nerdsforprez

I have used lifelites before and found them to be excellent. Customer service is very good as well. I once had a problem with one of my purchases and they sent me another - no questions asked. They lights, wires and connections are fragile however, something that should be expected when working at such a small scale.

Wow..... this really is a game stopper. Thanks for the info. No need to stay up til midnight the 31st...... at least for me anyways. I will wait for the news.....

Can someone please explain to me the concern of "color vomit" inside a chassis? It is not seen. I don't get why it is an issue. Sure, it would look better monochromatic, but if it is not seen in the final product...... so is it really something to gripe about? It is not specific to this set or even Technic. SW UCS sets are infamous for their "color vomit" chassis - like R2D2, and other sets. Anyone a SW fan out there? Do SW fans get all upset with a polychromatic chassis? Or is the complaining just a technic thing......

from a LEGO representative.....at least for the US the set will go on sale 1201 am on June 1. EASTERN TIME. So consider your personal time zone accordingly. I live in Texas, or central time zone, so I will be at my computer at 11:01 on the 31 of may..... Ready to pounce...

This is a terrific response. I feel the same way. But I also recognize the need to not over think this type of stuff. Hobbies are not always rational. I made this remark on the Porsche Pricing thread..... that if we were rational about all the things we do that make us happy we would never engage in those things. Vacations? Ridiculously priced! (most of the time). I scuba dive. I love it. I have a dream diving with great white sharks. Rational? Hell no. But I am still going to do is someday. No doubt. I was at a bar the other weekend and ordered a 18$ beer. Rational? Not a chance..... but I enjoyed it immensely. That getaway weekend with my wife and the childcare expenses to boot? Good gosh......not financially wise at all (from a purely dollars and sense perspective). Darn Blakbird has introduced me to Porcher models...... $800 bucks for a die-cast-plastic hybrid model? You gotta be kidding me! But you bet I am gonna buy one....Getting out of our "rational" mind can even be fun in and of itself. Entertainment wasn't ever supposed to be "rational" -- Go ahead and get the Porsche. I know I am..... even if it doesn't make pure financial sense.....

Thanks for the comment......ultimately... it was not to be taken too literally. Regardless of looks adding a turbine (somewhat a contemporary invention) to a rat rod (as you say, supposed to be old, makeshift, somewhat a relic) is also something quite iconoclastic. Either way.... ultimately I think there are multiple interpretations of a rat rod. The Lamborghini group certainly has a more modern, contemporary take on a rat rod........

It is because with the clutch it allows the turbine to speed up and already be bookin' it when the gear engages. Kinda like any car. Most cars, even if really wimpy, can accelerate somewhat fast or even lay down some rubber if you rev the engine and release the clutch

