Sariel

I had a very similar experience building the 8272 Snowmobile. It seemed to be generally made of a higher quality material.

Here's the description: http://www.lugpol.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12499 And the (auto)translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=pl&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lugpol.pl%2Fforum%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ft%3D12499

Sorry, but it will come apart instantly in serious Truck Trial. Two reasons: - you're using a driving ring which can't handle high torque. All Trial Trucks I've seen in Poland use linear gearboxes because driving rings pop out or get damaged under torque - the gears are not reinforced properly: there is no single part that would connect them and prevent them from coming apart. Instead, there are many small parts that will bend and slide, and your gearbox doesn't even have a transverse reinforcement. Also, from my experience, if you have just two gears in your gearbox, their ratios should differ more. If they only differ a little, then it doesn't really pay off to have such a gearbox. You should think of having one gear for going uphill and one gear for going downhill. I'd say 3x difference in ratios is minimum for the gearbox to be useful. Take is as an advice from someone who tested a lot of gearboxes under high torque :)

Articulated vehicles need differentials in all axles to turn properly. Without differentials, they couldn't turn in place and they would struggle to turn while driving.

It should be noted, however, that bricks chromed in regular way match those chromed originally by Lego. It's impossible to tell the custom-chromed bricks I got from Chrome Block City from the original Lego chrome bricks. Which is probably not the case with shinier bricks, impressive as they appear.

This, sir, is brilliant.

I'm sure your camera's options include smaller picture size. The one you used is good for printing full size billboards, not for online browsing. For less blurry pics, I recommend making sure there is plenty of light and simply putting camera on top of something stable (a book or a box will do). And it's slow like hell, isn't it?

May I suggest resizing the photos down? We don't really need them in 3072 x 2048 resolution, especially that most of them is so blurry that you can't really see much.

There is no such thing as 'indestructible' when it comes to 3-years old ;)

I find it funny that someone simply stole my video of my MOC. But I find it outright hilarious that such an old and poorly designed MOC was chosen :)

Nor windows, nor sights, nor optics. Quite an innovative reckon-vehicle, I must say ;)

I like it, but I don't understand people who tend to name every tracked vehicle "tank". It's completely unarmed, so what kind of tank is it? A pacifist one?

They can, as this is a cover of the original song performed by Helloween. There are no per-country restrictions on both videos, at least for now.

I miss a third option just where you have to pick between studfull and studless. The option is "I don't care, I mix both systems as needed" and I believe it would be a very popular one. No offence, but to me keeping to studfull only or studless only is like buying a decent bike and riding on a single wheel only because you don't fancy the other one :)

Perhaps this is the essence of the problem - no offence, but it looks like you're trying to build something you don't actually have parts for. Lots of builders try that and proceed straight into a dead-end. XL's torque is 14.5 N.cm, while NXT's torque is 16.7 N.cm. Sorry, but under no conditions can XL be called much more powerful. That may very well be the case. With the 8297 set's suspension components and differentials you could build a powerful 4x4 with a full independent suspension with very little effort. You would have a compact, neat and strong construction, nothing like the one you got now :)

I would add that using the 24t crown gears is a bad idea in general, and especially without strong bracing which is your case. The worm gears tend to push against gears, so if you locate them in the middle of a long axle, the axle will bend and the worm gear will snap. Moreover, seeing your suspension I doubt that the wheels will stay properly aligned while turning (there are some weird angles the links are attached at) and I have no idea how you'll make these soft light-gray shock absorbers support the apparently heavy vehicle. It really looks as if you wanted to make it as complex as possible. This may not be the best approach. An another note, I like your compressor ;)

If you shift gears fast enough, there is no problem. The gears fit each other well and there is almost no grinding while shifting gears, which is thanks to the use of double bevel gears only, and to the reduced differences in gears' diameters.

No offence to anyone, but it feels like some 60% of this car's performance is credit to its wheels.

So... I was working on something simple for my new Truck Trial vehicle, and I guess the 'simple' got kind of lost along the way: The pros of this gearbox: - 4 gears with large span of ratios - full remote control with just 2 motors / pneumatic cylinder - compact size - rigidity and stiffness (the input & output axles are fixes, the shifter axles move by a single stud only) - minimal amount of dead gears (zero at lowest gear, two at the rest) Keep in mind that this design is not yet race-proven, but I hope you'll find it useful anyway. Also, if you want to operate it with a hamster, you will need a properly qualified one. Description at my website coming soon.

Event type: a collective display of the LUGPol (LEGO User Group of Poland) members, features three huge dioramas (the 1410 Battle of Grunwald with several hundreds of customized minifigs, the Klocki-Zdrój city with tens of custom buildings over 15 square meters of space, along with a sophisticated railway system and streets populated by small MOCs, and the Star Wars Endor Landing with the new Lambda shuttle set and many SW-related MOCs) and some 150 independent MOCs of builders from all over the country. These include MOCs from such renown builders as Misterzumbi, Jerac, Dmac, Noddy, Zbiczasty, M_longer, Makorol, Szarikm and many, many more. Place: Poland, Warsaw, Muzeum Techniki (Museum of Technology) located at Pałac Kultury i Nauki (Palace of Culture and Science). The Palace is practically impossible to miss as it is the largest building in the city, located in the very middle of it, side-to-side with Dworzec Centralny (Central Railway Station). Here's a view of the Palace showing the exact side where the Museum is located: Dates: from July 10th 'til September 30th. Here are two videos presenting the majority of the models and dioramas you can see at the exhibition. The first video shows the preparations day, and the second one shows the opening day - the two are supposed to complement each other by showing various models and various stages of work on the dioramas: The preparations: The opening: The latter video may be unavailable at German YouTube, which I'm sure you can bypass.

If you don't mind Eric, I'd like to complement your excellent review with a video showing the 8043 in motion:

Try adding some slight gear reduction between the motors and wheels if you can. It protects motors from being forced to rotate when they are stopped, which is the basic reason for overheating.

Oh, you're referring to the common occurrence of the RC motors overheating. It happens under load, when they require a current so high that the safety measures built into IR receivers cut the energy off for a few seconds. It happens with this truck too sometimes, usually when I continuously use motors for braking at high speed.

And the description in English: http://sariel.pl/2010/07/scania-racing-truck/ Damn, someone beat me to posting my own creation

Close, it's a 535. I'm in love with it. I adore black/chrome versions with no bags/pipes/scaffoldings on, just the stock-bare bike. Didn't know Viragos were popular in US, as they're relatively small bikes for their class.