[Debate] The 42110 Defender is the Best Lego Car Category Model Since the 8880

[2GodBDGlory]

2 hours ago, howitzer said:

So apparently there are few cars which have this kind of feature, but vast majority don't, and the way it was implemented in 8880 doesn't seem very realistic to me (very different from the ones mentioned in your link).

I think the main thing that is unrealistic about the 8880 system is the angle the rear wheels steer--almost the same as the front ones! Real cars with 4WS have hardly any rear steering angle (3 degrees is what I recall seeing on the Porsche 918 Spyder I built once). Of course, such small angles aren't dramatic or very fun for play!

1 hour ago, Gray Gear said:

@howitzer most 4WS systems use computers and sensors to calculate in which direction and by how much the rear wheels should turn. The rear wheels are then steered either using hydraulics like in the R32 skyline or electric motors like in the R33/R34 skylines, not connected to the front steering system at all.

Of course the 4WS on the 8880 is a very simplified version of a real 4WS system, as is everything else built from Lego.

I believe there have been mechanical 4WS systems before, though, on Honda Prelude's. 

[Void_S]

10 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

I think the main thing that is unrealistic about the 8880 system is the angle the rear wheels steer--almost the same as the front ones! Real cars with 4WS have hardly any rear steering angle (3 degrees is what I recall seeing on the Porsche 918 Spyder I built once). Of course, such small angles aren't dramatic or very fun for play!

Additionally, there is one more type of rear steering, which is quite more common but even harder to have fun for play in the toys. It is a dynamic steering which turns the wheels when the suspension is compressed only at one side (during a tight turn at a high speed). It can be easilly achived by a system of non equal-lenthed arm but I never saw them in any set or MOC (only boring wishbones) ... 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Void_S

[Gray Gear]

@2GodBDGlory You are correct! I didn't now about that, it's an even better example. Learned something new: The Honda 3rd gen Honda released in 1987 came with this: 

Looks very similar to the system in 8880. It is a purely mechanical system that is steering the rear wheels in the same direction as the front ones if you only steer slightly and reverses steering direction if you start to turn the front wheels a lot. The idea is that If you go fast you only steer a little, and a slight crab steer helps with high speed stability. And since you'd only turn the front wheels a lot when you are going slow, a smaller turning radius is achieved. It works using this super complicated system in the rear (Hinteres Lenkgetriebe).

Problem is, no matter what speeds you are going hte rear wheels will start to turn and decrease the turning radius if you steer too much. If you are going fast into a tight corner and steer to much the rear wheels wills start to decrease your turning radius, driving you closer towards that inside Guard rail. It seems Honda also noticed that problem as ne 4th gen Prelude released in 1991 featured a 4WS system using sensors and hydraulics, like I described above.

 

 

[howitzer]

I think the main conceptual difference between real modern cars with steerable rear wheels and the steering in 8880 was that the both axles of 8880 were directly linked to each other and the steering wheel. This makes the implementation quite unrealistic, as it's not what real cars do and also it cannot perform the most important feature of a modern rear-wheel steering, which is the stability increase provided in high speeds as the rear wheels steer in the same direction as the front wheels. The increased agility provided by the rear wheels steering in opposite direction in low speed is of course nice, but such a small advantage that it gets pointless considering the increased complexity of the rear axle with steerable wheels.

I see this steering issue somewhat similar to how the main rotor of 8856 was built: tilting the whole rotor is a fun feature, but not what real helicopters do, and considering that TLG had released a helicopter with collective pitch previously (852, with much more limited parts palette), it makes the 8856's tilt-feature feel a bit of a cop-out, especially with the new parts they made in order to make that feature happen. So ideally, a 4WS car should implement both steering modes, but this presents a dilemma as the high-speed mode cannot properly be demonstrated in Lego form because they cannot drive fast enough. This is why I feel that TLG should simply forget about four-wheel steering when making models of real cars.

(Yes, there has been cars with 8880-like linked steering, but let's be real: while there has been all kinds of weird cars, vast majority of them have all the same features.)

Edited September 30, 2021 by howitzer

[2GodBDGlory]

43 minutes ago, Void_S said:

Additionally, there is one more type of rear steering, which is quite more common but even harder to have fun for play in the toys. It is a dynamic steering which turns the wheels when the suspension is compressed only at one side (during a tight turn at a high speed). It can be easilly achived by a system of non equal-lenthed arm but I never saw them in any set or MOC (only boring wishbones) ... 

I do recall reading about that sort of system (passive rear steering?). It would be a neat feature to include in a MOC, and as you said, it shouldn't be too hard. All you have to do is make the steering link longer or shorter than the suspension arms to cause the normally undesirable "bump steer." Do you know which way it would steer the compressed (outer) wheel? Would it be counter-steering or not?

6 minutes ago, Gray Gear said:

Looks very similar to the system in 8880. It is a purely mechanical system that is steering the rear wheels in the same direction as the front ones if you only steer slightly and reverses steering direction if you start to turn the front wheels a lot. The idea is that If you go fast you only steer a little, and a slight crab steer helps with high speed stability. And since you'd only turn the front wheels a lot when you are going slow, a smaller turning radius is achieved.

I've built traditional 4WS systems before where the rear axle either steers with or against the front one depending on which speed the transmission is in, usually using two Servo motors and a switch, but I also used a system similar to the one you describe here in my much smaller Audi RS6 Avant (although it wasn't mechanical). I used a pneumatic cylinder to steer the rear end, and powered it from a switch that cycled back and forth as the front rack moved. It didn't really work in practice, though, because the pneumatic cylinder I used was too weak.

[Void_S]

6 minutes ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

Do you know which way it would steer the compressed (outer) wheel? Would it be counter-steering or not?

I have red about both variants, and the most of such cars normally have slight crab steering to decrease the traversal forces. However, at least one car hadn opposite steering - Peugeot 406. Yes, the one from original "Taxi" movies. It took sharp turns at a high speed so accurate, so it was just impossible to do some drifting (the famous scene with fast parking was made with a ton of oil just to make the rear axle slipping).

[Pattspatt]

1 hour ago, howitzer said:

So ideally, a 4WS car should implement both steering modes, but this presents a dilemma as the high-speed mode cannot properly be demonstrated in Lego form because they cannot drive fast enough.

 

1 hour ago, 2GodBDGlory said:

I've built traditional 4WS systems before where the rear axle either steers with or against the front one depending on which speed the transmission is in, usually using two Servo motors and a switch, but I also used a system similar to the one you describe here in my much smaller Audi RS6 Avant (although it wasn't mechanical).

In a flagship supercar set, I’d definitely appreciate rear wheel steering that mechanically switches steering direction in high gears. Not sure if the difficulty-to-marketability ratio is favorable, though - so I won’t hold my breath!

[2GodBDGlory]

34 minutes ago, Void_S said:

I have red about both variants, and the most of such cars normally have slight crab steering to decrease the traversal forces. However, at least one car hadn opposite steering - Peugeot 406. Yes, the one from original "Taxi" movies. It took sharp turns at a high speed so accurate, so it was just impossible to do some drifting (the famous scene with fast parking was made with a ton of oil just to make the rear axle slipping).

Thanks!

5 minutes ago, Pattspatt said:

 

In a flagship supercar set, I’d definitely appreciate rear wheel steering that mechanically switches steering direction in high gears. Not sure if the difficulty-to-marketability ratio is favorable, though - so I won’t hold my breath!

That would be very cool, but I think the complexity would be very high. I think the most reliable way it could be done is by hooking up the Xerion rear axle mechanism to a rack/eccentric/LA connected to the shifting axle. This would then require mechanical lockouts at each end of the gears to avoid shifting, say, from 8th to 1st, and would also add a significant amount of resistance to the shifting mechanism.

In the end, I think it can be done with Lego's reliability standards, and it would really restore my faith in the supercar line, but I have no expectations of such a complex system being put in an official set. I'll just hope for standard 8880 style 4WS and get back to my MOCing, where complexity is embraced and reliability is shunned!

[Gray Gear]

@2GodBDGlory If such a system were created in an official Lego set that would be cool... But just think of how many poeple we get here already that arn't even able to put in the differentials in the right way 

 

[2GodBDGlory]

Oh well...

Anyways, all this talk has me inspired to build a fast chassis with 4WS that switches from regular to crab depending on speed, just to see the effects. This is one area where my PU will be very useful!

[Saberwing40k]

Hmm, we seem to have veered kind of off topic with discussion of 4 wheel steering.

