Gumalca

The additional images show that the rotors of the Jungle Explorer Helicopter can be operated from the back and rotate ... in the same direction. They should rotate in opposite directions! Anyway it's still an improvement compared to 4439, 60093, 60125 or 60173 and I hope it won't be hard to change if it is really wrong.

Looking at the new sets, I think it is safe to say that Lego has abandoned the road plates that were introduced in 2021. That's bad news for everybody who started to outfit their city with them. But I'm glad they are discontinued. I never liked them and refused to buy any set that contained them. Because they always increased the price of a set so much. I'm especially glad that the new jungle sets don't come with those stupid river road plates like 60302 and 60307 did.

I've seen an image of the T-Rex on Instagram. It looks like an upscaled 31058. Mostly dark green I guess. Side build is a small nest with eggs. The alternate builds are a pterosaur and a ceratopsia.

31130 was exclusive to the lego stores for a good amount of time too. I know because I bought my copy there, before it became widely available at other retailers. So there's hope 31154 will get more distribution too.

Maybe the transmission would work better with the new 20 tooth gear? Would it be possible to use it in this gear box, instead of the double beveled ones? I always blamed the clicking gear box of the Defender on the redesigned double bevel gears which appeared at the same time. The model was probably only tested with the old gear. The redesigned 20 tooth double beveled gear is just not running smoothly together with the 12 tooth double beveled gear in a straight configuration.

31158 Sea Creatures has been revealed! I was hoping for a set with a large main animal (like the tiger, giraffe and fox sets), but instead we get 6 small ones. Similar to the fish tank set 31122. Or similar to how I expected a 500 piece submarine in 31130, but instead we got a small submarine and a small octopus. Back to the set, at least the turtle seems nice here. Not sure we ever got a better turtle in the past. But on the other hand it is far behind those bigger turtle designs that appeared in the ideas submissions. However the variety in species is great, only two fishes, and then turtle, crab, seahorse and jellyfish. First B-model looks likes two squids? That would be cool!

Despite those leaks another set just surfaced: 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox

I think if we get another 1/8 car then second biggest model will not be a car as well. At least this wasn't the case in previous years.

Oh right, I hadn't noticed that, but now I can't unsee it. That ruins the set for me. Otherwise the inclusion of a London bus and camper van actually seemed nice. The 11035 Creative Houses just seems boring. Minimalistic house facades have been in many of the large boxes, and most have even done it better, like 10704, 11717 or 11005. 10703 was also more varied in styles. And then we had 11004 and 11008 that brought some really interesting variation into the housing market. None of this is found in the new set. 11034 Creative Pets is very odd too. The printed bow bricks with eyes limit reusability a lot. And seriously which animal has its eyes on the forehead, come on! Not really a great year for Classic. Only the Creative Space Planets I might be getting. And previously I thought the Classic line is really improving, with 11027, 11028 and 11033 from last year that reduced the color palette in each set, so that you finally would get a substantial amount of bricks in one colour to actually build something that doesn't look like patchwork and is bigger than the included mini builds.

Leaked prices and piece counts: 31158 Sea Creatures 421pcs $29.99 31151 Terrifying T-Rex 626pcs $59.99 31153 Modern Beach House 939 pcs $109.99 So these are definitely larger than 31088 and 31058 that we previously had. More like 4506 and 4507. Which is a good thing, because that should be enough for realistic looking models. The small Creator creatures have become too cute lately with all the big eyes for my liking. Just compare 31145 to 31102 or 31073. So I'm looking forward to those medium sets coming. Especially the T-Rex could be great, because the Jurassic World theme mostly has those molded dinosaurs that I find boring, and bigger brick build dinosaurs otherwise only appear in the large 18+ sets. For the sea creatures I'm wondering which species might be contained. A rerun of the always popular shark (31088), dolphin (31128) or octopus (31130 and 31088)? Or maybe some of the previous B-models or side builds get a better treatment like sea horse (31128 and 31140), whale (31088), manta ray (31130), lobster (31130), seal (31133), crab (31088) or turtle (31128)? They would all deserve a proper A-model treatment. I guess I'm hoping for a proper manta ray the most!

Good to hear that you were able to solve it! Right, taking the wings or top off is not that easy in this model. Everything is connected in multiple directions.

Pushing the gear out will do nothing. This setup is not influenced by gear alignment. Many MOCs have this problem, but Lego avoids this. So here front and back wheels are only connected through a linkage. The problem is most likely that one of the linkages was connected to the wrong hole. For example on page 33. Can you even retract the front wheel completely? If your linkage is short of one hole distance I think you can't do this. That's why Lego tells you to test the linkage on page 33 and again on page 46 with the front wheel attached.

