42114 - 6x6 Volvo Articulated Hauler

[SNIPE]

This, my friend is a proper technic set.

[Ngoc Nguyen]

Just now, SNIPE said:

This, my friend is a proper technic set.

Indeed it is. It is worthy of the mantle of a flagship. I have been too quick to dismiss it.

[Parazels]

It moves even slower, than my "speed" boat! 

But I still love the new set and will buy it for €170!

Edited July 17, 2020 by Parazels

[Maaboo the Witch]

21 minutes ago, kbalage said:

Not forgotten, but I did not want to squeeze everything in one super long video ;) 

@Magical Duck The linear clutch acts as a break in "4th gear" when the wheels are fixed and the bed is operated. I guess there's a clutch there to protect the gearbox if someone tries to push it by hand in this position.

That's the "Hill Assist" feature seen in the real A60H. Cool! 

[Ngoc Nguyen]

@kbalage I thought you would do a quick side by side comparison with the other 6x6 42070, but I was wrong.

[SNIPE]

Am I right in thinking the gearbox switches between drive and the tipper. The speed selector is just done in software and changes the motor speed. But then again wouldn't the tipper have different speeds then? unlesa the app is sensing the gearbox motor rotation as being in 'dumping mode'  and only has one speed for that.

[Gimmick]

Just now, SNIPE said:

Am I right in thinking the gearbox switches between drive and the tipper.

No, the gearbox switches between 3 drive gears and tipper - just watch the reviews.

[kbalage]

2 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

@kbalage I thought you would do a quick side by side comparison with the other 6x6 42070, but I was wrong.

My 42070 is still in a warehouse with most of my LEGO, I'm still in the middle of moving between places...

2 minutes ago, SNIPE said:

Am I right in thinking the gearbox switches between drive and the tipper. The speed selector is just done in software and changes the motor speed. But then again wouldn't the tipper have different speeds then? unlesa the app is sensing the gearbox motor rotation as being in 'dumping mode'  and only has one speed for that.

I suggest to watch the video, I showed the gearbox in details :) There're 4 gears, switching between them is done mechanically with the L motor. 1st-2nd-3rd are for driving and they change the gear ratio between the XL motor and the wheels, 4th is "park" as the wheels are fixed in this position (through a linear clutch) and the XL motor drives the 2 linear actuators. 3rd angular motor is for steering.

[SNIPE]

Just now, Gimmick said:

No, the gearbox switches between 3 drive gears and tipper - just watch the reviews.

I did but its limited to 90 degrees using that purple wire clip?

if one motor is for switching the 4 speeds and one is for the tipper and one is for the steering, how is it tipping remotley :O

Edited July 17, 2020 by SNIPE

[kbalage]

1 minute ago, SNIPE said:

I did but its limited to 90 degrees using that purple wire clip?

The purple clip is used to detect the 2 endpoints during calibration, as the L motor has absolute zero positioning it will "know" the 0/90/180/270 degrees positions where it needs to rotate to in the different gears.

[AVCampos]

8 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

@kbalage I thought you would do a quick side by side comparison with the other 6x6 42070, but I was wrong.

He did, didn't you see the 42070 effortlessly move on the grass alongside the 42114? Oh wait...

1 minute ago, kbalage said:

The purple clip is used to detect the 2 endpoints during calibration, as the L motor has absolute zero positioning it will "know" the 0/90/180/270 degrees positions where it needs to rotate to in the different gears.

And all that because there are no external markings on the motor to indicate the hardware's absolute zero, so the software has to assign a new zero depending on the position the motor's axle was when the user assembled the model. Thankfully the angular/SPIKE motor avoids that nonsense: just have the instructions say "move the motor's axle until the two markings match", just like the advice they make when building things using the PF servo.

[valenciaeric]

59 minutes ago, Ngoc Nguyen said:

Indeed it is. It is worthy of the mantle of a flagship. I have been too quick to dismiss it.

The gearbox has saved it from mediocrity.

