42055 - Bucket Wheel Excavator

[1974]

I blame TLG and their lack of sex diversity. Oh, wait, that's Daily Mail speaking!

I'd probaly blame my sister and flick'fire her Barbies into dust

(Not that I've done that, hehe)

Edited January 29, 2016 by 1974

[JGW3000]

I sense many ultimate BWE's will be made by the end of the year. Such as large set with interesting functions has many opportunities for mods and improvements, after all, this is what LEGO is all about.

[Appie]

The parents for giving the brother a dollhouse

[1974]

Clutchgears would have a harder time with that arm than the gear reduction in the 42009 to not stall the clutchgear in that model. So that's not an option.

And the difference between a smashed dollhouse with PF LA's and manual is that Lego enabled the first method and in the second case it's just a brother being destructive. In the first case Lego would get sued. Especially in countries like the USA where they sue companies because the manual didn't mention you can't put a cat in a microwave. In the second it's just the brother's fault.

You forget that TLG have a zillion lawyers and more gold than the Bank of England (oh, wait they sold that!)

Lawsuit not gonna happen like motor operated draglines is also not gonna happen with this set

I sense many ultimate BWE's will be made by the end of the year. Such as large set with interesting functions has many opportunities for mods and improvements, after all, this is what LEGO is all about.

Yes, while modern Technics is not for me, I look very much forward to what folks here can do with that set. It really is epic in many ways. I love the idea of it and one day I might make something myself. The buckets and turntable rings are a must for me for sure (and expect yellow womit as usual, sigh)

So, the version with 28 XL motors, 18 RC IR units and a coffee maker in the cabin, is what I'm waiting for Jurgen to make!

(Note to self : must buy more XL motors for my BL store)

Cheers,

Ole

[Appie]

Lawyers is still wasted money. And believe me Lego will get sued if one of the buckets comes unhinged and gets in a kid's eye, because the kid ran the bucket wheel into the ground because he didn't stop the motor in time. So yeah, suck it up, it's manual. Blame the kids, not Lego.

[1974]

Bull! TLG have made LOADS of sets in the last +30 years that could shoot parts into kids eyes and I know no major lawsuit. And yes, that would surely have hit the mass media hard

If you want to get hurt on the BWE it's perfectly possible right now. Stick that sucker into your cage of rabbits and I'm sure within a day or two there will be blood. Clutchgears be damned

But no NORMAL person would do that = no lawsuti

Unless TLG makes a disclamier, you could probaly still stuff it in your perfectly legal 19th century canon and fire into your little sister ('s dollhouse)

This is a silly discussion. I know quite a bit of what is going on in Billund. The reason for the LAs instead of draglines and the lack of missing motors is because of budget. Not safety

Budget and biudget only

Cheers,

Ole

[Appie]

Bull! TLG have made LOADS of sets in the last +30 years that could shoot parts into kids eyes and I know no major lawsuit. And yes, that would surely have hit the mass media hard.

But aren't motorized! The 9396 and 42052 have rubber parts on the end of the rotors for a reason: safety. But Appie they didn't do this on old helicopters. Nope, but companies learn stuff over the years especially from lawsuits in the USA.

But no NORMAL person would do that = no lawsuti

And that's the problem. Lego has to think for people that are not normal. These type of lawsuits only exist because companies don't think about how stupid people can be. Lego thankfully does.

[Zerobricks]

In that case best thing for TLG to do is to stop making anything that moves becase....I dunno, you can get your fingers or other bits stuck in gears?

[Appie]

Bucket in your eye vs a finger on a gear...

Not exactly the same eh?

As for budget being an issue. I'd believe that on any other set that didn't have 4k parts and already PF installed. Another motor or a couple of axles from the XL to the LA's wouldn't break the budget at that point. This was a clear design choice.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Appie

[Kman860]

LOLing at some of the comments above....this is better than watching the comedy channel :laugh:

[Samer]

Cool discussion. What comes to my mind though is how much TLG have restrictions in their designs because of kids safety. Perhaps they know AFOLs are upset with weakness, slowness,..etc but TLG would then say they are adults and can do MODs and can afford buying extra parts to enhance the model, with good side effect of increased sales ( the modder buys motors, parts, or 2x,3x, 10x sets for instance). A share of that goes also to BL stores.

