ddeklerk

Hello everyone. Recently I have come out of my second "dark age", which lasted roughly two years. But now Lego has got me hooked again, and I am determined to finish the MOC that I have started those two years back. Which is a posable/articulated model of the Transformer Lockdown as seen in Age of Extinction. Say what you will about those movies, but the designs of (most of) the transformers just intrigue me. If you are not familiar with the design of the transformer that I have set out to recreate, here is a pretty nice image of him. I apologize upfront for the low quality photos that I took. I don't have a camera, so my smartphone is all I can take pictures with for now. Keep in mind that currently this MOC is very much a work in progress. That means that much of it is bound to change at some point, and that it does not look very good yet. Especially since I have yet to add the actual armor plating. Most of my work has gone into making a robust and posable skeleton that does not collapse under its own weight. The only real thing that has survived my break since I have started this MOC has been the head. And I have not modified it since I have started working on the MOC again. It has a pretty complex design, but it is surprisingly durable. Since it is nearly impossible to make a proper face at this scale, and it would look silly anyway, I opted to make the head with the visor. As you can see I made heavy use of the Exo-Force arms in black. I had to order the visor piece off Bricklink, and thankfully it worked out. The piece on top is Onua's mask. The visor piece can easily be removed by taking the top off. Something I intend to use for his face-cannon. Next challenge is the feet. Lockdown has two "toes" on both feet in the movies. And unfortunately they are not parallel. The slight angle between them is hard to do with Lego at this scale. Here you can see two of the many designs that I tried. I liked the way the toes looked on the right one, but that one was too large. The new design is more fragile in the toes, but flexes much less in the base of the foot, where most of the weight will rest on. When looking at the various design pictures, screenshots, and concept art, I have found that the lower legs were slightly bent backward. Almost like the "chicken legs" you may see on some mechs, but much, much more subtle. And in the end I decided to include this feature just because it made the legs look less bland and awkward. A side view of the lower leg and the knee. Plus a front view of the leg. I used a heavy duty ratchet joint for the knee, plus two ball joints for extra strengt. For now it is enough to keep the skeleton up without problem, but I may have to change it to double ratchet joints at a later point in time. The axles sticking out at the top of the photo are coming from two ball joints in the lower part of the upper leg. Those axles will attach to the upper legs. The ball joints make it possible to swivel the entire legs. If that point of articulation was not included, the legs would have looked very robotic and awkward. As you can see I used the ball joints from the Witch Doctor set for the feet. I actually don't own that set, and it came out when I was in my break from Lego. I came across it through a YouTube review from JangBricks and the idea of those joints is just genius. You will see them in a few more places in this MOC. Like right here, in the hip joints. Fans of Bionicle will probably also recognize the pistons on the legs that I "borrowed" from the Mata Nui set. The crotch piece is probably the single most problematic part of the entire build so far. I wanted to incorporate a waist swivel, and this piece is what joins the legs to the body, so it had to be sturdy. Previously I tried to make the axle the only connection with the torso, but that resulted in too much flex and/or backlash. So I started to look for alternatives on Bricklink, and found these turntables. They greatly increase the robustness and stability of the waist. You may be able to see why this part is so problematic. I still use a ball joint (or two) here for the friction, but that and the turntable are right in between the two sets of ball sockets. I had to connect the axle holes on the sides of these sockets in some way, because having them only connected by the axle holes on the top was simply not enough. This is still not a pretty solution and I will probably change it a million times before I am satisfied, but at some point you just have to work with something that works so you can work on the rest. The entirety of a leg assembled. Already quite tall. Hands are another tricky thing to make with Lego. It is nearly impossible to make decent looking hands that also look like the thing you are trying to make. In some pictures Lockdown's fingers look quite long, so that is what I was going for. Don't know if I want to keep the ring finger and pinky like this. Again the Exo-Force arms come in quite handy. Because I had already made the legs, the arms were quite ease to make. They use pretty much the exact same swivel joint technique. Hopefully the two ball joints in the elbows will be enough for when I make the weapons. The chest, that connects to the second turntable in the in the middle of the torso. The articulated shoulders are inspired by Maxilos. There is barely enough room for the pistons. Unfortunately the pistons hardly add resistance when moving the shoulders up. I think it has something to do with the pivot point being almost inline with the attachment points of the pistons. The whole torso plus upper legs assembled. Now I've talked you through all the parts of the build that I have finished so far. And when all of them are assembled, you get a very large skeletal robot... thing... Looks a little skinny, don't you think? And lastly a comparison shot with the Arocs with fully extended crane to give you a sense of scale. BTW, I can highly recommend that set if you are into Technic. It is my first set I have bought since 8297-1: Off-Roader from 2008, and it was a blast to build it. I hope you enjoy this WIP of mine, and I would love any feedback and criticism that you may have. I'm sorry if this post seems a little long, or if there are too many pictures included. Truth be told I intended to take a few more photos demonstrating the articulation and such. I certainly did not expect to be spending this much time writing a post about a Lego build on this forum, but there you have it. If there is any way I can format this better, please let me know. I am not at all familiar with the language used on fora like these. I am much more at home with Markdown, personally .

