[TC25] 8479 Barcode Truck

[Berthil]

40% shrinkage of the 8479 Barcode Truck. Obviously without the electronics and also without the Flex Cables.

The idea is to 'program' the truck by road plates. The road plates will have Technic Gear Racks and the truck will have gears catching the gear racks when driving over them. The gears catching (rendered red in the image) will result in movement of the front arm and tipper as in the original model. It will also have HOG steering. I will try to stick to the original green but don't know yet if there will be enough Technic green parts for that. Obviously there is still a lot of work to do but already got the dimensions and steering that I'm happy with.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Berthil
broken image link fix

[Jundis]

Oh this idea is soooo cool! Hopefully this technic will work :-)

[howitzer]

Your ambition is commendable. I hope this works out, I want to see it in action.

[2GodBDGlory]

Very creative idea! I'm looking forward to seeing it play out

[Jurss]

This is really interesting. Little bit of luck! Skills You have.

[allanp]

Intriguing, this is gonna be good 

[aeh5040]

Interesting! I imagine alignment with the racks will be tricky. Perhaps it needs some sort of horizontal guides.

[Berthil]

4 minutes ago, aeh5040 said:

Perhaps it needs some sort of horizontal guides.

Perhaps. The chassis with tires is 14L wide. If it needs guides. I'll put some panels on the side of the 16L road for guidance if needed but for now I have just put white lines there. So I hope it is just a matter of keeping it between the lines :) .

Meanwhile I'm preparing the gearing for the 4 functions so there will be 4 gear rack strips. I hope to show something physical soon but at home remodeling of the kitchen starts this weekend.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Berthil

[aeh5040]

So 4 functions meaning 2 directions for each of the claw and the dumper? Or do you have more functions in mind?

I'm also curious how will picking up an item will work while driving along. Will it just push the item along for a bit until the claw starts to lift?

Edited June 29, 2023 by aeh5040

[Berthil]

On 6/29/2023 at 6:24 PM, aeh5040 said:

So 4 functions meaning 2 directions for each of the claw and the dumper? Or do you have more functions in mind?

I'm also curious how will picking up an item will work while driving along. Will it just push the item along for a bit until the claw starts to lift?

4 functions intended indeed by having the two functions in two directions but I already reduced the tipper to one function because the tipper is emptied driving backwards and lowered again by driving forward. So there will be three gear rack strips in different positions in the required length to complete the movements.

I intend to integrate the claw and dumper as one movement, when the claw grabs the tire it cannot grab more and the lift is initiated. This basically the same movement as in this GBC when emptying a bucket, this is one movement but I have to make it much smaller . If all fails there will be no geared grabber but one with a rubber band to clamp the wheel. 

 

The steering hand on the HoG steering is probably in the way when pushing forward and dumping the tire, not sure how to solve that other than to grab the truck somewhere else and push forward. The original Barcode Truck was also not flawless in this respect because it had only 1 motor and a selector to switch between dumper and tipper and the motor had to be moved for drive. So I feel my version also does not need to be perfect to match the original . All can be read in this excellent review of 8479.

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Berthil
typos

[Berthil]

Lots of great entries in the TC25! I'm here now, finished the chassis with all the gears for the tire dumper and tipper for three gear racks on the road for 'coding'.

I've build sections to test but now it's time to fully build the chassis. Also ordered some rare green parts. The seats are somewhat big for the scale but I actually like them this way and they also give room to the tire dumper. The steering wheel turns together with the HoG like in the original model but positioning is more realistic (room for legs). If all mechanics work I continue with the tire dumper arm and cabin. The tipper has the same mechanism as the original but smaller. If that runs too heavy I might revert to an actuator.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Berthil

[Berthil]

The chassis with functions is ready and sturdy, the drive for the tire dumper (two directions) and tipper is in and working well. Now onto making the tire dumper functional without the flex cables. Thinking about using strings through 3mm rigid hose, should be possible. Within the contest 3rd party strings and hoses are permitted but I want to keep it 100% LEGO although they probably will need some cutting.

