J159753

I think they'd be extremely popular!

There's no need for a gearbox to require either/or control of functions. Big Red and 42009, for instance, can both be easily modded to allow simultaneous control over different functions, much as 42042 was from the outset. That would be my ideal form of this set. The fun of direct control and its mechanical complexity would handily outweigh the jerkiness of having only ±100% control over motor speed.

Still remains my favourite-ever Lego build - I even pulled it apart so I could rebuild it from scratch, now understanding how it all fitted together. (Not the easiest set to dismantle in places!)

Back in Jan 2022 this was expected to have be 150cm tall and 2882 pieces. A year and a half later it's only 100cm tall - but 2883 pieces. It seems unlikely that the set would be comprehensively redesigned and shrunk, but end up with an essentially identical piece count. It's not as if there are many obviously 'optional' pieces bulking out the 100cm version. Did they JUST remove 50cm worth of trusses, and quietly bulk it out a bit?

YES! Wonderful for inspiring those of us who are less creative with newer parts...

Wow. Really beautiful...

Random aside... I've had very little success getting my Lego-building children interested in Technic so far (ages 5-8). One built the gearbox from 42042 with ease but showed no interest in it thereafter. But a few days ago I got out a few pneumatic cylinders and they're all fascinated with them! I find them asleep in bed still clutching a pair of connected cylinders, I have to ban them from the dinner table, etc. Pneumatics *really grab their interest in a way that gears (or pull-backs) don't seem to, at the moment...

I was thinking of cobbling together parts for this set and building an approximation of it. To use the Control+ app must I have the PU large angular motors, or can I substitute the SPIKE prime large angular motors? Thanks!

Genius idea!

One aspect I don't understand about modern official Technic is the ideological avoidance of studded beams at all costs. It's not that TLG aren't still producing the studded beams and using them other lines. There are times when studded beams would clearly add design flexibility or structural rigidity, but TLG insists on going for all studless technic nonetheless decorated with system pieces. Why? I'd love it if they went back to a more pragmatic, hybrid approach - still primarily studless but using studded beams where it was helpful and not a significant visual impact.

The original was always a bit jerky to be honest! At the time I thought of it more as a wonderful proof of concept than a smoothly functional set. Movement back/forth was jerky; changeover between the motors' two function sets often jammed, and the arm twisted around if you ran the actuators to their limits. Rebuilding it with tweaks and more recent parts has been on my optimistic to-do list for years, once I have a bit more time and a space to keep half-built models!

Absolutely. I bought 42114 when I saw a foolishly good price, and was deeply disappointed by it as a model (Iet alone a flagship!). Great parts pack, deeply frustrating model. But this CaDA set was eye-opening. How decent suspension and drivetrain can eke so much more performance out of a motor less than half the volume of 42114's Control+XL. The steering with linear actuators was so pleasant, controllable and powerful. And the braced joint between front and trailer was so stable despite using just a small turntable, not a large one (it's significantly more stable than Efferman's mod of 42114's dire original design). Note to Lego. Please use the fancy Control+ capabilities for things that actually need them, rather than creating torque-sapping, space-requiring gearboxes that irretrievably hobble the wider dynamics of a set. Hmm. I'm not quite so positive. I had a number of pieces that just didn't have the necessary clutch. A few axle & bush combinations, however they were rotated. And the 'Axle and Pin Connector Perpendicular 3L with 2 Pin Holes' were consistently too loose to hold 1x1 round plates (e.g. rear lights). But by and large it was good, certainly a major improvement over Brunoji's CaDA car I bought over a year ago where there were widespread clutch issues. I had the same issue when I got to this stage, and spent ages twizzling them until it was just perfect with no undue tension and pressure. And then felt a right idiot when I realised that however I put it together, the linear actuators' internal clutches would sort it out the first time I actually tried using it! Round of applause to Eric Trax, and to CaDA. This set is a class act. PS, has anyone tried the new Cada Master bulldozer?

That's going to be a busy 2022 chapter-opener page in the next edition of your Technic history! :-)

https://www.maritime-executive.com/corporate/worlds-biggest-shear-leg-floating-crane-in-operation

What is the feasibility of eventually seeing CADA sets and related Mods/MOCs on Rebrickable – or perhaps a parallel Rebrickable exclusively for non-TLG sets and pieces?