42055 - Bucket Wheel Excavator - MODs and Improvements

[Gabi_BC]

At last, the counterweight arm is (somewhat) finished.

Having completed this i wonder if there will be a need for metal parts in the counterweight box. I seriously doubt it at this stage, but i guess i will only find out if i actually build this machine. Hollow or not the cw box will stay for realism.

All the machinery in the CW arm is housed inside a box. In a real BWE this would house transformers, winding motors, automation boxes and others.

In this model, the box houses a battery box that supplies power to the bucket wheel drive, the winding L-motor and to the PF-M motor that turns the bucket wheel and conveyors on/off via IR-remote. One IR unit is installed here (another 2 are in the tripod base and the 4th one will be in the trailing conveyor discharge ...thing)

The PF-M motor rotates a worm gear-clutch gear assembly that turns 2 PF switches on/off. One is for the BW drive, one for the conveyors. Power for the conveyors comes through extension cable from somewhere else since most of the conveyors and drives for them will be in the lower part of the Bwe. Another extension cable then sens the power to (probably 3 pf-m) motors driving all the conveyors.

The winding motor drives the wire drums that control the elevation of the bucket wheel arm. This system is located at the back and has 2 wire drums.

A maintenance crane is installed at the back of the cw arm, to service the winding drums and motors. For this i used the 42038 arctic truck crane, since it has all the functionality i need and can be folded into a relatively compact space. The linear actuator is driven via a 16 stud axle ending in a knob under the structure, somewhat out of sight.

Also under the structure is a small lever that turns on the battery box. The battery box can be accessed by removing the housing and then rotating it's supporting assembly 90^o upwards. The entire CW arm is accessible via stairs and walkways.

The machine housing:

Access to the battery box:

And the mechanical and electrical part:

---------

edit

here is the current state of the project. Next on the list - modify bucket wheel arm and operator's cab

I think it looks quite adequate for minifig-scale at this size. Not a very large BWE model, but a very possible one dimension-wise.

As depicted it already has almost 8000 parts, so a final estimate would be around 10-12.000 probably.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Gabi_BC

[Imanol BB]

I think that the counterweight arm, with a hollow counterweight is enough to get a good balance, with such amount of pieces i doubt you will have any balance problem.

[Alegomind]

A W E S O M E

[gvo25]

Hello All,

So after a lot of try and error, I managed to mod my b-model of 42055 to achieve a 100% correct separation and achieved that all of the small bricks end up on the conveyor belt and not under the machine. Also the small bricks do not get stuck on the slide. Here are some pictures:

First I Installed the grey spring closer to the rotation point of the slide. This makes that the blocks 'jump' onto their respective conveyor belts

Next I lengthened the sieve by 6 studs. This increases the pathway of the small bricks, so all the small bricks have the time to go through the sieve and won't end up on the wrong conveyor belt or below the machine.

By lengthening the sieve I had to put the hopper more to the back of the machine, inclusive the small black conveyor belt

It took quite a lot of modifications, but like this I could obtain a perfect filtering machine

[mario64]

and yes.... I second the LDD request..... and I would not be surprised if someone weren't working on that right now.....  I want to emphasize that and beautiful

 

Edited September 26, 2016 by Phred
Removed quote.

[Capn Frank]

1 hour ago, mario64 said:

and yes.... I second the LDD request..... and I would not be surprised if someone weren't working on that right now.....  I want to emphasize that and beautiful

 

You don't have to quote an entire, VERY LARGE post for a one line comment.  Thanks.

[mario64]

On September 4, 2016 at 3:28 PM, Gabi_BC said:

it already has almost 8000 parts,

Are you going to make instructions or LXF for This machine ?? cordially

Edited October 2, 2016 by Blakbird
Removed quote.

[Gabi_BC]

1 hour ago, mario64 said:

Are you going to make instructions or LXF for This machine ?? cordially

I don't know how exactly to make competent instructions but i will make the LXF file public for everyone so that i can get feedback, suggestions and improvements. So yeah probably there will be instructions at some point. Instructions or not, i split everything into manageable groups so you could probably use the LXF file to build the model. For now the project is in stand-by because of job related projects, i hope i can get back on it soon. 

[efferman]

are the bucketwheel boom  and the dumptrack not to short?

Edited October 1, 2016 by efferman

[tismabrick]

As stated above the bucket wheel arm will be modified.

@Gabi: This beast looks awesome so far. Keep up the geat work. Also like your renderings.

@mario64: please do not quote the whole post with all the images, thanks.

[Gabi_BC]

8 hours ago, efferman said:

are the bucketwheel boom  and the dumptrack not to short?

