amorti

Brunojj1's mind-opener - red supercar - free instructions now available for static version

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Just finished my C61042 today : very good building experience, both challenging and entertaining! Just a few remarks on the build process :

  • The all-black pins makes the result nice to the eye, but you should separate them by kind to avoid losing time searching
  • The bag numbers were OK until the third section, at which I had to open #4 and #5 bags to be able to advance
  • Very few mistakes in the instructions (I can only remember only 2 wrong-sided panel callouts)
  • Sometimes the close-ups pictures make it difficult to locate which side of the car parts should go : I think the instructions are a bit too commpact at times (to save on paper, probably)

But in the end, by staying focus, everything goes well and we have a strong feeling of achievement at the end of each section. Definitely positive to me !

As for the result : a very good-looking car and enjoyable playability (RC version). I think LEGO should take some inspiration of Bruno's work – and also CADA's price tag !

It has been my first incursion in the "dark side": I have no regrets because LEGO has no equivalent model to offer, but I think I will do it again only for really premium/original sets like this one, not with the sole idea of paying less.

Edited by Celeri

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1 hour ago, Celeri said:

It has been my first incursion in the "dark side": I have no regrets because LEGO has no equivalent model to offer, but I think I will do it again only for really premium/original sets like this one, not with the sole idea of paying less.

That is exactly how I look at things.

(I did this with the Flying Dutchman from MK. It was a blast to build this model. Nothing even close from TLG - even the Silent Mary looks ... well, I don't know. I do know that there is apparently playability in the Mary)

But other than that: Not for going the cheap way.

Best
Thorsten

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13 hours ago, Celeri said:

But in the end, by staying focus, everything goes well and we have a strong feeling of achievement at the end of each section. Definitely positive to me !

If CaDA becomes more successful, I guess they'll also have to progressively simplify the building instructions. And introduce more colors into the model, especially internally. With growing costumer base comes a growing amount of complaints about building errors (whether self-inflicted or not). I'm not sure if CaDA's next model of this size and complexity would again be as black-on-black as this one. As a reminder where LEGO Technic started, here's a photo from the 8865 review thread:

tn_dscn4635.jpg

Although the inhabitants of this forum would be happy with such instructions, I'm sure the Service Center won't... :pir-grin:

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I just love the idea that for the first year of Technic(al) sets, Lego just provided a single blueprint showing side/front/top views. Traditional instructions for at all for these sets came after trial and much error. I wouldn't fancy building 853 - with no experience of Technic - from just a blueprint (actually, I would - what a wonderful challenge to a budding engineer!)

At least, that what I was once told. Now I can't work out whether it was true, or someone was successfully fooling me...

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1 hour ago, J159753 said:

I just love the idea that for the first year of Technic(al) sets, Lego just provided a single blueprint showing side/front/top views. Traditional instructions for at all for these sets came after trial and much error. I wouldn't fancy building 853 - with no experience of Technic - from just a blueprint (actually, I would - what a wonderful challenge to a budding engineer!)

At least, that what I was once told. Now I can't work out whether it was true, or someone was successfully fooling me...

I think that's doable with the studded Technic, but it would not be with studless. That's a reason why old sets could be build with much less steps. Most probalbly becaused the layered build of those old sets.
That's why I think it's a bit stupid to compare those two instruction styles and to whine about the simpleness of today's instructions all the time :classic:

Edited by Lipko

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@Celeri: thank you, I enjoy reading such well-founded feedbacks a lot and I´m happy you like it!

On 4/12/2021 at 1:16 PM, astyanax said:

If CaDA becomes more successful, I guess they'll also have to progressively simplify the building instructions. And introduce more colors into the model, especially internally. With growing costumer base comes a growing amount of complaints about building errors (whether self-inflicted or not). I'm not sure if CaDA's next model of this size and complexity would again be as black-on-black as this one. As a reminder where LEGO Technic started, here's a photo from the 8865 review thread:

Although the inhabitants of this forum would be happy with such instructions, I'm sure the Service Center won't... :pir-grin:

I found it highly interesting you brought up this example! The 8865 „supercar“ was the very first Lego Technic set I have built in my life, back in 1991 :wub:. I was deeply impressed and obviously still keeping the passion 30 years later. Recently I have rebuilt that very same old set with only few parts to be replaced. I was having mixed feelings – the sweet nostalgy one the one hand and the suffering from searching the many parts needed for that single step in the building instruction. You get just used to the modern "simple" instructions layout.

Back to the CaDA 61042 set. I can remember only 2 negative feedbacks ever, an obviously small percentage. I´m thankful, being the luckiest Technic designer on earth, because I´ve had the opportunity to influence/ decide the black colour of the pins for the dedicated builders like I am :excited:. I´ve heard not one compaint about the missing „colour diversity“, only rejoicing. Then the building steps were made after my proposed subassemblies, I even didn´t know they would follow these consequently – resulting in some smaller and some bigger building steps. A prominent influencer in Germany said „It´s like building good old Lego Technic, only with the newer parts.“ (Held der Steine). Maybe I don´t agree on that exactly, but it flatters me too.

