2GodBDGlory

I did use a large actuator for steering in an off-road crawler I recently built. It was quite strong, and allowed huge gear reduction, but was very slow. It worked well in a crawler that would sometimes need to lift its weight when steering, but would be a poor choice for something needing responsive steering.

I would go with Power Functions for sure. The Powered Up stuff will likely (eventually) allow for programmability, which is quite nice, but the motors are significantly larger, and there are no switches yet. Additionally, the hub part is quite a bit larger than the PF rechargeable/AAA battery boxes, and has no provision for recharging. There are also limitations in how many motors can be powered off of one hub (I regularly run over ten motors from my PF rechargeable battery, but one would need at least three PU hubs to accomplish that), and there is not currently any way to run multiple motors from one channel. Finally, there is the price. I don't know what prices are like where you are, but a PU hub costs well over twice as much as a PF AA battery and two receivers, and the L and XL motors are 2-3 times the price of their PF equivalents. There are similar trends with the other components. Perhaps the Powered Up system will improve, but currently I think the Power Functions system offers much greater flexibility at a much lower price.

It is too bad that all those great new mechanical parts are only in bright colors. The 20T clutch gear is especially painful, since I have seen official Lego videos (gearbox instructions) that had them in light bluish grey!

That gearbox looks pretty effective. I recall trying to build a similar one, but I kept having the spider gears in the differential skip under torque, and I had a much less sophisticated tensioner. Perhaps adding some kind of auto-clutch like in Sheepo's Land Rover Defender could help smooth out the shifts? I think that I will post my planetary 2-speed auto here soon, while our interest in autos is peaked. Another option would be to add some gearing between the shifter and the rubber-band-beam, to decrease the travel of the rubber band. This would, however, require more powerful (or just more) rubber bands.

Yeah. If I had the money and space to keep all my models built, that would be nice, but I usually can't make much progress on my next model until I get more parts freed up, so I disassemble stuff fast.

I currently have three servo motors, plus two that died on me. I think I have 17 motors total, and I think I used 13 or 14 in this model. I thought the airbag was pretty neat too, though it isn't actually original (I came up with the idea myself, and then did a YouTube search, and discovered I had been beaten too it--just not in a complete model). My build process is fairly simple. I don't do any digital planning, and just start with the most complicated mechanisms. In this model, first I built the gearbox, then the axles, then installed the drivetrain, connected the axles, added the rest of the internal functions, built the interior and doors, added the exterior-related functions, and then finished the exterior. Yes, the body shape was definitely limited. For example, the rear end ended up being very squared off because of the position of the IR receivers right in the corner, and I am generally unwilling to buy new parts for each model I make, so I was limited by parts somewhat. Thanks for the tip for photographing; I can try that sometime. I suppose I could try adjusting my photo strategy for my next model. The middle selector does engage with the old catchover switch, but rather than meshing with clutch gears, I used the body of the piece to slide the 20T and 24T gears beside it to mesh with other gears. I find that the new catchover switches are more resistant to skipping than the old ones, and I had used all four of my new-style ones in the two 4-speeds, so rather than put in a relatively light-duty and gear-limited (but smooth-shifting) setup, I opted for a heavy-duty sliding gear setup, and found that that was the most convenient way to control it with the rotary shifters. I understand the reasoning behind making this a more genaric car; in fact, my previous shot at ultimate complexity followed exactly that route (You can see it here). However, I was displeased with its final aesthetic, and I figured that for this model I would try to take advantage of the work of highly-paid automotive designers. Of course, it did mean I had less flexibility, and lost some of the accuracy I wanted. There are pros and cons of both routes. Okay, I can do that next time. This is my first post on EuroBricks, so I guess I am still learning the etiquette here. Well, I have already disassembled this model, so it is too late for any mechanical changes, but I see your point about the list of functions. I will add that soon! Thanks! I appreciate that, and agree with your comments!

Wow! That is fearsomely complicated, and very cool! It seems like there is a lot of math behind it, which is nice. Of course, that would be an awful gearbox to put in a model car, since it is huge and must be very inefficient, but that is not the point at all. Good work!

Thanks! As for the video, I do have one posted on YouTube, and I put the link at the bottom. I would like to embed it, but I am not sure how. My video is pretty low-quality, though, since I would rather build Lego than edit videos...

