2045 Mercedes-Benz Antos

[Zerobricks]

So after a rather poor start I decided to totally reimagine and rebuild the Mercedes truck of the future.

It all started with a random idea of routing 4 functions through a turntable like this:

After fiddling around in LDD for few hours I came up with an 8 function gearbox powered by a single RC motor:

The functions shown are:

Orange - RC motor drive

Lime - Horizontal extending od outriggers

Yellow - Vertical extending of outriggerd

Violet - Slide and tip of the bed

White - Rotation of main arm superstructure

Light gray- Rotation of claws

Red - Lift of main arm

Warm gold - Movement of claws

Dark gray - Rotation of scondary arm

After this rather unusual design process it was time to think of the basic shape of the model. I was inspired by the 42038 arctic truck's layout, but I wanted to add my own twist to the formula...

Here's the result:

Here you can see the massive cran arm used to pick up various loads:

The truck uses four of the biggest Lego wheels in front and 4 tracks in the rear:

As you can see all tracks and wheels have fully functional spring (and additional pendular for the tracks) suspension. Also notice the massive bed tipping angle.

The truck also has a fake V8 piston engine driven by the tracks:

And a prestige sand-colored interrior:

Steering is done via HOG and the spare tyre behind the cab:

Here's the description of the concept idea:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This is my model for the future 2045 Mercedes-Benz competition.

I named it Antos and it has several features:

The engine is Euro 11 compliant 6-stroke aqua-diesel-electric hybrid. The additional 2 strokes inject water into the hot engine with expands as steam adding another work cycle. The engine also powers an electrical generator which is used to power the truck's front wheels.

Front wheels also act as a generator while braking, therebye returning the electrical power back to the batteries. Tracks are driven directly by the diesel engine.

For optimal performance the front is equiped with many air surfaces which reduce drag.

Because this is an offroad truck, the massive wheels and 4 tracks in the rear provide it with massive traction area, which reduces ground pressure and preserves ground vegetation.

The multi-functional arm and bed are driven by a single motor using a mechanical multiplexer mechanism.

The Lego modes uses solid axle suspension in front, suspension on all 4 rear tracks, a fake V8 piston engine driven by rear tracks

A powerfull RC motor powers the 8 functions. I managed to reute 4 functions through the turntable in order to fully motorize all arm functions. Total number of gears used for arm and bed (not including steering and fake engine gears)is over 130 making this one of my most complex switchboxes to date.

The front was slightly inspired by the Unimog 400's sloped cab, but with added wings and a lower bumper. The idea for the tracks and arm actually came from the 2014 Lego technic arctic vehicle.

The rear bumper is in a shape of a V in order to allow the bed to slide out and tilt.

Interrior is detailed with seats, steering wheel and handles in prestige sand color.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And as usual here's a short 3 minute video. (3 minutes is max time so you may pause some text)

I hope you guys like the truck, I personaly think its a very retro-futuristic beefed up advanced half-track concept and in that sense something different and original.

Edited October 4, 2015 by Zblj

[lcvisser]

That's massive!

Very impressive how you managed to get all those functions in the arm, although I bet the large size helped a bit here. How come the axles through the turntable don't get twisted when the arm rotates? I'm a bit confused

The 6 stroke engine is a nice touch, although I don't know if it could actually work like that

I think the color scheme can use some work though. It looks a bit messy to me. Also, I doubt that there will be a major market for such massive off-road trucks.

And you might want to spell-check the video a bit.

[Cumulonimbus]

Impressive truck, I like the complexity of the gearbox. The additional water-steam strokes is a nice idea worth exploring. It reminds me of two concepts for modifications of the combustion engine I heard about. In one concept the engine used the compression stroke of the four-stroke cycle to compress air into a buffer tank when the vehicle is slowing down. This compressed air was used to get the motor up to speed again from standstill, at the moment when a combustion engine is least efficient or has the lowest torque available.

The other idea used a slave cylinder which moved up and down on the crankshaft, but its only function was to compress the ingoing air-fuel mixture, similarly to a supercharger.

Can't find any sources at the moment though.

[Imanol BB]

Very nice truck, its good to see a big and futuristic off roader, and the functions are just amazing, its sad that there arent better pieces to create more than 2 or 3 functions through a turntable, but you managed to make the crane to rotate at least 90 degrees with 4 functions, the crane arm moves like those automatic robots, like if it has electric motors to move instead of linear actuators or hydraulic cylinders, and the tilting bed is a nice detail, very nice work.

[Rishab N]

That's huge. All the functions are impressive too

[MajklSpajkl]

This is a mechanical masterpiece, no doubt, especially the crane arm and the whole gearing under it. Although, this time you just might overdone it with the rest. The rear and front almost seem like two different units, the tracked part could be a trailer, and the top of the cab is too narrow for the whole truck. I hope you don't get my little critique to bad ;-) All in all, it is still unbelievable how fast you build such complex functional creations. Good luck in the competition.

[Scapuc]

Beautiful creation!

Many functions and an original design, I really like.

Congratulations!

[Kristof]

Masive. I have no clue how that 4 axle transmission through the turntable can work - I always thought you need to go directly through the pivot point :O

Anyway, I'm impressed by the complexity and functions. Regarding overal look, I thing there are better entries. This reminds me old russian army transporters. And the hull looks a bit undersized in comparison to the rest of the vehicle, especially that massive arm. Still this is technic masterpiece, no doubt. Good luck in the contest!

[filsawgood]

I like the design of the cockpit, but I think the combination of the two axes of the front wheels and rear tracks - all of science fiction, but it is a match for the competition :)

[Zerobricks]

Thanks for all the comments and critics guys. I had only a week to build and a limited supply of bricks legt (thanks to the TC8 crane). Maybe a smaller, better looking truck might be better, and maybe with less complex functions. None-the less this was a very good learning expereince for me, I learned a lot about making strong front axles, complex gearbox and arm mechanics and this is the first time I used tank-like suspension.

[Erik Leppen]

What surprises me most is that everything seems to work quite well. When I saw that render with all those gears the first thing I thought is, how is that going to work? I don't mean the four functions through the turntable problem, what I mean is the huge number of gears and all the friction that would bring. But apparently, miraculously everything works like a charm. That's quite a feat.

I'm not really fond of the styling though, and the whole chassis seems to bend a LOT (really). There looks to be really much open space inside (above the front wheels). Why not add some more bracing? Or even the use of studded pieces to add rigidity?

But that gearbox is a marvel of engineering, that's for sure.

Edited October 5, 2015 by Erik Leppen

[plethorabricks]

My first reaction seeing the LDD was "oh come on" but seeing it all work is very impressive! You've really learned from sets like 8258 with the outriggers and the transmission of power across/through a gearbox.

I like the use of the turntables as strong rotation joins - parts of the arm assembly remind me of the older Mindstorms RIS "grabber"-style projects, where it was not unusual to have gear trains down through the length of the grabber arm.

[2LegoOrNot2Lego...]

That crane is extremely well engineered!!! :thumbup: You always come up with these amazingly great ideas...keep it up!

[Rockbrick]

the crane is a work of art like a robotic arm....so many functions to play with......

the truck reminds me of lego technic from the 1990s...in a nice nostalgic sort of way

[bord4kop]

Great!

Excellent piece of work. Design is nice, coloring is somewhat .. well.. technically it is great however :P