Enantiomeer

With the right measurement equipment it really shouldn't be too difficult to measure (and then control) the color of parts nearly perfectly. In the company I work for we control the color of white within a ΔE of 0.2, which the calibrated equipment can detect without any issue but really is about the limit of what even a trained observer can distinguish under the most optimum lighting conditions. When I look at my Sian I can easily see that certain types of parts are more yellowish than others (even under the uncontrolled lighting conditions in my house). That type of deviation can relatively easily be prevented. If I remember well, I once saw a documentary of one of the TLG moulding plants where each color had it's own silo for storage of the plastic granulate and those were delivered ready to use from the blending plant (not part of TLG; external company). Those blending companies can control the color of the granulate they prepare very accurately (at a price of course; the tighter you put the specification, the more measuring and adjusting they have to do and you pay for that). The only thing you then have to do is make sure you don't f**k it up by contaminating the granulate with some other color or overheating it (which could change the color). There is also no excuse for having visible color differences in granulates coming from different blending companies. As long as you make sure that all of them use exactly the same measurement equipment and calibration standards they can prepare the same color, within the margins of what any human can distinguish. And TLG is a big enough customer for those companies so that TLG can dictate how the measurements need to be performed. The only exception is when different materials are used for certain parts. For example the flexible axles are made of some rubbery material i.s.o. ABS. As a result of that difference the color of the pigment/dye that is used can actually change (shift to either the blue-violet or the red side of the spectrum). Whether or not such effects take place depends on the interaction between the pigment/dye and the plastic. In principle it is then possible to mostly correct for that by mixing in small amounts of other pigments/dyes, however it is possible that it just isn't possible to correct it completely for 100 %, especially if the color shift is large.

I noticed that too. I hope it's just a mistake for the US people. Around here (Netherlands) it's just mentioned "Available now" and when completing the order I got an indication of 2~3 business days delivery time, which is normal for purchases @ TLG online shop. I don't think they would retract the set because of color complaints. A more likely explanation could be that the amount of orders already exceeded the available stock and that they need to get a next shipment from the factory.

Yes, it is live, just woke up and ordered one Now I just have wait until it is delivered. Fortunately, I'm a very patient person.

If they are indeed using the injecting moulding machines to mix colored and non colored granulates that is just asking for problems with color consistency. The typical way to make colored plastic parts goes in at least two steps. In the first step clear granules are fed into a twin screw extruder together with the pigment powder at a very well controlled rate and then melted and extremely well mixed and formed into new granules. This is called a master batch in the industry. This is also the most difficult step as the dispersion of the pigment powder has to be absolutely perfect or you'll get color inconsistencies. The dispersion of this pigment powder is so difficult because it has very different properties from the molten plastic and therefore mixing it won't just happen, you need to really force that process. Usually in a second step the master batch gets fed into a second twin screw extruder together with more clear granules and is re-melted, mixed and then formed into a new granulate again. For this process a much simpler extruder screw setup can be used as you don't need to disperse pigment powder but just mix two plastics that have nearly identical properties. In principle this step can be performed online with the process of forming your final product so you can prevent having to process the plastic a third time. The issue with extruder screws in most injecting moulding machines is that those are usually single screw types, designed to just melt the plastic, not to efficiently mix two plastics. So, unless you take some extra precautions in the injecting moulding process (such as using double screw types with an added mixing section) there is a high risk that you'll get color inconsistencies. As you might be able to guess, a double screw extruder is quite a bit more expensive than a single screw extruder.

Added to wish list. As soon as it becomes available for actual ordering it's in the bag :) Maybe even order a second one to paint all the lime pieces in a truly outrageous pearl lime green color. That should be no problem for the ABS parts, don't know how well it will work on the flexible axles though. Anyone knows what material those are made of?

Yesss!!! The wheel rims are copper/bronze!!! I'd buy the car just for those :D I was quite bummed out with TLG's teaser video where those appeared quite yellowish, especially as the color of the car itself also didn't look very appealing at all in that video. Fortunately it appears reality is better :) The red brake calipers are a very nice touch which combine nicely with the rims :) The lime green color of the car is clearly better than what it looked like in the TLG teaser video, though it would have awesome if they'd gone crazy and really made a new color which really matches the original.

I seriously doubt it will be the metallic green of the 8466. First of all, it's not that spectacular a color in the first place but actually rather dull. Secondly, that color is painted on the panels. I'd be highly surprised if TLG would do that for a flagship model like this. Totally agree with that. I expect (or is it hope?) they'll create a whole new color just for this car as none of the existing greens are a close match to the green of the Sian. Or, even better, two new colors, a spectacular pearl green for the bodywork and that wonderful cooper/bronze for the wheels. Regardless, I'll get it the first day it's available.

I'm not a huge fan of this line-up so far. I'll certainly get the crane (can't NOT get it ) and probably I'll get the rally car as well, but that's it from this list. On the positive side, my wallet likes this. I have spent WAY too much this year.