This model is the latest of a long series of "Ultimate" supercars of mine, with ever-increasing complexity. This was my first one to go all the way up to 1:7 scale to fit more complexity, and I think I can honestly claim this as the most functionally complex Technic Supercar ever! Of course, this is not the overall best Technic model, most likely, because of concerns about aesthetics and reliability. You should also note that there is no real Bugatti Chiron "Grand Sport 300 Aero," for I decided to build a made-up special edition. The Grand Sport part denotes the fact that this, unlike any factory Chirons, is a convertible, the 300 denotes the fact that this model has the extended rear end and rear aesthetic of the Super Sport 300+ version, and the Aero part denotes the aero flaps I included. So, let's get on to this! Aesthetics: I think the aesthetic can be summed up as complete and detailed, but poorly proportioned. There are no large gaps in the bodywork, and many details are included, but some of the shapes and curves are off, and it is undeniably blocky. There are LED headlights and taillights, and the classic Bugatti two-tone color scheme. Interior: The interior was meant to be very detailed looking, and has many working functions, which will be covered later. One I will cover now is the adjustable steering wheel, which can be tilted and slid forward and backward. Opening Stuff: The hood opens using a large pneumatic cylinder to reveal a smooth storage area. The doors are spring-loaded in their opening and closing, and have spring-loaded latches connected to the handles. Unfortunately, the latches were built to work the way the car was sitting when I built it, so when it was sitting on the ground, they would not latch unless I pushed up on the front end of the car. There is an opening gas cap controlled by a small lever under the steering wheel. I thought this was a fun function, and I got to put some old flex system parts to good use. The glove box opens, and has a simple latch. Finally, there is a simple access panel at the rear for the pneumatic controls, that doesn't correspond to anything on the real car. I know this doesn't really open, but it seems like a good time to mention the switch for the battery, hidden behind the passenger door. Pneumatic Functions: The car has an extensive pneumatic system, with many, many components. An L-motor is hidden under the floor, and runs a single compressor at high speeds. It is controlled by a switch under the floor (I would have put it in a more convenient spot, but I was out of extension wires, and I had no choice really) Additionally, there is a manual pump under the access panel to build pressure more quickly. There is a pneumatic air tank and a manometer. There are six pneumatic switches under the access panel, controlling different functions. Two of them individually control medium size cylinders which slide the seats fore and aft, and two more control small cylinders tucked under the seats to tilt them. A fifth one operates a long, skinny cylinder that controls the rear differential lock, and the final one, as mentioned before, opens the hood with a large cylinder. Another pneumatic function is controlled by a switch in the front of the car, connected to a small axle protruding from the front. When a collision or an impact presses this axle, it opens another valve, dumping the whole air tank into a plastic bag folded into a compartment ahead of the passenger seat, to emulate an airbag deploying. (I didn't think I could fit an airbag into the steering wheel without making it hideous). Suspension: There is four-wheel independent suspension, with two hard shocks per wheel. There is negative camber on all wheels, as well. Unfortunately, the suspension was utterly overwhelmed by the 17.7 pounds of Lego on top of it, so it was perpetually bottomed-out. Park/Reverse/Neutral/Drive Selector: There is a manually controlled drive selector on the central console, which operates a sliding-gear gearbox to choose between park, reverse, neutral, and drive. (Park just locks the drivetrain) Drive: Two XL motors in the rear of the car drive all four wheels through the gearbox (which will be covered more fully later), the drive mode selector, and three differentials. An interesting function is the torque-vectoring on the central differential--essentially, this just gears up the front half-shaft from this differential by a factor of 5/3, which results in more torque going to the rear wheels. There is also a fairly realistic W16 piston engine hooked up to these XL motors. Unlike all other Lego designs I have seen, mine not only had a single crankshaft for all 16 cylinders, but it also managed to use the regular engine block parts! Its main downside is that the shape of the engine looks like a V8 atop an H8, rather than a V8 atop a V8 (Basically, I mean that the bottom eight cylinders are flat, rather than tilted up as they should be). A Servo motor under the floor, attached to the same channel as the drive motors, controlled the gas pedal and the speedometer dial on the dashboard. On the topic of "Drive," I should probably mention that driving is not this car's forte. True, in first gear, I did manage to get the wheels to spin at infinitesimal speeds,, but I am not sure if it even moved, or whether, thanks to the bottomed-out suspension, the wheels were just spinning. Also, the drive from the motors to the gearbox was very poorly designed. I did lots of work making the drivetrain as bulletproof as possible, and then I had to move the XLs from their original position, and made a stupid design choice. I know this model is far too complex to function well, but I decided that I would rather have the challenge of building a super-complex car than the satisfaction of driving a car around. https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/17-bugatti-chiron-grand-sport-300-aero/17-bugatti-chiron-grand-sport-300-aero-part-2/17-bugatti-chiron-grand-sport-300-aero-part-3 Steering: The steering system may well be the most complicated thing in the entire car other than the gearbox. First of all, it has four-wheel steering, with one servo motor for each axle. Both axles have Ackermann geometry (to an extent), castor, kingpin inclination, and toe-in, and are regular rack-and-pinion setups. The front motor is hooked up to aero flaps in the hood to aerodynamically slow down the inside corner of the car, and the LEDs in the headlights are also attached to the steering motor in order to send their light into the corner rather than straight ahead. The rear axle also has aero flaps, which are built into the rear spoiler. Additionally, the rear servo is controlled through a switch that is attached to the gearbox. This has the effect of causing the car to have regular four-wheel steering in low gears, front-wheel steering in medium gears, and crab steering in high gears. Okay, I will confess. In those last two images, I was actually holding the flaps down with my fingers, since the mechanism was broken at the time. When I got it working later, I don't think it worked quite as well as that. Convertible Roof: An Xl motor is employed in deploying the convertible roof. The mechanism in itself is rather simple, but is very reliable. The motor merely spins some tiny rubber tires (on tiny wheels, of course), which push the system-built roof forward out of its slot, covering the interior. Spoiler: An M-motor in the rear works two large Linear actuators to deploy the spoiler. Brakes: An L-motor under the floor runs two linear actuators through a worm gear drive, which work linkages to deploy the four-wheel disc brakes, but also to work the brake aero flaps (Unfortunately, this has a barely noticable movement). The brake pedal also is depressed by this action. Again, I think I might have had a finger on the corner of the spoiler here, making it look like it worked better than it did. Gearbox: An M-motor in the rear shifts the eight-speed dual clutch sequential gearbox. The gearbox itself is built very strongly and fairly compactly (for a dual-clutch design). I had planned to build a 7+R, but I couldn't get the reverse gear to be strong enough, so I resorted to using an external PRND selector. There was a rear speed indicator, but it ended up rotating at the wrong ratio to work well. Additionally, I had a dashboard-mounted speed indicator, but the diabolical strings of U-joints to get the drive there prevented it from having any accuracy. Suspension Adjustment: There are two more L-motors, one for each axle, that adjust the ride height using two small linear actuators. Unfortunately, this too was overwhelmed by the weight of the car, but still had a minimal effect. Windshield Wipers: The final function is the windshield wipers, controlled by an M-motor through some complicated linkages. It is a rather fun model to include. Other Images: Tractor tires? you may ask To which I would reply, "Why not?" Conclusion: I am very glad to bring this model to a close (And this lengthy post!). It took me over four months to build, which is crazy for me! My previous most complex car took little more than one month! I think the aesthetics were poor, but about all I expected of my mechanically-minded self. The functionality was, naturally, the focus of the car, and I was pleased to stuff so much complexity into a single car. However, not surprisingly, over-complicated mechanicals prevented the car from performing well. Another feature I tried to include was refinement, especially in the interior, and I think I succeeded. I am glad to have built this, but I may not ever try to top it, because I am disinclined to put in that much hard work again!

