allanp

Why do the motors need to know where the cylinders are? The engine in a real JCB doesn't know where each cylinder is. That's the the operator is for!

Well, they way I see it, there are two acceptable options for a flagship back hoe, both options being fully pneumatic of course, I mean, that just goes without saying! Option 1: There is no control+. just a simple battery box and a motor driving the pneumatic compressor (minimum 4 pumps for this bad boy, ideally though it would have a new, more space efficient 6 barrel axial compressor, equaling 6 motor pumps in a single unit roughly the size of a medium motor). Functions would include inline 4 engine, 4wd, planetary hubs (yes, planetary hubs on a non-motorised model to spin the engine really fast!), steering on a tilting front axle. Pneumatic functions would outnumber even the mighty 8455 with front bucket raise/lower (2 2x11 cylinders), front bucket tilt (2 2x11), front bucket open/close (2 new cylinders with mounting point near the top as well as the bottom), rear stabilizers (2 new cylinders with mounting point near the top as well as the bottom), back hoe side shift (um, maybe 1 2x11 with a sort of chain/string arrangement to increase range of motion), back hoe slew (two new cylinders with mounting point near the top as well as the bottom, see picture), back hoe shoulder joint raise lower (1 2x11 cylinder), back hoe elbow joint (1 2x11 cylinder), back hoe telescopic boom (1 2x11 cylinder) and back hoe bucket (1 2x11 cylinder), totaling 10 pneumatic functions. The hoses would be all black. This is for a more authentic look but also, with this many functions and hoses, I highly doubt that the current 3 colours of hoses will be enough for fool proof instructions. So I propose a new system of hose hose identification, either with stickers applied by the customer (just some 2-3mm wide coloured bands that are long enough to wrap twice around the hose basically) or have some colour applied to the end faces of the precut hoses in some way. This way they have as much colour coding as they like where it is needed, while only having to make one colour of hose. Option 2, the full control+ option. This would likely be the most complex and probably the most expensive set ever. I would have all the same functions as option 1, using all the same pneumatic cylinders, however everything is RC and controlled via 2 hubs. This would be done by having two modes of operation plus one extra function, a motorized rotating seat which turns to face the front or rear, which would signify what mode you are in. Front facing mode: 1) Engine (this can switch between driving the wheels and automatically driving the compressor whenever any of the pneumatic controls are activated by the user) 2) Steering, 3) Mode switching (this rotates the seat to indicate front facing mode whilst also mechanically links 5 servos to the five pneumatic valves for the 5 front facing pneumatic functions below. Using a spring loaded differential to switch a 2 function gearbox, continuing to try to rotate the seat after it has reached it's limit will switch the engine from driving the compressor to driving the wheels. A small gear shifter in the cabin will also move to signify that you are either in drive or compressor mode) 4) Front bucket raise/lower 5) Front bucket tilt 6) Front bucket open/close 7) Rear stabilizers 8) back hoes side shift Rear facing mode: 1) Engine (this can switch between driving the wheels and automatically driving the compressor whenever any of the pneumatic controls are activated by the user) 2) Steering, 3) Mode switching (this rotates the seat to indicate rear facing mode whilst also mechanically links 5 servos to the five pneumatic valves for the 5 rear facing pneumatic functions below. Using a spring loaded differential to switch a 2 function gearbox, continuing to try to rotate the seat after it has reached it's limit will switch the engine from driving the compressor to driving the wheels. A small gear shifter in the cabin will also move to signify that you are either in drive or compressor mode) 4) Back hoes slew 5) Back hoe shoulder joint raise/lower 6) Back hoe elbow joint 7) Back hoe telescopic boom 8) Back hoe bucket.

Have we all made preparations for the big day boy and girls?! You know, (often times in the past anyway) boxing day, December 26th, when we get the first rumours and lists of the summer wave of boxed goods from Lego! Set expectations appropriately, forget all the things we've been asking for (they do listen to us but marketing and the higher ups pay their wages, not us!).

That depends. As someone who values the internal mechanisms over the external looks, I complained that the Ferrari was too similar to the Sian because it was too mechanically similar. If they made the same car but with improved/more life-like mechanics then that would be better for me than having a different car but with the same mechanics, unless of course the mechanics are already so good and life-like that they can't really be improved, then keep them the same but change the car! But they are quite far away from that yet. With all this talk of automatic gearboxes, and if TLG insist on only ever doing exotic supercars for their 1:8 ucs series, well maybe something like a 1:8 scale RAM TRX might make a good regular flagship? With new metal axles for the final drive, new buggy motors but in a more usable shape, and a properly working automatic gearbox which starts in first and automatically goes up through the gears. Then when it encounters resistance (like a hill), it senses the increased load on the motor and down shifts automatically. There would also be RC controlled hi-low range and diff lockers and so on. A real nice looking, 5000+ piece crawler that could literally tow my 97kg self while sat on a skateboard! But not before a JCB flagship of course !