To answer the OP, No, I do not think that 42110 is the best Lego car since 8880. Now, this is not to say that it's a bad model, but it sure does not live up to 8880. In my opinion, no Lego car since has. I think the best one since 8880 is actually either 8448 or 8466. Both distill a car into a very fun technical model, with well working functions, wrapped in a stylized concept car body.

[Gumalca]

On 9/29/2021 at 6:51 PM, Erik Leppen said:

[...] 42110, the olive green Defender, and the fact that it simply doesn't work. The whole chassis is basically one function, and it just doesn't run. Meaning that you buy a 2500 piece Technic set, and then when someone comes along and says, "so, being Technic and all, what does it do" the answer is basically, well, it's supposed to let the engine run sliiightly faster or slower depending on this lever here you can hardly access and then have the tableroom to roll 70 cm before seeing any movement in the engine at all, and then switch again and roll another meter to see any change. Now that's the theory. The practice is that whenever you do that, most of what you hear is clicking. So I set it to neutral so that at least it can be rolled around to play with the steering and suspension. I'd say this is a great example of how not to make a Technic set. Fortunately, I knew about the issues before I bought it and I bought it mostly for the parts, but it was still an even bigger disappointment than I expected. Luckily enough the suspension and steering worked rather well and it looked cool, so at least it left somewhat of a positive impression, but imagine what could have been done with all that chassis space instead.

Very well said. I have none of the UCS cars, they are not for me, just too big. So I was looking forward to 42110, because of its complex gearbox, but it just does not work. I'm still unsure what I should do with it. Give it to my nephew? Maybe if I want to disappoint him...

The experience of building it still was a nice one, and then there is the alternate Stadium Truck instructions which make it a good purchase in the end. Same problems I'm having with 42107, nice building experience but when you want to show it to someone you can only tell them about the nice gearbox it has that can't be seen.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Gumalca

[Celeri]

2 hours ago, Gumalca said:

Very well said. I have none of the UCS cars, they are not for me, just too big. So I was looking forward to 42110, because of its complex gearbox, but it just does not work. I'm still unsure what I should do with it. Give it to my nephew? Maybe if I want to disappoint him...

If you have technic parts available, you could try this MOD : MOC-31299 (Rebrickable)

This is an upgrade pack that includes (among other enhancements) a completely redesigned gearbox that works without any universal joints and apparently works much better. Personally, I will definitely try it out when I am finished building ALT models with my 42100 set!

Edited October 1, 2021 by Celeri

[Meatman]

People arguing over the 4 wheel steering being realistic, meanwhile the engine is driven by a chain.

[2GodBDGlory]

7 hours ago, Meatman said:

People arguing over the 4 wheel steering being realistic, meanwhile the engine is driven by a chain.

Yeah... The Honda S500 did have a chain drive, but that's a different sort of car, and I think the chain was in a different place.

[Milan]

7 hours ago, Meatman said:

meanwhile the engine is driven by a chain

Oldsmobile Toronado.

[lmdesigner42]

Lots of great points have been made about both 8880 and 42110 so far. Perhaps 42110 could be considered 8880's successor due to its excessive complexity. It's drivetrain was a pleasant surprise given the other similarly-sized off-roaders that had only one diff with no transmission (e.g. 8297, 42029, 42069), then along comes 42110 with 3 diffs and a 3-stage transmission (DNR, Hi/Lo, 4-speed). The 1:8 supercars arguably had drivetrains that were at just as complex, but that was far more expected for their size.

On the other hand, 42110 is more of a "complex off-roader" than a "complex supercar," therefore following after 8466 and 8297 as other have mentioned. Both it and the 1:8 supercars also focused far more on a detailed exterior/interior and shelf presence, with corresponding high part counts, than the functionality and playability that 8880 is known for. From that perspective, perhaps neither are true successors to 8880.

About the 4-wheel steering, a MOC with variable rear steering has been done before but probably not easily.

[Pato Sentado]

If you want 4WD with full 4WS you should go to modern off-roaders, they can do even a "crab walk" in diagonal direction to the car. Some military cars will do that as the french Arquus Scarab. Next electric Hummer I think also will.

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Pato Sentado

[noahtheb]

Have you all seen the diesel brother's super six? It's pretty insane and it has 6WS.