Hey All, Back again with another creation. Perhaps even zanier than my last creation using air, http://www.moc-pages.../moc.php/428357 but part of an overall theme of builds I call FUN WITH AIR http://www.moc-pages...r.php/198856. This one is an air-turbine powered rat rod dragster. Try to say that five times fast! I am going to give the meat and potatoes first (pics and video), but a full explanation and details about the build is given below. I hope it is worth the read. Of special note although I spent a little more time on looks, the main purpose of this build was initial speed, so, again, like my last creation I really wanted to keep the weight down. Therefore no special functions/etc. were added and panels and other elements for aesthetics were kept at a minimum. This creation was built out of 100% LEGO, and no parts were modified. I am not going to post all the pics. If interested, visit the main page for this MOC. http://www.moc-pages.../moc.php/429100 The main feature of this build is that it is driven by an air turbine engine. Building air turbine engines out of Lego has a very short, limited history. Youtube documents some turbines built out of Lego but findings are sparse. Those that were done were more like in 2009-2011ish and not much else has been done since. In addition, they were bulky, color-vomity, and limited in functioning. The turbine created for this build was designed to at least appear like a real turbine engine. Gearing is internal and is geared to roughly 9:1. The turbine is also fairly modular, can easily be taken apart by separating the two halves of which comprise it, and gears easily changed. Gearing to 9:1 (internally within the turbine) produced the best results for the drag racer but I also changed the gears and experimented with 2.8:1. This ratio did not work well at all and involved too many breaks in the drivetrain. 9:1 produced no breaks, slips, etc. In the main video above you can see it working, internals, etc. Building was a little more tricky than it might appear at first glance. But I have to say, I am happy with the geometry of it all. In my opinion connectors are much underutilized for structure/chassis builds. They can be quite strong when combined with others. As can been seen in these pictures, the rotor was a Technic motorcycle wheel. This piece offered many advantages. It is very robust and therefore the rotors would not bend/move to the pressure of the air. It is also pretty beefy. Once it got moving the inertia of the rotation kept it cookin’ for quite some time. The geometry added up perfectly to the encircling #4 connectors. Although the wheel got very close to the edges, as can be seen below and the video they never actually touch the sides of the turbine. The cross section shot above shows the internal gearing. Although the axles did not fully penetrate to the other side on the final model they did on the initial model. I tried to make the turbine as compact as possible without creating too much friction so I tried it as such (usually you want axles to penetrate to the other side for greater strength. Widening the turbine and adding liftarms between the gears below would have allowed for that). So in the final model I shortened the turbine and the space for the gearing (disallowing room for the axles to penetrate to the other side) and it worked just fine. I did give the half-bush space on both sides of the gears so they would not be flush against the liftarms and connectors (too much friction). I made the car a little customizable. Initially I didn’t think I would really add any looks, but as I got playing with things, well…. it just became more and more fun. One version is your classic rough, edgy, rat-rod look, complete with rat-faced gear shifter knob. The other is a more hip, night-out-on-the-town, pimped-out look. The drivetrain is the same to my previous dragster. Interested parties can look there for reference/information. Overall, I must state that I am impressed with the LEGO clutch gear, drive ring, and changeover catch. In my previous project using this mechanism we saw that using the LEGO gears, drive ring and catch held when trying to engage gears moving at an estimated 900 RPMs versus 0 RPMS (1500 RPM x 0.6 = 900) and the elements did just fine. Here, we see them engaging an estimated 1100 RPMs versus 0 (10,000 RPM x .11) and the elements also did just fine. In fact, when I stated earlier that I used different gear combinations in the turbine, the other being 2.8:1, that would mean I am engaging a gear moving at an estimated (10,000 RPMs x .36) 3600 RPMs with one that is not moving at all, and guess what, the LEGO elements discussed above worked just fine! I did not keep the arraignment because, like I said, it failed but this was NOT because of discussed elements. This is because it ripped apart the internal gears in the turbine or other parts of the drivetrain. But the catch, drive ring, and clutch gear all remained intact. NOTE: The estimation of 10,000 RPMs is just that. An estimation. I don’t have a speed counter and did not buy one for the project. Maybe I should have. I did some research and other similar projects and saw a range of 8,000 to more than 30,000 RPMs. Given that I was using much heavier turbine blades mine is likely moving at the lower end of that range. But, given the sound of the turbine heard in the videos, and when holding the turbine while it is going and feeling the gyrations, I feel that 10,000 is likely an accurate estimation. And yes, I did use lubricant. I took the motor apart initially after the first set of videos and saw no damage. I need to take it apart again and inspect for damage a second time. I used 60 PSI of air pressure to drive the engine in the engine-only demonstration in the video; 90 PSI of pressure when actually driving the vehicle. The last two trials in the video did not even use the neutral setting. As can be seen, as 90 PSI the car runs just fine with the gears engaged from the get-go.

Yikes.... if you truly had no problems.... you should market for TLG. They would be interested to know that they unintentionally produce water proof motors :laugh:

asking a question to a greater than three year old response is not likely to get a response....

Looks like this thread is dead so I will just wrap it up with expressing a little thoughts. I am about to complete my second MOC with the large Tumbler tires.... or Technic 42050's tires.... however you look at it. 42050 was also expensive by most people's standards, but I have used the back tires fairly excessively. We have seen some great MOCs by others as well (*cough* Paul Boratko, a.k.a. Crowkillers) and had a great time doing so. I would not be surprised to see more MOCs using these tires, and I am definitely happy I made the purchase. There has been quite the debate on the Porsche's pricing, and I guess my thoughts on the issue are that if the purchaser feels like they got their moneys worth, uses the model and gets a lot of enjoyment out of it.... then it is worth it. Whether that be through displaying, building, MOCing, whatever. You can't really put a price on fun, and our common rational of how we value goods and services kind of goes out the window when we are looking at entertaining ourselves or looking for a good time. Think of vacations. That fun drink you want to try at a great bar....the getaway weekend you spend with your significant other. Usually, all these come at a great expense.... debating these expenses is really quite difficult and fairly fruitless, because like I said, I think much of our common rational for valuing goods and services goes out the window when we are looking for a good time. The Porsche releases in approx. a week. GL to everyone looking to get one. I really hope we all get our moneys worth. To those that are passing on this model.... I hope you grab something else that you get your own personal value out of

This thing is perfect! I love the looks (I deleted the vid. for Jim ) You know, these steam-punk-like creations or Rube Goldberg-like creations are more and more common. Think of Theo Jansen's Strandbeast as well. These are becoming wildly popular and I actually think they would sell quite well.