Edited by Milan
Removed the picture quoted from post from the same page.

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I too appreciate the all-black nature of the set, though I will say that building the model gave me a greater appreciation for the advantages of color-coding! Not that I would trade the all-black for anything else, though.

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On 2/13/2021 at 3:42 PM, brunojj1 said:

The comparison pics with the Sian are cool to see! If somebody is wondering how they are so different in size - the real cars have almost 40cm difference in length (!), resulting in 5cm difference scaled down. So everything is pretty much in 1/8 scale. I bring my chassis width down to 29 studs to keep proportions right btw.

Today, for the first time, I saw a real Ferrari 488 Pista, just parking in front of a bank (yup, this is in Switzerland). As I was walking past the red & striped beast, what struck me most is that it's indeed a pretty small car actually... :laugh_hard:

Oh well, I guess that keeps the weight down and performance up. :sweet:

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I recently finished building this, also my first foray into the dark side.

First the cons:

The material quality is not quite up to lego standard - variable friction of axles in axle holes, and poor clutching of studs into pin holes was what I noticed. Some bits of bodywork were a bit tricky to put in place, and some bits of body work are a bit fragile - front grille and diffusers. Seats were ridiculously loose, but I fixed this.

Ok, a lot more pros:

A nice challenging build, gearbox simpler than e.g. Chiron, but functional, some nice cosmetic/functional features, like the paddle shifters and cockpit. RC shifting while driving is great fun.

I really liked that after the functional part of the build there was still interest - the hood/bonnet and especially the doors (with locks - nice!) were really nicely implemented. 

The finished model looks great - nicely implemented non-boxiness, few gaps. 

The playability is fantastic. Physical remote + rechargeable battery + powerful motors make this great fun. And even better with a Buwizz - allows the lights to stay on, and in ludicrous mode, it can really move. Too fast in fact to properly control indoors - but this supercar can be crashed and rebuilt with impunity! I'm looking forward to a proper session with room to drive.

Thanks @brunojj1!

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Flash offer (-53%) on AliExpress Cada official store:
128'07 € for rc version (95 pcs available)
93'50  for manual version (99 pcs available)
Less than 20 hours left, limited units available as aforementioned. Free shipping. YES, you are reading correctly, for the price of the Top Gear 42109 abomination, you can buy an RC 1:8 Supercar Masterpiece from Bruno Jenson from an official seller. Ordered mine already, first Technic kit in the last 2 or 3 years I think)))
image.png.0bc9c1be1415effb7f006552ea887135.png

 

Edited by syclone

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I don't think anyone uploaded this yet (at least I haven't found it), but here's an inventory (for the manual version) in CSV file format (plain .txt file, just import to Rebrickable as a part list). I'd say 99% accurate, doesn't have CaDa parts obviously, and may have some error (Should be OK from a quick check, but no promises) link 

rebrickablelist.png

Edited by syclone

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It only has a few thick 1x2 liftarms with two cross hole in the RC version (also in manual). The manual version has some alternating hole liftarms for the fake motors but that can be replaced with an alternative solution. So if anyone wants to build it without buying the CaDA kit you’ll have to put in a little bit of extra effort :wink: 

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20 minutes ago, LvdH said:

So if anyone wants to build it without buying the CaDA kit you’ll have to put in a little bit of extra effort :wink: 

*And money. Especially money :innocent:

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3 minutes ago, Gray Gear said:

*And money. Especially money :innocent:

Especially money indeed :laugh: I have looked what the RC version costs on Bricklink using genuine LEGO (mix used and new) according to my list and it’s easily above €800 with shipping, excluding the BuWizz unit(s). I only spent about €120 on spare parts back when I built mine. But I had the PF parts and I had recently bought a used lot of sets including 42030 which had the servo and 9394 which includes a lot of red panels. 

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This reminds me of the fact that the PF system is discontinued and when I look for the motors for this set on Bricklink and a servo motor costs around 60$... *huh*

Edited by Scoar Sonander

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On 2/13/2021 at 3:42 PM, brunojj1 said:

Do you have a short video demonstrating the speed of the car? I´d be highly interested to see the performance you could achieve! 

Fiiiiinally got around to shooting & uploading a little racing vid.

So this is in highest gear, with 4x PF L motors (genuine Lego) and 2x BuWizz 2.0 in Ludicrous mode. Pretty good speed I think, considering it's a 3kg model!

