal for housing the new 3 studs wide differencial. http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/64179 http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/64178 http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=4288615 (posted by stang67)

I see what you mean about the piece count with all those pins but yes, sets have got bigger. The large increase in pins may also be offset by there no longer being hundreds of plates between the beams. The molds are expensive no matter the size of the part and they do wear out and have to be replaced by new ones. So, for example, when they have to replace the molds for the pneumatic cylinder, why not replace them with molds for longer cylinders? Yes, I know I can double up cylinders but it would be so much BETTER if they were a more useful and realistic looking length to begin with. They would be far from limited to flagships to. A small forklift with a single pneumatic that's at least twice as long as the current one would be great or a medium sized skip lorry for starters. As for flagships, imagine the back hoe or excavator you could make. Imagine doubling up every standard sized cylinder with all that tubing in a back hoe to get the same result. I'm not saying it should replace the current cylinder but if I could only have one length, it would be one with a stroke 2 or 3 times longer that the existing one. Yup indeedy, technic would be better just with that one part alone.

I have over 100 technic sets and only one of them had some missing parts so it is rare but it does happen. Thankfully Lego has excellent customer services. Contact them and they will send you your missing parts right away.

Over the years sets have slowly but surely got bigger and bigger with more and more pieces, which I like! But for this reason among others, some things really do need to be made bigger, longer or stronger.

Great thread, I am all for new parts and I think the technic line would benifit greatly from and be enhanced by many of the parts you have highlighted from myself (me being radbot) and others. My favorites are (starting with my all time most wanted part): http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3800130 and the cylinder here http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/c...r_new_parts.bmp http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3800175 not sure about the strength of the hinged ends but the idea is brilliant http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=4030043 combined with another new part, a new pf servo http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3800184 http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3800133 http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3800186 http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3800193 http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=385425 http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/c...box_example.bmp and http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/radbot/c...xplanaition.bmp A more detailed explanaition of some of my wishes are here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=36939 My wanting these parts has nothing to do with my abilities to think outside the box. These parts would just make things much better IMHO. Agreed. I welcome a new parts thread focusing only on technic as I don't have to wade through the mud of great but non-technic parts. Yes, a more reliable version of the 9v micro motor in a PF format would be great. Do you think it would be more useful if it was low speed but high tourqe? Also an "L" motor, which is basically the same motor inside the "XL" motor but without any gearing down. This would make it one or two studs shorter than the "XL" motor and put the fun and challenge back into building proper geartrains with fast spinning gears and such . It would also enable us to protect our geartrains using the white clutch gear (which is useless on the "xl" motor) by having it much further up the gearing down gear train.

I think it was good value as a parts pack, crap value as anything else.

A spur gear is a standard gear. http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/3648a A bevel gear is a gear that changes the direction of rotation along the same axis. http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/6589 This gear is a combination of a spur and bevel gear http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/32269 A pinion gear is the smaller of two different sized gears meshed together. The pinion can drive the larger one or be driven by it. You may have heard of rack and pinion steering, the pinion is the small gear driving the rack side to side. Your worm gear is the pinion driving the 24t spur gear in this case (in real life it would drive a worm wheel, which is like a spur gear but whose teeth are at an angle matching that of the worm gear).

Another new picture of the excavtor = another dissapointment Maybe it's much better than I think it is, having all that function switching business people have mentioned allowing the motors to control 6 functions, but even motorising the little shift lever isn't exactly a leap forward in creativity. Can't know for sure until we get more pics/info but for now, i'm still not impressed. The whole thing looks so rushed and unfinished and nowhere near filling the potential of a technic flagship excavator. This seems to be becoming another trend (like the one of a godd flagship followed by a not so good one the next year) where the designer, as talented as they are, isn't being given enough time to properly finish a set due to TLGs desire to shorten the time it takes to go from intial idea to final release. The bike looks cool, an improvement on the previous street bike and it's nice to see a transverse engine setup which is uncommon in technic even though most motorbikes have that setup. The crane looks bland, again we get functions controlled by knobs right by the function itself, using no interesting mechanisms to operate them (if you didn't see, look at the ends of the stableisers. Makes me think of the fork tilt mechanism of the telehandler ) The container truck also looks just a little bland, I fear it has little more complexity than the hauler (which IMHO IS ONE OF THE WORST SETS EVER) but at least it's subject matter is something not seen in the technic line before and it should be a good source of blue parts.

Just went to technicbricks and read all those comments. And after you put so much work into all of it too. Some people just don't get it do they. Well...all's I can say is...... HHHHHHHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE PPPPPPPPPPPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTI IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT