Gonkius

I've seen the bubble helmets IRL and I don't like them, they look to large and bulky. Looking forward to see this technique in other projects. After the body was designed I had to make this shape in some way and tried a lot of versions with slopes and roof bricks until I got this idea. It took a few prototype versions before everything fell into place.

Thank you all for the nice feedback! The shape of the fins is done using a lot of 1x2 plates and tiles. See the picture below on my prototype. Each section is slightly shorter (1/8 stud) than the other so that a natural circle segment is shaped when each slot is connected to each other. After 8 plates in height, the difference in length is one stud. This shape is self-supporting and can carry the whole weight of the spaceship. But without the support from the surface, the legs would creep outwards after some time. The only bricks that are slightly bent are the 2-wide and tall plates in the hull structure. But not more that they get flat again after disassembling. (Which I never will do, when would I ever need 3.000 red plates and tiles in any future project?) The barrel itself is pretty sturdy with a 12-segment wheel in the middle and a ring using the small ball joints at each end. There are in total about 100 hinges or ball joints in the rocket itself. The only inside interior is the hatch where Professor Calculus is standing. Total height of the rocket is 105cm, this is not quite minifig scale, but close enough. I'm also very happy about how Snowy came out. To bad that his helmet is orange, but he doesn't have any head inside...

This is my version of the Tintin rocket standing on the Moon! From the albums: "Destination Moon (Objectif Lune)" and "Explorers on the Moon (On a marché sur la Lune)" TintinRocketTop by gonkius, on Flickr TintinRocketView by gonkius, on Flickr TintinRocketBase by gonkius, on Flickr TintinRocketAwayTeam by gonkius, on Flickr TintinOnTheMoon by gonkius, on Flickr

Absolutely right. But in my application the friction from the driving shaft was not important, only friction between the two outgoing axles... Perhaps not very useful in vehicles but a perfect fit for my usage. I like the design by Nazgarot, very similar to mine, but uses smaller gears. I did one design with this frame a while ago, but it didn't fit my application. It is possible to use the larger 20T 45-degree gears in this frame. I used the frame the other way to make it shorter.

Well, perhaps you're right if you use this in a conventional way where the driveshaft must be perpendicular with the outgoing axles. That's not the case in my application. I apply the force on the turntable wheel using a worm drive: Slow speed, high torque and low friction were the important keywords during my design. If you can place the motor close to the differential you don't have to introduce the problematic 90-degree angle at all. Difficult to achieve this in a suspended 4WD of course... As a sidenote I even tried a planetary design of the differential using the inside gear of the large turntable that precisely fits five 8T gears. Difficult to make a robust design this way and the friction due to the small gears and the turntable itself caused issues. Not a useful design other than for demonstration purposes.

I guess you're right, but I don't understand what you are referring to as a 90-degrees transfer... To the turntable gear? I don't have a 90-degree transfer that way, why should I?

I needed a differential that worked very smooth with a minimum of friction for high torque, so I had to design my own. It uses four (not three!) larger 20T gears to balance the side force on the axles better. (32198 and 87407) The large turntable is attached using four 1/2-pins. I guess you could make a version using the smaller type of turntables in a similar fashion. In my application I add the force on the turntable using two gears, one from each side to avoid bending of the structure, similar to what was shown by Leif.