The bucket wheel arm is already half modified, still some work to do on it, and the discharge conveyor will be longer and i'm thinking of making it in 2 segments ,one on top of the other, the lower one able to slide back and forth. It will be supported by a tracked discharge car. 

Some more renders that i made a couple of weeks ago

 

 

 

And the new cab

 

 

[Imanol BB]

Gabi, that BWE is looking amazing, the workers that stand in the side make it look very realistic, i am very impressed with the amount of details that you have been putting on it, i hope that it could be built in a near future in real life by someone (or maybe, if i am lucky and i get all the necessary i will build it), and it would be one of the most impressive buildings for a lot of people.

[Gabi_BC]

Thank you! I will try and gather a sufficient budget next year to order the parts off bricklink. We'll see how that works. 

[Blakbird]

On September 30, 2016 at 1:37 PM, mario64 said:

Are you going to make instructions or LXF for This machine ?? cordially

This is the second giant quote you have posted just to ask for an LXF file.  Please don't do it again.

[mario64]

On 30/09/2016 at 10:37 PM, mario64 said:

Are you going to make instructions or LXF for This machine ?? cordially

Hello, I begin to put the coins to rate in order to build the machine cordially

[gvo25]

@Gabi_BC

Doesn't the bucket wheel arm look a little bit too 'thin', compared to the thickness of the counter balance arm? It seems to me that it's a bit disproportionate. For the rest, great work, keep up the good work. The tracks and the counter balance arm really look stunning.

[Gabi_BC]

It still doesn't have the conveyor belt added, that's why it looks thin. Also it will be suspended with wire, so the cantilevered part of it will not be larger than in the standard 42055. 

[gvo25]

21 hours ago, Gabi_BC said:

It still doesn't have the conveyor belt added, that's why it looks thin. Also it will be suspended with wire, so the cantilevered part of it will not be larger than in the standard 42055. 

Yes, you're right I oversaw that part, anyway keep up the good work, i really do hope to see that beast made for real

[gvo25]

hello all,

So the last photo (for now) of my ultimate 42055 B-model

[Imanol BB]

That looks amazing Gvo, is amazing how a little bunch of lights can add a lot of realism to a model, nice work on it.

[Brickgate]

Hi all,

First I would like to respect the cool constructors.
 

I have a few questions:

What software do you use to create the models?
How you made the super Rederings?
If lxf files of the models are available, is there a way to build the model in the software step by step?
Or other asked, how can the model build over an lxf or ldd?

Please help me,

 

 

[Imanol BB]

Hi Brickgate, welcome to Eurobricks, first of all thank you for your kind words, the building software that most of the people use to create this models in digital is called "Lego Digital Designer" or just LDD, it is designed by Lego and it gives the possibility to the users to create digital models, here is the official page: http://ldd.lego.com/es-ar/, there are several other softwares out there, like SR3D or MLCAD, but i recommend using LDD first, because it is one of the most simple to use and with an easy interface but you still can get nice results, about the rendering software, i use Bluerender: 

It is a very simple but still helpful software to render our models fast, if you have any question about how to install it, feel free to ask us for help; there are also others software such as Lego POV-Ray, but this one need a better understanding of HD renderings.

About the step-by-step instructions, i really don´t have many information, i think i saw some softwares in some topics, i think there is one in the Bluerender topic, what i do with the lack of these instructions softwares is to build the model piece by piece, is a bit slow, but i am still able to built my models.

Good luck with the softwares, i hope this information is helpful for you, if you have any other question or problem with digital softwares, you can also browse here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/forum/128-lego-digital-designer-and-other-digital-tools/ for the appropriate topic to get all the information you need.

 

Edited October 6, 2016 by ImanolBB

[gvo25]

Hello All,

I thought I finished my mod of the 42055 B-model but here's another small modification. I changed the way how the shaking works, instead of TLC's passive and slow shaking, I introduced 'functionaltechnic's way of active shaking. Because it was a quick mod i added an extra m-motor. I must say I like this way of shaking. The big blocks find their way a lot better to the conveyor belt.

Here are the pics

[Imanol BB]

That´s pretty good, very clever solution, and it is very compact too, i like it.

[DTom]

On 01/10/2016 at 4:29 PM, Gabi_BC said:

The bucket wheel arm is already half modified, still some work to do on it, and the discharge conveyor will be longer and i'm thinking of making it in 2 segments ,one on top of the other, the lower one able to slide back and forth. It will be supported by a tracked discharge car. 

Some more renders that i made a couple of weeks ago

Hi Gabi_BC,

Any update on this awesome project ??? Looking forward to it !