[WvG_853]

@kbalage Thank you very much for your review. I found the modular build with comments very interesting. Normally I always skip the build part in reviews, but you made it really interesting. 
 

 

[XenoRad]

1 hour ago, kbalage said:

The purple clip is used to detect the 2 endpoints during calibration, as the L motor has absolute zero positioning it will "know" the 0/90/180/270 degrees positions where it needs to rotate to in the different gears.

It's all done in software though, isn't it? The motor has no position sensor to know that, does it? So it's the software that's doing all of the calculations, based on ... what exactly? Does it calculate the time it sends an impulse for the motor to move then knows based on milliseconds and its speed when it reached 0/90/180/270 degrees?

I kinda got this inquiry on how the software and motors would know positioning when watching the reviews for Excavator Liebherr R 9800 (42100). After a while it would be that the motors and actuators were out of position compared to the software and I wondered how it calculated where exactly the bucket was at any given time.

Based on your experience with these motors and software do you know? Can you shed some light on this?

[allanp]

I too may have been too quick to dismiss this set. There's actually some things to like here:

1) First motorised RC set with transmission (as in real, not fake like Top Gear car)

2) First ever automatic transmission, plus it has the option to be used in a manual transmission mode. 

3) First transmission brake (very rudimentary and unrealistic form of a brake but still, first ever brake)

4) Is it just me or has the colour coding been toned down a little? Nice to see the old diff in DBG again and better use of instructions to prevent mistakes instead of colour coding. Although purple for the gearbox selection limiter is probably the ugliest choice of colour coding yet! 

5) Metallic colour of the pipework looks nice.

6) Working steering wheel. YAY!

7) Better diffs from Top Gear car. YAY!

8) Price is about right.

But still there are some things that could be better, such as:

1) I think they missed a trick with the automatic transmission. Surely the app could sense that once the motor stalls in second or third gear, it could automatically shift down to first, couldn't it? Lacking the ability to automatically change gears to suit engine load makes it less of an automatic transmission.  

2) Why not use the planetary reduction hubs from 42099 for more realism and torque, maybe it could improve it's off-road performance? The off-road performance is overall quite poor.

3) LAs!

4) Upside down cam shaft engine. I hate these. Would much prefer fewer cylinders over this.

5) Only one new part, that's not really new.

6) Flimsy middle joint.

7) No suspension.

8) Unrealistic placement of transmission in the rear of the vehicle. It should be mounted directly to the back of the engine. 

9) cab looks unrealistically ugly.

10) Poor steering performance. It's sloppy, goes out of sync too easily and reacts too slowly to driver input. 

So overall I don't think it will win any awards for "best flagship evar!", and as a control+ set it still suffers the control+ problems, such as lack of physical remote and no ability to make custom control layouts. But those are issues with control+, not this set itself, which may be fixed in future. So I'm not rushing to buy it, but it's not all bad, it's better than I initially thought.

Just now, XenoRad said:

It's all done in software though, isn't it? The motor has no position sensor to know that, does it? So it's the software that's doing all of the calculations, based on ... what exactly? Does it calculate the time it sends an impulse for the motor to move then knows based on milliseconds and its speed when it reached 0/90/180/270 degrees?

I kinda got this inquiry on how the software and motors would know positioning when watching the reviews for Excavator Liebherr R 9800 (42100). After a while it would be that the motors and actuators were out of position compared to the software and I wondered how it calculated where exactly the bucket was at any given time.

Based on your experience with these motors and software do you know? Can you shed some light on this?

I'd like to know more on this too. I assumed that the motors would have some built in position sensing due to the 6 wires of the control+ system. But with how easily the steering of this set can go out of sync, and it's apparent inability to correct that automatically, maybe they don't, or maybe it's just not in use by the app, or maybe position sensing only works while the motors are being driven and so don't work when the motors are forced or are coasting to a stop?