[Appie]

Every PF motor in terms of power and speed is an example of a restriction for the sake of kids and why buggy motors will probably never return.

[EyesOnly]

I sense many ultimate BWE's will be made by the end of the year. Such as large set with interesting functions has many opportunities for mods and improvements, after all, this is what LEGO is all about.

Yes and considering the starting size of this set, the word ultimate will be very accurate.

Every PF motor in terms of power and speed is an example of a restriction for the sake of kids and why buggy motors will probably never return.

While it's easy for me that have them to say that more wouldn't be missed, when you are talking about those kinds of motors then they are really only good for RC and have no real use for other arrangements. And if that is what you want then i for one think it would be better to just use regular RC motors and electronics and find some 3d-printed parts to mount it to Lego. Nothing good will come from another RC Lego set that will not be RC enough compared to non Lego RC and just have motors that are to big and fast for most gear trains. Plus the safety concerns of having such a fast spinning motor. It's been a while since i used mine but i do remember not wanting my fingers anywhere near what was spinning. Just the though of gears breaking about in such high speeds.

That being said, as been stated earlier, the BWE sure could use at least one more motor in the base to offset those long axles. But i guess it's a budget issue or perhaps to keep complexity down. It would be harder to route 2 motors to one BB.

[allanp]

Would you be scared of the old 9V ungeared motors? They have almost the same mechanical power as an M-motor. Very fast but with very little torque. Once geared down to the same speed as an M-motor you get about the same torque, so they have about the same mechanical output power.

[Brickthus]

Would you be scared of the old 9V ungeared motors? They have almost the same mechanical power as an M-motor. Very fast but with very little torque. Once geared down to the same speed as an M-motor you get about the same torque, so they have about the same mechanical output power.

A favourite experiment throughout my childhood was to spin up various things fast on those motors. Wheels, propellers, many things that could generate High Energy Debris!

I think we have adequate power from today's PF motors and it's nice to see the XL motor being used more in the BWE but we could do with a Fast motor with less gearing, an "F-motor". I did try taking one stage of gearing out of an M-motor, though it didn't do any better than an unmodified one with 3:1 gear-up; probably too much friction by not being built within tolerance. Perhaps an un-geared L-motor would be better for propellers such as on the Cargo Plane 42025. We also lack an "S-motor" as a Small replacement for the 9V micro motor but that had a unique mechanism whose creator has passed away.

I used 4x 47154 9V motors (no-load 4000rpm, loaded 2000rpm) to drive the rotor system of an Open Rotor jet engine model. At 1.3 Amps and 9.15V (fresh battery voltage from the power supply) it managed to overcome the friction in a gearbox like that of the Power Miners Thunder Driller 8960 and contra-rotate the propellers.

Regarding the flick/sprung missiles and difference if motorised, think about the Ninjago Airjitzu spinners. Pulling that trigger with the full force of a forearm sends the spinner with minifig pod about 10ft up in the air, but no combination of PF motors on a PF LiPo could launch even the spinner on its own. The only way I could launch the spinner with just LEGO parts was to use 2x PF Train motors geared up 5:1 from a freshly-charged LiPo. I have carried this "flight" experiment over to my moving BB-8 project, with potential to use a flywheel for either steering or stability (see the updates for pics). I spun up a motorbike wheel to about 5000rpm, well into the High Energy Debris region when of course that would not be allowed for kids, even if it were encased in a spherical droid shell.

Atfer looking at the pictures and the snapshots I made from the video's I was able to 3D draw the new yellow Quarter Circle Turntable.

...

I think Sariel's hamster will like that yellow 136t ring gear.....

