Gee

Indeed! I still reckon I'm a newbie though!

I'm flattered!

Oh right! LOL! How did I miss that?! Cheers Jim!

Eh? I don't follow Jim. If you changed the title then I can't see it. I was thinking it could be changed to something like "Gee's AFOL Learning Curve", although I'm still pretty much a newbie! I don't think I'm quite ready for it to be titled Gee's MOCs yet! I've just ordered 42006 from S@H so I'm looking forward to putting that together and learning more and also having more parts to play with. Ordered a PF switch too so I can motorize it.

Dunno whether this comes under the remit of MoM, but it'd be nice to see things being won by "learners" and up and coming builders as well as the guys who regularly showcase professional quality models. Kind of a "best new recruit" or "hasn't (s)he come on" sorta thing. Of course I'm no where near anything like that yet, but it would give the guys at the bottom something to aim for.

*huh* *huh* *huh* You'd be able to pull a truck with it then! And it'd cost an arm and a leg in XL motors!

I was looking at getting some of the things that I wanted on BL, but when it comes down to it I'm lacking basic things like 3L pins and liftarms so at the end of the day it will probably be more economic to buy a set.

If only I had the moo-lah to spend on those! I wouldn't mind 42009, but £150 is out of the question and besides, I don't really want another battery box and all those wheels that I'll probably never use. 8258 is, as you say, astronomical in price. From what I see, as soon as a set gets retired then it's price goes up massively and you can't find it anywhere!. There's nothing in the current 1H 2014 that I like the look of and I don't think that I'll be able to afford the flagship Volvo Loader of 2h 2014, so I may end up buying something like 42006 for the parts. At least that would give me a big turntable and some LAs (I have neither at present), a load of gears and some more tracks (which I will undoubtedly use in GBC machines when I get round to it).

Thanks very much for the kind words guys! I guess I was a little harsh on myself. The tracked thing was cool, but the single XL motor started to struggle a bit and the medium had a really hard time turning it around. My batteries are probably on their way out too, so this didn't help. I'd like to re-visit the tracked thing again, and concentrate on making it better. I'd like to turn the car into a 4wd somehow, whilst still keeping the pendular suspension (will probably have to get a large turntable off BL) and retaining as much simplicity as possible. It's the first thing that I've made with studless that I'm really pleased with. It's sturdy enough and performs well. With fresh batteries I think that it'd be quite quick too. One thing that I am rubbish at is bodywork, which is why I didn't bother at all on this one! I'm still suffering from a lack of parts (liftarms mainly) and also I'm limited by not really having much experience of building in studless so I'm learning the building techniques whilst I am going along. Perhaps I would be better off buying a large set so that I have the opportunity to learn how the pieces go together and also to boost my parts bin.

Introducing this weekend's crap MOCs! First a tracked thing using Sariel's subtractor. Worked nice enough, but I couldn't get the right setup with the road wheels and return rollers. The result was that it shook like hell when driving! Then I made this simple car with pendular suspension using a mini-turntable. This works really nicely and now that I have got a diff that makes a world of difference to the turning ability (obviously). I think that a large turntable would have been easier to attach and also more sturdy. Other than that, this is fun to play with, quick enough and handles nicely. Your thoughts, as ever, welcome!

This has all the right ingredients: light weight, power and simplicity. Very very capable and a nice antidote to all the suspended crawlers that you see. Keep it up man!

Good stuff. Akiyuki's ball shooter is out of this world. Whenever I show it to people, they are just speechless as to how it works!

Cool, good to know! I got 33 of the balls off BrickLink recently and will be beginning my GBC adventure soon!

Unreal! It can pull a car!!!!!!! LEGO should use this to promote how good their motors are!

Thanks Blakbird, that's the answer I was after (as in you answered my question, not you told me what I wanted to hear). I've seen Sariel's Trophy Truck and it's hugely impressive, especially the suspension moving in the slo-mo. Of course, this is not the norm and it's powered by a buggy motor for a start. I like going slower anyways. My Brother used to have a proper RC car and it was fast, but very unwieldy and not that much fun to drive. You always got the feeling that you were on the ragged edge of control because it went so fast. I totally understand builders wanting to add complexity and realism into their models. I spent countless hours of my childhood slowly pushing 8865 around the floor and watching exactly how the suspension worked. Fascinating. Of course, 8865 was one of the only LEGO cars that was sprung correctly too. These days I'm more interested in building simple things (probably due to lack of skills) that perform well. For me, at this stage, suspension is a lot of hard work for no reward!

Less teeth = less plastic = cheaper to make (or is this me being cynical?).

Great little car with lots of neat touches!

I sincerely hope that this is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

Gotta love a Spitfire. If only you could replicate the sound of that beautiful Rolls-Royce Merlin...

I understand ya Merlijn. Under what circumstances will a pendular set-up have a wheel off the ground? (Obviously this is governed by the limit of the suspensions movement in the same way that a 4-link/independent system is governed by the travel of the shocks). I thought that you didn't want it fully extended at rest. What if you drive forward and hit a pothole? The entire vehicle will sink into it instead of the suspension expanding to take up the slack. I can't believe that a 4 link suspension system has a stronger link to the chassis than a simple pendular system.

Yeah, I understand that, but as I said earlier, a simple pendular system will keep all wheels in contact with the ground without the need for a complicated system with it's extra weight and complexity. The other thing is that a lot of the off-road models that I see (including 9398) don't have suspension that works very well. At rest the suspension is at full extension for starters. I like seeing suspension working but are all these fancy springs and linkages etc actually needed in a LEGO model, or are they all for show? If the latter, I totally dig that, it's a feature of a model.

Yeah, I dig that, but most PF powered models don't go that fast. What if you are building a crawler or other slow off-road vehicle?

Right, I read that topic. It started as a question about suspension or not, then quickly turned into a conversation about different suspension systems and electric motors. It still doesn't quite answer my question - why bother with suspension if you only want off-road performance. I can understand that you may need suspension if you are going to make a car that goes fast, but the majority of LEGO cars do not go fast, especially the off-roaders. So why bother with suspension?

Super, cheers Alasdair!

Highly innovative. I really like the simplicity of the chassis and how you have used the flexibility of liftarms to your benefit. Makes sense to use the material characteristics of the LEGO as an advantage rather than trying to mitigate against it and then add suspension. The performance of this vehicle speaks for itself. I think that it's not more popular because it's not got a fancy 4 link suspension system or some realistic bodywork, but if you're a fan of form follows function like me, this hits the spot. Ironically, I just made a post in my newbie thread about off-roader suspension systems in LEGO and why they are always highly complex.