[MOC] Beach Buggy

[Appie]

Here's a Beach Buggy I made for an upcoming truck trial this weekend. This trial only has a few rules: Use 62.4 wheels, 2 motors for propulsion max and 1 for steering.

It's based on Zblj's "Blue" suspension, drive and steering, modified to fit my beach buggy/trial needs. It features 4 wheel drive and steering.

Was a little bit of work to work with the bright green from only 1 Le Mans set.

Forgot to make a picture with the suspension pressed. Might make it tomorrow (bad lighting now). It looks pretty sweet with it compressed. The rear wheelarches look like they hug the wheels (a stud or so of space left between wheel and wheelarch). The car bottoms out with the suspension fully compressed.

Here you can see how much I stole from Zblj. I only changed the type of suspension arms, slightly altered the steering mechanism and placed my motors differently for a lower look.

(ignore my Lego tripod in the bottom right)

Thank you for your time.

[Krall]

Very cute model :) I love the color scheme.

But i would like to see a Video

Edited February 12, 2016 by Krall

[princeofgonville]

Awesome. Is this competition open to people outside the Netherlands? You guys do so much cool stuff.

[PKW]

Appie usually i'm totally in love with your creations, and this time i really love The aethetics,but are You sure that To put shocks near The brachets pivot point and only on one side doesn't create friction or a bad shocks absorbing response? I had really many problems with uncentered schocks, And also with tuo strong one. (that 2m lever, the 12/m liftarms with two cross holes, are Three near The shocks To prevent them from moving?). also i am worried about The Electronic differential between front An rear axle, like The one that create trattino problem in the crawler set, Anyway this creations il really Greta, i want To See It in Action!

Edited February 13, 2016 by PKW

[2LegoOrNot2Lego...]

Nice build, love the functionality of it as well as the colors you choose... I will check it out tomorrow, for sure!!!

[Lox Lego]

Very cool! It's tough using the green from the Le Mans 24hr set. Well done, really like the hood!

[nerdsforprez]

Appie usually i'm totally in love with your creations, and this time i really love The aethetics,but are You sure that To put shocks near The brachets pivot point and only on one side doesn't create friction or a bad shocks absorbing response? I had really many problems with uncentered schocks, And also with tuo strong one. (that 2m lever, the 12/m liftarms with two cross holes, are Three near The shocks To prevent them from moving?). also i am worried about The Electronic differential between front An rear axle, like The one that create trattino problem in the crawler set, Anyway this creations il really Greta, i want To See It in Action!

Yes.... great model but I also agree about questions with the suspension. In addition, two hard shocks for the front and rear? This is only a medium-sized model.... isn't that too much?

[Appie]

Thanks everybody.

Your concerns were the same as mine. In fact the model started with 1 hard spring on each wheel, because I actually expected this to be lighter than Zblj's "Blue" (he has 2 soft srpings front and hard+soft in the rear), but it isn't lighter with all these liftarms. I didn't even add the body, IR reciever and BB (which is the lightweight LiPo and not a 6xAAA BB) and the thing was already going through its suspension never to come back up again. So I redesigned the suspension to hold 2 springs for each wheel as well. Tested with hard+soft first. That worked ok, but only up to the point of half the body with BB and IR, more and it would never return up. So I went for 2 hard springs, this was the sweet spot.

The problem with this type of suspension also is, there is no angle in the springs, they are straight down, which basically means no friction. All the weight of the car is right on the metal parts of the springs. I also didn't lock them into place. They weren't using the space around them (the brackets PKW mentions), so I made use of that space. The springs being close to the pivot point of the wishbones gives them huge amount of travel and being straight makes them very easy to compress. So easy that up to the point of 2 hard springs per wheel, the car's weight would do it.

I would have liked to have one spring on each side of the wishbones, but this would mean the steering mechanism would be further away from the wheels and since I have seen people use this setup on big truck suspensions I figured it could work here too, which it does perfectly. The second spring in line does move ever so slightly (1MM) less than the first spring when fully compressed, but that's negligible in my opinion.