Very nice, even simpler solution. Just tried it and it works like a charm. Thanks!

You could put the extra hub in the superstructure (lots of room). Of course you'd have to transfer the motor and drive mechanism for the turntable to the superstructure as well to prevent twisting of wires. This will have the added benefit that you get more space in the base to place the extra motors and drive mechanisms for the tracks. You can then use the extra hub for the motorised ladder as well. If you do this you'd still have 2 unused ports on the extra hub. Maybe use those for adding a few real lights?

I noticed that the elastic rubber band which is used to keep the back door latch in the locked position is quite slack: Should be an easy fix by replacing the red bush 3713 bush with a small wheel rim (11208 or 55982 or 56903) with a slightly bigger diameter to pick up the slack.

Very cool! Though they did cheat a little bit. It's not the exactly same model as the Lego one. This one doesn't have the opening bucket, which means one less control to operate. Nevertheless, way cool!

I didn't notice this. I'm fairly certain it's just a bug in the app which shows the wrong direction of rotation. There is no way to construct this incorrectly without running into problems that something wouldn't fit. The only way that you could start to construct it wrongly would be if in step 277 you incorrectly place one of the 5L red brown axles with stop that hold a 16 tooth LBG gear in the centre hole of the 15L LBG beam and then go on with this throughout the next steps consistently. This way the number of gearings between the motor and the actuator would for both actuators change from even to odd, resulting in a direction change. You'd run into a problem though when placing the 24 tooth tan gears in step 280 (they just wouldn't fit), so you'd surely notice then.

Totally agree btw, the Landrover instuctions can now also be found when searching for 42110, however the Liebherr instructions still can't be found when searching for 42100. I guess this will change soon as well.

It may seem like overkill by TLG. However they do have to protect their intellectual property (IP). Any model which is a direct copy they have to take action on. If they don't take action against people printing those then if at a later stage some company start mass-producing these copies TLG will, in some countries, have a problem in blocking that mass production (which can hurt them financially). The reason is that in some countries if you don't actively protect your IP that legally you could be considered to have abandoned it. Where it gets murky is the models of modified parts. A brick which is 1 stud longer or shorter or a gear with 1 tooth more or less will probably fall within the copyright protection of existing beams. But let's say something like a Y- or X-shaped beam will probably not.

I just downloaded the pdf instructions of both Liebherr & Landrover from TLG site. I only found the instructions when I searched for "421". If I search for "42100" or "42110" I get "No results for .....".

I'd love to see some of the top gear cars/experiments be recreated in lego. There are a lot of options to choose form... Hover-Van Electric Car Killing a Toyota Middle East Special Sports Train Caravan Airship and many, many more. Though I expect something like those is probably too unorthodox for TLG.

Nice review. I very much like the practical digging tests with bricks, gravel & sand. I'll stick to (polished & washed) gravel since bricks clearly don't work and I don't want to take the risk of damaging the linear actuators with some fine sand grains.

You can never have enough cranes. I really hope it's something like this: Having said that, considering it's only 1292 parts I'm not sure they'll be able to incorporate a real self-erecting functionality into the model. The descriptions of the other 1H models don't really get me excited. Unless they look absolutely gorgeous I doubt I'll buy any of them, which is a good thing since I spend way too much this year.

Will probably work a bit better than the round shapes since they can't roll away. Add in 2*2 corner bricks as well and I'd expect it to work even better. I constructed a very simple piece from 4 parts that I expect to work even better: 1 * Plate Round 1 x 1 1 * Plate 2 x 2 Corner 2 * Plate 1 x 3 This piece can't lay flat on the surface, while it can interlock with other pieces.

That might just work. Though some people around here might consider using Knex parts as blasphemy.

They'll bounce/roll/slide away quite easily because they are smooth and lightweight. The best option is to use shapes that interlock. These won't bounce/roll/slide away as easily when you try to pick them up, even when they are lightweight plastic. Examples are those used for building sea walls such as these shapes: If you can find some plastic parts in these kind of shapes that would be cool. I have no idea where to find such things or if these are available at all. Alternatively you can create some similar shapes with using just a few small lego parts.

That might work. Or a dedicated app for LEGO remote control like this one.

Should work much better, especially if you mix a lot of different size/shape bricks. Probably best if you add a bunch of small combinations of 2 or three bricks/plates stuck together in irregular shapes. Those can't slide along each other so easily and therefore you can pick them up much easier. What will also help is if you use a surface that isn't smooth, like carpet or a bed-sheet. What Sariel did in his review was just a bout the worst case scenario. If you want to be realistic you can go to a garden center and get some pebbles. Those will be quite easy to pick up. Considering the volume of the bucket, density of typical stones and the max weight the model can lift you should be able to pick up an almost full bucket of pebbles. Disclaimer: using pebbles will scratch your bucket

You mean something like this?