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A different track related question is which wheel looks better for the front free spinning wheel/sprocket? I'm inclining towards the wheel in the middle as it is 3 studs wide whereas the tire is 4 and the wheel on the right is 5.

I was thinking that maybe the new bean could not hold the pins. I'll have to play with the idea and see where it goes, thanks.

Here is the above idea I was talking about in ldd from the blog. Note the pink half of the turntable will be removed. Power comes in from the red axle. The blue carriage on the turntable side will spin based on the planetary gear set of the turntable. This will increase the final drive ratio of the ring wheel driving the track by counter rotating the carriage of the drive wheel gear set. Finally the paired drive wheel will continue to transfer power along the green drive axle and power a sprocket somewhere along the track.

Interesting use, but I'm still not sure where the non-moving structure would connect and where the "wheel" or moving part would be. The gear in the middle of the grey half unfortunately has an axle hole in the middle not a pin hole. In the diagram I added above, the green drive axle drives the black half of the turntable directly. Which is a mistake on my part in the drawing, but assuming it was ok, one can push the pieces together and the outer wheel almost touches the black half of the turntable and the inner space between the turntables is two studs. The mistake is that the planets in the gearset need to be anchored to the sun gear in the middle, not the ring gear(black half of the turntable). It should be like this: Where the carriage does not spin(an unused input into the planetary system). I think I have a solution for that, but haven't put it together yet because I'm waiting on the "ring gear" (wheel with inner gear) from a bricklink order. I'll try to put together an ldd sample of what I'm thinking about.

I know that they can be separated, but I don't know how I would use them separated. In the photo above the turntables are used as hubs as well as driven wheel. Do you have examples of how a separated turntable would be used?

Nice moc! I can feel the kid in me wanting to push drift it across the floor.

I'm thinking of something like this:

This page has more discussion and images: http://cloudslego.blogspot.ca/2017/06/cylinder-linear-actuators-pistons-etc.html This is my solution to the cylinder problem of Lego linear actuators being too short. Driven either by gear or by axle: So this is what the MOC currently looks like: The scale on the arm and boom were changed to 1:26 from 1:30. The arm is now a replica of the 3.55m arm and it fits a double LA instead of just one. This makes it more realistic too as the Volvo has all of its cylinders the same size. There is a problem though. In trying to drive the boom lift cylinders with one XL motor from the side there is too much torque going through this joint: I'm going to look for an all gear drive solution for the boom lift LAs instead of the axle drive and/or a gearing down after the joint.

A pair of system tracks is a nice functional idea. Certainly gets around the problem of only being able to drive the wide technic link tread with either the small or large tread sprocket. The skeleton chasis currently weighs 2.4Kg so I will probably stick with the bigger track pieces. That and I have a second 42055 for spare parts so lots of wide track pieces. I will probably first look at inventive ways to drive the tracks using different track sprocket placement. For the moment I'm only just past the stage of proving to myself that a model this large with as much dynamic weight movement is possible. Actually, I'm no certain about the central turntable. I had the v2 turntable in there to use the 8 tooth gear, but decided that it was too wobbly so it got replaced with the v3 turntable. Less give, but different teeth. Even with better lack of flex it is too small. I need an 11L or 13L turntable and that doesn't exist. The BWE round ring is just too big. I'm looking at using the v3 turntable as the center pin with fore and aft weight support rollers and/or wheels/tires on hopefully a 3L thick stiff/flat chassis between the shoes.

I'm not certain that I feel guilty about it, but some may be sheepish to do this or just down right against it. I sometime use old "dead" laptop and power bank Lithium ion batteries in pairs(with proper balancing charger) with no power out limit instead of the various Lego power boxes as they are smaller with more stored power. At a max 8.4v, it won't hurt. That said I also use 3s LiPo batteries with a 10V 2A automotive power regulator to get extra oomph. All within spec, but not quite lego sanctioned.