This model is excellent. I would love a video. Those of us familiar with Technic will know that 1100 pieces (est.) at this scale = a highly dense, compact, sophisticated model. All the stated functions sound great. I agree about the value of the 4L bars in the pins. I often use this method. In fact, I would love to see someday, longer and longer pins or any combination of pin with axel ends at varying combinations would be very useful.

The recent post about Ugears http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=132882 has gotten me interested in this post again. I think that some of their stuff would make for an interesting Technic set. Simple vehicles, trains etc. but made not so much from an aesthetic standpoint to look like the real thing, but perhaps one from over-complicating, almost Rube-Goldberg like in nature I think would be fun. Almost steam-punk like with tons of over-complicating gears. driven by nothing more than like perhaps an elastic band or wind-up motor. Chronometer, the professional card-holder, but with an overly complicated but highly visual mechanism would be fun. Also, I think a grandfather clock would be great. Not a floor-standing model, that would be out of reach I think, although K'nex has produced one, for around 1,000 USD. But there are hanging wall models that would be fun. Such as this one: But showing gearing mechanism etc......

I am glad this thread got bumped (even if a while ago). I had not seen these models before. Very well done, and like has been commented before, I think these are much more doable, as in what Lego could produce, than other MOCs. Not so much because they are that much better (although they are very very good) but because they are not thousands and thousands of pieces. They are also very well known (firetrucks, etc). If a MOC, a technic MOC, were to ever become I real set, I think something along the lines of these MOCs would be it. Builder should consider submitting these to Lego Ideas....

I know the steering issue is a big draw-back for many. Admittedly, it is for me too. I still see myself getting this set. I think many will work on improving it..... and perhaps that will be one of the first improvements. One other question I had though in terms of its modify-abilty, is if it will as easily modified as other past Lego set?. Don't get me wrong, AFOLs will modify and find a way to really improve this set, but I don't think it will be a as easy as sets in the past. I mean, this is no 8070. 42056 is so much more dense. Perhaps not compact (it is huge) but fairly dense. IMO, I don't think that modifications to steering, etc. will be as easy as they have been for some models in the past.

Not sure about others... but I don't have any problem with posts such as these. While not Lego, it does show interesting models that give ideas that can be replicated in Lego, or at least learned from. On another note, these creations remind me a little about this that made it to the forum a little while ago: How cool would that be if the pieces worked with others and you could create different things with them..... perhaps a little music machine like this one.......

It is important to respect original builder's timeline on when they want to post things..... and i wanted to make sure that I wasn't beating the build to the punch, but this creation: http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/428544 was posted more than a week ago....so I think I am good. Here is a video: I have no connection with this builder I just saw it and thought it was a great, unique build. We often get lamentations that there are too many wheeled technic MOCs or at least vehicle-type MOCs and this is something quite different.

I think the op is asking about specific end of line (production). If that is the case..... The fact that some stores might still have something that has been retired (eol) by TLG would not matter. I would try brickpicker.com. That type of info is really important for those investing in sets.....

The mocpages photos are no too bad. I went there for the pictures. I love the site for some things.... for others, hmm... not so much. @896gerard - wonderful project. The video accurately show how the mechanisms work.......and IMO, the showing of the difference performance when the mechanism is and is not engaged is very impressive.....

No B Model . At least not that we know of. It is not even posted on Lego.com, which they pretty much almost always do....

Sorry. Double post for ---- edited accordingly

but you didn't deny it ...lol.. I am not sure about other sub-forums.... But in the Technic sub-forum WIP topics really are for generating opinions or trying to solve technical problems. They really do have a function other than just "advertising"

My wife and I got in an argument this weekend. Not important about what. But it was my fault. I apologized with this little creation and a note saying I was a Doofus. Ironically, I guess I'm not a Doofus anymore. http://www.moc-pages.../moc.php/428829

Very fun stuff. I wish we had something like this where I live......