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12 minutes ago, Touc4nx said:

And for now there is no rechargeable battery incorporated, so we will be forced to be using one usage battery :sceptic:

You can use rechargeable batteries.

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1 hour ago, Touc4nx said:

And for now there is no rechargeable battery incorporated, so we will be forced to be using one usage battery :sceptic:

But the removable battery holder does suggest a rechargeable battery pack similar to the EV3 Mindstorm rechargeable battery will be available at some point in the not too distant future.

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1 hour ago, TeamThrifty said:

Nope nothing. Except there's an app. And it shows inclination angle on two planes.. Oo, and you can build your own macro's to compound multiple actions. Nothing apart from that. Ahh wait, can't you do some cool stuff on-screen on the app to control the vehicle? Apart from that, and the bits i forgot, its not improved anything..... 

Basically a lower functionality Mindstorms brick disguised as PU. Or a bigger size Sbrick+ that needs a huge space to be installed and proprietary motors at the moment, without support for real (gamepad or remote) controls. I'm not convinced at all.

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1 hour ago, Jim said:

When we got the Powered Up train sets, the app wasn't available yet. When TLG released sets with app driven building instructions, the app wasn't available yet. And we didn't get access to beta versions. You can argue that the train could be controlled with a remote and that building instructions come in a booklet. All I am saying is that I wouldn't be surprised if reviewers got the set without the app :tongue:

But aren't these 2 major differences? First of all, "getting" a set is different to "when the review comes out". And the Train had a remote. The 4x4 is totally useless without the app. The App ist part of the Set, because it's the remote.. Why would Lego want any reviews about an unfinished product? What's the point?

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1 hour ago, Didumos69 said:

I think the up gearing was done to protect the cv-joints and differentials. The one good thing about this model is that it follows the best practice on how to avoid slipping gears, broken joints and twisted axles in the drive train / differentials: it works with high rpm / low torque instead of low rpm / high torque. And the first thing you want to do is nullify this design pattern.

Imo, the real problem behind the poor performance lies in the controllers cutting off power too soon.

That's exactly why we need to wait for the official app to make a judgement on the motor performance. Controlling them with low-level commands and having the app to take care of it might have a different result. 

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5 minutes ago, incognito said:

But aren't these 2 major differences? First of all, "getting" a set is different to "when the review comes out". And the Train had a remote. The 4x4 is totally useless without the app. The App ist part of the Set, because it's the remote.. Why would Lego want any reviews about an unfinished product? What's the point?

Mark my words :wink:

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12 minutes ago, Jim said:

Mark my words :wink:

Good enough for me.

I'm glass half-full anyway, but even from the clips we've seen so far, it looks an excellent step forward... and you have to assume that we were seeing the Release Candidate, very, very V1.0 -  the scope going forward is huge. Exciting times. As soon a raspberry pi connects, all the kids and future programmers will eat it up. As well as us grown ups! And if you can use a raspberry pi... then lego mocs become an Internet of Things device. Next stop, terminator 2.

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Just now, TeamThrifty said:

Good enough for me.

I'm glass half-full anyway, but even from the clips we've seen so far, it looks an excellent step forward... and you have to assume that we were seeing the Release Candidate, very, very V1.0 -  the scope going forward is huge. Exciting times. As soon a raspberry pi connects, all the kids and future programmers will eat it up. As well as us grown ups! And if you can use a raspberry pi... then lego mocs become an Internet of Things device. Next stop, terminator 2.

Indeed. I do see a lot of cool community stuff happening in the future.

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On 7/1/2019 at 5:39 AM, syclone said:

Basically a lower functionality Mindstorms brick disguised as PU. Or a bigger size Sbrick+ that needs a huge space to be installed and proprietary motors at the moment, without support for real (gamepad or remote) controls. I'm not convinced at all.

The fact that the hub has integrated accelerometers sets it apart from the Mindstorms control brick and from third party items like Sbrick+ or BuWizz. 

The hub falls somewhere between a dumb bottery box (official ones and BuWizz included) and a fully programmable Mindstorms brick. This is a Toyota Corolla placed between a moped and a Hummer. Not all applications need a full-blown programmable solution, and many will benefit from more than a simple battery box. 

I'm not familiar with the programming capabilities of the PU hub, but I suspect it's a matter of time before @imurvai or another dedicated soul figures out how to link a game controller to it. I'm also looking forward to seeing how far the PU hub can be pushed as far as programming goes. It's obvious that it doesn't have the oomph of an EV3 brick, but its smaller footprint has a definite advantage. I'm hoping to see trucks with self-leveling suspensions and cranes with active counterweights, and whatever else MOCcers can think of. 

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So im wondering what might be the appeal to those you that are all-in in terms of buying this. As a parts pack it may offer some cool new elements i guess, by my, thats a heafty price. If performance if what your after, why now just BL some of the great rock-climbing MOCs that are out there, investing in a Buwizz or something, and having something that performs much better at a fraction of the cost?

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9 hours ago, BusterHaus said:

I'm hoping to see trucks with self-leveling suspensions

..awesome thought... active suspension would be cool.

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4 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

 If performance if what your after, why now just BL some of the great rock-climbing MOCs that are out there, investing in a Buwizz or something, and having something that performs much better at a fraction of the cost?

I'm really curious what great rock-climbing MOC can you build "for a fraction of the cost", especially if you use BuWizz since that costs 2/3rd of this set and you still have to buy the PF motors if that's a fair comparison. As always a set from LEGO will not be a specialised crawling monster that die-hard off-roaders can use out of the box, this is still a toy. Considering the Control+ hub and the motors this is a great starter pack if someone wants to have a full set of Powered Up components to play with, and it has a bunch of other useful parts as well (wheel hubs, new joints, 3x3 biscuits etc). Additionally, if someone is after a better performance then it can be still modded freely.