Not a lot of progress lately. I am still in the middle of renovating my new room, although progress on that has picked up significantly this last week. I don't really have much motivation to work on anything lately. Hopefully a new workplace will change that. Larger desk, actual sorting drawers... should be much better. In the mean time I had my Bricklink orders come in to try some geared joints. The discontinued worm gears that have the axle holes on either end have much less backlash than the normal worm gear, so perhaps I will use those. I still am thinking about redesigning the whole thing in a larger scale. And geared joints will hopefully help with stability. To not loose the work I have done so far I have recreated my MOC in LDD. Everything is in, apart from the head and the hands. I could not find the pneumatic T-piece that I used on those parts in LDD. And it was a royal pain to get the piston assemblies lined up. You can download the LXF file here.

I'm probably gonna wait either until the holiday season or until there is a good discount. I recently have already blown too much money on LEGO. Bought the Arocs, Porsche, and 60+ on Bricklink orders.

Perhaps the shifting is reversed for me because I screwed something up when making the paddle assembly. I did completely rebuild box 1 after all. But I can't imagine something like that happening so easily. But just to be sure, maybe someone could verify this for me. When I pull the right paddle, the output of the paddle assembly goes clockwise. And it goes anti-clockwise when the left one is pulled. I also triple checked that I had the shifting block in the correct orientation. So unless the errata is wrong or I am overlooking something, I don't think that is where the problem comes from. The 2l liftarm within the h-frame that is blocked is oriented in the same way that the same piece in orange (what the link is connected to) on the left of the car is, right? In any case. Tomorrow I will look at it all again to see if I can find the cause of the problem. EDIT I found the problem. It was indeed something that I overlooked. I placed the 2l liftarm with the link on the right side of the car upside down. Correcting that fixed my shifting issue.

So I finally got the parts to implement all these changes and I now had the time to actually do it. The gears seem to have very little friction, and when I attach an M motor to test the gearbox, the gearbox turns smoothly. There is one problem though. The shifting order now is 3, 2, 1, 4. And the stop is between gears 1 and 4. But even without the stop, the swifting would be backwards. The right paddle should shift up, right?

I am not sure whether Bionicle ball and socket joints have more friction, but there is a friction adder part that also acts as an extension for the socket. Here is a link to the part on Bricklink. Alternatively, you could use the Exo-Force style ratchet joint. Those are comprised of these three parts. 1, 2, 3.

There's some serious Pareidolia going on with that bumper and those headlights.

I once say a post on the LEGO subreddit that suggested applying anti-UV film on your windows, to prevent your parts from discoloring. But I have not really looked into it much.

Holy shit. I mean, it's hot here, but I don't think it is hotter than 30°C in our house. Although I have not been in the attic yet. I do hope the temperature will go down in the coming weeks. And it does not help that it is quite humid in our country, with around 50% lately.

Why not just post some photos instead of a teaser video. I want to see more of it.

The thing that has changed, and the reason of the delay, is the packaging. Nothing else has been modified but that. The boxes inside have been re-arranged so that the book is not in the middle of it all. And a cardboard piece has been inserted to further protect the boxes.

