Instructions for my Excavator

[Jennifer Clark]

Hi Folks,

Many, many years ago I started the process of creating instructions for one of my models, the JCB JS220 excavator. Unfortunately I was unable to convert the complex CAD files to instructions due to technical problems, but Eric Albrecht (Blakbird) has stepped in and made it work.

So after an incredible amount of work from Eric and myself, it is with great pleasure I finally announce they are ready, and can now be downloaded. Eric has done an amazing job on the rendering, and the instructions are of the highest quality. They can be downloaded from Crowkiller's website for a small charge at the following link;

http://www.crowkille...F-JCB-excavator

Enjoy!

Jennifer

[Conchas]

Congratulations Jennifer and of course also to Eric, for the huge work put on this!

It is great to see you having again some LEGO activity for the past years.

Looking forward to see new Technic models from you!

[Alasdair Ryan]

That's great news,I have never built any of your mocs before from the cad files on the internet,But this may encourage me to do so.

Good work fellow Scot and that American fellow who helped make them.

You may want to get your self a pink star here since your a female.

[Jennifer Clark]

You may want to get your self a pink star here since your a female.

Just as long as I don't have to get the pink Lego as well!

Jennifer

[parda]

This is pretty amazing, and exciting for me, That excavator for technic figs. <3 Thanks Jennifer for your work, is a honour to see you, and thanks to Eric for his immaculate work as ever.

Now I need at least 5 more pneumatic cylinders...

Edited December 21, 2012 by parda

[jantjeuh]

Now I need at least 5 more pneumatic cylinders...

Haha, was thinking the exact same thing. Lovely model, really want to build it. Shame pneumatics are so expensive..

Maybe I should use some LAs instead, or is that considered blasphemy?

[Alasdair Ryan]

Maybe I should use some LAs instead, or is that considered blasphemy?

Yes that is.....

Just as long as I don't have to get the pink Lego as well!

Jennifer

Oh but I want to see pink technic moc's.

[Jennifer Clark]

Maybe I should use some LAs instead, or is that considered blasphemy?

Absolutely! I'd love to see the model updated with newer components.

Jennifer

[Alasdair Ryan]

Absolutely! I'd love to see the model updated with newer components.

Jennifer

Would there be enough room to fit 3 power function servos in the back along with a compressor?

Edited December 22, 2012 by Alasdair Ryan

[DLuders]

Great work from the incomparable Jennifer Clark and Blakbird! Here is some additional information on Jennifer Clark's genuinemodels.com website:

"Project Title: JCB JS220 Excavator Completion Date: 24/10/03

Electrical power for slew, drive, and differential track based steering. Boom, dipper and bucket are pneumatically powered, with all functions operated by a tethered remote controller that includes a four cylinder reciprocating pneumatic pump.

Eventually I became unsatisfied with the Compact Excavator model, and decided to build an improved version. The larger JCB JS220 was the inspiration for this one, with opportunities to create a more detailed and powerful model.

While the Hooklift Truck and All Terrain Crane had used some custom Lego components such as the prototype radio control units, I decided to make this one "pure" Lego, with no modified or custom components whatsoever, so that it could be built by anyone. Building the model this way was actually a very fulfilling challenge!

I based this model on an excavator from a local plant hire company, and wanted to render the livery as accurately as possible. This meant the use of white stickers, something I had never done before as household printers cannot print white on transparent sheets. The answer was to get them printed commercially, and these high quality stickers remain in great shape today, nearly ten years later.

Click here for more details

Click here for instructions ."

Edited December 22, 2012 by DLuders

[shushu808]

It was great to see Jennifer again. You did a lot of amazing MOCs with complex functions in 10 years ago. But you know the Lego pieces changed a lot in these years. Some parts became rare and expensive as well. If you could come back and rebuilt some with new pieces and design some other brand new MOCs, that will be great!

Whatever, thanks Jennifer!

Shushu808

It was great to see Jennifer again. You did a lot of amazing MOCs with complex functions in 10 years ago. But you know the Lego pieces changed a lot in these years. Some parts became rare and expensive as well. If you could come back and rebuilt some with new pieces and design some other brand new MOCs, that will be great!

Whatever, thanks Jennifer!

Shushu808

[Jennifer Clark]

Thanks Shushu!

I'm afraid I don't have time or experience with the new pieces to do this at the moment, but it will be really interesting to see what others come up with :-)

Jennifer

Would there be enough room to fit 3 power function servos in the back along with a compressor?

I've no idea, what do you think yourself?

Jennifer

[me00rjb]

Fantastic news! I can now fill in the gap (cue dodgy picture...), and put the pieces I've had sitting around for 10 years to use!

Just in time for Christmas as well! Many thanks Jennifer and Eric.

[Jennifer Clark]

Where is the smiley for "jaw hitting floor"? That is incredible!

I see Lego still don't have 1x7 thin liftarms in white, even after all these years :-)

Jennifer

[DLuders]

@ Jennifer Clark: I see from your music website that you are an accomplished Double Bass & Bass Guitar player in a group named "Horse", on tour in the UK. There are a few other musicians in this forum (Sariel and Jurgen Krooshoop) -- would you say that designing with Lego Technic had helped you with "visualizing" your music?

[Alasdair Ryan]

I've no idea, what do you think yourself?

Jennifer

It does look like it could but I can't be sure,but it would be tight.

It would be great to get rid of the umbilical cord and have it totally cordless.