[Gimmick]

11 minutes ago, XenoRad said:

It's all done in software though, isn't it? The motor has no position sensor to know that, does it? So it's the software that's doing all of the calculations, based on ... what exactly? Does it calculate the time it sends an impulse for the motor to move then knows based on milliseconds and its speed when it reached 0/90/180/270 degrees?

I kinda got this inquiry on how the software and motors would know positioning when watching the reviews for Excavator Liebherr R 9800 (42100). After a while it would be that the motors and actuators were out of position compared to the software and I wondered how it calculated where exactly the bucket was at any given time.

Based on your experience with these motors and software do you know? Can you shed some light on this?

 

9 minutes ago, allanp said:

I'd like to know more on this too. I assumed that the motors would have some built in position sensing due to the 6 wires of the control+ system. But with how easily the steering of this set can go out of sync, and it's apparent inability to correct that automatically, maybe they don't, or maybe it's just not in use by the app, or maybe position sensing only works while the motors are being driven and so don't work when the motors are forced or are coasting to a stop?

To keep it in the "technic" theme:

All technic motors have build in position sensors, that return the position in the range of +/- 180° (with a precision of 1° i think, not sure). The hub does add up the angle internally to an angle above or below +/-180°. The most simple way to calibrate is: read current angle, set some speed, measure real speed, count angle. if real speed is 0 -> you hit something -> remember angle (sum of angles). change direction, do the same again. now you have the range of free movement.

If you rotate the motor while the hub is turned of (if you only turn it by a small amount and you use the absolut position it schould be fine), the gears slip, the clutch gear turns,.... the calibration is basically ruined. Calibrating actuators can be more complex, it depends on how easy the internal clutch limit is reached.

You can use the PU app to toy around and display the angle.

If you want to know the exact position of a mechanical element, you have to add a factor for the transmission an/or linear movement per motor rotation.

[XenoRad]

4 minutes ago, Gimmick said:

 

To keep it in the "technic" theme:

All technic motors have build in position sensors, that return the position in the range of +/- 180° (with a precision of 1° i think, not sure). The hub does add up the angle internally to an angle above or below +/-180°. The most simple way to calibrate is: read current angle, set some speed, measure real speed, count angle. if real speed is 0 -> you hit something -> remember angle (sum of angles). change direction, do the same again. now you have the range of free movement.

If you rotate the motor while the hub is turned of (if you only turn it by a small amount and you use the absolut position it schould be fine), the gears slip, the clutch gear turns,.... the calibration is basically ruined. Calibrating actuators can be more complex, it depends on how easy the internal clutch limit is reached.

You can use the PU app to toy around and display the angle.

If you want to know the exact position of a mechanical element, you have to add a factor for the transmission an/or linear movement per motor rotation.

Thank you for that explanation. So, the motor does know its position, but anything beyond that needs to be guessed based on per-entered parameters for the specific design/set. So, if in an official set the motor is supposed to move an actuator the only way that keeps accurate position of the actuation is if you connect the actuator to the motor as described so that the software can count based on the gear ratio. Any other gear in between that modifies that ratio will throw off calculations.

 

Considering that most play in technic sets happens outside the motors that does leave some room for error. The only way to calibrate that would be to give hubs GPS modules so that, in combination with software they can figure out for themselves how they're moving in 3d space based on inputs and result. And that would only affect the position of the vehicle. In this case, when we have a bed that is moved by actuators, there would be no sensor that could accurately tell its position in the absence of anything else. The only way to tell would be to run the motor until it can no longer run, aka when the bed would reach either the lowest or highest position.

[AVCampos]

44 minutes ago, allanp said:

1) I think they missed a trick with the automatic transmission. Surely the app could sense that once the motor stalls in second or third gear, it could automatically shift down to first, couldn't it? Lacking the ability to automatically change gears to suit engine load makes it less of an automatic transmission.

The app version shown still isn't final, so it could include that feature later.

45 minutes ago, allanp said:

2) Why not use the planetary reduction hubs from 42099 for more realism and torque, maybe it could improve it's off-road performance? The off-road performance is overall quite poor.

