Sariel

The stepper may be the same, but I think the transmission itself is different and seems to work better.

Looks like I'm first. Ah, the things you can achieve by abandoning sleep :)

It's #1 in fancy font.

The LEGO Technic 42115 Lamborghini Sián set comes in such a special packaging that LEGO asked me for a separate unboxing video. Here it goes!

Here's my previous transmission design equipped with a torque-sensing shifter. The result is that the transmission starts at 4th speed and shifts down lower the more resistance the output meets. It's not perfect, the shifting is jerky because of a "gap" when both transmission rings are disengaged, but it works. I'm hoping somebody can improve on it and make it shift more smoothly. And the original transmission with instructions:

That was slow. I got 6h 22m on my second try, which I'm told is faster than Chiron's own designer builds it ;)

Doesn't sound like something I could do, sorry. More like something that calls for a team of seasoned devs.

Love the idea. You may want to consider replacing tracks with plates with racks on them to get more possible "inputs", like here:

OK, I'll chime in. Personally, I don't have any external motivation for building MOCs. I keep doing it for 13 years straight now because of a purely internal motivation: I like building mechanical stuff, I enjoy solving unexpected problems, and I suppose I'm sort of a car nut who's fascinated by all kinds of vehicles (I'm also fond of scale models and that translates into building with LEGO). Building things that I can't drive, like dioramas, just doesn't have that appeal to me. I guess part of my motivation is seeing that I can improve on my old creations, so I have some sense of progress rather than doing the same thing over and over - but that sense may be subjective and to somebody else I may very well be a weirdo who just keeps building tanks. In any case, it keeps me going. As for money or popularity, I can't say these things motivate me. Sure, it's nice to get some money off YouTube, but it can be a draining experience as many videos fail to succeed and in a way the time that you're not spending on making videos is the time you're not making money. Popularity among AFOLs is certainly nice, but it has its drawbacks (try being asked the same question 3 times a day for years, even though you answered it countless times already; also, some people hate you simply for being "popular") and let's be honest, this is a niche hobby and a prominent AFOL is still just a regular guy outside of our little community. There are gaming, beauty, lifestyle etc. influencers who are incomparably more popular, recognized on the streets, who work with popular brands and become celebrities. It's safe to say that none of these things is going to happen to me - and I'm fine with it. So I would take this whole "popularity" thing with a huge grain of salt. At best I'm a nerd recognizable to a group of similar nerds, no offense. That being said, I know there are people who can pretty much live off MOCing, for example by designing C-models and selling instructions for them. Probably just a handful of people can do this at a level that makes them financially independent, but still. I've never tried that, I get easily frustrated by limitations imposed by designing a C-model. And then there are people like Nathan Sawaya who blend our hobby with art and thus gain popularity, but I think they're not, strictly speaking, AFOLs. They're primarily artists who just use LEGO pieces as a medium. Which is why Nathan's works are very different from what AFOLs usually build - I would even say his builds are often very simple from our point of view because he doesn't care about complexity or building techniques, he cares about expressing something through his builds. The point being, popularity and money can surely be efficient motivators but they don't work on everyone. Trust me when I say that I'm way too lazy to build 200+ MOCs in 13 years just to get some popularity - if that was my only drive, I would have quit within months. Instead, I'm motivated by imagining how my MOC is going to work and look when finished and then I'm just trying to get there. And I like sharing ideas. If I come up with something that can be useful to others in their MOCs, I'll share it for free 10 times out of 10. It feels good to share something that others may use, as opposed to sharing complete MOC instructions - I feel discouraged about sharing complete instructions because they don't inspire creativity. A gearbox design can inspire you to build you own MOC, a complete instructions will just help you assembly what I've designed, which feels unoriginal and not much different from assembling Ikea furniture. Not to mention there is Lepin waiting to profit from MOCs. One last thing that I've noticed over many years in this community is that there are really two kinds of builders: there are those who build to enjoy building and those who build to show off. You know what I'm talking about. There's a kind of builders who need to top everything - the primary goal of their MOC is to be the biggest, the most complex, the fastest etc. I know I'm not that kind because I'm equally happy to build a 100-pieces model with a single motor as to build some giant super-complex truck. To be honest, I might even enjoy the simpler MOCs more simply because they are less of a trouble to build. And I enjoy a silly build from time to time, like a walking spaceship or a mecha-hamster. The "show off" builders, on the other hand, are always deadly serious about their creations, they put enormous amount of effort in them and have enormous expectations as to the response. And I'm not saying there's something wrong with it, but in my experience these builders don't last long - after a while they get frustrated when their MOCs fail to achieve the kind of success they were expecting and they often quit the hobby entirely. I've seen it happen quite a bunch of times. There are even people who want their first MOC to be #1 right away - it doesn't matter that they have no experience with MOCs, their goal is to top everything right from the start. And while there are many incredibly talented new builders and many impressive debuts, I have usually seen people with that approach grow increasingly frustrated and eventually give up, sometimes after years of working on that first MOC. Again, I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just saying that it doesn't work for me. I'm not going to try to build the tallest crane or the biggest truck because I think it's futile - there is always going to be someone with more money, more time, more working space who will easily top anything I do. I actually have a principle of never calling my MOCs like "fastest", "biggest", "best" etc. when publishing them because, again, that's too relative. I might build a MOC that's the fastest MOC I've ever built, but that's just relevant to me - someone else will surely top it sooner or later. Instead, I simply say what I've built and leave judging to the viewers - in fact, I sometimes express dislike in my own creations. That's another thing about the "show off" builders in my experience - they will never publish a MOC they're unhappy about. But like I said, I'm not judging. We certainly wouldn't see many amazing creations if people didn't want to show off. It's just a pity that some talented builders quit this hobby entirely because they've followed that path.

