Rudivdk

Testrun: Lots of work still to be done: - most important: brace all gearing to prevent the cracking... - hook up a second set of XL motors on the other side to increase torque and make the motion smoother (and perhaps a bit faster) - redesign the pods to balance them out and make them spin everywhere while the wheel is turning. - create raising/lowering boarding ramp beneath the pods for easy entry. - decoration

I use LDCad as well for some time now and as Jeroen says, I do not want to go back to anything else. What really helped getting me started were the tutorial movies on Youtube by Roland Melkert himself, especially those on flexible parts editing. Just copy-build the stuff he does to figure out how it works, and after a few tries it will feel natural. It is really worth the effort in the end!

Pure 100% oldfashion eyeballing for me

I think I get the idea. If you pull this off it will really be something else! Good luck

That is also a nice name. I've read about that part, the manufacturer actually slowed down the rotation rpm by almost half after some of the accidents. I'm still in doubt whether to gear it down to 'safe' speed or go all crazy... What do you guys think: safe rotation speed or 'ludicrous' speed?

Thanx Erik! The motor is actually fitted 'in system' completely. The tool I used was mentioned in this topic (in which you actually commented about the tool yourself...): I'm quite happy with the red frames folding myself, took some time to figure it all out but its actually fully copied from the original machine. They are more pronounced in my model because of the size of technic beams compared to the scale and the bright color. I have made the endparts of the arm extendible with springs to have an automatic tensioner on the chain. With the chain on it, the springs are about half compressed, to stretch out the chain and provide minimum slack and sagging as possible while also preventing too much strain on the parts (mostly the 12l axle through the rims and the electric motor itself). I found that it was not possible to make it like this with a solid built arm (either too much sagging or to much stress/bending of axles). The red gearrack housings give the most stability for a sliding piece because of their length, create a rigid backbone to the arm themselves, are lightweight compared to their structural integrity and they happened to be the correct color for my intended colorscheme.

Wow, you've set yourself quite a challenge... Very impressive start with those joints/angles in the frame. Nise idea on the restraints as well. Can't wait to see more of this one!

I must say, I really like this competition so far. Looking at all the wip topics shows some technic at its best, both structural building and functionwise. Great topic choice @Jim and @Milan and other staff involved

I guess V1 looks most like the real thing, but personally I think I would add even more colors to the mix. It looks great as it is already though

Had a productive building session today, I've built the complete tower structure to hold the rotating arm: It's getting bigger and bigger, I completely depleted my stock of yellow 15 and 13 beams on the tower frame! But it looks great if I may say so myself... I've used @tkel86's geometry tool for calculating all the triangles to create the tower structure, very useful tool.

I don't want to prove myself being right or anything, was just explaining why I posted this...

Like I said, I haven't built it yet. But @labevr mentioned moving the wheels to test the gearbox, so I immediately thought of this...

So smooth... but your main towers are indeed struggling a bit with the forces... Looks like this competition will spawn some really big creations.

Also be prepared to spin the wheels for a long time. According to several people that have built the set ( I do not have it yet myself), it takes the car up to 70cm of driving before the pistons start moving after a gearshift. That is a lot of spins for those small wheels...

I used two sets of double bevel gears at 90 degrees and an axle through the arm to connect the center motor to the outside wheels. Just make sure to brace them properly and they can hold quite some torque.