I spent the last weeks on optimizing the climbing cage in order to reduce weight and to make it look more realistic. In the end the cage lost 300 grams of weight and it was able to lift the whole crane with its full 240cm jib. The weight the cage has to lift in this configuration is 6240 grams (6760 grams with an additional tower section hanging on the trolley in front of the cage).

The whole crane lost a lot of weight during its optimization this year. In the biggest configuration with 240cm jib the upper part, which has to be lifted by the cage, weights only 40 grams more than the crane with 150cm jib befor the optimization this year. Only because of this loss of weight it is even possible to lift the upper part with the full jib.

Here is a rendering of the old cage:

And here are some pictures of the new cage and its first climbing steps with the full 240cm jib:

 

Some pictures of the model exibition Ried (Austria) in october:

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing your process in perfectioning this amazing crane.

Both your cranes are amazing.

Thanks!

Here is the new counter jib:

 

comparison between the old and new one:

The new counter jib is nice stable and only the end with all the counter weights bends a little. But that was expected and it is acceptable.

The hoist winch has a nice speed which is similar to the old winch. In general it seems to have less hoist power than the old one, but the crane still has its full lifting capacity.

Next I will ad some more details and do minor modifications to the counter jib, but it is mostly finished and I am happy with the result - in its look and function. What do you think of it?

Well, I do think it looks great.

During the last months I did some more optimizations to the model. It got a new, smaller trolley und the jib lost a little weight again. By adding a new jib head, the maximum jib length increased to 253 cm. The total length of the crane in this configuration is 353 cm.

The crane is controlled by an S-Brick by using a smartphone or game pad. But in my opinion both of them do not offer a smooth and sensitive control for the crane functions.

For a long time I also had the wish to control the crane in a more realistic way. So in the end of 2019 I started to work to make this wish come true.

But what does this mean? Well...real tower cranes are controlled by a crane driver in the cabin - or by using a remote control.

So the next logical step was to buy a remote control for real tower cranes and to make it control an SBrick :D

These transmitters are not cheap, new ones cost a few thousand euros, used ones often cost many hundred euros and they are commonly sold as a package consisting of the radio control, the receiver, battery, charger and adaption cables to connect the receiver to the crane. I got one of those sets in a good shape for a good price. It contains a HBC Radiomatic FST 740 readio control which I used to realize this project.

Fortunately I have a workmate who has good skills in electrical engeneering and programming. He built and programmed a micro controller which takes the inputs of the joysticks and buttons and sends them to the smart phone via bluetooth and the phone sends them to the SBrick. This gives me the possibility to use the radio control to operate any SBrick-controlled Lego model. And because the smart phone is still used, I can change all parameters whithout changing the programming of the micro controller.

The next step was to upgrade the radio control. It had 2 joysticks, the left one with 2 axes and the right one with only one axis. Also they can only switch between on and off.

I bought new joysticks with potentiometers for a proportional steering of 4 functions in total. Then I used a CAD program to develop the connection between the joysticks and the housing of the radio control, as well as the connection between the sticks of the joysticks and the existing sticks of the remote control.

These adaptions are built out of 3d-printed parts, threaded rods, nuts and lathed thread adapter parts. The great advantage of this adaption is that the outside look of the radio control did not change through the modifications and I did not even have to do a new drilling into the housing.

The original joysticks:

The new joysticks:

The remote control offers 4 proportional functions on the joysticks and 7 buttons, so 11 channels in total. For the power supply I used the original HBC rechargable battery which can be inserted in the bottom of the radio contol.

Here is the finished remote control, I added a HBC hip belt for more wear comfort during operation:

And I also designed a Lego version of the system in the LDD :D

For the final test I assembled the 250 EC-B outdoors with a heigth of 290 cm and a total lenght of 353 cm.

And here is a video of the crane during operation:

[media]

 

In conclusion I can say that the crane can be controlled much more smooth and sensitive than ever before. And in fact it is also much more fun using the radio control :D

I hope you like the news. Feel free to leave a comment.

Now the small remote control has been build and the receiver is mounted at its place:

 

I designed a new basement for the crane as an alternative for the existing undercarriage:

alternative feet:

comparison to the existing undercarriage:

Awesome work

Don’t know how I missed this thread until now, but this is amazing work! I’ve never seen a climbing frame in Lego form before - it’s always been on my list of future Technic projects. Fantastic job! 
 

