Gee

I use my debit card, so I assume that that'd be OK. I didn't even know about the one in the Bullring. Must have opened and closed during my Dark Ages. I can't imagine that there wojld have been a lack of custom.

V12?! Smokin'! A video would be cool so that we can check out the performance of that beauty.

Wonder why they don't accept Debit Cards. That seems strange. That's me buggered then as I don't have a credit card. We're poorly served in the W Midlands for LEGO stores. The closest to me are either MK or Cardiff. Why oh why is there not a LEGO store in B'ham? It is the second city for crying out loud!

Yep, me too. Just look at what was achieved back in the hey day of Technic with limited specialised parts. These days it sometimes seems that if a hurdle can't be overcome easily they will just invent new parts to make it work. Not got any experience of portals but they can, and are frequently, made using standard parts. The example I thought of was CV joints...

I doubt it, I think that LEGO's consistency is pretty good. It's more likely that although the addition of the motor makes the action faster (by a small margin), it actually decreases the amount of weight it can pick up due to the clutch gear slipping all the time. I'm sure that this set will be in parts soon enough anyway! The only set that has ever stayed built for longer than a week in my house is 8868. It'll be a sad day when I tear that down!

I've got one of those big old pulley wheels, but it'd look really odd on the back of 42006. If I go back to manual on it, I may use one of of these crank/pin/lifarm jobbies. It will lift stuff up, but it does seem to labour and the the point you make about the clutch gear kicking in too early is definitely the case. I've stripped and rebuilt the gearbox on it and all parts are as the should be. Must just be the way it is. There are a lot of gears in between the motor and the end of the boom. or maybe I am just comparing it to the performance of the old pneumatics and expecting it to be at least equal to it (which it's not).

Nice thinking with the train motor. Looks good. I wish I had a LEGO shop in Worcester!

I like this a lot! Screams RETRO! Awesome.

I don't regret getting it and it suits my needs in terms of parts etc, but it's a shame that I'm disappointed by it. Don't get me wrong, I'm always amazed with any Technic set in a "wow, how do they come up with these things" kinda way, but overall the performance is a let down. Even my 4 year old lad (who is mad on anything LEGO) only plays with it for 5 mins at a time and then gets bored.

Splitters! (That's a Monty Python reference for those who don't know) Hahaha! Must admit, I don't have any interest in the rest of the forum and I only ever visit the Technic area. I was going to start a topic the other day, but it wasn't specifically technic related, then I realised that I should start it in the main forum area, so I didn't bother. It's enough to try and "get to know" the techinic folks so as to have banter etc, never mind all the others out there in EB land! As for MoM, I think that there's the potential for it to get out of hand. Keeping it simple is good. One rule - if it's a good MOC then it goes on the frontpage (which is a good showcase for the talents of the folk in the Technic area) regardless of who built it . Then perhaps have a look at something else (maybe just in the technic area) for the up and comers. I don't see this as being a regular monthly thing as there's not going to be a regular turnover of newbies who are making progress, so it's more likely to be an ad hoc thing.

I made sure that it was fitted together as loose as it could be. Looking at it, it seems to be because when operating the grabber, there's loads of gears that the drive has to go through. It's turnable, but has a lot of friction. I put the motor on and some fresh batteries and the performance is pretty crap to be honest. It's very sluggish (a characteristic of LAs?) and the seems like the clutch gear struggles with the weight of the arm when it's got a few 2x4 bricks in the grab. I like the set enough to keep it, but overall I can't help this nagging feeling that I am a bit underwhelmed and dis-satisfied by it.

I can see the point of PF and I like making RC cars, but what annoys me is sets that are obviously optimised for PF but don't come with the motors. This means that the sets are frustrating to play with manually. I'm thinking specifically of 42006 that I've just built, but 42024 would probably fit into this category as well. Edit: Posted at the same time as the above, and I agree entirely. LAs are clearly designed for PF.

Of coruse! I hadn't thought of that Jim. I'll have to have a look and see what pieces I'm missing.

I won't be able to afford 8043 any time soon!

Well, I got 42006 and built it up last night. Took me about an hour and a half! I know it's been reviewed etc elsewhere,but these are my thoughts as a "newbie" and someone who is new to studless: - The engineering is brilliant, how the designers do it, I don't know. - Half the parts are pins etc which is a change over how I remember studded sets. - LAs are worse than pneumatics - it takes forever to move the arm. - The action of the grabber is slow and pretty hard to do using the hand controls (there's a lot of resistance in the gearbox which makes it particularly hard for small children to operate. - It seems to me that it is obviously designed to be motorised and this will likely overcome some of the issues above. - I'm really disappointed in the 3-4 different shades of yellow in the liftarms. This has been mentioned in other topics. It really affects the appearance of the model to my mind. I'm going to motorise it today and I'm sure that this will make it a lot more fun to play with!

'Tis going to be a beast! I love the way you've got the general shape of the fuselage. If you didn't know it was a Spitfire then you'd definitely be able to guess.

Sariel also has a neat solution for a strong custom UJ. Can't put my finger on pictures right now, but sure you will be able to find it with google.

Absolutely and that's the beauty of LEGO, you can build anything. The only limit is your imagination. This is a discussion about what some feel is lacking in Technic at the moment and what might be considered in the future.

Hey man, no arguments from me. This is a contentious topic and it's bound to promote some good discussion!

Kids don't see teddy bears or talking animals in the street, but they're still fascinated with them! My 4 year old is super fascinated by GBC and would happily build one and put it on and watch it. He sits and watches them on YouTube for long periods of time. How different is that from a train set? You build that, turn it on and the train goes round and round. Boring! But they still sell in big numbers. At least GBC has more functionality. Also, think of a marble run which is marketed to children and lots of small children enjoy. GBC would be cool to more than 5% of customers. Just check out how many hits it gets on the YouTube for a start off. There's no basis for saying that 95% of people wouldn't be interested. You could build GBC modules with a small amount of parts and therefore it'd be relatively cheap meaning that people would be able to afford more than one set. Not only that, but once you get one set then you will have the motivation to build more from your parts bin, the same way that people who get town sets add to them by making their own things. There's a lot of LEGO sets that, in isolation, have the potential to be pretty boring. There's a lot more playability in them than a lot of the other System sets, for example the buildings that they brought out. Just because it's not an off-roader with big tyres and remote control, doesn't mean that people will think that it's un-cool. LEGO is a construction toy and a lot of the joy and fun is in the construction and re-construction of the sets.

Cool. Is there no way to just have the balls backed up so that they can be fed 1 at a time?

My lad had some Chima recently, along with some of the Supereroes stuff and there's loads of Technic in there. Stuff like axles, axles connectors, liftarms. The Spiderman bike has some of the right angle liftarms that are only in a few sets: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=11455

I was thinking the same thing. Any set that I've had with a motor in has produced some powder and if you are going to play with a motorised set all day long (like at a convention) then this will exacerbate the problem.

Does seem like TLG is missing out by not getting into GBC. Several reasons for this that I can see: - They'd make money selling the balls individually. - GBC is not gender specific. - It appeals to AFOLs as well as kids. - Can be as simple or complex (mechanically) as required (for different age groups). - Could be as large a set or small a set as required (different price brackets). - Incentive to put sets together to make bigger sets (a la System City or Trains). - A group of friends could buy different GBCs and link them together to play with each other. Why wouldn't they produce GBC sets? [Edited for spelling]

This is awesome!