[WIP] 1:50 NASA Crawler Transporter

[dr_spock]

Looks like you'll need a bigger desk. It's a beast.

[darsedz]

I'm very impressed, it's a huge construction ... now You need 2 Crawler Crane 42042 sets and use boom's as a rocket lunch tower...

[RohanBeckett]

Hope you're planning on showing this at a convention somewhere... booked a table or 3 for Brickvention in Jan? :)

[OzShan]

A little progress in the last week. The pneumatics are now all connected up and I'm just waiting on a couple of PF extension cables to start programming them to run in sync. So far they are happily working individually.

While that progresses, here are a few detailed shots of the internals.

Control room including control consoles, electrical panels and emergency response panel.

Brick-built motor and cooling fan for the main radiators (x4)

E-stops included due to lack of safety guards

[Doc_Brown]

This is just monumental! Keep up the great work, I'm sure looking forward to new update. :thumbup:

[Kumbbl]

A real jaw dropper. Incredible awesome and stunning

[Phoxtane]

I'll take eight, please.

[Captainowie]

I have dreamed of exactly that for many years. The shuttle is still my favorite Technic model and I'd love to "complete the set" with the tank, SRBs, and crawler.

I've often thought that the UCS Sandcrawler would make a good basis for this - it's got the tracks pretty much ready-made, and plenty of brown/rust for the fuel tank.

[BusterHaus]

The control room took this to a new level. Great work so far, I'm looking forward to more progress reports.

[darksheep]

Wow cant wait to see this thing cursing along with a shuttle on it !!!

[Blakbird]

I've often thought that the UCS Sandcrawler would make a good basis for this - it's got the tracks pretty much ready-made, and plenty of brown/rust for the fuel tank.

If I was going to build it I would want it to thematically match 8480. That means it would need to be mostly Technic parts, so the tank would probably be made of bent liftarms. The sandcrawler tracks might very well work. I have that model so I'll take a look at the scale.

[D3K]

Wow, didn't realize how huge this was gonna be until I saw the pics in post #29!

Truly epic build, can't wait to see it finished!

[archieg]

This is awesome.

[afol1969]

Boah, what an incredible construction! The dimensions are amazing! And you've put lot of time for creating the details in the control room

One of the biggest technic creations I've ever seen. Looking forward to your final construction.

Greetings

Alex

[OzShan]

Thanks again for all the comments.

Looks like you'll need a bigger desk. It's a beast.

Haha, well that did hold things up for about a month and I worked on it in two halves for a lot longer...

I left out a detail pic of the PF bay last time. Here you can see the 4 PF receivers and the NXT IRLink transmitter.

The two receivers towards the back are driving the height control, the two to the front are driving the traction motors.

I've put together a small clip of the height control system. I'd really appreciate any comments or advice here too because you guys generate such great looking material.

Moving from LDD over to LDCad has been a trial but I'm really starting to like it. Looking forward to trying out the flex tools soon.

Cheers,

Shan.

Edited June 28, 2015 by OzShan

[Alegomind]

Oh awesome! Congratulations! How much pieces do you think to use?

[NXT45]

Here you can see the 4 PF receivers and the NXT IRLink transmitter.

The two receivers towards the back are driving the height control, the two to the front are driving the traction motors

Cheers,

Shan.

Hi! I am just curios on how well the IR Link transmitter works for you. With sending to all of the 4 channels. Mine when you try to use it there is a delay between sending to the red & blue outputs. There is a much bigger delay when using multiple channels. (1 - 4)

I bought it from LEGO directly and I think it might be faulty.

[Rishab N]

I was surprised I hadn't commented on this earlier. It looks enormous good work

[GoldCivetta]

freakin' mental dude!! love it

[OzShan]

Oh awesome! Congratulations! How much pieces do you think to use?

I got to 5000 in LDD and that was for a bare frame chassis and the trucks (there is 700 in each truck). Since then then I've added

- walkways

- all interior details inc floor

- roof panels

I'm guessing about 7000 now but it's hard to tell

Hi! I am just curios on how well the IR Link transmitter works for you. With sending to all of the 4 channels. Mine when you try to use it there is a delay between sending to the red & blue outputs. There is a much bigger delay when using multiple channels. (1 - 4)

I bought it from LEGO directly and I think it might be faulty.

Are you using NXG? Im using Lejos, and NXC before that. They seemed fine. There is about 100ms between channels so you notice a difference between channel 1 and 4 starting. Haven't noticed anything between red and blue. I'm using combo commands that write both red and blue together. Any of these help?

I'd also like to extend a big thank you to Philo and all his work here: http://www.philohome.com

It was my starting point for this project and it helped marry up PF and NXT (and RCX).

[Alegomind]

I got to 5000 in LDD and that was for a bare frame chassis and the trucks (there is 700 in each truck). Since then then I've added

- walkways

- all interior details inc floor

- roof panels

I'm guessing about 7000 now but it's hard to tell

Are you using NXG? Im using Lejos, and NXC before that. They seemed fine. There is about 100ms between channels so you notice a difference between channel 1 and 4 starting. Haven't noticed anything between red and blue. I'm using combo commands that write both red and blue together. Any of these help?

I'd also like to extend a big thank you to Philo and all his work here: http://www.philohome.com

It was my starting point for this project and it helped marry up PF and NXT (and RCX).

Really impressive, there arent't other words. Do you think to make instructions of this?

[OzShan]

It's finished, but....

It doesn't drive so well any more

Last weekend while it was trying to level itself and drive, one battery box cut out then the second and as each recovered it tore the drivetrain apart a little more before I shut it down. Somehow I lost track of the modified battery boxes and they had migrated off into other models. I tracked them down and thought I'd be ready for round two but there is more damage in the drive and it is still binding somewhere (probably more than one place). It might need a bit of a re-think in some areas where the gears are separating too. Looks like it was engineered a little too close to the edge because when one thing failed problems popped up everywhere. That's all going to take a while to fix so for now I'm going to leave this with the latest build pics and a big thank you to everyone for their kind comments.

On the NXT screen (this end is the master) the three columns are "Height set point", "Actual Height" and "Difference".

Cheers,

Shannon.

[KirTech LAB]

Great engineering! I wish you luck with repair!!! Don't stop :)

[darksheep]

Good luck man don't stop working on it !

[Sylvian]

Allready hof material...