On 10/5/2019 at 6:32 PM, PistenBully 600 said:

Trolley in switching position (red flaps are pushed apart to indicate that the switching process is working properly and to indicate the end of the switching process - just like the real crane's mechanism:

This is an amazing function that I didn’t know existed until now. You’ve represented it perfectly!  When I do get around to trying my own version of a climbing frame crane (which will be at a much smaller scale), I may have to borrow some of your ideas for this mechanism.

Edited July 17, 20204 yr by Pattspatt

16 hours ago, Pattspatt said:

Don’t know how I missed this thread until now, but this is amazing work! I’ve never seen a climbing frame in Lego form before - it’s always been on my list of future Technic projects. Fantastic job! 
 

This is an amazing function that I didn’t know existed until now. You’ve represented it perfectly!  When I do get around to trying my own version of a climbing frame crane (which will be at a much smaller scale), I may have to borrow some of your ideas for this mechanism.

It's so amazing, especially when you're standing on the exhibition action area talking with somebody and the boom turns over you...

<silence>

@Pattspatt Thanks!

A few weeks ago I combined parts of both cranes to create an EC-B of the old generation with the cabin inside the tower. This 180 EC-B is erected with 200cm of jib, which seems to be the maximum jib length for this crane:

And here is a new tool for my cranes, an automatically opening and closing single rope clamshell grab. It has a good size and reasonable weight for the operation with my tower cranes. Because of its mecanical structure it has a high closing force and fills itself to nearly 100% almost every time. It can grab a wide varity of Lego parts, also tiles and parts which are too large to fit into the closed bucket.

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 20204 yr by PistenBully 600

Could you explain the mechanism of the grab. Is it pure Lego?

It's hards to tell from pictures, is the jib curved upwards to counter deflection?

And what crane is the red one with luffing jib? A Grove maybe, I've only seen the zig zag like that from them.

On 7/31/2020 at 10:10 AM, PistenBully 600 said:

 

Edited August 1, 20204 yr by Metagross555

On 7/31/2020 at 10:30 AM, PistenBully 600 said:

And here is a new tool for my cranes, an automatically opening and closing single rope clamshell grab.

Another fantastic crane accessory! Is this inspired by a real-life clamshell? I’m curious how similar the mechanisms are.

 

On 7/31/2020 at 1:31 PM, Andman said:

Could you explain the mechanism of the grab.

I’m not completely sure, but it looks like the 1x1 cheese wedge connected to the “tackle block” catches on the liftarm that controls opening and closing. Not sure how it disconnects from the liftarm, though.

On 8/2/2020 at 1:16 AM, Metagross555 said:

It's hards to tell from pictures, is the jib curved upwards to counter deflection?

Well yes and no, the curving is quite intense, it has not been this strong at the 250 EC-B before, I think. The problem is the upper profile of the intermediate jib section which reduces the heigth of the jib. Beause of its angle it is a little too short (just 1-2 milimeters). This pulls the following jib upwards. But this is quite hard to adjust with Lego parts - at least without rebuilding the whole jib.

 

On 8/2/2020 at 1:16 AM, Metagross555 said:

And what crane is the red one with luffing jib? A Grove maybe, I've only seen the zig zag like that from them.

Yes its a Grove, to be exact a Grove GMK 7450/7550 in 1:50 scale produced by NZG.

 

On 8/4/2020 at 5:25 PM, Pattspatt said:

Another fantastic crane accessory! Is this inspired by a real-life clamshell? I’m curious how similar the mechanisms are.

Thanks! Yes it is inspired by real clamshell buckets, especially by older ones which are mostly operated by tower cranes. Here you can see one, it has the same rope arrangement to increase the closing force:

Unfortunately I am not sure how the mechanism on this bucket works. But there are several different mechanisms. On my bucket I developed my own mechanism by try and error and it works pretty well.

 

On 8/4/2020 at 5:25 PM, Pattspatt said:

On 7/31/2020 at 10:31 PM, Andman said:

Could you explain the mechanism of the grab.

I’m not completely sure, but it looks like the 1x1 cheese wedge connected to the “tackle block” catches on the liftarm that controls opening and closing. Not sure how it disconnects from the liftarm, though.