Nooooo, not the manual stick shift option on the Cummins! I feel like freakazoid... https://youtu.be/FZy6jmwDeuA?si=KV6Uab6VaHJNQfAX

I still think it's a bit of a shame that they stuck to only doing supercars, when there are a bunch of other cars that could have the same "wow factor", but it's never too late for the theme to evolve is it? A RAM SRT-10 with it's stick shift manual transmission and V10 engine in 1:8 scale could be a 5000+ piece monster! I did think the TRX would be great till I just found out that they only do it as an automatic. What's up with that? Why the heck is there no manual stick shift option?! Anyway, back to the SRT-10, as I posted on @kbalage youtube video, but in reference to the TRX (thinking it came with a manual stick shift option), it would have a more detailed than ever V10 under the hood, including rotating cam shafts and drive belts on the engine. It would also have a stick shift gearbox and transfer case in accurate locations (so no gearbox in the rear!), and the suspension and steering would closely resemble the real thing, with working steering wheel and a discreet/removable HOG. The engine would be geared to spin quite fast in the lowest gear and it would use the new hubs introduced in the etron. Although not specifically mentioned in the instructions, the gearing and build quality of the transmission would make it suitable for easy motorisation by the customer using buwuzz and one or two buwuzz buggy motors. It would also be a modular build just like the real thing, with the engine and gearbox being built as separate and accurate looking assemblies that could look good on display on their own, and then placed into the chassis. It would have a bunch of other nice details such as a fully detailed interior (probably with quite a lot of system pieces) and the other things under the hood (such as the turbo, battery, air intake, etc) would also be recreated. For new pieces, it would have new wheels with deep, positive offset and realistic tyre tread, stronger (maybe extruded aluminium) axles used for the prop and final drive shafts, a few more sizes of gearbox gears (to add to the current 16t, 20t and 24t) and a new 8880 gear shifter but studless and with 8 positions instead of 4. The 8480 style sliding axle shifter isn't very nice to shift, 8880's ball joint style shifter is more realistic and much nicer to shift gears with.

This is referring to a sidereal day vs a solar day:

The accuracy of the gear ratios is very impressive, I'm liking this thing more and more! Does anyone know what the white parts on the base are for? Are they to indicate something or can just be swapped out with black or something?

Agreed. Being a Technic set designer isn't just sitting there building MOCs. You are taking the lead, designing a complex product for a very successful company making them millions while working in a very small team. It's not about academic qualifications, though they are required where I am, it's about being able to solve problems that they never taught you, as well as being someone who will fit in with the team. From what little I've seen of the Technic team, as a lead engineer I would happily offer anyone on the Technic team a job. As for the new piece in the harvester, that does indeed look quite useful

Yes, it is and I do expect them to be used in the next car, with more of their potential being revealed. But as we have already had 4 flappy paddle cars with the 5th likely to be already finished and with flappy paddles only, it would be nice if the 6th or 7th was stick shift. It would also use the new shorter drive ring, 24t clutch gear (among other new sizes of course!) and the Yamaha's more realistic selector forks.

Ah right, I guess I was getting confused between a fully gated H style shifter with an up/down sequential shifter. I thought I did see a H style shifter but with a clutch (automatic clutch maybe?) and with flappy paddles, but can't be sure as I can't remember where. Top gear most likely but on what car? I might be miss remembering. But still, it would be great to get a proper H shifter, especially now that we have more realistic shift forks, and because we haven't had one since 2001 I think? And we have only ever had one that shifted nicely with a realistic ball joint action and that was 8880 (the 8480 sliding axle style ones are not nice to shift), and we've never had a properly realistic one that utilities push/pull rods and linkages between the gearstick and the shift fork. All the official Lego sets had their shifter go directly into the drive ring.

I do hope we get the new Yamaha parts in the next car, plus a few more gear sizes. It has taken so long to get to three! But I'd also love to see a traditional stick shift, 6 to 8 speeds but with the nice ball joint action of 8880, not the clunky and sticky sliding axle approach that began with 8480. I could be wrong but I think some, or even most, modern supercars with a stick shift also have flappy paddles. Would be interesting to see how they could integrate both. Like, with the stick shift, you could go from any gear directly to any other gear. Then with the paddles you would be able to sequentially move up/down through the gears from wherever the manual stick shift was in. I don't know if that's how it works in real cars with both stick and paddle shifters. Maybe there's a button you have to press to select which shift option you want to use?