Perhaps they would require too much space due to being made to connect only to the large CV joint?

[Maaboo the Witch]

Don't think this is for me. It's too inauthentic and rough around the edges, it has no B-model unlike previous Volvo sets, and where the hell is the suspension? Plus TLG are so unnerved by the inccuracies that they couldn't even bring themselves to slap the model designation on it, the steering freaking out is beyond ridiculous (call me a pessimist, but I don't see TLG fixing that bug in two weeks) and the steering joint has the sturdiness of a pipe cleaner. I still love that engine bay, though. 

I'm sorry, but 8264 does it better. Bogies! 

[kbalage]

1 hour ago, allanp said:

2) Why not use the planetary reduction hubs from 42099 for more realism and torque, maybe it could improve it's off-road performance? The off-road performance is overall quite poor.

Even more torque -> even less speed. The set has enough torque in 1st gear, it can climb a fairly steep incline. Actually the long & low nose is much more limiting than the motor power. Off-road performance could be improved with lockable differentials, that would help a lot.

[Gimmick]

13 minutes ago, XenoRad said:

Thank you for that explanation. So, the motor does know its position, but anything beyond that needs to be guessed based on per-entered parameters for the specific design/set. So, if in an official set the motor is supposed to move an actuator the only way that keeps accurate position of the actuation is if you connect the actuator to the motor as described so that the software can count based on the gear ratio. Any other gear in between that modifies that ratio will throw off calculations.

Well, theoretically you can always test for start and end position, so no matter the gearing -> half the way is half the way. But since the C+ profiles are always preconfigured for one model it would not make that much sense in this case and some things just have no limit. You can calculate (more or less) the real speed of a car, but if you change the wheels...

Steering is actually the easiest thing and with PU you can gear the steering up or down in whatever way you like and build a realy slow offroad steering which need xy rotations of the motor for full direction switch etc.

[XenoRad]

7 minutes ago, Gimmick said:

Well, theoretically you can always test for start and end position, so no matter the gearing -> half the way is half the way. But since the C+ profiles are always preconfigured for one model it would not make that much sense in this case and some things just have no limit. You can calculate (more or less) the real speed of a car, but if you change the wheels...

Steering is actually the easiest thing and with PU you can gear the steering up or down in whatever way you like and build a realy slow offroad steering which need xy rotations of the motor for full direction switch etc.

Yes, you can always test for start and end position and calculate half way provided that the movement is linear. Any deviation from that will introduce error.

 

Anyway, that's just speculation for sets and MOCs that aren't out there yet. I'm actually impressed with what you can do nowadays with Lego motors and software. Powered Up was introduced with 42099 if I'm not mistaken and from then up until now the improvement in capability in the software is noticeable.

As a gearhead however I can always wish for more powerful motors. An 8 or a 9 AA equivalent battery hub powering a beefier motor would definitely be a boost in capability.

Edited July 17, 2020 by XenoRad

[Gimmick]

@kbalage

You said in your review that 1st drive gear and tipping are on the "opposite" position in the gearbox: 0° 1st gear and 270° tipping, and the change from 270° to 360° with an addition of 90° is blocked for calibration,

So if I set the L-Motor in PU to absolut 0° before I install it and leave out the cable holder, there should no reason why the "use shortest rotational direction" function would not always work and directly switch from tipping to first gear, right?

Edited July 19, 2020 by Gimmick

[mpj]

What I don't understand is: if I drive the truck faster, it goes automatically from 1st to 3rd gear. Then I stop it. When I restart, does it restart from 3rd gear or does it go automatically to first gear?

 

Same question, I stop it for tipping. Then does it restart automatically from first gear?

[1gor]

@kbalage first of all sorry for late response but I find your review very simple and informative enough to help people to make decision about 42114 set. Since I use mobile phone I want to ask you for one favour - is it possible to have separate photos of those few building steps that you showed in video review?

Thank you

Edited July 19, 2020 by I_Igor