PKW I am not sure what problem you mean with the "electronic diff" and how the crawler set has the same issue. I have no issue with my 9398. Could you explain it?

I made a video just now of the suspension in action, since that easily shows how fluid it actually is.

Awesome. Is this competition open to people outside the Netherlands? You guys do so much cool stuff.

It's part of a dutch LUG event. I am sure they have LUGs in the UK where they (or you) can host an event like this.

Oh and since I promised an image of the buggy suspension fully compressed:

A version with this height would be pretty sweet too I think, but not this low since the L motors touch the ground now

Edited February 13, 2016 by Appie

[DamonMM2000]

I love the use of the ball joints as headlights, that's ingenious! It looks great too.

[agrof]

Original moc and a very good looking one!

Must drive pretty well too, I was also skeptic regarding the suspension, but it obviously works.

Any chance for LXF file, or instructions?

[2LegoOrNot2Lego...]

I have seen it in action in real life...love it even more!!! Well done buddy!!! :thumbup:

[Tomik]

WOW, this is really cute buggy. I like its bodywork and front lights - good idea.

[Appie]

Thanks everybody.

Original moc and a very good looking one!

Must drive pretty well too, I was also skeptic regarding the suspension, but it obviously works.

Any chance for LXF file, or instructions?

It did pretty well in the trial yesterday (video from Mahjqa will show up sooner or later). Its limiting factor was its crappy driver

I am not making any promise for a LDD or something, but maybe.

I have seen it in action in real life...love it even more!!! Well done buddy!!! :thumbup:

It was a very fun trial.

[Joefraser]

Wow! Now this is an aspirational target to works towards for my buggy.

It looks very cool, close to a vw beach buggy which has always been an awesome design!

[Lenivkin_Eugene]

The model is excellent. I want to collect the same . I read above that you have a problem LDD . Anyway, I will wait for a miracle.

[Appie]

Well, good news, finished the LDD:

A few points to note:

- Couldn't align the hood with liftarms properly, the open space in the hood needs to be attached to the yellow parts on the chassis and attach the black pins on top of the hood to the dashboard

- Missing these hubs in the LDD. The suspension is at the maximum angle (I wanted maximum ground clearance and depth of suspension), which means steering is a little harder. Make sure your hubs are easy to move in the sockets of the wishbones. Mine were brand new and I had to "break them in".

- The rear fenders actually don't align. Apparently I bend them a little to fit in this part. I didn't even notice this, since the panels flex so easily. It's easily fixed by replacing the part with this, except you'll need a second 42039 or use a different colour, since I used 4 of these of the 42039 already elsewhere on the model. The 62.4 wheels won't touch the fenders with this modification.

- Panels in front of the model wouldn't align, but it fits as front fenders

- Didn't find a PF switch in LDD. It needs to placed between the battery box and the IR reciever (on the Technic brick there). The IR reciever is attached to these parts near there. LDD didn't want to slap it on there.

- LDD also didn't want the rear panel to attach. Looks to me as the same mounting distance as in the 42039, but whatever.

Download here: https://www.dropbox.... Final.lxf?dl=0

On a different note, while making these LDD's was pretty fun, I will not be making one for Wall-E or the upcoming Batmobile. Had to break down half of these models to figure out which pin/axle I used where. Wall-E is too tightly packed and broken down too much during its creation to do it again, sorry. As for the Batmobile, I already went crazy trying to get some angles half decent in this model and that thing is full of them.

Anyway enjoy the buggy if you want to build it.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Appie

[Lego2016Lego]

Cool.

[2LegoOrNot2Lego...]

Cool, a lot of people will be very grateful for this!!!

[agrof]

And so do I.

Thank You for the effort to create the LDD model,and for sharing!

[Appie]

You're welcome. Enjoy