 

Edited July 8, 2023 by Berthil
String remark added

[Frequenzberater]

As always, you choosed a very ambitious project. I like where this is going so far,considering hat I am a fanboy of gears 

[Berthil]

Amazing how bad the availability of (studless) green Technic is. I knew it was bad but not this bad, especially small/thin beams. Busy with the cabin and trying to avoid System parts.

[Berthil]

Here's where I am now, cabin and tire dumper done, fake Code Pilot in. Green hose on the sides will bend in, Stud.io won't let me do that correctly. Waiting for the rare green parts to arrive. Next is designing the tipper, should be the easiest part.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Berthil
typos

[Berthil]

Tipper done and made a Stud.io render with the 8479 Barcode Truck as I do not have the original model. I really like the novelty (at the time) of the Code Pilot with cable flex system and could buy the original, but I actually do not want so many light gray parts in my brick collection.

I'm planning on making free instructions and/or share the Stud.io file via the contest entry topic.

Edited August 12, 2023 by Berthil

[Saruzeufel]

Fantastic conversion from studded to studless! Can't wait to see the mechanisms work on the finished truck. Really great idea to turn barcode into gear racks

[MangaNOID]

Looks awesome!

I really like how you kept all the gears colour pallet just like the era of the original. Nice small detail 😎 and yep look forward to see it doing it’s thing.

[Berthil]

Proof of concept via crappy iPhone movie. Need to develop more feel for it but the road is not finished, waiting for parts.

 

[evank]

Lego suggested this idea 43 years ago :) for a crane model, as explained in the "Idea Book" that year (#8888). I have a YouTube video about it, explaining how I used the same idea for a simple robot. 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by evank

[Berthil]

5 hours ago, evank said:

Lego suggested this idea 43 years ago :) for a crane model, as explained in the "Idea Book" that year (#8888). I have a YouTube video about it, explaining how I used the same idea for a simple robot.

Thanks for posting. I did not know this although I think I remember this book from my youth. The idea from the book are 'coding strips' rather than gear racks on the road but the principle is of course the same. The strips are probably easier to operate, also because they use a motor and in this model are no motors. So the movement of the model is used for the mechanical movement of tipper and tire dumper through the gears.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Berthil

[Berthil]

I'm in the final stage so created this size chart as final size of the model is fixed. Overall a 40% reduction so model is 60% of the original size.

[SaperPL]

The truck looks as its supposed to, but from that video I feel like you should change the gear ratio to reduce the resistance when pushing long the gear rack.

I'm also wondering how are you going to differentiate the type of action between front and rear? Will the tiles with gear rack have some kind centering mechanism for the track so you can have inputs at different location underneath the truck, or is it purely the direction in which you're going through them?

Anyway, after watching the review of the original model, I feel like staying true to the original model without RC and at this scale is a pretty hard task. 

[Berthil]

Thank you for your feedback!

17 minutes ago, SaperPL said:

The truck looks as its supposed to, but from that video I feel like you should change the gear ratio to reduce the resistance when pushing long the gear rack.

The road is not smooth yet (waiting for parts) and after this I moved the attachment point under the tipper forward for less momentum, two gear racks cover the entire motion and runs smoother already. I can change gearing but the road would get very long, I think it is okay now and no need to make the road longer.

17 minutes ago, SaperPL said:

I'm also wondering how are you going to differentiate the type of action between front and rear? Will the tiles with gear rack have some kind centering mechanism for the track so you can have inputs at different location underneath the truck, or is it purely the direction in which you're going through them?

I have three gears on the underside, they are visible on the size chart. The back one is for the tipper which is just driving backward and forward on the same gear racks as in the video. The front two front ones are for arm up and arm down to be able to move the arm up or down separately while driving forward in one motion. In hindsight this also might have been one gear like the tipper, drive over the same gear rack but opposite direction (turn model 180 degrees). All three gears have 1L offset so in the end there will be three gear racks with one stud in between to control the three movements with the three gears. I intend to make the control road for the arm mirrored so that it does matter in which direction the model moves over the gear racks.

There is no centering, the model is 14L wide and the road 16L, it's just a matter of keeping the model between the white dotted lines.

I hope I can make it clearer in the video if my writing isn't clear enough.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Berthil
typos

[Appie]

Looks spot on and love the creative way you made the barcode truck without electronics. Can't wait for the full video.