Wow! That is pretty impressive! That has got to be the most in-depth mod of the Bugatti set out there right now. Also, where did you find those fake RC buggy motors for sale?

Where did that image come from? Assuming it is real, it looks like there are at least three new panels (Wheel covers, the ones by the Rocker Panels, and the ones on the hood). It doesn't seem like we really needed the latter two, but the wheel covers do look useful for low, sleek cars like this one. Of course, they are like the fifth new wheel wells since 2016, which seems pretty excessive. Otherwise, I like the color scheme, and it seems well styled. I am still not sure... I don't have any rotor blade parts, so I am not too familiar with them, but it seems to me that there would be more of the blade sticking out the bottom. Still, though, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

I have used those before, and they have a fairly good balance of strength and efficiency. Unfortunately for us, they are best used in studfull constructions, and require a large space and some half stud offsets to work well in a studfull model. (I also got my worst ever Lego-caused injury with these gears, when I fired up a model while these gears were resting on my thigh, leading to major pinching and a mark that lasted for a long time.) The big XL motors do have a bit more power (torque times rpm) than L motors do, but they are pretty close. XL motors are usually more efficient in slow models, it seems, because they require less gear reduction, but Ls are much smaller, and are generally more convenient to use, and are preferred in fast models, I think.

I have posted my Type R on MocPages, but that site hasn't worked in a long time, so I can't give you a link to it. Perhaps soon I will post my old MOCs on here, since the site seems to be more used. Does anyone have some advice for how I should post MOCs here? Mainly I would like to know if it is an acceptable format to simply copy and paste my old posts onto here, with lots of pictures and text. Thanks!

I, for one, quite like the Type R, and having built a 1:8 scale one, I know just how hard they are to build! I appreciate all the detail you are giving us on the build process; it is very interesting. You are doing a great job with the aesthetic, too!

I'd like to see an ultimate 1:8 scale supercar with both complex functions and a degree of motorization, perhaps with motorized drive, steering, and a sequential gearbox, plus something else to use four outputs.