OzShan

A little progress in the last week. The pneumatics are now all connected up and I'm just waiting on a couple of PF extension cables to start programming them to run in sync. So far they are happily working individually. While that progresses, here are a few detailed shots of the internals. Control room including control consoles, electrical panels and emergency response panel. Brick-built motor and cooling fan for the main radiators (x4) E-stops included due to lack of safety guards

I thought they were too. Let us know what you find.

Awesome looking model. I hope you get it sorted cos I'm looking forward to a video :) Could the leak be in the valves themselves? I've noticed they don't have to be much off center to start passing air, and I've had some older ones become leaky with wear.

Very neat and clean, I like it.

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. The MLP and support tower would be awesome, but I'm going to take it easy for a bit after this is finished so that might take a while. What's its scale? Haha

The chassis developed slowly and it took a long time and lots of tear downs to decide on studfull or studless structure. Layouts tying the trucks together The height control valves and NXT got moved back leaving the front section open for Cooling fans and motors. Early days of the full chassis tied together at all four corners and current progress after ripping the whole thing apart to shrink it by 1 stud laterally. The 45s just would not work with a double beam down the centre. There is now a single stud at the centre of the whole machine

Thanks for the feedback guys :) A tube like rocket is probably the easiest to achieve for me and the most likely option. No problem getting carried away :) that's the point of sharing. Go ahead, throw the ideas in. That picture of the crawler leaving the assembly building sums up the situation really well for me. The crawler was their chosen solution after considering so many options, including digging a channel and using floating barges. In itself it is huge and uses clever and reliable technology, but is dwawfed by the scale of everything else going on and they don't receive a lot of attention.

Thanks guys. Lifting will be fine, but yet to see if it can drive fully loaded. If it can, then I'll worry about lack of inventory for a 1m high shuttle! What would you like to know? There are two 16 cylinder diesel generators which in turn provide electric power to the drive motors down in the trucks. The trucks are mechanically independant and it can be steered in crab, circular or independant mode. There are a number of smaller generators which then drive other hydraulic and auxiliary systems. Economy is in gallons/mile not the other way around! The laser docking system guides them onto the launch site to the millimetre now but the original piano wire and mechanical sights got them to within 2" if I recall correctly, which was close enough in the 60s :) I will be youtubing some progress soon. My 4yr old son is becoming a solid operator so I'll let him drive and I'll record :) You wonder correctly. It isn't geared low enough but there just isn't room for extra ratios. i settled on the higher speed anyway because it is a lot of fun to drive when it's not so slow :)

