Appie
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Everything posted by Appie
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Thank you! Without a telephone to run an app between the hub/Buwizz and controller, I don't think there is. With a phone in between Brickcontroller 2 app might work or Buwizz's own app? Not sure of the latter, I don't have a Buwizz.
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Yeah for these kind of controls it works better than the PUp remote imo since the PUp remote has no analogue buttons. You can set up Pybricks to do speed increments on the PUp remote with how many times you press the button or how long you hold the button (like each button press being 10% for steering or speed) to mimic analogue, but it's still not as good as real analogue controls I think.
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Yeah, it's tight on the original trackwidth. They "kiss" the M-motors a little bit. @Toastie Thank you for the big compliment. Much appreciated. I don't think you're kicking cans down the street though As for the controls. I use Pybricks and a Xbox controller. With Pybricks you can save a control program on the hub (Pybricks firmware) and use a Xbox controller to control the model. Only need to turn on the hub and controller and it's ready to go. It only works with a Xbox controller because of the type of Bluetooth used by all Lego hubs (except the City hub, that one only works with the PUp remote on Pybricks). And if you ever want to return to official Lego firmware, you only have to link the hub to the Lego app and it will overwrite it in a normal firmware update.
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That looks great, but ya, quite a different approach than mine where I wanted to keep it 100% (current) Lego. Just a personal wish for my mod. Yours look well on its way to keep even more of the original look. I actually haven't considered fitting all the original stickers, but yeah, some at the rear won't fit mine with parts used. Could maybe change it, but not going to apply them anyway. And your new boom looks nice. I wanted mine to stay as close as possible to the original boom while improving the geometry. Edit: didn't even notice at first that you made the rear 2 studs wider. To keep those baby panels on the side of the battery box I guess? I was quite annoyed I had to sacrifice them for the Technic hub. Since your rear fenders are wider too, going to expand the axle width as well? Or going to have the wheels slightly tucked in under the fenders instead of sticking out like the set?
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Yup. Since I wanted to keep the rear pendular axle, it became mandatory to have these motors be part of the structure to keep the rear rigid. Right above the diff at the rear is a liftarm contruction that functions as a thrid horizontal line to keep it rigid (M-motors being second and L-motors being the third). That liftarm construction at the bottom is interwoven with the M-motor structure through a #6 connector, since the M-motors at the rear do very little on their own (1 pin hole is connected to the liftarms at the rear of the motors). Perhaps these pictures provide some better insights than just words: That liftarm at the bottom is towards the left and middle only since on the right that diff gear needs space.
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Thanks and it was quite the squeeze yes As for the stability, it's fine. It can go pretty fast which can make it a little jumpy on the pendular axle (as you can see in the beginning of the video when it drives by the original set) and obviously it can do wheelies with the hub being at the back, but it really requires that you first drive in reverse and then instantly go forward to make it do a wheelie. In the Pybricks program I mapped throttle and reverse to the analog triggers. So precision controls are pretty easy. While I was operating the bucket in the video for example, that's at about 50% throttle and reverse. It's really planted. Quite surprised me actually, I expected that it being so rear heavy would be a big factor into how it handled. Steering is also very smooth.
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Finished the mod I was working on of the Lego 42209 wheel loader to be fully remote control. 1x L-motor for drive 1x L-motor for steering 1x M-motor for bucket lift 1x M-motor for bucket tilt And as you can see in the image, the pendular rear axle is still functional. The model also has my modified z-linkage from the other topic. A video: A few more images: I tried my best to keep the looks as close to the original set as possible. Easy access to the hub. Only need to remove 2 axles. To easily turn on the model, I modded a small thing as well: On the original model the "toiletpaper" panel hid the hole where you could (in real life) plug in the cable to charge the battery. I moved this slightly so I could turn on the hub by pressing the "toiletpaper" Technic panel. Belly shot with the added wheelie wheel to prevent the wires or something else from being damaged while having fun with that. If a moderator would rather see this in the mod and improvements topic for this set, that's fine. I figured such a big mod would warrant its own topic. From the original set bag 1, 2 and 8 are about 90% the same, the other bags are 50% or less as the original set, with bag 4 (I think that had the fake engine and stuff) being gutted the most). Thanks for reading (and watching)!