My bad then, you were right. It's an unexpectedly high number!

Hi guys, Here's a solution to shift the 4-speed transmission I've shared a few days ago remotely using any motor of your choice. I don't know if it's the smallest stepper mechanism possible, but it's the smallest reliable version I could come up with. Instructions (for stepper and separately for the transmission): http://sariel.pl/downloads/

No way. My Ford Mustang had similar scale and functions and a detailed body built with tiny System pieces, and it had around 1800 pieces.

Looks really lovely and I applaud your use of the new wheels, but by my experience it looks like 1,500 pieces top, not 3000. Possibly inside 1,000. No offense, it's easy to misestimate. PS. We'd love to see more pics!

Building on my 3/9-speed transmission design for a PF Servo motor, here's a variant designed for Control+ motors or for mechanical steppers, packing 4 speeds into a unit of the same size, and waiting to be combined into a single 16-speed transmission (for times when you need that 81:1 gear reduction to simulate glaciers moving): Instructions: http://sariel.pl/downloads/

Free instructions & parts list: http://sariel.pl/downloads/ I'm sharing an RC transmission design that I find quite practical. At long last, I was able to eliminate pretty much every problem that bothered me in typical LEGO transmissions. Pros: instant shifting while driving, no need to stop, no jamming, no need to aim and check, 100% precision every time gear ratios from 5:1 to 1.6:1 input and output aligned end-to-end and rotating in the same direction (meaning you can easily swap them and have a transmission that gears up instead of down) input and output go through the center of transmission unit, making it easy to integrate into chassis, and the PF Servo can be attached to either side the whole unit is heavily reinforced and ready for heavy duty, nothing should yield, at least until selectors disengage from extreme stress convenient cuboid shape; can be built with studless or studfull structure only 5x7x10 studs big + motors and side beams designed to make it easy to combine two units into one 9-speed transmission producing 7 various gear ratios, from 25:1 to 2.77:1 Cons: needs a PF Servo using a PF remote to operate it involves holding down the lever to keep the transmission in 1st or 3rd gear; I therefore recommend using SBrick and programming convenient buttons, as shown in the video I'm currently working on a 4/16-speed version operated with a Control+ motor or a stepper. Stay tuned!

A simple medium-sized model built to test a 3-speed RC transmission design that can be shifted while driving. Doesn't look too great and certainly suffers from open differentials, but the transmission works flawlessly. I'll have a more refined transmission design with free instructions in a few days.

Just dropped by to applaud both the model and the photos!

I'd rather not. I've probably already said more than I should. This is all off-the-record talk and I've signed a bunch of NDA's.

As far as I know, it's actually more like "we're paid to have no influence what we're doing, we spend entire days re-iterating the same design over and over until it's dumbed down enough to meet the budget and be successful with the focus group of small kids, and we're stuck in a country that doesn't really like immigrants with little job security". I'm sure that job at LEGO pays well, but remember that Denmark has insanely high living costs, crazy taxes, and I've heard concerns from people with 10+ years of employment at LEGO about being let go at any moment. I've also heard that an entire project can get scrapped simply because the kids from the focus group decide it looks too similar to some other set they've already seen. But hey, I'm sure there are some upsides. Ever since Milan joined the LEGO Group, he has not been allowed to publish anything other than modifications of the official sets. I mean, you can build as many MOCs as you want, you just can't publish any of them. I was explicitly told that if I got that Creator designer job, I would have to suspend my YT channel indefinitely.

I've had a lot of contact with the LEGO company over the years, visited the HQ a bunch of times, talked to the key staff, even participated in the recruitment process for a Creator designer. To sum up the general impression: nobody cares if you want to work at LEGO. Or if you're fit for it. The actual hiring is only done by the HR people and nobody else, meaning 99% of the company, isn't interested in discussing job opportunities. It's a similar experience one gets with the Google staff: sure, they know you'd love to work for them, but unless they happen to work at HR, they don't care. Which is understandable, because they have their jobs which don't involve recruiting people. I must have met a 100 LEGO employees by now, and trust me, "Would you like to work for us?" never pops up in a conversation. Maybe if you're crazily talented, like Mike Psiaki. Maybe. But in general, no. If there's an actual job opening and you apply through the official channels, sure, you can participate in the recruitment process (easily 6 months long in my experience), but the openings happen rarely and you'll be treated like any other person (which is only fair). Being an AFOL isn't a perk for recruiters, not by a long mile. And yes, the designer's job comes with a lot of caveats. Moving to Billund, which is a really tiny town with really nothing going on in it is just one. You're also not allowed to run a YouTube channel or to build MOCs (C-models for the official sets may pass if you're lucky). Basically anything you put together during working hours is automatically company property, and yes, you have zero freedom in choosing what to build. I know for a fact that for example the 42069 set's designer would love to put it on regular wheels, but no, the decision was made above his head. Having seen a designer's job up close, I now suspect that most AFOLs would be severely disappointed in it.

I've had this issue and solved it by driving both rear and front sprockets. But I guess in your model's case this would ruin the front sprocket's look.

Not a single photo is showing up, are you sure your photo album is public? The model is indeed impressive thanks to the size, the rare color and smooth ride. What struck me as a bit odd is that the model moves almost exclusively in straight lines in the video - is there a problem with turning?

Something to do while under lockdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnrE6TR_ND0

I thought you've calculated the correct scale already?

You're not doing anything wrong, it looks like a rounding error somewhere in my scaler's calculations. Sorry about that.