This is great, and soon pneumatic brakes? I really need to get into my CAD programs this summer

You and me are definitely on the same page! These would surly need to be injection moulded. I think the hub could probably do with some tweaks. I can see the ball joints popping out (and the wheel falling off) because of the direction load is placed on them. But I love the direction you are going. Look forward to seeing more. I can also see it being used in a helicopter swash plate.

Edited January 18, 201411 yr by allanp

Sign me up for 4 sets of these!

I would love to see a (third party) selection of different rims to choose from! Yours would look great in chrome or black.

Third party? Nah, only Lego has the right standard at the right price!

Third party? Nah, only Lego has the right standard at the right price!

Obviously I would prefer Lego rims as well

The rim design is not that important. We just designed the spokes to have the widest possible application range (from muscle cars to modern cars) and because we needed to see how much room would be in the rim for brake calipers and stuff.

I'd be happy with one universal rim of this size that has the same inset as this one. The dimensions and proportions are taken from an audi a7 4a rim, though we didn't want to incorporate its design elements to not make the rim instantly dated (something that the 8448 rims got horribly wrong).

I already thought of improovements to the hub design (minor stuff of course).

The ball joints popping out shouldn't be a too big of an issue and easily solvable. I see no reason to use small ball joints if we can use those wonderfull underused bionicle parts. Big cars, big balljoints. This hub also opens the oportunity for new formula 1 and racing car designs, since it fits inside the silver champion wheel. :P

If there was a ball joint integrated in the hub, it would extremly limit its use. Something that even lego understood with the new small hubs from the 42000.

Also, as mentioned before, this hub is also usefull for helicopters.

I would also like to make some sensible hole arangement on the brake disc, so that it would also be used in various applications, not just as disc brakes.

Edited January 19, 201411 yr by nicjasno

I like your design so far, but if you want to use this hub as a helicopter swash plate, I think there are some extra aspect to take into account to maximize the versatility.

Firstly I think the central axle should be able to pass through the hub, even if if the hub is tilted in relation to this axle.

Secondly, when using this assembly as a swash plate, Iccan't think of a way to connect the upper part of the rotor to the three pins without the use of an extra custom part. For use in helicopters, ideally, the upper part should be very similar to the lower part (the light grey part you designed).

Take a look at this

, which shows the connections needed in the top part of a rotor with cyclic and collective pitch control.

If you can solve these challenges, you can sign me up for an order.

Edited January 19, 201411 yr by Cumulonimbus

I like your design so far, but if you want to use this hub as a helicopter swash plate, I think there are some extra aspect to take into account to maximize the versatility.

Firstly I think the central axle should be able to pass through the hub, even if if the hub is tilted in relation to this axle.

Secondly, when using this assembly as a swash plate, Iccan't think of a way to connect the upper part of the rotor to the three pins without the use of an extra custom part. For use in helicopters, ideally, the upper part should be very similar to the lower part (the light grey part you designed).

Take a look at this

, which shows the connections needed in the top part of a rotor with cyclic and collective pitch control.

If you can solve these challenges, you can sign me up for an order.

The axle can pass freely throgh the hub. :)

Also, the brake disc is the ideal mounting point for helicopter blades, don't you think? :)

Nice, I thought the movement of the hub would be restricted when an axle passed through it, but nice to hear that this is not the case. The brake disk would be a good mounting point indeed, but how is it fixed? Based of your images, I get the feeling they are only fixed when a rim is connected and even then there might be some play between the disk and the hub? Anyway, seem you know what you are doing, so I'll follow the progress. Keep up the good work.

The disk is indeed fixated by the rim, a tight fit and it can also be pinned to the rim. Substitute the rim for 2 pulley wheels and it is perfectly fixed.

Now if only there was also an offroad tyre for this rim That deep rim with the combination of the portal hub would allow for much better and realistic 4x4's.

Absolutely.

Thank you for designing this, nicjasno! Looks like a lot of work went into the design, and the use of the 8880 hubs is awesome. But I think you'll have a problem of the ball-joints popping out.

TLH

They wouldn't pop out as easily as you think.

But if that were true, wouldn't they not pop in as easily as you think? Remember, LEGO's main target audience is kids.

TLH

Think of the bionicle ball joints. And keep in mind that i have a setup like this on the mustang :

Edited January 19, 201411 yr by nicjasno
Please don't use oversized images. See forum rules

From my recollection, those bionicle ball joints are tight and thus, not suitable for a steered tire ...

We all know Lego won't make this, but if you do, I would buy a set.

It also looks like I should get myself some Bionicle ball joints and try again with my IRS crawler.

v/r

Andy

True, they did need some sanding down in my case. But this is not going to be a problem with the hub, because the part streches enough to allow for smoother movement.

While this looks absolutely fantastic, I would say the chances of Lego doing something along these lines is Zero percent.

Beautiful!

As for the ball joints, my experience (outlined here) is that the ball joints will not pop out very easily and certainly will not have friction. While they have friction in the sockets that are designed for them, they don't have friction when sandwiched between two pin holes 1L apart. That said, I would change the outer axle hole to a pin hole and get rid of the countersink - it's not needed for smooth and secure ball joint operation, and it would weaken the hub and make the ball joints slightly less secure than if they were simply sandwiched between pin holes.

If those outer axle holes were pin holes, the wheel hubs become useless. The whole point is that there is an axle hole precisely there.

This way you can mount connectors needed for multilink setups, macpherson struts, elevated wishbone mounts and so on... And if you wish it to function as a pinhole, you put a bar through it.

True, they did need some sanding down in my case. But this is not going to be a problem with the hub, because the part streches enough to allow for smoother movement.

On a heavy car, it won't even really be noticeable. In real life, it sometimes takes a hammer to move a ball joint in a car.

But i have designed it with compatibility in mind. It can be mounted silver champion rims, to 42000 rims but not the unimog rims, because they're just too damn small.

I'm pretty sure that 42000 uses the same rims as the unimog.

I have now thought long and hard about the hub and there will be some modifications to its design necessary. It'll have to be 5 studs high, and the stator needs to be only 1 stud thick.

We'll also model some possible applications of the hub, so that we can better debate this on examples. I'll definetly need some input from you guys on how to design this further. Expect more renderings this weekend.