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I have been releasing a couple of rebuild in the last couple of months. This has been very satisfying also because of the building instructions I released with them. So many enthusiastic people all around the glove are building my MOCs. Never the less, here is a completely new build: Model "Trailer Tr10" is build with LEGO® in scale 1:17,5 and motorized using LEGO® Power Functions. It is not build after a specific brand or type of trailer. This build represents the well known typical US style spread or split axle flatbed trailer. Another custom design that comes with building instructions and inventory/parts list! Never did I hide my preference for flatbed and log trailers. Basically because this adds the most playability to a build. Once I build this refer and even though it was much fun building, there was no fun running around with it. The weight of this model exceeds the limits of what my semi-trucks are designed to haul. So that I why I build another flatbed, this time without a drop in its deck. Again does this build feature full solid axle suspension on both axles, three sets of lights, kingpin, remotely controlled landing gear and parking break and many details, but it also features toolboxes and a remotely controlled liftable rear axle. Even though it is not very common for this type of trailer to have a liftable rear axle I implemented it anyways. Mainly because of two reasons: A) One channel of the PF IR Receiver is used to operate the landing gear which engage/disengage the parking brake simultaneously. One channel was left to be used. Obviously the second one is used to raise and lower the liftable rear axle. B) The more tires means more rubber equals more friction. To reduce the drawback of it when it comes to playability the most rear axle is liftable. What basically happens is this mechanism forces the suspension to bottom out. Where normally weight would engage the suspension to act now there is this lever that does the work. For this reason this axle is sprung soft, but the the first axle is sprung hard. With the second axle lifted the first axles has to be stiff enough to bare the trailers empty weight. The axle setup of a spread axle trailer is not just randomly picked. It really has a purpose and it all is related to weight. Commonly this axle configuration is mostly found on flatbeds, car haulers and refrigerated trailers. As described this is a typical US style trailer. Cheers, Ingmar Spijkhoven -
As mentioned with the release of US Truck MkII instructions for a trailer to go with this truck would be available. I am happy and proud to present them to you. Here is my latest creation: Trailer Tr2 MkII (with instructions). What was true for the revised version of the truck might even be more true for this trailer. Believe me when I say this revised version and the original design are poles apart. In the looks it may not even be changed that much, but don't be fooled by its appearance! This all together brings forth Trailer Tr2 MkII and I am happy with both achievements: The revised trailer itself and the instructions for anyone else to build this trailer. Check mocplans for the instructions and rebrickable for the parts list! Cheers, Ingmar Spijkhoven LEGO® model Trailer Tr2 MkII with LEGO® Power Functions® which is a rebuild and revised version of Trailer 2 I finished back in 2009. Like with all my models this is build in scale 1:17,5, which makes them to be combined!!! This specific model comes with building instructions available at mocplans.com plus the inventory list available at rebrickable.com. This model features: full solid axle suspension, LEGO® Power Functions® remotely controlled landing gear and parking brake and three sets of Power Functions® lights. As with the rebuild of US Truck T2 this writing starts with a little history on how this trailer came in to existence. Because of so many improvements and changes this trailer evolved into Trailer Tr2 MkII and suites absolutely excellent with US Truck T2 MkII. After finishing US Truck T2 back in 2009 I started working on a trailer to go with it. I have always been intrigued by those big American trucks out in the open with all kind of loads on those very easy to use flatbed and drop deck trailers. One other very important concern to me is the playability of the truck and trailer combination so less weight would increase this. From day one of building truck and trailer models I always go for implementing as many realistic features as possible. So this build features full solid axle suspension, LEGO® Power Functions® remotely controlled landing gear and parking brake and finally three sets of PF lights. After finishing the build of the semi-truck or tractor the build of the semi-trailer that goes with it could be launched. Like I do with all builds, first a couple of design decisions had to be made: A) Like with US Truck T2 (and MkII) I choose not to build this trailer after a specific brand or type. What I knew is that it had to be a typical US style trailer. Because of the way I was building back those days I had to give this trailer a drop in the deck. B) Since the scale was set because of the build of US Truck T2 the scale was not an issue. What was an issue is what wheels to use. Even though most trailers used in the Netherlands (Europe) have so called super singles, I prefer to use the same tires as with the truck itself. C) Setting these parameters was a nice start, but more quests had to be conquered. For example what color scheme would work best for this model especially because it had to fit US Truck T2's color scheme. The color of the frame would undoubtedly be Red. Bringing back the Blue would be obvious too. D) One detail that really caught my eye is the alternating Red and White retroreflective strips. Its role is evident and it really breaks the color and the looks of the trailer in a very positive way. E) The final call would be what to use as deck, the floor itself. Most straightforward would be the use of plates in any suitable size. I ended up using modified