dhc6twinotter

Looking good! That is an amazingly compact motor bank you have built.

Not a bad price. I'll have to check to see if my local store has it in stock.

That crane looks fantastic! 5 axles and a 3 section boom...wooohoo! :wub_drool: The green tow truck is really nice as well, although I'm not sure I like the cab design. All those green parts are definitely welcome though! This year is shaping up to be a great year for LEGO Technic!

Those wheel hub parts look great! I'm curious to see what kind of steering range the front hubs offer, especially with a drive axle going through it. These parts would be very useful in mocs.

It would be interesting to see if we get some larger tires on the monster truck. One of the Technic designers did say we will see some new tires in 2013, and I hope this set includes them. I agree.

Looking really good, Efferman!

Sounds awesome! A new crane sounds awesome, and I love the idea of a green service truck. This year is sounding really great!

If you are planning on using 1 motor per functioin, you could place PF switches between the reciever and motor. It would be similar to a electronic "gearbox". The downside is that you would need a lot of PF switches. You would need a motor to move the position of all the switches. If you are using pneumatics, you can build a sequence of pneumatic valves, similar to a pneumatic "gearbox". You could have 1 motor dedicated to driving, 4 or 5 motors for the pneumatic funcitons, 1 or 2 motors for the non-pneumatic functions (boom slew, steering, and maybe extension), and 1 remaing motor to switch the pneumatic/mechanical gearbox position. Not sure if that helps...I'm terrible at explaining stuff.

Good point. The excavator parts must have been a returned item. Or, maybe the store had a built excavator on display, and they dissassembled it to make room for the crawler or some other set. I dunno...just speculation.

Your're right, it looks like 6 in the superstructure. I was counting the crab steering in the undercarriage, for a total of 7 in the base. Definately a doable project though. It's an interesting machine, and one that I've never seen before.

That's a lot of functions! I count 7 functions on the base and 7 in the supertructure. That would be a great project, but a challenge to fit all those functions.

Merry Christmas to all!

Wow...I don't know how I missed you post about the rotor head. That is some awesome work you've done! I think a rotor head with cyclic and collective controls is one of the most technical things to build with LEGO. Nice work. The scrapshead moc is looking reallly great as well!

Great looking car! It looks like a Lotus Exige that has been stretched.

They probably had some damaged sets come in, and they parted them out. Usually the LEGO stores break up the damaged sets and part out the pieces in grab bags, which I was fortunate enough to find a couple times. My guess is most of the other parts were sold in grab bags, and the LEGO store left those extra bits laying around for people to play with.

Yeah, I feel stupid for not thinking of it sooner. I think it should save some space, although I will now need room for all the pneumatic valves and servo motors. I will have 7 pneumatic functions operating on 4 servo motors, with an m motor switching pneumatic valves that direct air to the functions. Similar idea to what you and I have down with our gearboxes, but this just uses pneumatic valves instead. I won't be able to complete this project untill I purchase more servo motors from LEGO. The sooner they offer these for sale, the better. Building with LEGO is still a learning process for me. This project still has a chance of epic failure.

Many of us use a photo host site like photobucket, flickr, or brickshelf to upload our photos to. Once the photos are on a host site, they can be linked to your post here.

Welcome!

I've had several people ask me about my progress with this project, so I thought I'd just post an update here. I haven't worked on the project much in the past 8 months or so. Sorry. My contract at work ended back in April, and since then I haven't done much with my LEGO. I spent about a month preping my vehicle, and, on June 10th, I left for a 4 month long road trip across the United States. I spent the 4 months visiting as many National Parks as I can, and I've logged over 22,000 miles (35,400kilometers) on my vehicle. I've now moved from the east coast to the west coast, and I'm looking for work in the area. Most of my LEGO is in storage. Before I left on my trip, I did manage to work on the forwarder a bit. I was able to build a new boom slew/gearbox/cab rotate mechanism that is about 5 studs lower. The newer design also has fewer gears and less backlash. I'm much happier with the results. Last month I got back from a 3 week trip to the Philippines, and I had some major jet-lag. I woke up at 3:00am and started thinking about my project. Then it dawned on me....why am I using a complicated gearbox for my multiple functions?! I'm using pneumatics...why not just build a series of pneumatic valves? It would be like a pneumatic gearbox. D'oh! I felt so stupid. So, when I start working on the project again, I'll be eliminating my comlicated gearbox and replacing it with a simpler, more precise series of pneumatic valves. I'll also be rebuilding the chassis, axles, and possibly adding adjustable load stakes. Also, I'll be elimating the LAs used for steering and replacing them with pheumatic steering mechanism. Anyways, sorry about my lack of progress with this. I haven't given up on the forwarder, but it'll be a while yet before I finish it up.

Here is something I whipped up just before the website went down. Same idea as Alasdair Ryan's, except this design places the compressor and motor in the superstructure:

Really nice Sukhoi! I like the retractable landing gear and the functional gear doors. The control mixer used on the elevons is clever as well. It's always nice to see another Technic aircraft built.

Fantastic entry! I love the spare tire mounts and the blue color. The clear panels are really great as well. IMHO, this entry really reflects the ideas LEGO had with the context. Nicely done.

I'm by no means a professional, but I really like my Canon cameras. I used my old Canon SD450 for most of my pictures, except for the Piper Super Cub that I built. For that I used my entry level DSLR (Canon T2i). I don't know anything about Panasonic cameras, but both Canon and Nikon make good cameras, You may be able to get a used Canon DigitalElph or Nikon Coolpix in your price range. A descent camera is important, but equally important is good lighting. Some of us shoot outdoors, sometimes with a white backdrop. Other people shoot in a dedicated photo box and white lights. If you can, I would add a backdrop and/or proper lighting to you camera budget. Anyway, that's just my unprofessional advice.

Welcome! It's nice to have another technic builder around! I came back from my dark ages about 4 years ago. LEGO is great!

Here is a video of the Dinosaur in the LEGO 8484 Control Center II. You may be able to replicate the tail function in your dolphin, although, if I remember correctly, a dolphin's tail moves more up/down instead of side/side. You could just flip the hing points to get that up/down movement. The tail is shown at the start, and again at 3:22. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AytevjfrgkM The only problem with that setup is that is requires you to have the long flex cables. If you don't have flex cables, I'm sure some other types of mechanical linkage would work as well.