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Nice mod Paul! New attachments would be great for this set. For my own mod earlier of the z-arm, I noticed that in the lower part of raising the bucket that the tilt of the bucket would change to the front which could result in cargo falling out. To counter this I tweaked my mod a little more. I used camshaft pieces to get an additional 1/2 stud offset compared to my previous mod. This keeps the bucket tilted backwards a little more. Added bonus is that the bucket is now level at the top (like the set) where with my previous mod it was slightly off. The tilt of the bucket to dump load at the top is also the same as the set now. As for me making the model RC, it's done, but waiting on a few last parts to show it. Might be best to show in a separate topic I think.
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Except then it wouldn't mimic the real life Volvo. The light in real life is mounted similar (though closer to the roof) on a stick, slightly off center at the back of the roof. It's annoying when steering for sure, but flipping it back is at least fixed within in a second once you are done playing.
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Still working on it, but it's getting close to being finished, busy modifying the set with PoweredUp: As you can see, a few things are different from the original, but I tried to minimize this as best I could. I still need to finish up the rear, but the model is fully functional. I managed to keep the pendular rear axle as well. The rear wheels just miss the m-motors behind them when tilted. My other wheel loader MOC could do wheelies thanks to the hub on the rear, I didn't try with this one yet, but I think it can do it even better
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After reading Jundis' very informative topic about kinematics of wheel loaders, I gave it another whirl to fix the z-linkage and I do believe I have a very good fix now and it only takes a small adjustment with 6 4 extra parts. An 8 or 9L axle A frictionless 3L pin 2 half bushes (re-used from parts left over from the original build) 2 liftarms 2x4 The main difference is that I changed the turning point of the z-linkage upwards to the next best available slot on the default model. Placing the L-liftarms in the middle might be a little tricky, I don't have a solution for this yet except for placing the liftarms that hold the bucket outwards like in Jundis' mod. Range of motion compared to the original model in the back (both without Jundis' earlier mod btw) it's slightly less level than the original, trade off is that it can dip a little deeper: The whole lift up and down can now be done without adjusting the tilt halfway through. At the very bottom of the lift LA's motion you get some resistance, similar to the orignal when the lift LA's are about 2mm away from being fully turned in. Since this is the best position to lower the bucket on the floor, I don't mind this. I wished the thing was level like the original at the top, but I can live with that for easier controls.
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Thanks! I was messing with trying to improve the mechanism of the bucket earlier today, but got nowhere, but this gave me alot of room to experiment some more and I think I have a fix that's nearly perfect for the movement of the arm. So the tilt LA can stay fully extended the whole up and down. Combined with your fix, I made this z-arm: Bright colours to see the parts properly. Basically changed the 4L thin liftarms to other parts (L-shaped 2x4 and 5L thin liftarms) And how it's folded in the lower position: And how it looks with a quick mod on the model (note the 2L pin of the old 6L thin liftarms still being there): I said this fix was nearly perfect, because at the very bottom you get some resistance from the lift LA's, that like the original geometry, won't fully go inwards. However, this resistance is at the point where you'd tilt the bucket downwards to start digging again, so I still think it's alot better than what the default model did. Thanks Jundis for the great starting point! Edit: checked how the bucket handled at the bottom and if it was level at the top, but forgot the dumping at the top, for which this z-arm is very poor. Back to tweaking. Sorry for the waste of time, maybe my fail gives somebody else better ideas
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@mahjqa I have seen it first hand, but I think the topic would like to see some of the internals of that sweet Technic packed teal grabber And in case anybody wants to know, here's some info of my wheel loader: I actually made this september last year, hence the small bucket (I couldn't figure out a proper brick build one) and not the new sweet one from the Volvo loader which was released right after this weekend Functions: 1x L motor for drive 1x L-motor for steering 1x M-motor for bucket lift 1x M-motor for bucket tilt Controlled with Pybricks and Xbox controller A little comparison with the new Volvo wheel loader I finished building today: Any questions about it, feel free to ask
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Considering all the other weird little additions in this set, especially the bottle in the cabin, I don't think it was to reduce costs on an axle already present in the set multiple times otherwise (unlike the bottle). Throughout the build you see the designer use 2L and 3L pins with axle to line up parts while they are connected on other pins on the same liftarm. This section of panels isn't going anywhere either since the axle hole at the bottom of the panels should be flat on the liftarm below it, it can't really tilt, making a 4L axle with stop redundant. Finished the build earlier today as well. it's a sweet little wheel loader. The geometry on the arm isn't completely perfect, because at the low point you can't fully extend the LA of the bucket tilt, while that is needed to keep the bucket level when it's raised all the way up, meaning you have to adjust the tilt while going down or up. I'll try to tweak that geometry a little, but will probably be a pain. I bought the set twice, because I want to try and make it RC (I think it's doable), so having the original arm to compare should help hopefully.
