[TC24] Galaxy exploder

[howitzer]

I wasn't sure at all about participating at first, but then I took a look at the Galaxy Explorer (10497) at my shelf, and thought, what if the space pirates commandeered such a vessel, and turned it into a tool of crime IN SPACE!

So I set out to make an outline of a ship, to work out the basic geometry and scale that I might be working with. What I have done so far is about finding out how the angles connect, and if I even have enough parts for this thing. At the moment it appears that it'll be much larger than the inspirational set, and also will feature different angles and such as I want to keep the geometry simple enough to manage.

Larger photos of my progress will be uploaded to http://www.jousimo.fi/lego/TC24/

Some features I planned (some perhaps pneumatic, some manual):

- Folding landing gear

- Wings that split open to reveal some sort of rayguns or whatever

- Openable cargo hold to store the contraband

- Some sort of small rover and its stowing hold (in the spirit of the Galaxy Explorer)

- Mode-switching engines

 

I will take no pressure in finishing this, as I have been experiencing significant back pain lately that flares up when spending too much time at my Lego table. But I hope I can make something finished enough to count as a valid entrant into the contest.

Edited January 22, 2023 by howitzer

[howitzer]

Some progress. A bit more shaping, though it's still not a proper structure, just a placeholder.

The idea is to make the pneumatic actuators to open a hatch on the wings to reveal some sort of weapon-thing. The pneumatics will be powered by RI hub and PU M-motor driving two pumps. I thought about using some other hub, but all of them seem to require almost as much space as the RI hub, but the latter's advantage is that it can be charged while in place - no need to remove the hub (or even part of it) to charge the battery, which in my mind is significant advantage over PF battery box or C+ hub.

Here's a photo of my progress:

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by howitzer

[Milan]

Please reduce the size of the images. They are four size the allowed limit.
Thanks.

[howitzer]

  On 1/21/2023 at 4:45 PM, Milan said:

Please reduce the size of the images. They are four size the allowed limit.
Thanks.

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Funny, on my screen they are just over 1000 px wide. But I'll edit my posts later today to replace the images with smaller ones.

[Jim]

  On 1/22/2023 at 8:22 AM, howitzer said:

Funny, on my screen they are just over 1000 px wide. But I'll edit my posts later today to replace the images with smaller ones.

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This can happen when you enter a width in the Editor. This will show the image as 1000 wide, but actually it's a lot wider. Thanks for taking care of it.

And a very nice start for the contest! This is definitely what we are looking for. Keep up the good work.

PS someting totally off-topic; why don't you upload an avatar pic. This one is way too anonymous for a regular member 

[howitzer]

  On 1/22/2023 at 9:08 AM, Jim said:

This can happen when you enter a width in the Editor. This will show the image as 1000 wide, but actually it's a lot wider. Thanks for taking care of it.

And a very nice start for the contest! This is definitely what we are looking for. Keep up the good work.

PS someting totally off-topic; why don't you upload an avatar pic. This one is way too anonymous for a regular member 

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Now they should be fixed.

Looking forward to get my work further, this should be a fun contest.

I would upload a profile photo, but I don't have one that I'm happy with, so I decided to keep the non-photo until I find one. Maybe, if I'm happy with the results, I'll put my upcoming spaceship in the profile photo!

[howitzer]

Some new progress. Developing the angled outlines proved to take a lot of work, to get the geometry right. It's now entirely based on pythagorean triangles, so no danger of illegal connections. After that I started to develop the internal mechanisms, which I wanted to make as pneumatic as possible. I had to take some cylinders from 8868 as I have none of the new style short thick cylinders and the long cylinders are much too long for this kind of purpose. First I made the landing gear, as a simple folding mechanism, intended to be operated all three simultaneously with one switch. I also added a ramp in the bottom middle of the ship, but I have not yet decided how to operate it. The next one was to design the guns inside the winglets to be folded out when activated. They would be located directly over the landing gear, which makes for some tight fittings but I think I managed to make it work. The exterior casing around the guns would still require some work before I can call it finished.

A couple of photos here, one of them showing also the landing gear mechanism:

 

[KirTech LAB]

Excellent start - the shape is 100% recognizable! We need more pneumatics :)

[howitzer]

  On 2/4/2023 at 5:28 PM, KirTech LAB said:

Excellent start - the shape is 100% recognizable! We need more pneumatics :)

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Thanks! Pneumatics is what I aim for here. Today I did some hosework:

[Thirdwigg]

Nice hosework you have going so far. It's been fun to watch this project so far.

[howitzer]

  On 2/6/2023 at 3:04 PM, Thirdwigg said:

Nice hosework you have going so far. It's been fun to watch this project so far.

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Thanks! If you like hosework, I'll give you some more:

[howitzer]

Some new progress. After many build-disassemble-rebuild cycles I managed to get stronger and lighter structure for the hull shape, one that's also geometrically correct (I previously had a counting error in my supposedly pythagorean triangles so I had to rework those).

I'm trying to maximize internal space in order to make room for a cargo hold, and I also want a lowering ramp in the middle as an access point. Somewhere in the rear, above the pneumatic hosing I'll build engines, and in front of that there should be a cockpit.

[howitzer]

No new photos today, but I finally decided to actually test the functions and found out that the M-motor is much too weak to drive the two pumps, so I swapped it for L-motor. It still doesn't have great power, but enough to run constantly.

The pneumatic functions kind of work, but it appears that the small cylinders are too weak to work well. They sometimes extend/retract the landing gear and sometimes don't, unless given a small nudge to help the movement. I'm kind of bummed by this and I don't really know what to do about it. Perhaps the system is too leaky with so many components, but I don't know how to fix it.

One obvious solution would be to replace the cylinders with larger ones, but then I'd have to do a lot of redesigning to fit them in, and I also don't have any short large cylinders, except those that are currently in 8868 (and thus old style). More powerful compressor would also work, but I don't have more pumps either and that would also require more powerful/dual motor, for which there's no space at the rear without, again, significant redesign.

Anyone got any ideas how to help it?

[Mikdun]

  On 2/22/2023 at 5:34 PM, howitzer said:

The pneumatic functions kind of work, but it appears that the small cylinders are too weak to work well. They sometimes extend/retract the landing gear and sometimes don't, unless given a small nudge to help the movement. I'm kind of bummed by this and I don't really know what to do about it. Perhaps the system is too leaky with so many components, but I don't know how to fix it.

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The small pneumatic cylinders tends to stick to the end position, at least that's what mine are doing. There is no easy fix for this. I lubricated them (Molykote 111, discussed on this forum) and it helped, but not fully.

[Jurss]

Try to connect one of them directly, check the result.

But maybe they just don't have enough power.