Agreed. I've built a good amount of Premium Technic MOCs that are on rebrickable, and nearly always there will be techniques that are questionable. Things that Lego will not do in a mass product for very good reasons. Looking at a great MOC is one thing, but only once you have built it yourself you can really compare it to a Lego set. Even when there are good videos of a MOC, this does not tell everything. After rebuilding I've sometimes found myself wondering why functions don't run as smooth as in the video, although I keep attention to have all axles run smoothly. So I find the question a bit strange. The opposite question (which MOCs do you think could be turned into an official product right away), would make more sense for me.

You're probably right. I felt cheated first when 8110 had no complete B-model, and 42023 also had no complete B-model.

I own 80 Lego Technic sets, and I think I've built all the B-models except for 8258. I guess it just happened that I parted out the set before I had time to build the B-model. I've also built a lot of rebrickable alternates, free and paid ones. In the last years, most of the time there were better looking alternates from rebrickable. But I still appreciated that the official B-models were sturdy and easy to build.

Lego had an alternate initiative with several MOC designers a while ago: the remake project. I don't think the website is online still, but some of the designers uploaded theirs to rebrickable eventually, for example these: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-5310/NKubate/60092-deep-sea-research-mech/#details https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-5533/PeterSzabo/60092-submarine-mech/#details The project was about City sets mostly though, which are not such a good base for alternates, because of many specialised parts. As far as I know the models were somehow checked for their stability and such. But like with most things Lego does, they just let these things vanish from the web eventually. Then there was an alternate contest for small Creator sets once, and part of the price for the winners was to have instructions for their alternates published in the Lego instructions archive website. I think the files have been pulled down also now, but brickset still lists the dead links: https://brickset.com/sets/31058-1/Mighty-Dinosaurs Now bricklink has started to sell digital instructions together with bricks, and if you remove the bricks from the cart you can buy the digital instructions only, though it's not clear why they made that so complicated. Not sure they will open it up for alternate models later. Also it's strange that when Lego hired grohl he was already a well known alternate designer, but at the same time the decline of official Technic B-models had already started so they never fully used his alternate designing abilities.

Nice. I love it.

The sun and earth domes? The smaller ones are also used on the big rover. The motorcycle windshield.

But as customers we like rebrickable. We can download the instructions as PDF and view them on any device we like. And we trust rebrickable to remain online for the foreseeable future so that we can always download the instructions again. In comparison, with a hobbyist app project, I'm never sure whether the creator will be bothered to do updates for future Android versions.

Minifigs fit into the panels pretty well. And it makes sense to have a bigger chair in the cockpit than in the kitchen.

Lego obviously had to do this, because competitors already have such orreries. Strange however that they used those big domes for the earth and sun. I find the brick build version from the competitors better fitting for a construction toy. Also strange that they did not use a lot of system parts overall. As Technic fans we can be glad they choose complexity over looks. But I'm not sure it will sell as good as Lego expects. Because it will appeal less to people collecting stylish display models, which, even though it eludes me personally, is a big trend among adult Lego fans. And as for the kids, I'm not sure they are that much interested in the educational aspects, most of them probably prefer action sets. I like the inclusion of wheels for the base. This gives the possibility for some strange vehicle alternate MOCs.

I was expecting something more like a front loader. The loading mechanism here seems very simple. The function to lift the cabin up looks interesting though.

You could also use rebrickable and run a build calculation with the two sets that you have: https://rebrickable.com/build/ For example, using this tool I've calculated, that if you have 42100 and 42110 like you say, then you only need 97 additional parts to build the 42042 Crawler Crane. But this does involve the older motor system, so you probably don't want to buy those, because they are not compatible with your current motors. Maybe your son would be able to change the build and use the motors he already has. For the 42146 Liebherr Crawler Crane the calculation results reveal that you already own 2355 of the necessary 2883 parts, so you would have to buy 528 additional parts to build it. But since this involves a lot of new and special parts, this is probably not going to be much cheaper than to buy the set in this case. So probably look out for other sets. Either way, I think buying a new complete set or the additional parts for a set are the best ways to go. Because he can always learn things from building by instructions, and still build his own ideas afterwards if he likes building from mixed parts.

Funny. As a Technic fan I don't expect this to be a real Technic set, more something that would also fit into Icons. So I'm not really hyped for it.

The costs matter, but not in a way that they couldn't afford it, or that those few sets would adjust down their annual finance report. But they have to set a limit to who is getting free sets, because nowadays everybody is trying to be an influencer and starting a youtube review channel, and I'm sure they are getting requests by influencers everyday. And in their best interest they will have some internal rules to who's getting what and who's not, so that these decisions are not acts of favoritism, or otherwise they will discover some years later that are eligible people were relatives of some dude from accounting. And then when you have those rules, sometimes people fall under the radar where it's not easy to see why. But even if everybody in the forum here likes Sariel's reviews, that's just a few people compared to the relevant audiences that one of the biggest toy manufacturer might want to reach. All you die hard fans are buying the stuff anyway Maybe they even promoted someone else to the program at the same time, maybe not even a Technic reviewer. Lego probably has their marketing data straight and knows where they want to invest more. Maybe Sariel should have started to review Dreamzzz sets