plates 8 x 8 with grille and hole in center. Describing US Truck T2 MkII did unfold why it was rebuild, allow me to do the same for this trailer rebuild: Since the build of the original version of this trailer my building skills develop and so did many solutions used. Likewise the truck this trailer model could be so much better if I would have build it these days. So I did! Rebuilding this MOC made me decide to name this updated version Trailer Tr2 MkII (it is based on Trailer T2, but revised in so many ways). The process of creating instructions for this trailer as well essentially forced me to rebuild it in total. Not just implementing some improvements. No, there is not much left of the original design. Besides all this the perspective has changed totally because I wanted to create instructions for this build too. So in the looks it may not even be changed that much, but believe me when I say this revised version and the original design are poles apart. My first attempt back in 2009 was to build a flatbed, so a trailer with a one level deck without a drop in it. Because of a lot of decisions I made while building the truck itself with its frame, suspension and fifth wheel, the fifth wheel ended up quite high. To give the flatbed good looks too, it should not be to high on its wheels. It would have been if I would have build it with a leveled deck. So I had to change my mind from building a flatbed to this drop deck. All of this mainly because of limitations I experienced back in 2008/2009 because of my lack of knowledge. I had to learn how to build with LEGO® all over again because of so many great new parts. Even though I am able to build a flatbed these days I sticked with the original drop deck. Since there is quite a lot of it I wanted the floor of the deck to be nice to look at. Functionality is important to me simultaneously as you might know right now, so that counts too. The overall width of the trailer is 18 studs, minus two tiles one on both sides leaves me 16 studs for the floor itself. Divid this by two makes eight studs on each side which gave me a range of opportunities. Quickly it was narrowed down to only two: The most obvious would have been to use plates with a length of 8 and a width of any needed size. Not bad to start with, but not really appealing to me so I continued the search. I ended up with the use of modified plates 8 x 8 "with grille and hole in center". These are available in very nice colors, it has great looks, light in weight and not that expensive. These plates suites the job just perfect, the studs make them what I call "sticky" this to prevent the load from sliding and it could further more be used to attach loads. The trailer's total length and both main and upper deck had to be adjusted to the use of these 8 x 8 plates. Still can't figure why, let me tell you: For the truck I came up with a very nice and realistic functional suspension system. Which I still use in all current projects and I will use in future ones. For some reason I had to use a rather simple suspension system for the trailer. Not that it wasn't sufficient, no it was, but not realistic for this type of trailer. The system itself is not as impressive as how it is referred to: longitudinal pendular axles! In the real world, I mean in the situation it is not a model, this type of suspension would cause a lot of damage. Damage to both trailer and load this because not enough stress is absorbed going over bumps or other obstacles. This rebuild trailer utilizes the same suspension as US Truck T2 MkII it uses LEGO® rubber belts and LEGO® rubber axle connectors. It occurred to me that it would be amazing to make this trailer what I call stand alone. With this I mean that it has a power source of its own. This results into the need of giving it a battery box. Please realize back in 2009 the much smaller battery box that holds 6 AAA batteries was not available. Both beams of the trailer's frame consist of two rows of Technic Bricks stacked with two layers of plates. The main reason to build it this strong was to avoid the trailer to bend under its own weight or load. Because of this approach it was very easy to hide all mechanical stuff and LEGO® Power Functions® in between both beams. Hiding the Battery Box on the other hand seemed almost impossible. So here is what I did: I knew that the part of the trailer from the kingpin to where the wheels are attached to needs to be sturdy, it transports stress caused by the weight of the trailer itself and its load to both king pin and rear axles. The tail part of the trailer could be weaker so I decided to lower the beams at this part. This allowed me to hide the Battery Box and by accident because of its location it could easily hold the rear impact guard. The super singles I referred to are a little larger which would force me to use the wheels as in the Black Cat LEGO® set 5571. These I don't have before all else and I don't want to invest in as well because of the excessive price. Further more I really love the impressiveness of how a semi-truck and semi-trailer combination might be referred to in the United States: An eighteen-wheeler. So four super singles is not an option at all, four dualies had to be mounted! Some following trailers I build after I finished the first version of this trailer in 2009 had smaller wheels mounted. The largest advantage of the use of these smaller wheels is that it reduces the trailer's total weight and frictions. All of this makes it easier to be towed by the tractor and therefore the playability is expanded. As suggested before the alternating Red and White retroreflective strips had to be on my model as well, but without the use of stickers or decals. It just had to be replicated by adding Red and White 1 x 2 plates, but without compromising the trailer's strength. In between every set of Red and White plates a Blue plate 1 x 2 "with handle on side" is located. Real live drop deck trailers are usually equipped with fixed or sliding winches to secure loads. These are used to tie down the load so that it won't move during transport. So