Going full throttle from standstill in highest gear and ludicrous mode is prone to trigger the overload protection. In the first few seconds of the video I'm shifting up sequentially from lowest to highest gear (you can faintly hear the clicks ... above the screaming motors haha!). Anyway, shifting while driving is soooo much fun anyway... and so smooth! :pir-grin:

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@astyanaxIf I recall (not so correctly) Cada advises not to change gear while driving in the instruction manual. Have you modified that too? Me thinks it'd be fun to change gears while driving this beauty.

Edited by thekoRngear

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1 hour ago, thekoRngear said:

@astyanaxIf I recall (not so correctly) Cada advises not to change gear while driving in the instruction manual. Have you modified that too? Me thinks it'd be fun to change gears while driving this beauty.

Fortunately I've never seen the CaDA manual, haha!

But now that I know I'm not allowed to, I'm going to enjoy it even more! :laugh_hard:

Seriously though, I've experienced zero issues changing gear while going full throttle in Ludicrous mode. Maybe when I finally disassemble it I'll find some ground-down gears, but who cares, they're expendable....

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A lot of manufacturers recommend doing or not doing things that would be more safe or whatever, but people just do it anyways.

I can see why they would recommend to not shift while driving, if something fails in the gearbox it could lock up and something could break. But where's the fun in that?

The manual of my Sodastream Bottle also advised me to check the entire bottle for microcracks before every use... Yeah right :head_back:

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The only gears I notice get bad wear, where on the CaDA differential. Think I covered that above, the teeth on it aren't as good as Lego's.

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When I was first building mine the CaDA differential spun really roughly, so I replaced it with a Lego one before I went any further. All the other CaDA gears meshed fine, but that differential was horrible.

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13 hours ago, astyanax said:

So this is in highest gear, with 4x PF L motors (genuine Lego) and 2x BuWizz 2.0 in Ludicrous mode. Pretty good speed I think, considering it's a 3kg model! :pir-grin:

@astyanax, it is a good thing that you specify this info, because when watching the video I just could not regognize the result I get with the original CaDa power pack... it works well, but clearly the car's weight prevents it from going at any "fun" speed !

By the way, do you think that just swiping the battery box with a BuWizz 2.0 or 3.0 would lead to something better, or should all the motors be replaced as well ?

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13 minutes ago, Celeri said:

@astyanax, it is a good thing that you specify this info, because when watching the video I just could not regognize the result I get with the original CaDa power pack... it works well, but clearly the car's weight prevents it from going at any "fun" speed !

By the way, do you think that just swiping the battery box with a BuWizz 2.0 or 3.0 would lead to something better, or should all the motors be replaced as well ?

CaDA Pro motors are a lot stronger than Lego motors, both in torque and speed. I really don't know if it would come out faster with 4x Lego motors or 2x CaDA motors, but I suspect the CaDA motors would win.

The price for this extra power, is higher current consumption. You can't run two of them at Ludicrous speed at all on a buwizz 2.0, and even Fast will trip the fuse pretty often. If you ever tried running two Buggy motors on a single buwizz, you'll have a good idea what to expect. So, if wanted to try "just" changing the batteries, you'd need to fit two buwizz 2.0, and hook each drive motor to a separate one.

I have the stuff here to try it, although I never tried it yet.

Here's a video with 4x CaDA Pro motors and 2x CaDA batteries. The gears were given the "light" modification described by Bruno above, where you just swap the ratios behind the differential housing. It had power to spare, but the differential was getting clicky so I didn't press for more speed. In the end, for me, this is an indoors model. Too many small pieces to lose by driving it outdoors, and near zero ground clearance, so I just put it back to original and used my extra CaDA motors elsewhere.

 

Edited by amorti

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Thanks for taking the question @amorti -- I don't have any non-Lego motors to make any comparison. I found a video of yours on page 12, stating it's with 4 motors, but it looks significantly slower than my video above. :wink: To be fair, I was running at 11.2V. Plus, I implemented the gearing up as suggested by @brunojj1 on page 11.

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@astyanax 

The problem I had was the one time I persuaded the missus to make a video, I'd already been playing with the car and it had only 7.6v left on each battery, which is pretty near dead.

Volt for volt, CaDA motors are nearly twice as fast as Lego. 715rpm vs 388rpm at 9v. If you crank the Lego motor up to 11.2v I guess you have +/- 485rpm, which is still a lot less than the CaDA motor gives at the 8.4v a freshly-charged CaDA battery can deliver.

And that's not hollow rpm - there's more torque than a Lego motor has, too. But yes, of course that costs more amps. You can't spin 4 of these motors at Ludicrous with 2x buwizz 2, same as you couldn't run 4x buggy motors that way.

Why not give the CaDA motors a try? I don't see a big difference in using third party motors which are an upgrade to Lego's, if you're already using Buwizz as an upgrade to Lego IR boxes. https://www.custombricks.de/motors-cables-sbrick/cada-power-functions-l-motor.html?language=en

I guess really I need to try and make a video with a pair of CaDA motors and a pair of buwizz at Ludicrous. I'll put it on the to-do list!

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