These space sets are first half sets, where my tolerance for childishness and lack of realism is somewhat higher. If they were second half sets I'd be more disappointed. But actually liking something and merely tolerating it are two different things. I know why I like the orrery, but I'm not sure why I like the other Technic space sets. I just kinda do!

Yeah, I was thinking of something aimed at testing the waters for Technic sets aimed at the opposite of sex. Maybe the girly colours are a bit stereotypical but whatever, if it works it works!

I think a small 4x4, in white mostly but with a bunch of pink/purple/teal accents could be very nice. Maybe with a mostly teal interior with pink accents, more detailed than usual for a technic set with fake stereo and speakers, and white letters printed on the tyres. Medium sized but decently mechanically dense, with 4 wheel drive, full suspension, steering (via HoG but also working steering wheel), v6 regular piston engine (not the cam shaft only style engine), spare wheel on the rear, opening doors/hood and removable rear cover to make it a convertible.

There's also yellow gears in the forage harvester. JCB (specifically a 3CX or 4CX) confirmed!

Just saw another picture where the two knob gears are different colours, one black, the other grey (finally some tasteful colour coding!). So yeah, I think it's a new 45 degree offset knob gear.

Yes I know exactly what you mean, the hips do move back up again slightly to account for the leg moving through it's arc. It would be good if you could account for that somehow, maybe make a more complex shaped cam somehow, or move the cam slightly off centre, or mount the cam on an arm and move the whole cam up and down via a simple crank, or have the cam follower (the piece that touches the cam) also move slightly as the leg goes through it's arc. Not sure if that's needed, but I think it would definitely be more stable and look much more like an AT-AT. For the rack and pinion, I'm thinking you would use it as the leg actuator (like the dump bed mechanism on the barcode truck from 1997), similar to a linear actuator but one that can move faster, but yes you could also use a linear actuator for this if you can get it to move fast enough. Then you use a gearbox to switch it's speed and direction. As you would need 4 gearboxes (one for each leg) you can simplify them by having two input shafts already spinning at a 3 to 1 ratio. Another idea for the hip joint rotation, if you don't want a visible actuator of ANY kind (to look more like the AT-AT) you could use turntables like they did on the UCS version and drive them via a worm gear from the gearboxes. Actually I think this would give you the best speed as a rack might be too fast and a linear actuator too slow. The pneumatic version might be simpler overall but be warned, getting the valves to move via the cams how you would want can be a bit finicky as the valves are quite stiff. You might want to use a second cam to move the valve the other way, however as the valve would stay in place at each side, you wouldn't need the cams to be any particular shape, so long as they move the valve at the right timing. Then to account for the leg sweep you can move the upper mounting point of the pneumatic up/down via a crank. If you do want to try it I would try to get those valves right first. As you have ordered the cams and shocks, would I be right in thinking you don't have that much Technic yet? Non of what I have said here is as easy to pull of as I have made it sound. But it sounds like a fantastic project to learn on and would be great if you can pull off. This will be a case of trial and error, breaking it up into smaller chunks and getting each part right, and also rigidity. You absolutely cannot make this too rigid. Any sloppyness or bending in the legs will undo all the work you have put into finely crafting each leg movement.