there the Blue plate 1 x 2 "with handle on side" became very handy. These are used to tie down the load with the use of LEGO® Chains 5L or 21L or any kind of rubber band. In my judgement a model comes to live by adding details. The more the better, but don't over do this, it will finally work against it. Finally I installed running lights which are on both sides of this trailer. The purpose of course is to increase the trailer's visibility and its looks. The landing gear it self was not that hard to came up with and I started with a manual operated version. It didn't take that much to decide to make it remote controlled. The beams on the trailer do have this space in between of four studs, so hiding the M motor and the IR Receiver are not that hard. Even though the IR Receiver does have two connectors I forced my self to combine both parking break and landing gear. The first version of this trailer had a landing gear that swings up and down. Nice concept, but not flexible when it comes to connecting to trucks with different fifth wheel heights. The trailers front end can be raised or lowered to make it connect to the fifth wheel. Developing the truck's fifth wheel I used a 3L axle with stud as kingpin. The kingpin does not only keep the trailer attached to the truck horizontally, but vertically as well. This means going over a bump should not make the driver loosing the trailer. From the very beginning of building truck and trailer models I planned on being able to combine any truck and trailer I build. With my first approach of the landing gear as described in this topic it was harder. It had to be achieved by making sure that all trailers king pin, landing gear and suspension are all on the same height. As well as making sure the fifth wheel is at the same height. Now the trailer can just be aligned with the truck easily. To give you an idea of how the instructions for this model will look like here is a preview. Creating these instructions both quick progress on your build and being easy to understand were the main goals. Early in the building process you will see what it is that you are building. You will be very excited from the moment you start the build of Trailer Tr2 MkII till you finish it with a total number of parts of about 1100 pieces. To achieve this a lot of floating items are used, with added arrows to show where these items are suppose to be. Together with a lot of so called call outs (the smaller windows within a step that shows the assembling of a smaller sub part of the build) together with multi part steps (not only one part at a time) the build will be in a flow. Check mocplans for the instructions and rebrickable for the parts list!
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Hi, everyone! It’s been a long time since I posted my last MOC on EB. Today I’m gonna show you one of the projects I’ve been working on lately: a flatbed tow truck / US style wrecker. This is the biggest MOC I’ve made so far...And it is packed with loads of features & functions. Some general specs: Weight: over 4 KG Parts used: over 3800 pcs Dimensions: 760mm (L) x 170mm (W) x 220mm (H) It features: - V8 fake engine - Openable doors - Working headlights - Independent suspensions on front axle - Pendular suspensions with shock absorbers on rear axles Motorized functions: There are 8 motorized fuctions in total, powered by 9 PF motors, remotely controlled by 1 IR Controller + 1 IR Speed Controller (channel switching on both controllers is needed), simple structure with no gear box: - 2 XL for propulsion - 1 Servo for steering - 1 M for opening bonnet - 1 M for wheel lift lowering & raising - 1 M for wheel lift reaching out & retracting - 1 M for bed tilting - 1 L for bed sliding - 1 L for winch A video showing all functions: (Original video on YouTube is 60fps, don’t know why it doesn’t work here) I managed to hide all motors inside the chassis, including the one that powers the winch. I’ll talk about it later. Some more video clips: (Again, all 60fps) This is the propulsion motors assembly. 2 XL hard-coupled with 12-teeth bevel gears, and has a total gear ratio of 25 : 9 before power reaching rear-axle differentials. That’s enough torque to propel this heavy truck. Rear axles have pendular suspensions, connected by 3 small turntables. Soft springs are for balancing. Structure is solid enough to bear the load, but I also designed a similar one with extra support on the middle turntable. It’s 1 stud longer so I didn’t use it on this already long truck. This is what the chassis looks like.I was wearing latex gloves for anti-sweating... Eight 200mm-long PF extension cables were used to connect motors to IR receivers and IR receivers to battery pack. They were well hidden right underneath the battery pack. Now let’s take a look at the bed. In the picture above, the arrows indicate how power goes up the bed. Red ones are for bed sliding while green ones are for the winch. I decided not to put a motor on the bed because it is ugly and too big. A real flatbed’s winch motor is fairly small compared to its size and usually unnoticeable. As a result, I have to compromise on deck height... More photos: At last, I have to say I’m not satisfied with this MOC for several reasons: Deck height: just too high for a flatbed. As I will not compromise on a visible motor on bed, height increased at least 3 studs. Loading angle: about 19 degrees, not a good number Most importantly, too long and too heavy. Front wheels and Servo are working under high pressure, even with 3 hard springs on each side the front part is still overburdened. Perhaps an extra pair of wheels in the middle would solve the problem, but it will lose its aesthetics and no longer looks like a longnose US truck. I didn’t want to publish it at the beginning because it’s imperfect, but I spent too much time on it and don’t want to waste it, so finally created this topic and shared it with you. Again, see my other creations on Rebrickable at: http://rebrickable.com/designer/musenkevin And my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/KevinMoo Enjoy!
