doug72

Hi Doc, There's a video of the Mk 1 crane in post #1 on my Flickr page. Currently redisigning the structure that sits on top of the turntable to be more rigid but still be able to get 4 motors plus gear drive inside, and top of boom right through to engine room housing. Re boom sagging - partly due to the high tension of the cord that pulls hoist carriage to & fro to ensure it moves under load. The drive uses is a large wedge pulley which cause the cord to follow a long shallow triangle. Have added a small pulley above drive pulley to eliminate the triangle effect. Lego standard braided cord is used but trying to source rubber cord that fits the wedge pulleys which will give better grip and less tension needed - rubber string approx 1mm diam required. Wish Lego would make a bigger turntable - say 9 or 11M wide. ps My grandchildren thinks it "cool"

Mark 3 boom built and fitted to the crane. Photos of new boom plus some close ups at: http://www.flickr.co.../116189129@N03/ Re block grabber: will see what i can come up with but it probably will be way oversize and not look great. Block can rotate as used a 2X2 x1 mini studded turntable, between hook and lifting eye on the block.

Thanks for the comments - I had another try at a tapered boom with success - see attached image. Now have to order more mid grey parts from Lego Direct.

As a boy I used to play with Meccano mainly building cranes and dreamt of building the Meccano Giant Block Setting Crane - but I never did as it needed a No. 10 set. Much later in life I took up building Lego Technic models and have recently started building MOCs. I set out to build a MOC of the Block setting Crane that use to be on the South Pier at the entrance to the Tyne - NE England and my home town of South Shields. This was used to maintain the pier and lowered 40T concrete blocks onto the seabed to prevent scour of the breakwater foundations. The original crane was steam driven use shafting, gearing and wire ropes to operate which I have replicated in my model. My MOC has four functions: 1/. Under carriage travel with all 8 wheels driven. 2/. Slewing of upper part and boom. 3/. Traversing along boom of hoist carriage. 4/. raise and lower lifting hook. The 4 motors ( 2x L & 2 x M) are house in the rear structure. All four drives use worm gears to give realistic speed and to make 90 deg drives down the legs. The boom made of parallel sides - as proved impossible to replicate the tapered boom of the original crane. Most difficult part was getting the rope drive to traverse the hoist carriage to work. Full size Lego Trains can run underneath and this will be part of my lego train layout once i build a breakwater for it to run along with maybe a lighthouse at the end ! For photos and video click here: MVI_0748 by Doug Ridgway, on Flickr Next project is to try and make a rail mounted dockside container crane using similar transmission to the rail wheels..

I managed to control 4 out of 5 functions but that was only because I did not have PF receiver to use for the 5th function. Its a tight fit but drive trains to each part work OK. Getting the log grapple to look OK and work took a lot of time, even has a rotating head. see post #10. It took many days to perfect it. Doug72

After several attempts and false starts I have finally built a log grappler based on the Tigercat 635 skidder. Using ideas from D3K's swingloader for the front half but with all drives across the articulated joint at 3M centers. Model uses 1 XL motor & 4 M motors, 4 large linear actualtors, 3 small linear actuators, 2 PF receivers and 1 PF switch and small battery box. XL - 4 Wheel Drive M1 articulated steering / M2 tilt grapple arm frame / M3 raise-lower grapple arm / M4 open - close log grapple. Providing the drive to the log grapple was the hardest to achieve, hence 3M spacing of drive shafts to be able to use 16T clutch gears. White 24T gear modyfied as per D3K swingloader. Drive to grapple arm linear actuators protected by an “in line clutch” to prevent damage to the 16T gears. The PF receivers drive the XL & 3 M motors. The 4th M motor for the log grapple is operated by a PF switch disguised as the engine exhaust pipe. The model was built on a "build it and see if it works without the aid of LDD etc. First attempts were much too long but proved the drives to each part would work, then came the difficult part shrinking it. Run out of parts hence red side panels and decided not to include the front dozer blade. see photos:- http://www.flickr.co.../116100477@N06/

When I placed an order recently using "I want a piece" on phoning to pay for the order the girl said a debit card would be OK, but later Lego e-mailed me stating they do not accept debit cards for "I want a piece" transactions and had to pay using credit card. For all other transactions from the on-line shop or in store including "pick a brick" its OK to use debit card. Its time Lego allowed debit cards or Pay Pal for all sales

Agree and very quick service - here in the UK the delivery charge is fixed at £2. As long as you know the part number you can order anything. I think there is a limit of 16 line items but as many of each item you want. If need more then a second order is required. Once order placed by e-mail you get a reply giving the cost and then have to respond and by pay be credit card by ringing the toll free phone line. They won't accept Debit Cards. Debit card OK for all other Lego online purchases including pick a brick. Now that we have a Lego Store nearby at the Gateshead MetroCentre - parts can be ordered there.

After getting additional PF motors for Xmas I finally got to rebuild my 8043 using Jurgens modification using MLCAD Version 1 instructions. Build went well until it came to connecting up all the PF cables, even with not using PF LEDs I found it a struggle to squeeze them in out of sight under the body panels, but eventually achieved it !! Found that when bucket or dipper arm reached full travel the boom twisted, so I have fitted two linear clucthes to the drive shafts to each linear actuators as per Sariels Technic guide page 84. Works OK without stalling the M motors or twisting the boom. Blue axle pins need to be a fairly tight fit in the plain sleeve. Bucket drive simple to change but had to mod the dipper arm drive as one axle it used is a 5.5L axle with stop. A 5L axle was trimmed to 4.5L to keep overall length the same between the two universal joints.

