bonox

Very impressed with the double acting linear actuators! The model looks great and the water action is a great bonus!

ingenious application of the sleeper cab/auxilliary space for the motors. The lifting rear axle is a very nice touch.

surely the country/region specific sales threads are better suited to this? Otherwise you get a world of stuff all mixed together with most of it useless to most of the people who come through the technic forum. That takes care of Jim's guidelines at post #10. You could even call the thread "LEGO TEchnic Bargain Alerts"! http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showforum=16 Or perhaps I just don't want to hear about the great deals the rest of you can get that would cost me the price of a small car to get shipped here.

you can put the second section in the A model. I believe the loose frame parts are used in the B model. http://www.techlug.fr/review-lego-technic/42042/grue-treillis-sur-chenilles-42042-michael-jeppesen-2015

search youtube in the FAQ http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=71241 search youtube in the FAQ http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=71241

I could have a play, but I think this whole model is small enough to fit inside the bucket of the big model. I'd like the two together as a david and goliath pair :)

Looks great with those figures inside

if you want to play with it, go with anything you can find. If you want to collect, the metallics were the originals of the run and probably a little harder to get hold of, but have slight value addition because of that. A lot of sellers (particular those not on bricklink) won't have any idea about the differences and the prices tend to be similar for all types. I like it as a play set, but it's capacity is pretty limited without bending parts. While I generally prefer manual models (ie not remote control, manual pneumatic pump instead of compressor), dikkie klijns blue american wrecker is much more fun to play with and look at in my opinion, and cheaper and simpler to build than andrea grazi's version of the 5571. If you want cheap(er) and a TLG set rather than a MOC, the 8285 is certainly a set with presence!

that's fabulous. I'd love to steal your idea and put it in the bucket of the RH400 from Sheo

I think so!

is this a pissing contest, or are you looking for info? There's a significant difference imo between having a thousand sets, most of which have less than 100 parts - polybags, old city and space vehicles with 25 parts each and so on, compared to a hundred modulars, technic vehicles, GBCs etc. I don't have all that many sets (my insurance spreadsheet says 243) but it comes to 277,198 parts and 460kg and averages over 1100 parts per set.

what makes you think that? You need a thicker wall for a screw thread because of the material difference between the major and minor diameter of the threads. Then you've got a brilliant stress riser in the threads and a need to drive one thread at a moving offset from another in a small compact package. And compounded by a need for cheap manufacturing and significant market use. And then you have to make sure it's robust enough that you don't get the whole lot returned to you, broken, looking for refunds. Not saying it can't be done, am saying there's probably much simpler ways to do it, all of which will end up pretty big due to available materials and expected applications of use. cunning, but I stand by my single acting call based on the picture of the dumper at post #544. It's already pretty thick, and only has two extending sections I can see. The truck version has an additional two for 5 complete sections.

another thought - those multi-stage things are all single acting cylinders, which would be a significant departure from the new and current (or v2 and v3 styles if you will) pneumatics and would involve going back to the old v1 style since you might need a vacuum block for retraction. The market for such a device must be so vanishingly small that the only way you'll get one is to make it yourself, or substitute as I suggested by building your own. You'll always have to accept that a generic modular product won't have highly complex (either to design, to manufacture or to operate) parts suitable for very limited applications. It's a little like asking the makers of raspberry pi to produce a small, cheap, accurate and robust load cell capable of measuring a gigatonne. You could try a palfinger style with multiple single ram cylinders supported around a central column, with each tail connected to the previous head to get the reach.

and you won't find one in LA size. Those real units, even at the smallest end, are still relatively heavy walled steel units of moderate section but, crucially from the perspective of a toy manufacturer, are pinned at both ends and don't have kids applying huge bending/lateral loads to the rams. To build something like that in the size of an LA not only requires some pretty funky narrow walled seals, but it'll be so fragile you'd probably not even be able to assemble it without it one of the 3 or 4 sections buckling. Heck, even if you put a friction pin in one end and tried to jack up that dump bed, the bending of the assembly of the pin would probably cause the thing to fail. Max also keeps posting that crane picture of mine and each time he does I think about how I should have cleaned the table a bit more first

You could do it with any actuator (pneumatic or mechanical) plus some string - same idea as the old multi-stage crane booms (8421/42009) before the newer travelling ram style units. Jennifer Clark I think described it in http://www.genuinemodels.com/ideas.htm#Boom you should be able to make it smaller since you don't need bending performance like a crane boom. multi-stage telescoping forklifts with only one cylinder could also be used for inspiration.

given that the stud pre-dates metric, 8mm is close as .... to 5/16 ths of an inch. If the whole system is built around that value (including thirds for plates) then of course you'll get 'weird' values in metric.

i've not yet seen a go kart that isn't lairy :) I can't yet imagine where you'd use those curved panels in purple, but perhaps a raft of other purple stuff is on the way too. I do like the wheel covers + stickers though...

Depends on your interpretation of a garbage truck. The 42024 is a garbage truck - no-one delivers new stuff in skips. I think you're probably talking about self compacting style garbage trucks, but they're all very different as well (rear, top or side load, automated or with work crews) and many countries in the world still use plain tippers as garbage trucks, in which case new 42043 is a rather hefty example, but could also include the unimog, the old 8848 or even the teeny 8065. Regarding the 8479 not having a 'bin', used tyres are garbage and the truck is designed to pick them up. In a real sense, that same type of vehicle doesn't come with bins either - they're provided by another party. Unless of course your imagination extends to a wheel being a bin, in which case you're home and hosed. Other ideas: Zamboni vertical boring machines (post hole borers, corers etc) and there's a lot of weird farming machinery out there: and I know they don't do military, but what about a stair climber? http://www.strangevehicles.com/images/content/188635.jpg

wow - well done. There's some great love for crawlers in this competition

Useful writeup, but for general education if people start looking elsewhere, 1s and 2s are cells in series, not parallel. (+ -) (+ -) is two cells in series, which adds the voltages together Two cells side by side (parallel) or both + together and both - together has the same voltage as only one cell.

Outstanding :) I really you you like your new building room and it inspires you to keep going with instructions

even cheaper and easier is builders string line. 1.5mm is common around here. 1mm might take more work. I got a few hundred meters in red for half the price above. If you don't like the super bright colours you'd have to dye it, but I note that if you are after a synthetic rope (and not wire rope) analog, those bright colours are actually made for the real thing (http://www.samsonrope.com/Pages/KZ100.aspx)

There are lots of MOC examples of model team style finishes - jeroens mistress uses something lke 50 panels very carefully and creates a fabulous car that doesn't given anything away to a factory supercar. Grazi's tow truck won't appear as a factory set (4000 parts!!) but is a great example of what can be achieved in terms of function (ie technic) plus finish.

In some ways it's like a return to model team. Not the same extent, but an effort to put some more polish on the top. Hopefully it doesn't come at the 'model-team' cost of limited function.

Don't forget the charm of the 8280 either. That style of thing with one of Sariel's pressurised water cannon would be a fun toy.