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Another thing Lego dropped the ball on. 6 years into Control+ and still no proper controller support (or even their own train remote) for Control+ sets, meanwhile Pybricks... If it wasn't for Brickcontroller 2 and later Pybricks, I would have never switched from Power Functions.
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While I understand people not liking Control+'s dependency on a smartphone, I absolutely loved the Liebherr 42100 for having controls in the app to move the arm to a position on screen and the real life model would run its motors to match that position. It really felt like a step up to me from previous RC Lego models, but it seems Lego dropped such software development for later models? (I don't know if the big Liebherr crane or the Bulldozer had similar options?) The 8043 is (no surprise) a favorite of mine and I find this new Volvo excavator a great insult. The 8043 set is now 15 (!!!) years old (happy birthday) and 6 years ago the Liebherr 42100. Instead of improving on old sets, they went backwards and that's fine for any set except a "flagship set" imo and especially one with this price tag. Even heavily discounted (like €250), it's still too expensive imo. Besides 15 years since the 8043, there have been alot of MOCs and even (non-flag) sets (42042) that did better with less parts and cost (alot) less and I am sure Lego isn't blind to this either. I haven't disliked a set this much since the 42131 Bulldozer with it's brickbuild actuators instead of being functional. That said, I like having a proper excavator bucket for once. Probably goes nicely with the best excavator set, 8043
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Great start, I like how you did the suspension on the axles and those panels for the fenders work great
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Perhaps you already considered this new part from 2024, but just in case: https://www.bricklink.com/catalogPG.asp?P=5713&colorID=86 I have no idea if it can fit in your design, but at least you'd sort of have a frictionless 15100 like this with some half bushes at the rear?
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Generic Contest Discussion
Appie replied to Jim's topic in LEGO Technic, Mindstorms, Model Team and Scale Modeling
I love the idea of an animal contest! -
Thanks everybody! Much appreciated. I stole this idea from another MOCer, but can't remember who, but I kept it in the back of my mind ever since. Thanks to the joys of Pybricks, I was able to make a video since that freed up my phone to make it: Hope you like it! Recently I got the the truck in the game and I noticed I made a mistake on the fenders. This was blocked to me before due to the limited camera angles I was allowed when not owning the truck (was only allowed to rotate around the truck, no up or down) and the external roll cage blocking some of my view. As you can see, the fenders on the inside actually go down again, I did not know this. I am not sure if I can fix this on my model since that section houses alot of the contruction that holds the fenders on the outside at their current angles. Moving that outward would cause issues with the wheels touching the construction under the fenders when suspension is compressed. Also changing this, would basically mean that I'd have to use something else for the Technic panel behind the headlights (and I really like that panel there with the angle of the fenders and how that section looks on the truck in the game). I did notice the cooling vents on the side of the hood based on a picture similar to this shot with the stock fenders for this truck: But thought they had simply been removed when selecting the other style of fenders. Just figured I'd mention this in case somebody else plays the game and noticed this discrepancy from the game to my model
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Thank you very much Lipko. I have another picture of how I put it on display for an event with its little off-road buddy I posted here earlier:
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@gyenesvi I see what you mean, fair point.
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I don't agree actually. To do independent driven and steering (without bumpsteer) you are pretty much locked to the 6L wishbones, 6L links and the heavy duty cv-joints (I am not equipping this kind of truck with less, not because it needs it, but because the model asks for it). That's 12 studs of space I can't use. To keep the model in proportion for 81mm tyres, that's alot of wasted space. I agree the setup of independent suspension is simple, but in the same space I could have easily made diff locks if this truck actually had a live axle setup.
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Thanks you both for the compliments. This is from earlier in the build, with hardly any bracing for most parts. This was when I was still getting a rough idea where things would end up (which hasn't changed from this picture on the final model). At this stage I still had 2 springs on each wheel too. If you also think those 8T's on the steering axle aren't ideal, I agree, but it was the best I could think of for the given space. Luckily, the steering works very well.
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Looks like it yeah, that's pretty cool with the portal hubs.