I think this will be tricky with only cranks and levers. If we look at each phase, the leg must lift up off the ground, move forwards and drop back down to the ground in 1/4 of a cycle, then slowly move back at a steady speed for the other 3/4 of the cycle. I think, to get that truly AT-AT motion, I'm thinking a cam arrangement might be a way to brute force the problem into submission. For example, maybe take three of https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?id=922&idColor=3&ccName=4500483#T=S&C=3&O={"color":3,"iconly":0} to make a 3/4 circle shaped cam that pushes the leg down to the ground. Have the cam hidden up in the body and directly above the leg for strength. The leg would be spring loaded to lift off the ground, this only needs to be strong enough to raise the leg. Then the cam pushes it down only having to be strong enough to overcome the spring that raises the leg. Then the weight of the model is on the perfectly circular part of the rotating cam. So this cam gives you a position in 1/4 of a cycle (leg up) while giving you another position in the other 3/4 (leg down). That would also be useful for the knee joint yes? You could use a tie rod to transfer the up/down motion of the hip to the bending motion of the knee, so down is knee straight and up is knee bent. Alternatively you could use another 3/4 cam in the leg if there's room for that, though you would also need to get a rotating shaft there also. So now you just need the motion that bends the hip, making the leg move backwards (when the foot is down) at 1/3 the speed it moves forwards (when the foot is up). This is tricky. It might be possible if you have the forwards and backwards motion of the leg actuated via a rack and pinion, where the pinion is driven by a two position gearbox. In one gear the pinion rotates one way, and in the other position it rotates the other way at 1/3 the speed. The gearbox would be shifted via the up/down motion of the leg also. So in essence, everything is timed from that one 3/4 circle cam at the top of each leg. However, there is a chance for the gearbox to skip and lose it's position as the gear changes won't be instant. To reduce that you can hear the gearbox such that it spins faster and gear down afterwards, and make it so that it tries to move the leg beyond it's mechanical limit but is protected by a clutch gear, thus should help ensure the leg moves back and forth through the full distance. You can also simplify the gearbox by having not one, but two counter rotating input shafts at a 1:3 ratio, so then it's just a case of engaging each pinion of each leg to the correct shaft at the correct time. Is all that clear as mud?! Of course there is a second option.... pneumatics. Instead of using the 3/4 cams to move the legs directly, you could use the cams to correctly time and control pneumatic valves in the correct sequence. One valve moves the leg up/down and also use the same valve to bend/straighten the knee. Remember, leg up = knee bent, leg down = knee straight. You could also use the same valve to move the leg back and forth but I'd use a second valve so I can restrict the leg speed moving back to 1/3 in some way. Just make sure you have a beefy enough air compressor to keep up.

Yeah but these are premium products at premium prices, not a cheap Chinese light switch you can control with your phone. I'm sure they took their profits into consideration when thinking about not including everything you need in the box and that's about it. Thanks to smart devices the world of a child today is so different and they can be exposed to so many dangers through owning a smart device, from thinking their lives are somehow inadequate compared to the highly edited highlights people present on facebook, to far far worse physical dangers, as well as being bullied if their parents aren't rich enough to buy a smart device for their child. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't. Lego was a way to bring things back from the virtual computer world and into a more important reality. So what do they go and do? Mess it all up in the name of even more profits. Now the child can't even play with the biggest and most badass Technic sets without being on a smart device. It's disgusting that Lego put profits above a child's mental and physical health. Oh but they do care, look, they put 4 small metal screws on the battery box to prevent swallowing a AA battery. How nice of them

On the grabber, look at the grey knob gear and it's alignment with the 4x2 green lift arm. Is it me or have they released a knob gear with a + hole that's 45 degrees out of phase? That would be useful.

Front and rear brakes, working clutch, more mechanically detailed engine with cam timing chain and double overhead cam shafts (the actual valves might be asking a bit much!), motorisation whilst mounted on a pedestal (so you can watch the gearbox spin the rear wheel faster and faster as you go up the gears), working rpm counters in a 2x2 round brick format, with one on the engine for a tachometer and one on the gearbox output for the Speedo (combined with the motorisation option that would look siiiiiick!). Oh yes, the 1:5 Technic bike in the year 2044 gonna be great! Oh wait, this is about the 2024 Kawasaki. Ahem. Yeah it looks good

Agreed, the red rings would be better in gold, and the blue gear and pins really stand out here in a set where the mechanics are meant to be more visible. I wonder if a black 20t double bevel can be used instead? The other seemingly random blue and white parts are also distracting. But that's really my only real complaint, they can be swapped out for more tasteful colours, otherwise it looks fantastic.

Very well done indeed, simple yet very impressive. I can only agree with what others have said. Also looks to be fun to play with. One motor pump might be too little to properly power two 2x11 cylinders but I doubt there's room in such an already compact build to add more pumps. Also agree that the rope mesh is a very nice detail, excellent work

The Kawasaki looks cool, but I'm mostly plesently surprised by the space sets! I wasn't expecting much, but they look like fun little play things, and they seem to be purposely compatible with the system space sets. Is this the first time sets from two entirely different themes have been designed to be directly compatible and played with together like this? The model of the Sun, Earth and Moon also looks great, I like vehicles but it's nice to get a non vehicle, and it's not covered in panels so you can see the natural beauty of the mechanics in motion. Great stuff! It's only a shame that they didn't recolour the gears and axles to look more pleasing to the eye, maybe like in a pearl gold and black colour scheme with some metallic gunmetal grey thrown in, but apart from that it looks better than expected.