JimDude

If you go to a Carl's Jr to have a Double Western Bacon and Cheeseburger, I will not only officially hate you, but I will also utter some very harsh words in the privacy of my own basement while the rest of the family is soundly asleep. Some very. Harsh. Words! (enjoy yourself)

Hmz, once you see it, you can't unsee the ladybug in the logo. (torso's as such are nice, though)

Birdcage Maser?

The presentation for the 42100 Liebherr says 'real life sounds'. I had a bit of an accident in my underpants when seeing that. Of course, I quickly realized they'd be coming from the smartphone… Oh well. This thing is still epic. Any guesses on what all the -slightly ugly- yellow bits sticking out are? Especially in the undercarriage they look out of place (on the boom they could be fake lights, but on the undercarriage?).

I only have your movie above to go on, but it looks as if the problem is simply that the one of the "grabber-axles" couldn't extend all the way down since it got squished between the orange ball it was trying to grab and the white ball which lodged itself in the corner of the box. I'm guessing the actual issue would be solved by allowing the balls in that corner some more space. By adding bracing, I fear you may have worked around the problem by making the arm stronger (so the axle does push down in between lodged balls), which will have the unwanted effect of additionally wearing down that part of the module (or perhaps even the motor itself).

The arrows indicate that the pistons move up and down, not that the hood can be removed. Besides which, the picture is of the B-model - which is exceptionally well done I might add - which doesn't even have a hood.

The water canon appears to be pneumatic and it 'shoots' blue 'water tubes', which look to be of antenna thickness. Quite amazing due to possible eye injuries. I do hope the handpump/bellows is properly integrated, i.e. that you do not have to take it out of the truck to squish it [EDIT] Also looks as if the crane can tip over the lamppost which in turns hits a lever on the side of the building, which puts the entire place 'on fire' by popping up the flames.

Speaking of which, did I read correctly it is supposed to be at LegoWorld '18 in the Netherlands?

Well, yes. but the same could be said about the outriggers or the boom, but it's only the super-structure rotation that's "decoupled". Which, concerning the mass and size involved, is where most damage could be done. (Ironically, my sons' older nephew - whose idea of play is very Jeremy Clarcksonesque and therefore usually involves hammers - managed to rip apart the outriggers om my, ehr, his 42009 by 'operating them manually'. Nothing broke, but stuff did fall out. I'm now calling the 42009 crane the Alfa Romeo, which is very unfair of me since my son didn't brake it for a whopping 11 months - and it would have kept going for much longer if said nephew had not come along - which is about 10 months longer than my Alfa's would last prior to spilling parts) I also think there is an element of play value: when my son is playing with the 42009, he is always having to do manual micro adjustments to the superstructure position in order to properly outline the hook with whatever it is that he is trying to lift (said nephew, for example). Imagine the frustration if he would have had to do that through a gearbox that was always 'in the wrong mode' (i.e. motor routed to lift/tilt).

That should be TLGs' tagline :) It has been said this is by design because kids will rotate the structure regardless and then a whole bunch of little fidgety pieces stuff will get broken. I'd say that explanation makes a lot of sense.

I'm a bit disappointed that the rope doesn't extend or roll back together with the boom. I know this is also the case on my beloved 42009, but because of thanks to this forum, I understood this was not the case on its' predecessor, so it had to be possible. It also doesn't look as if the outriggers will actually lift the crane (not that I was really expecting it, but the (box-art-)pictures do sort of suggest it). And yet, I haven't looked forward to a set as much as I'm looking forward to this one in ages (the obvious dark-ages joke will be left to the reader).

LOL at the system bricks not being properly attached in the official LEGO video. Still not getting the hate for this set, though.

I think many people underestimate the amount of kids (and maybe even AFOLs) that build digitally, even for the A-model. For the B-model, we don't even have the choice. And without a 1-on-1 representation on paper, colour-coding has appeared to be the next best thing. I don't ~like~ it, but TBH, I don't mind either.

That can't be it. If you tilt the truck - by driving it uphill - until the bed is horizontal, then the center of the bed is resting directly above the rear axle. Which is of course bad for more than one reason. It would also be quite the hill (we're talking about approx. a 30* angle give or take a few degrees), and there's no way a wheeled vehicle would be useful for that, especially in area's where this type of vehicle is typically deployed (read: in mud). Well, that could work in theory, but as you can see, the angle of the bed when tipping it over is not sufficient to let anything - other than LEGO :) - slide out. Then there's the issue of the pile of dirt that you'd want to dump on top of blocking the rear wheels. You can't back up far enough to have the bed empty on top of the previous pile. I'm ~sure~ I'm giving this way too much thought :D. Maybe there's a EuroVolvo forum out there where this would be more appropriate…

The movie of the B-model clearly shows that the bed cannot possibly empty itself (*) when the model is in short-wheel-base, as I feared earlier up in the thread. Again this is not a dig against LEGO, because I still think this set, actually both its models, are beyond cool. It's more of a "dig" against VOLVO. I literally cannot think of a use for this feature, and yet, there it is. I'm sure I'll be feeling very stupid when VOLVO eventually explains it all. Also gotta love in the movie how you can briefly see the adult/dad swoosh the drone out of its' docking station. They make the scene last for a microsecond, and you actually only see his hand, almost as if it's not supposed to happen, but it's there all right and we all know that's exactly what we'll be doing ourselves :) (Well, technically, not me, as I won't be getting this set due to owning 42030 already). (*) I mean in real life - I'm sure a LEGO payload will roll out just fine :)