GBC General Discussion

[Captainowie]

That really depends how many of the 10 cylinders are moving at once, how often, and what their loads are. The set 8455 has 10 cylinders and uses two large pumps (hand operated).

[Prune Face]

So the crank system is what i cant get right. As far as i can see it need to be 8 studs wide... If it was 10 studs wide it would be easy... When i tried to make it just was not solid enough as i was using half stud crank on the edges which the rods worked out of..

By no means is my module proven, but I ended up going with an axle all the way through, 3l liftarms attached to 2l liftarms w/ axle. Based on what i can make out from the video, nothing like he went with.

[Maico]

[alanburchill]

Here is my take of the Akiyuki Zigzag module

[Maico]

Fans de Briques 2015, Bordeaux, France

[rollermonkey]

Seeing all these GBC lately has inspired me to try one... Right after Final Exams next week.

The idea I have is to make one based on a real object/place...

I can't wait!

[princeofgonville]

Hello everyone. Are there any fellow GBC engineers in the London UK area?

[Maico]

Visit Brick 2015 in Excel London! I will be there with my fellow Dutch GBC builder Ben Jonkman.

[RohanBeckett]

Well..

we had a great display at Brickvention 2016, in Melbourne this last weekend

One day of setup, and 3 days of running/maintaining it.

Plenty of good compliments from the crowd, with lots of kids pointing out "I see a ball there!!" - to our numerous escaped balls!

Overall, we had 14 members in our team, several of whom travelled interstate!

We had around 42ish modules (a record for Australia!!) give or take one or two that were in and out of repair

Quite a few Akiyuki modules, some who were very reliable (I don't think I saw the Invisible lift have any issues in 3 days!)

I'm quite proud of my green-truck dumping module.. a semi original creation (borrowed the idea from another mechanism I saw) , but had no idea if it could run all weekend... and it did!

Uploading a Gallery of photos soon.. will edit my post later.

RB

Edited January 18, 2016 by RohanBeckett

[Boulderer]

Looks great. A few more balls might have been useful.

[Brickthus]

Havent build with pneumatics for almost 10 years... i need to ask something (for a future project) how big pump compressor (mini cylinders) are required for approx 10 normal sized pneumatic cylinders? 2? 4? 6? 8?

the crane of the arocs truck has like 3-4 cylinders but only 1 pump compressor, and moves extremely slow...

I have experimented with pneumatic compressors of up to 16 LEGO compressor cylinders.

I have used a car tyre air compressor set to 25-30psi but broke it. That used to need 6 Amps starting current and 4 Amps steady current at 12 Volts.

shows it powering my continuously variable pneumatics experiment.

Its output was a little more than 6 hand pump cylinders powering my Pick and Place Robot.

For its replacement I got a professional quiet compressor so I can use it in the house during those late evenings of LEGO building! This has plenty of air for a pneumatic stepper motor.

Unfortunately the new price for these is around £280 but I got a reconditioned one.

Hello everyone. Are there any fellow GBC engineers in the London UK area?

I'm in Derby, UK. I've not done much GBC, more "have-a-go" as I have so many projects.

Here's a small one I made (a lot) earlier, and also a

.

For the UK there might be 1 or 2 other GBC enthusiasts in the Brickish Association at www.brickish.org

Mark

[Blakbird]

Quite a few Akiyuki modules, some who were very reliable (I don't think I saw the Invisible lift have any issues in 3 days!)

I'm quite proud of my green-truck dumping module.. a semi original creation (borrowed the idea from another mechanism I saw) , but had no idea if it could run all weekend... and it did!

Amazing layout! I'm so happy to see those Akiyuki instructions going to good use.

[RohanBeckett]

Looks great. A few more balls might have been useful.

we did have a lot, during the day.. this video was filmed near packup time, and we'd already cleared most balls out.. I threw a handful in, just to film

Amazing layout! I'm so happy to see those Akiyuki instructions going to good use.

Thanks! Aron (9V System), and Steve (Onemorerobot) have been very busy lately building them! I need to get off my backside and finish tilted rotors! :)

would have been slightly funny, if I'd finished my ball factory too... and if Steve had brought his down... we would have had 3 of them in one exhibit!

Would be interesting to know from some of the other big layouts around the world, how many non-functioning modules they have at any one time.

We planned to have around 50 modules.. but ended up with 40-43 at any one time in operation.

I'm yet to properly unbox all my modules, and see how much ABS dust I have all over the place!!

[dr_spock]

Nice job on the dump truck module. It is even Dynamo labeled with your name.

[RohanBeckett]

hah.. thanks :)

will put up some other detailed pics/videos of my modules a bit later..

Yes.. brought the Dynamo... and meant to label everyones modules, but didn't quite get around to them all!