[dr_spock]

Just as long as I don't have to get the pink Lego as well!

Jennifer

Welcome aboard. You don't have to get a pink star if you don't want to.

[Jennifer Clark]

That would be really cool!

Jennifer

It does look like it could but I can't be sure,but it would be tight.

It would be great to get rid of the umbilical cord and have it totally cordless.

[me00rjb]

I see Lego still don't have 1x7 thin liftarms in white, even after all these years :-)

Jennifer

Nope, you'd have thought Lego could have found a use for one somewhere! However, I think the blue makes a nice contrast so I went with that.

Richard.

[timslegos]

Wow thanks for the work Jennifer. It is your models that first got me into building Lego technic. I spent hours copying your mini excavator and skid steer loader when I was young. I hope you have some more projects in the works!

tim

[Milan]

I hope you have some more projects in the works!

Unfortunately, she doesn't.

[Blakbird]

I suppose I should interject a few thoughts. This was a huge project. The CAD work was difficult in the first place not only because this is a complex model but because there are so many pneumatic hoses and wires. This presents a modeling challenge and a challenge in making the instructions understandable. This project was originally intended to be a book. This means that there is a lot more to this instruction file than just instructions. There are 40 pages of introductory material which walk the reader through the function of the real excavator and the ways in which this model was designed to replicate the same look and functionality. The instruction steps themselves were done in small understandable pieces which resulted in a lot of steps. Also because it was intended to be printed, the whole thing was rendered at 600dpi which it turns out is a lot more work than just changing the resolution level in LPub.

Haha, was thinking the exact same thing. Lovely model, really want to build it. Shame pneumatics are so expensive.. Maybe I should use some LAs instead, or is that considered blasphemy?

Not blasphemy, but pneumatics are part of the charm of this model. If you want a mechanical excavator, there are other options out there including the official set 8043. Of course, this model has 4 motors and requires a transmission to motorize all the functions. Jurgen Krooshoop's orange excavator has all the functions motorized simultaneously, but he puts two motors out of the boom to accomplish this. I think what makes this so interesting is that it is an old school studded model using pneumatics. I have brought it to a couple of events and I can guarantee that it draws a lot of attention due to its realism.

Would there be enough room to fit 3 power function servos in the back along with a compressor?

I'd have to say no. The superstructure is extremely dense with structure and function. There are 3 motors in there (skid steer and slew) as well as a 9V battery box. This completely fills the internal volume. Remember that the pneumatic actuating system doesn't require any additional space except for a few hoses. The compressor houses 4 pumps to produce enough air flow rate and an additional 2 motors. This compressor is almost as big as the superstructure again. Adding servos and a compressor to the model would double the size.

It was great to see Jennifer again. You did a lot of amazing MOCs with complex functions in 10 years ago. But you know the Lego pieces changed a lot in these years. Some parts became rare and expensive as well. If you could come back and rebuilt some with new pieces and design some other brand new MOCs, that will be great!

Of course you could build an excavator in a more modern building style, and plenty of people have. Other than the pneumatics, nothing is particularly rare here though. It would be simple enough to switch over to the new round pneumatics instead of the old ones with the square bases. It also would be relatively simple to switch to the new tracks. I'm interested to see how people mod it to overcome these rarities.

Wow thanks for the work Jennifer. It is your models that first got me into building Lego technic. I spent hours copying your mini excavator and skid steer loader when I was young. I hope you have some more projects in the works! tim

Well, if sales of this go well it just might be possible that more of Jennifer's models could be available in the near future.....

I'm very interested to hear what people who have bought the instructions think of them. Please give us some feedback! We worked really hard and would like to know if it was all worth it.

I'm including a couple of sample pages from the instructions, massively scaled down of course.

[aeh5040]

Wow! Awesome work, Jennifer and Blakbird! Wonderful to see this incredible model and its builder reappear! :thumbup:

Is there any chance we might see the legendary Compact Excavator resurrected at some point?

[Jennifer Clark]

Never say never! As Eric says, if enough people buy these ones, we may do more :-)

Jennifer

[me00rjb]

I'm very interested to hear what people who have bought the instructions think of them. Please give us some feedback! We worked really hard and would like to know if it was all worth it.

Well, as the proud owner of copy number one, I guess I should give some feedback! I'm awaiting a couple of BrickLink orders before I can start building, but at first glance the instructions look excellent. One thing that made Jennifer's models stand out for me when they were first published, was the detailed write-up that accompanied them. This to me is the basis of what Technic is about. I like to understand why people choose the solutions they do, and how they solve particular challenges, rather than just look at pictures or videos. Therefore it's a great idea to include the introductory material first.

The quality and clarity of the steps is excellent, although for viewing on screen, a lower resolution file would actually be fine. I imagine these would look great when printed due to the high resolution. I’ve only really had a brief flick through and there are a few things I don’t quite understand yet as far as the model goes, but I’m sure it’ll all become clear whilst building. One thing that is apparent, is that it would be very difficult to reproduce this model from the pictures alone due to the density of the build, especially around the turntable.

Considering the amount of work that has gone into this, I think they’re a bargain. I hope you do well with them, as I would love to see some of the other models published. The only thing that I imagine might be an issue is the availability of some of the parts, which are only going to get harder to find as time goes on. However, it still adds another level to a slice of history that got me back into Technic some 10 years ago.

I'll let you know how I find the actual build once all my parts turn up.

That just leaves the mini excavator to complete the collection now!