The ring gear is definitely 140 teeth, not 136. Count the teeth of the gears in between: it is driven by 12-tooth cogs so start with 1x12; then there are 8x 2M distances of 16 teeth = 128 (the mesh of 12T and 20T has 16 teeth in 2M distance, just like 16:16 and 8:24), total 140 teeth. LEGO gears no longer aim for multiples of 8 teeth; it used to be that only the differential (28) and bevel (14) were away from multiples of 8 (8, 16, 24, 40) but now we have 12, 20 and 36-tooth cogs. The new turntable has 60 instead of 56; the small turntable has 28. Hence any multiple of 4 is usual nowadays, though 35 per piece to make 140 for the full ring is interesting!

If you have the Cargo Plane and have managed to find a place for it, then BWE will pose little problem.

How about 8 Cargo Planes, one built and the parts from the other 7 re-used in MOCs of a 2ft-diameter jet engine fancase and a Futuron space station!

Makes me wonder if my BWE would become part of a lunar mining operation layout, with the space stations of various factions and my monorail. I have found Technic models in 80s & 90s space faction colours a good use for many Technic panels in black, red, grey, white and blue.

With all those tracks there are a few possibilities! The newer tracks make a good ring from 36 to 50 tracks. The older ones would work from 24-40 tracks, though 24 is a bit tight. Mixing the two has interesting results!

Mark

[N-4K0]

Sorry if it has been mentioned, I might have missed it:

When it comes to the problem(s) with gearing and axles mentioned on the previous page, would it be better for bigger sets if axles and perhaps also gears were made of metal, to avoid twisting axles and broken gears on longer connection travels?

Of course this would probably require the metal parts to be encased to avoid finger injuries from metal drive train that doesn't go as lightly on stuck things as the plastic.

[OneMoreRobot]

LOLing at some of the comments above....this is better than watching the comedy channel :laugh:

Agreed, these Trainspotters are hilarious - like watching bulldozers chasing butterflies

[Appie]

While it's easy for me that have been them to say that more wouldn't be missed, when you are talking about those kinds of motors then they are really only good for RC and have no real use for other arrangements. And if that is what you want then i for one think it would be better to just use regular RC motors and electronics and find some 3d-printed parts to mount it to Lego. Nothing good will come from another RC Lego set that will not be RC enough compared to non Lego RC and just have motors that are to big and fast for most gear trains. Plus the safety concerns of having such a fast spinning motor. It's been a while since i used mine but i do remember not wanting my fingers anywhere near what was spinning. Just the though of gears breaking about in such high speeds.

Just to be clear, my post wasn't a plea for a return of buggy motors. I agree with your points that they don't really have a place in Lego for the mentioned safety and like you said for the potential breaking of parts.

On topic:

I can honestly say that this is the first set since my dark ages of which I want to build the B-model just for the fact it works together with the A-model. I will most likely buy 2. Just need to figure out what I am going to do with the 8k parts after it

[imajor]

Rotating the offloader belt is manual, after all. Which reminds me of another question: why can this rotation be locked?

Because you lock it to the low segment with the tracks. So when the turret turns, the lower conveyor belt throws material at the same location (so the dumper can just stand still)

No proof, this is just speculation.

[BossTechnic]

I'm blown away by what Lego are giving us with this model..

It's a ridiculous concept, strangely colour coded and awesomely scaled.

6kg+ box weight? I'm sure the manual(s) will be 1kg at least.

I'm mildly disappointed that it seems to have just 1 motor (XL at least) I would have preferred 1 or 2 L motors down in the base area for drive and avoiding the long run of axles compared to where the motor sits currently. I can't help but think this arrangement will lead to stress and possible jerky motion/parts failure.

Those new quarter-ellipse gear racks? YES PLEASE

This set is a must-buy on release for me, I'm absolutely counting the days until August until I can get this home.