A couple of things that would haven been helpful

• A label with Name of Module, and owner on EVERY module (and who it was influenced by, eg Akiyuki/Torso)
  
• A Start and Finish marker! You won't believe how many times we got asked 'Where's the start?' - and how many times I answered - 'So you tell me.. where's the start of the earth?.... it's a circle!'
  

and I'll take a pic (unless CaptainOwie) beats me, of my invention of the weekend - Ball Picker Upper Tool - which made life a LOT easier, when collecting balls stuck in tricky spots

RB

[Captainowie]

and I'll take a pic (unless CaptainOwie) beats me, of my invention of the weekend - Ball Picker Upper Tool - which made life a LOT easier, when collecting balls stuck in tricky spots

It's your invention Rohan, you go ahead!

(But I have one or two ideas for improvements!)

Would be interesting to know from some of the other big layouts around the world, how many non-functioning modules they have at any one time.

We planned to have around 50 modules.. but ended up with 40-43 at any one time in operation.

To clarify - we only had a couple of non-functional modules on the table; most of the difference between what we were expecting and what we had were no-shows.

[RohanBeckett]

I think there were 4-5 in the tubs under the tables!

I actually didn't get a pic of my picker-upper.. so will have to take one at home

I too will be looking at how to improve it too! :)

[Blakbird]

Thanks! Aron (9V System), and Steve (Onemorerobot) have been very busy lately building them! I need to get off my backside and finish tilted rotors! :)

would have been slightly funny, if I'd finished my ball factory too... and if Steve had brought his down... we would have had 3 of them in one exhibit!

Who built the bucket factory you had in use and how was its reliability? I found that mine is not really reliable enough to use in a GBC circuit. In particular, the bucket shifter tends to get jammed and starts dropping buckets.

A couple of things that would haven been helpful

• A label with Name of Module, and owner on EVERY module (and who it was influenced by, eg Akiyuki/Torso)
  
• A Start and Finish marker! You won't believe how many times we got asked 'Where's the start?' - and how many times I answered - 'So you tell me.. where's the start of the earth?.... it's a circle!'
  

As I understand it from the ReBricker, one of the things Akiyuki asked for before people started doing instructions of his models was that he always be credited if they are displayed at shows. We need to be careful to honor his wishes on this.

and I'll take a pic (unless CaptainOwie) beats me, of my invention of the weekend - Ball Picker Upper Tool - which made life a LOT easier, when collecting balls stuck in tricky spots

That sounds tremendously useful! I could use one of those.

[RohanBeckett]

Yes.. we should have done a better job with the labelling... but I took the chance at every opportunity, talking with people, to say that all the modules along one side were originally built by Akiyuki..

I was surprised that quite a few kids already knew of him! "Oh look... there's the Ball Factory! I've seen that on Youtube!!"

Aron (9VSystem in here), built the ball factory... it was 99.9% reliable.. he actually built most of it *before* the Rebricker finished his video instructions!. I think I noted once, where an arm somewhere slipped out of an axle, and had to be reattached.. but that was about it

quite impressive for a 17yr old who lives out in the sticks! ;)

His Invisible Lift was equally reliable.

[RohanBeckett]

ok.. here's my 'neccessary invention of the weekend'

We had quite a few modules spilling balls... and of course, not all were nicely checkerboard tiled! ;)

In fact, even some of Akiyuki's modules, when dropping the odd ball, were very hard to get out, while the module was running, thanks to his style of black frame base.

So... while watching the grab and lift module (we had 2 of them!) for far too long.. it came to me...

why not make one for picking up balls?

So here's my quickie version 1

with a hook at the other end

nothing overly complex, but it worked well.. allowing us to pick up balls stuck in weird spots, without disturbing a running module

we ended up having 3 or so around the benches, and they got used by everyone.

next improvement would be to have a pushbutton to eject the ball.. shouldn't be too hard to do! :)

[rasikaa]

I think I noted once, where an arm somewhere slipped out of an axle, and had to be reattached.. but that was about it

It was slipping off because it was a half bush that didn't have enough friction to keep it in place. Adding a full bush fixed it and it didn't come off till the end.

[9v system]

It was slipping off because it was a half bush that didn't have enough friction to keep it in place. Adding a full bush fixed it and it didn't come off till the end.

apart from that small issue that was it

[Prune Face]

Interesting videos from Beyond the Brick at Brickworld Indy.

Tom Atkinson and a walk around the loop, while it wasn't running, and a more in depth look at a few modules.

Standard video w/o commentary of the loop

[doug72]

Received set no. 21305 MAZE today for Fathers Day.

It contains 4 Lego orange balls p/n 6023209.

Balls are plain orange without any markings

Checked lego on line and they available at £0.66 each in quantities up to 200.

[DrJB]

I saw them a while back, though I felt that, at $1.00 a piece, they were rather expensive, especially that they were plain orange and no added cost due to printing (as for the soccer/football balls).

Edited June 20, 2016 by DrJB