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2 hours ago, kbalage said:

I'm really curious what great rock-climbing MOC can you build "for a fraction of the cost", especially if you use BuWizz since that costs 2/3rd of this set and you still have to buy the PF motors if that's a fair comparison. As always a set from LEGO will not be a specialised crawling monster that die-hard off-roaders can use out of the box, this is still a toy. Considering the Control+ hub and the motors this is a great starter pack if someone wants to have a full set of Powered Up components to play with, and it has a bunch of other useful parts as well (wheel hubs, new joints, 3x3 biscuits etc). Additionally, if someone is after a better performance then it can be still modded freely.

You and I are on the same sheet of music in terms of this set being a toy, can be modded freely, and the set not being a great crawler out of the box.  But poor performance will be the complaints from the starting gate.  Perhaps not from you or I but they will come.  That and the price.  They have already begun.  I guess my comments were in reference to that.  If performance is what folks are really going for, I was curious why not just for for the MOC option which will produce a much better crawler.

My mind was set on @PunkTacoNYC's crawlers.  Extremely extremlely capable and, from memory, only 6-800 pieces, most of which were common elements that should already be in AFOL's collection.  I wasn't assuming building from no collection at all, so motors, some bricks etc. should be a given.  But I suppose if one does not have any motor, bricks, etc. then the price would be comparable.  Also, I haven't checked up on BuWizz prices.  Have they gone up?  I bought mine when it was beginning on kickstarter, and I think I paid 79.99 or something in USD.  But yes, "for a fraction of the cost" would certainly be an exaggeration of zero elements from the start were the assumption. 

 

Edited by nerdsforprez

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3 hours ago, kbalage said:

I'm really curious what great rock-climbing MOC can you build "for a fraction of the cost", especially if you use BuWizz since that costs 2/3rd of this set and you still have to buy the PF motors if that's a fair comparison. As always a set from LEGO will not be a specialised crawling monster that die-hard off-roaders can use out of the box, this is still a toy. Considering the Control+ hub and the motors this is a great starter pack if someone wants to have a full set of Powered Up components to play with, and it has a bunch of other useful parts as well (wheel hubs, new joints, 3x3 biscuits etc). Additionally, if someone is after a better performance then it can be still modded freely.

Paave's 500 piece crawler - basic PF only. Compare for yourself the performance of both these vehicles and make your own thoughts. https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/139638-moc-trial-pickup-truck/

 

@BusterHaus As excited as I am for a better, more capable "official" control device, unfortunately the size of it leaves a lot to wish. 

 

 

Edited by syclone

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If TLG released a set just like that (even with the expensive rechargeable battery), people would still find things to complain about it. For example, people complain about holes in the bodies of official sets; what would they say here? A more filled body would be more expensive, and, most of all, heavier and leading to either less torque or less speed.

That body also doesn't seem to be much resistant to abuse, which would never fly with TLG's strict "kid-proof" policy.

Don't get me wrong, it seems a nice MOC, but, like stated numerous times already, TLG and AFOLs have much different possibilities and restrictions.

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2 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

You and I are on the same sheet of music in terms of this set being a toy, can be modded freely, and the set not being a great crawler out of the box.  But poor performance will be the complaints from the starting gate.  Perhaps not from you or I but they will come.  That and the price.  They have already begun.  I guess my comments were in reference to that. 

Complaints are coming and will come mostly from people with unrealistic expectations. If the Control+ system works well as designed I'm sure it will be a hit among the kids, they loved 9398 as well and it was much slower and could not even climb like this one. 

The MOCs you and @syclone mentioned might crawl better but they won't sell as a kit for sure, the connector based body comes apart easily in the hands of kids. They might be great MOCs but as @AVCampos said they won't go through the product tests at TLG. There are so many restrictions and different needs that a LEGO product needs to match, it will never be the perfect one for everyone.

One remark about the price - BuWizz is between 100-150 EUR depending on their actual sale and the taxes, 55 EUR for 2 L motors and a Servo. This means only the electronic parts are 150-200 EUR and you did not buy a single brick yet. If you go with PF only then it'll be much cheaper, you can get all the electronics for ~100 EUR, but then it'll have all the limitations of IR control. With SBrick you can get it for ~140 EUR so this might be the most optimal solution with all the bells and whistles of BT control, but again you need to add all the parts.

My point is - yes we can build a better crawler for a significantly lower price because we have the parts, the motors and we don't build it for kids. Once you start looking at it with no parts at home and as a product that needs to find the balance between many needs it becomes more reasonable.

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Perhaps I am confused, but I remember that V2 receiver made quite the difference and didn't cut power off so much as Control+ seems to do.

So do you think that Control+ behaves better than V2 receiver?

 

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Just having received this set for review purposes I can confirm the orange used for most of the liftarms and panels is what Lego calls Flame Yellow Orange. BL calls it Bright Yellow Orange. 

 

It is the same orange used in the Voltron Ideas set. 

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If folks go to the BL color guide you can see the colors (digitally) almost (not quite) side by side.  If you can, a great shot would be regular orange (like that used in the Unimog) and the flame yellow orange side by side in real life......

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Many thanks, and the shadow is actually a good way to see the difference under different lighting. Waiting for your review, but it should be horrible to keep me away of this beauty. I'm just missing the new clutch

Edited by bitbamboo

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