Exact, the 1x1 cheese wedge at the 3 long crossaxle with stud is the secret. When the open bucket is put onto the ground, the "tackle block" gets lowered even more, untill the axle is pushed inwards by the lever with the 1x2 wedge outside the bucket (on the right on the pictures below) Because of this, the 1x1 cheese wedge hooks in below the upper half pin in the central, vertical 15 long liftarm and by this the grab gets closed. When the closed bucket gehts lowered and put onto the ground, the "tackle block" also gets lowered a few millimeters more, untill the cheese wedge gets pushed onto the lower half pin in the central 15 long liftarm. because of the angle of the wedge, it pushes itself outside along the 3 long axle to get beneath the half pin. When you put tension on the rope at this state, the "tackle block" can be lifted again without grabing the upper half pin and the bucket opens.

To optimize this processes, there is a small Lego train weight at the "tackle block".

I hope you can understand what I mean. Also see the pictures below, they explain the function quite well.

Here are two pictures which show the mechanical functions:

The next development is a rail mounting for the cranes. It consists of the existing 8 x 8 meter undercarriage in combination with 4 bogies, two of them driven. The tracks are build like the crane tracks by Kreicom: https://kreicom-english.weebly.com/

Liebherr tower cranes often use this tracks. They have two lengths of tracks: 6 meters and 12 meters. I built both of them with lengths of 33 and 68 cm. A 90° turn is also in the works.

In the following pictures the tower has a height of 220 cm and the track lenght is about 204 cm. All in all the LDD-file consists of around 6800 bricks, one meter of track consists of nearly 2000 bricks.

I am curious if the bogies are strong enough to support the weight of the crane and move it.

I have a feeling the m motors are gonna go kaput trying to move this behemoth model

@Metagross555 well, I had the same feeling, so I used l-motors instead. Maybe I will try m-motors later, just to see if they would also work.

With both motors powering the two bogies on one track, the undercarriage alone drives very nice. Also when it is loaded with a box containing 8,5 kilograms of Lego, which results in a total weight of 10,3 kilograms, it drives well. So the next step was to assamble the liebherr 250 EC-B with 136 cm height and 200 cm jib lengh. It drives very smooth and there is no sign of a dangerous situation during turning the crane or start/ stop driving at full speed. Also the speed is nice. The "Kreicom" crane tracks I showed on the renderings above will come later some time, because they are quite expensive to buy. But they will definitely come.

Here is a video of the crane doing its first steps:

 

In the meantime the 2 meters of driving tracks have been built and the crane can drive well on them. I also built a grab so that the crane can lift the rails and assemble them by himself. Here are some impressions:

Also the crane features a signal horn with the original sound of a Liebherr tower crane:

 

The latest feature is the Liebherr LiUP crane operator's elevator:

I designed the cabin and rails in LDD and developed the mechanics with real bricks to ensure everything works well. I bulilt a few prototyps of driving units. The first ones should consist of a battery box, motor and switch. The switch should change the driving direction by hitting a brick on the tower when reaching the top and bottom end position which switched the motor to drive in the other direction. The first tries went well, but when adding more weight to the driving unit, as the later cabin would, the switching at the upper endpoint went unreliable. Anyway here is a video of that mechanism:

To have a better control of the switching point and to add stops at the switching positions, I changed the driving system and used the new Powered Up parts. So I bought some of them and last week the parts for the rails and the cabin arrived.

The tower sections became smaller platforms. So like at the real crane, the operator can still use the ladders to get up to the cab.

Here are the tracks for the tower sections:

The power supply section in the bottom tower section. The real LiUP is also battery powered and can be loaded here.

The cab:

 

The next step is to programm the Lift using Pybricks. I hope that works, because I have never used it before. This is my first MOC using Powered Up so far.

The goal is that the LiUP drives up the tower, stops, opens the door, waits a few seconds, closes the door, drives downwards, stops, opens the door again etc. So that the lift goes up and down again and again automatically.

After many modifications of the lift and door drivetrains the LiUP finally works well. The Powered UP Hub is programmed via Pybricks and detects both stop positions at the top and bottom of the tower by mechanical end stops. Now just a few printed labels are missing.

 

 

Edited July 13, 20222 yr by PistenBully 600

Very cool.  Indeed, works very smoothly.  Thanks for sharing.