There is too much friction caused by the BLUE cross axle pins in each out rigger leg - I changed them to low friction TAN cross axle pins and legs deploy smoothly now.

Sounds like something is binding. Remove roating part of crane and try again its easier to see the drive to the legs that way. Suggest you remove all four small bevel gears from out rigger actuators then try drive train again - if OK replace small bevel gears one at a time until either its OK or a leg jams. If that fails remove gears from front legs and see if rear legs deploy - if not disconnect rear legs and see if front legs deploy. I found during building this set as per Lego instructions and for re-build for Ultimate version it paid to check and recheck each stage before moving on to next stage. For a first time Tecnic builder its a challanging build.

Nearly all the PF products have disappeared from the Lego on line shop for all counties except USA and Canada. Only the Servo motor 88004 / PF motor set 8293 / Charger 8887 are shown !!!!

"Why do i have the feeling that Europeans are paying a premium for the motors?" Just brought two L motors from Lego on-line at £11.99 each plus postage and using my VIP points lowered the cost even more. Delivered in 4 days. Were on sale at eBay at £13.99 each but now increased to £19.99 each plus postage !!!

Re modified 24T gear: I have found there is no need to do this if you subsitute double bevel gears :- 16T / 24T / 16T there is plenty of clearance between lower 16T gear and mini actuator ram, when steering is on full lock and drive train runs smoother. Excellent build - now on 2nd build of rear section to marry it with the front half of 8265 Front Loader using two ball units for the articulated joint. Never thought mini actators would have enough power for articulated steering - tried many times to use large actuators but all failed to work well. The simplicity of the mini actuator solution is ideal, compact and robust. Congratulations on a well designed MOC and thanks for sharing.

Re modified 24T clutch gear:- Rather than destroy a 4L differential to get the 24T gear with plain axle hole or try and drill out a 24T gear (difficult to get concentric due to irregular shape axle hole. I used a white 24T clutch (6036892) and a standard 16T clutch gear (4237267) Knock out the centre of the white 24T gear and discard the centre part along with the metal plates. Using a 7.5mm metal twist drill by hand open out the hole in the 24T gear. Remove the 4 thin pillers. Insert 16T clutch gear ensuring the collar fits into the 7.5mm hole in the white 24T gear. No need to glue as there is enough friction to hold it in place. Fitted and works OK. This will work OK with driving rings but probably need to be glued. Excellent Model - awaiting a small turn table in order to complete the rear assembly.

re use only one plate under track. There is a way if you have a firm baseboard then only one plate is required to lift track by allowing the slider to run on the board surface. Using the system as described as a starting point I have evolved an un-coupler that is SNOT using some Technic parts for the hinge part using two plain tiles 1 x 6 side by side. Two longer plain tiles 1 X 8 each side give the un-coupler the appearance of a level crossing. Hinge consist of two 1 x 2 technic bricks with axle hole / 1 x 4L axle / 2 x 2 plate with double axle hole. 1 x 6 tiles attached to the 2 x 2 plate. Photos of my un-coupler design using 1 plate under track :- Top left: un-coupling ramp in raised position Middle right: ramp removed showing pivot axle Bottom: componant parts Sorry system won't let me load image greater than 100K

The BR class 13 shunters were specifically designed for use at the Tilsley hump shunting yard - see: http://en.wikipedia....h_Rail_Class_13 A longer single engine would have grounded on the marshalling yard hump.

I decide to try and find out what was the failure i.e. wire or connector pins. I opened up the connector plate ( with difficulty) and prised the wire out on the contact pins ( there are 8 connectors ( 4 on top / 4 on underside) Then cut the wire back about 2cm. Carefuly placed connector pins back into the pockets ( 4 in each side) and with top part with 2 studs placed face down put the wire over the pins. Then refitted the lower half and slowly clamped them together again with pliers. Success and motor runs again OK - therefore seems more likely there was a break in one of the wires possibly caused by flexing of the wires when removing the cable from battery box or VR receivers terminals. If lego can supply new connector plates then motors can be salvaged.

Motors are OK - fault lies in the connection block where wires work loose from the contact fingers in the plug.

Now had two motors fail after the wires in the PF connector lost internal contact - if jiggle or push the wire into connector then motor runs. Even with carefully disengaging the connector ( not by pulling wire) from battery box or receiver - after many disconnections starts to fail. Has anyone else had this problem - and how to fix it. Tried once before to open up the connector but the inside fell to bits.

As the 8866 RC motor does not have an intrergal power lead as per the 88002 PF motor, how do you connect 8866 motor to a PF reciever - do you need a special power lead ?

Re Unimog steering: has anyone figured out how to use the new servo motor to steer the Unimog and will it be powerful enough ?

Anyone know the cost of these new motors yet ?

Just finished building and its an fantastic model, great care needed to get each stage correct, especially the head with the many small peices. The use of coloured bricks inside helps identify where all the parts go to aid building. I think the best pose is with 3 legs in use. Just one slight mod added a small 14t bevel gear to make it easier to opertate the shafts to deploy the buzz saw and sabre arms.

I have just recently got into Lego Trains and now have three sets which has got me started. My layout is in my attic and I plan to make a full loop around the attic so getting enough straight track has been a problem. But I have slowly amassed enough by buying on eBay / Amazone (split fom sets) at about £1.50 a piece and also direct from Lego Pick a Brick at £1.91 a piece. Lego should sell multiple packs 12 x straight track at discounted price. Delivery from ebay and lego only a few days. I check eBay frequently to see whats on offer as when they are they go very quickly.