Santa needs help

[Luvalot]

Hello

My 11 year old son went to Lego camp and did one of these GBC contraptions with a large blue crane. He has asked for a GBC kit from Santa. But Santa has no idea what she needs. Lol.   

The best prices (I think) are at our Costco (Costco.ca).  They have Lego Technics 42055, 42054 and 42039 (Santa only buys so much)

Of course there is more selection at Toysrus but not as much bang for the buck. 

 I don't know if all the kits do the GBC thing or only certain ones...and where do I get instructions?  They have to be simple enough for him to follow  his brickworks camp leader had a 3D computer program they could follow.

I'm guessing I would also need more motors and balls?  I don't know where to get those here either.

Any help would be great...goodness knows I'm going to need it...thanks!

[rasikaa]

Hi Luvalot

Great to see young kids getting on to GBCs. There are no official LEGO GBC kits as far as I know and there are several people who convert official LEGO sets into GBC modules. There are several threads in here dedicated for GBC discussions and you might find better results by posting in there. However, here are some links that might help you with your quest.

http://greatballcontraption.com/ Site which has details about the GBC standard and other stuff.

http://www.planet-gbc.com/ Has a very good collection of GBC module details and a good number of them with instructions. It has tags on the side of the blog posts which allow you to easily find the instructions. The instructions are also rated for ease of build which will help you pick.

http://www.bricklink.com/v2/main.page is a good site where you can buy selected parts. It is a secondary market place for LEGO.

Hope this helps and Santa would be good to your kid.

Best regards

Rasika

[dr_spock]

42055 from Costco can make a good GBC starter. It can be turned into a GBC or provide parts to make other GBCs.  It doesn't come with 14mm sized balls though. 

 

 

[technic_addict]

May be worth checking out this thread as well.

 

 

[Luvalot]

Hmmmm...the 42042 was what he worked on at his camp. He really enjoyed it. Can you only make one thing from it?  Or do different "modules" mean different set ups, but all with the same kit?

What do people mean when they are talking about b, c, d etc?

Should I also be buying motors?

After reading I think I am stuck between 42042 and 42054, only because the PV site sells instructions. 

Thanks for all your help. Even after reading I am still a bit confused. Definitely not my forte but I know he will love it!

[technic_addict]

44 minutes ago, Luvalot said:

Hmmmm...the 42042 was what he worked on at his camp. He really enjoyed it. Can you only make one thing from it?  Or do different "modules" mean different set ups, but all with the same kit?

What do people mean when they are talking about b, c, d etc?

Should I also be buying motors?

After reading I think I am stuck between 42042 and 42054, only because the PV site sells instructions. 

Thanks for all your help. Even after reading I am still a bit confused. Definitely not my forte but I know he will love it!

None of these sets are specifically made for GBC so without instructions he can make anything he can dream up.  I have zero experience with GBC but I would assume a set with the most large pieces with beams and flat panels would be best?

Set A is primary Lego designed set.  Set B is secondary Lego designed set.  Any letter after that is a MOC someone made only using the set pieces.

[Andy D]

15 hours ago, Luvalot said:

Hmmmm...the 42042 was what he worked on at his camp. He really enjoyed it. Can you only make one thing from it?  Or do different "modules" mean different set ups, but all with the same kit?

What do people mean when they are talking about b, c, d etc?

Should I also be buying motors?

After reading I think I am stuck between 42042 and 42054, only because the PV site sells instructions. 

Thanks for all your help. Even after reading I am still a bit confused. Definitely not my forte but I know he will love it!

The GBC models made from the 42042 and 42054 from PV look really good to me. I just bought another 42054 in anticipation of getting the instructions for PV's GBC instructions. PV has a combo deal in the $30 price range that looks real good and includes GBC modules for both the 42042 and the 42054.

Merry Christmas,

Andy D

Edited December 9, 2016 by Andy D

[Samer]

1 hour ago, Andy D said:

The GBC models made from the 42042 and 42054 from PV look really good to me. I just bought another 42054 in anticipation of getting the instructions for PV's GBC instructions. PV has a combo deal in the $30 price range that looks real good and includes GBC modules for both the 42042 and the 42054.

Merry Christmas,

Andy D

I'm struggling a lot with PV 42042 GBC. I have to contact them now for help after consuming a lot of time trying to get the build to work.

[doug72]

I have just contacted PV productions as the original download did not include the PDF instructions.

Had a very quick reply and the HD PDF instructions were e-mailed to me and now downloaded.

These are much easier to follow than the LDD files and include instructions how to set up the timing of various levers and axles etc.

[dr_spock]

17 hours ago, Luvalot said:

Should I also be buying motors?

After reading I think I am stuck between 42042 and 42054, only because the PV site sells instructions. 

Thanks for all your help. Even after reading I am still a bit confused. Definitely not my forte but I know he will love it!

That depends if he only want to follow instructions for GBC, then buy only the parts needed to build as per the instructions. 

If he wants to experiment and make his own GBC modules, then certainly buy motors and sets with lots of gears, threads and parts useful for making balls move around. You can order Power Function motors from shop.lego.com.  He may need some speed control using the discontinued 9V train speed controller which can be found on Bricklink.  Alternatively, the Power Functions Infrared Receiver and PF train speed controller can also be used to regulate speed.  More challenging fun would be to use the correct combination of gears to get to the speed and torque required for his GBC design to operate.

 

[allanp]

22 hours ago, Luvalot said:

Hmmmm...the 42042 was what he worked on at his camp. He really enjoyed it. Can you only make one thing from it?  Or do different "modules" mean different set ups, but all with the same kit?

What do people mean when they are talking about b, c, d etc?

Should I also be buying motors?

After reading I think I am stuck between 42042 and 42054, only because the PV site sells instructions. 

Thanks for all your help. Even after reading I am still a bit confused. Definitely not my forte but I know he will love it!

In this context the word module is being used to describe the different functional aspects of one model. From the looks of it the entire GBC10 model can be built from one 42042 set. Instructions for building the GBC10 model from one 42042 set can be found here:

http://pv-productions.com/product/lego-gbc-10-5-modules-3d-building-instructions/

If you scroll down the page you will also see instructions for the GBC11 model which can be entirely built from the parts which come with one set 42054.

By b, c, and d, they are talking about b, c and d models. Basically, the model on the front of the box is the main model, or A model. B, C and D models are other models that can be built from the same pieces. In the case of 42042, it has an A model (the crane on the front of the box) and Lego provide instructions for a B model (a different crane pictured on the back of the box). So in this case, any other models designed by the fan community using the same parts (as is the case with the GBC model) would be classed as a C, D, E or whatever model depending how many models have already been created.

The 42042 and 42054 sets already comes with a motor, so you do not need to buy an additional motor(s) to build the GBC10 or GBC11 models.

I really hope this helps. The Lego fan community is HUUUUUGE and we can appear to have our own language at times (and even emoji's! ) so I can appreciate it can be a tad overwhelming. But we also love to help so if you have any further questions please do ask 

 

Edited December 10, 2016 by allanp