I think the fact that this is a modification of the Porsche set is the reason that it was rejected. It is not a brand new MOC design. In that sense you cannot say that you designed most of the MOC. That does not take away all the hard work you put into improving the set. I would even go so far as to say that your improvements have/will make a difference in how well the set sells. I've already heard some people were on the fence, but the improvements made on this forum is what made them purchase it. It pains me to say that I have still not applied your modifications as described in your wonderful errata. I just have been so busy, and have not had enough time to sit down and do it. Hopefully my upcoming vacation from work will change that. And hopefully the weather will be a little more bearable around here . When I do apply your mods, I will be sure to report back with my results.

The style.css does not appear to be linked properly for tools.sariel.pl. I get a error code 500 in the console.

I'm not a huge fan of these skeletal bodies, guess I'm more of a panel guy, but I like the shaping you managed to convey with just the flex axles.

I've never had any Mindstorms, so I don't know how difficult it is to program, but in concept this looks pretty simple. It would be cool if you could randomly generate the level somehow. But I have no idea how you would even accomplish that with LEGO.

Just a heads up, your link is not working. You are missing a colon.

I figured as much. Perhaps I should not take a peek when I am at work when I do not have the time to read through the whole thing. But it is just so exciting Goes to show how many improvements you made to the set. I like to think that I followed the development of these mods pretty closely, but I guess I missed the part about the driving rings causing friction.

I quickly scanned over the pdf file, and I plan to rebuild box 1 with all these changes sometime soon™, but what are the steps without any additional parts about? Do they replace steps from the original instructions where parts were added that are now omitted? Oh, and I should have said this sooner, but adding the thin 2l liftarms in step 105 was not necessary for me. In fact, without the offset, the driving rings would be perfectly centered between the red gears when they are not engaged. Maybe this is because I did not apply all the changes yet, though. In any case, your work is greatly appreciated. It is insane how much time you put into improving this set.

Personally not a huge fan of that green color in general, but I'd say you pulled it off pretty well. I like the adjustable seats and removable engine.

Sorry that I don't have any new updates right now. Have been pretty busy with other things. Got the Technic Porsche and did some modding on that (and still want to mod it some more...), and I'm in the middle of renovating (is that even the right word?) my new room - which is currently completely empty. Funny that you say that. I have been considering bringing up the scale and using geared joints. Although I have not been working on this MOC a whole lot lately. I am not really sure how to proceed with it to be honest. The main things that I don't like about the current scale is that I cannot recreate certain aspects the way I want them to. Like the feet that I have shown. It is also pretty tough to make a structurally sound skeleton without using a bunch of pieces to strengthen it, which will bring up the weight. And I don't like how I have used the piston pieces. I get the idea that they will be a big obstacle when adding the armour if I leave them like this. If I do decide to make it bigger, I think redesigning the head will be a pretty tough challenge. Right now I am contemplating whether I want to place a few orders on Bricklink to get some gears and turntables to try out the joints used in the Teknomeka mech. And I am also not sure how I want to make the armour. If I want to stick with Bionicle/Hero Factory armour pieces and Technic paneling, or go for a brick built exterior, something like this. If anyone has any feedback/suggestions/whatever, I sure could use them.

I guess it is for the same reason why they used the black 2l axle on the Porsche's door. As explained in the interview, they use the color coding as much as possible in placed that will not be seen in the final product. Of course this does not always turn out to be the case.

If you mean the side view mirrors, it should be this part.

I love the way the car looks. The contrast between the grey exterior and the red seats works really well. And I love that gearbox. I wonder if it could be made any more compact. How did you make that gif of the gearbox? You may want to post some more photos showcasing the other features like the opening doors and such.

You can actually change the color of all the parts to any other color in the palette menu (can't check the actual name right now). It's at the bottom of the window where all the parts can be found. But it will just change every part to that specific color, ever if it is not available in that color. So still not that useful Ah, I did not think of that. You are right. Although that solution still uses some illegal connections with those 3l blue pins. The pins will be compressed by the red shock.

I have not tried an Ackermann mod, but does that not limit the steering? I mean, it looks like the grey shock gets in the way of the wheel hub.