I really hope Argos do their 3 for 2 on toys again around November time, It will make for a nice conversation with the wife :)

But what really gets me excited around this set is waiting to see what magic Akiyuki can get from those new gear racks!

[Starmort]

Because you lock it to the low segment with the tracks. So when the turret turns, the lower conveyor belt throws material at the same location (so the dumper can just stand still)

No proof, this is just speculation.

I really don't think so. You think that when you turn the structure it will stop at the point where you locked the dumper?

[dhc6twinotter]

My guess is the conveyor chute has to be locked in place so it doesn't slew when the motor that drives the belt is turned on.

If it isn't locked, the conveyor will probably swing all the way over in one direction or another when the belt drive is engaged.

I think I might pass on this set. It's a massive set with some neat new parts, but aside from the gearbox, there isn't a whole lot going on mechanically.

[GoldVillage]

I mostly agree with you though I don't think more motors or more powerful motors would help the BWE in particular. But definitely not having so much gearing down done for you in the motor would help. This is Technic, isn't the whole point of it that we should be building the gearing and the mechanics ourselves and not having it done for you in the motor? The XL motor is way too slow and has way too much torque to use it to drive any axle longer than 8M whilst expecting the axle not to twist and spring back causing those jerky movements. Take the gearing out of the motor so it can be built by the customer where it is needed. In the case of the BWE, a little before the gearbox to incorporate the safety clutch and avoid power losses and then a lot at the function to be driven. A good example would be like 8480. I have removed the gearing down entirely from one of my XL motors and it's much more fun and practical to use. I usually have the first stage of reduction done by belts which makes it very quiet and protects the drive train like the white clutch gear does.

The white clutch gear offers barely any resistance at all i wish they would make one with a resistance with more like a actuator, no matter where i put those gears in into a drive line for i.e a crane, it start to slip too easy. I guess its very critical exacly WHERE to put those gears in, im surprised seeing the BWE get away by using only a couple of these.

[Gabi_BC]

Since this is my first post here, i'd like to say hello, fellow lego enthusiasts.

I cannot wait for the BWE to hit the shelves in august, however, there are some aspects of it's design that are worth discussing. The first thing i would mention is the way the main arm holding the bucket wheel goes through the vertical column and continues with the motor and battery box, that act as a counterweight. At the same time, this main arm is supported by 2 linear actuators. In real BWEs it's either one or the other. On smaller BWEs like those that serve as inspiration for the 42055 the main arm is supported by 2 hydraulic cylinders but there is no counterweight, as can be seen in this (already posted before) picture:

When there's a counterweight, the bucket wheel is usually raised or lowered via a pulley system. This is the case for most german-designed BWEs.

This is probably an arrangement we'll see in many future MOCs since it is commonplace in reality.

Another solution (only used in 2 or 3 models from what i know) is using a rigid bar connected to a bogie that travels along the counterweight arm, like this:

There is, however, a version in which we have both counterweight and hydraulic cylinders, but in a somewhat different configuration

The discharge conveyor is usually connected to a conveyor belt that carries the (usually) coal out of the pit and to the (usually nearby) power plant, as can bee seen in the photo above. In most cases, a secondary machine is used to link the BVE to the conveyor belt, like this:

This is another thing we might see in MOC form.

The second thing i would mention is that in i guess all the lego BWE MOCs so far the bucket wheel arrangement is limited by the usage of available lego excavator buckets, that are very different from those used in BWEs. Usually the back of the BWE bucket is hollow to allow the discharge of material and there's a round, fixed shield that holds the coal in the bucket until the bucket arrives to the top, where it's content is discharged into a chute. Replicating this in LEGO form would probably require either building each bucket from multiple pieces or using some 3rd party, 3d printed buckets. Same thing for the fixed shield.

Anyway, the 42055 is a fairly accurate depicition of a BWE and i will most certainly buy the thing, just wanted to add some mentions since i am really interested in mining equipment and heavy industry in general

[efferman]

Has someone noticed the new buckets on the scraping wheel?