I am getting close to the end of this long term build and it's time to share some pictures and a bit of the story. Even before I had finished putting together 10231, I decided I wanted a Crawler to go with it. Being a Technic fan it had to at least drive around and lift the launch platform and shuttle. Those two basic goals spawned a project that has lasted a little over 2 years so far. Some ideas have stuck around since their inception, others were a bit optimistic (like building a peristaltic pump and hoping I could find a way to control the pneumatics hydraulically). February this year marked the 50th anniversary of when the two crawlers went into service, so recently there has been extra motivation to finish. The base equipment; - 16x M-motors (drive) - 4x L-motors (pneumatic jacking and leveling) - 4x IR Receivers (V1 as the V2s do not like driving multiple m-motors on a single channel) - 4x NXT servo motors (steering) - 4x RCX rotation sensors (measuring jacking level between truck and chassis) - 2x NXT bricks (one master and one slave. The master communicates with the Android Tablet and coordinates itself with the slave. Programmed in LeJOS) - 1x PF IR-Link sensor (link between master NXT and all PF motors) - 2x PF Battery boxes (with thermal overload removed) - 1x Android Tablet Future add-ons - Accelerometer (automatically detect the crawler is on a gradient and adjust the leveling to suit) Bricksafe folder is here: http://www.bricksafe.com/pages/OzShan/Crawler Firstly, a couple of my favorite reference pictures; The build itself started with the trucks, thinking that the pneumatics and LAs would dictate the scale. First proof of concept - build a coupling to give height, pitch, roll and yaw to the truck. The pneumatics need to be on their own gimbals too. The reinforced 2x2 rounds slide and rotate in the 4x4 macaroni's. It is on the limit of what will hold together without glue, but it does hold. The two 1x2 technic bricks at the base of the 2x2 column are helped a little by a string (not pictured) which runs up through the 2x2 rounds with the axle. Initial prototype of the drivetrain. I would have liked a higher ratio but there was just no room at this scale. When the gearbox was married with the truck chassis I had to juggle positions, so you will see in later pics the crown gears are facing in not out Best laid plans.... Marry studded and studless they said. It will be easy they said... Showing what will eventually be the steering between chassis and truck. The guide tube and pneumatic cylinders are all on gimbals with the pneumatics coupled together. The average height is preserved during any tilting. With prototypes sorted, it's time to bricklink some parts and quieten down the colour scheme! (thank you 42030 for providing 5L thin liftarms with axle hole in LBG color) You can see the relationship between "guide tube" and cylinders here. The pneumatic system was overhauled too many times to remember but this is what it arrived at. It is all controlled by the direction of the motor. Running forwards drives the pump. When running backwards, the lobes operate the pneumatic valves in series, letting small amounts of air escape each rotation. This lowers the chassis in a slow and controlled manner. The motor can be turned on or off and run in either direction at any time due to the valve timing. Early attempts with PF Servo and NXT servo just couldn't park the valve reliably and after a few operations I would hear a slow leak. I have been trying to keep up with the LDD but it's hard to stay motivated when I know I'm just going to have to suck it up and move over to LDraw if I want to include all the motors, pneumatics and LAs Works so far; (I'll make the files available if anybody would like them). I found LDD essential in the early days to plan ahead and simply find parts, but later on the build overtook it. Original 'box' pump. 1x PF XL motor, 4x 6L pumps running at 90 deg to each other. Very smooth but bulky. Flatter attempt in the same vein. The truck itself. The final design for the height control modules. I hope you enjoy the build so far. More pictures to come of chassis, steering, leveling and interior details. I'll leave it to others to decide what 'theme' it belongs to .

Awesome build and great photos to show it off too. Looking forward to a video.

Very similar problems myself. Luckily for me, uninstalling the arduino software was enough to get it connected again. Good luck. It's not dead.

Cool, thanks. A schematic editor would be cool. Maybe even a custom library for something common like Visio?

desert752, what did you use to create the PF diagram?

Very cool. Ambitious to take on something with those balance and leverage challenges but well executed and it operates nicely :)

Unfortunately the better you are at something, the more others will want from you.... All I can say is that you contribute an enormous amount and have no obligation to please everyone. Go paper copy, make it harder for the oxygen thieves.

Fantastic MOC. That lime green really stands out and everything is so well scaled.

Great looking MOC. Very nicely done.

Just got an email to say that they are sending a new unit (faulty screen). Great service so far given that I bought mine second hand. I'd strongly recommend getting in touch with them if you have any troubles at all.

Yep, a b model of 6753 highway transport. It's a creator 3/1. (One of my fav's)

That's encouraging. I contacted them recently but wasn't holding my breath... Here's hoping :)

Some pictures of the bridge and sensors would help a bit if you can post them. At a guess, maybe you could add a timer for each switch. The timer is started when its switch is triggered. When the train approaches the bridge and hits the first switch, the other timer won't be running so the nxt can decide this is bridge up. It will then hit the second switch and see the first timer is still running so this is bridge down. If the train is comes in from the other direction, it will hit switch 2, but timer 1 is not running so it triggers bridge up. I may have to re-write all of that ^ if I've missed what you said earlier. By drawbridge I'm guessing you want it to open to allow the train through rather than boom gate that you would close when the train comes through? Good luck :)

Options is what technic is all about. Just awesome.

For the non purists, Efferman has pulleys with pinhole on his shapeways catalogue for this exact application.

Sure, "practical" is the first thing I think when I see a tracked mini roll by! :)

That's just great. Love the colour.