True, but there are only two sprocket options and that is the biggest one. Scale wise it is one stud too short on the diameter, but that is ok. I will probably try other gear options to see if I can get a more accurately sized sprocket look, but driving the tracks from any point other than either end has ended in poor performance. Indeed, the wrong sized LAs and turntable come to mind immediately. There is only one choice, the biggest sprocket available - also a bit too small, but not terrible. Max stud length with biggest arm fully stretched out will be 138 studs. This is adding max digging reach on ground (106 studs) to tail swing radius (32 studs). I have gone through the Volvo brochure and converted all of the diagrams and measurements to studs instead of m/ft. You can see this here: http://cloudslego.blogspot.ca/2017/06/ec750e-dimensions.html

The Lego set 42030 Volvo L350F is one of my favorite sets. I love the playability, but I wish there were more Volvo vehicles from the same series of earth moving vehicles that were equally playable. I happen to have a second L350F bucket kicking around from a second set purchase to make a A40 dump truck. I wish I had the Lego motorized excavator, but I have parts and this is Lego after all, I'll just make one. The first check in my mind is the bucket size. The L350F bucket is a spade nose rock bucket with teeth and segments. In real life this bucket is 13 feet wide and holds about 9 to 10 cubic yards. The EC750E's largest bucket is a general purpose earth moving bucket with a capacity of 9.34 cubic yards. It's width is unspecified(in the EC750E brochure), and while it will not be a spade nose bucket, the volume is close enough that maybe this could work. The first thing I've done is to figure out if/how the loader bucket could be used as a digger bucket. My initial scale is 1 stud width = 6 inches based on the 750mm grouser being 30" (2.5') or 6" x 5 being a good match for the Lego track being 5 studs wide. We'll see if I stick to this roughly 1:30 scale in the end. I'm going to document the build here: http://cloudslego.blogspot.ca/2017/ and discuss the problems that come up in this forum. Here is the first proof of concept on the bucket/arm/boom.

I noticed these changes when I got the new box, but didn't think anything of it. I assumed that Lego would go through small design changes on new part production cycles once the old ones are gone. Does this constitute a big change in terms of what Lego normally does? As in normally reproduce the same part with no changes? I personally see no good reason to ever get rid of the PF1 system. Technic sets have had no need for a programmable sensor reading control brick yet. If it did, A new BT PF receiver is easily done. Maybe a gyro, BT, and ability to read sensors could be built into a IR receiver v3. It is certainly doable when looking at what others are doing(boost, sbrick, buwizz, PFx).

nice!

Wonderful model. Inspires me to aim for greater realism with my technic models. Thanks for sharing.

Nice truck. Love the attention to the stickers fitting on their own lego bricks. The sbrick lets these technic models have fun outside. At the end when the truck crashed and split into four large pieces and some bits, was the design intentionally split into sections or could that use a slight redesign for better bracing of the parts that fell off?

Dark green followed by the other dark colours (blue, red, etc.) then olive, then sand colours. Quite happy to see colours that are closer in tone to those found in nature. I use the mid-toned primary colours (or old-style colours if you will - yellow, red, green, blue) as filler/framing with the occasional exception when those colours apply. My 2 year old likes the primary colours, but I see him reaching for the light blue and light green duplo often.

Amazing, I'm in awe. Jim you are my hero and your family is equally wonderful for supporting you. When can I get the instruction manual to build one of my own? How much will it cost? Can I order one on bricklink? just kidding :)

I'm not really sure that a single set is responsible for bringing me out of my lego dark age. The last set I got/played with was the 8868 pneumatic truck crane. It felt like the limit of what lego could do, glad I was wrong about that. What got me back was more that having a kid required me to play with toys which brought out the need to play with more constructive toys and I dug out the old 2x3 foot rubber maid container with a ton of lego. Needless to say they were too small for a 16month old. So I started eyeing duplo for my kid and found the 42009 MKII crane and my interest was peaked, but I did not buy it. Next I found the volvo loader to be even more interesting as an RC vehicle, but the lego store online was out of stock in Canada last year from september to about november, so I didn't get to buy that set right away either because I had not got out of the dark age yet and thought it too silly to go buy lego at a toy store for myself. I then found a great deal on 1200+ pieces of duplo for a couple hundred so I couldn't resist. Just made an eiffel tower out of duplo with my two year old yesterday, he put a crane an top; awesome. The final straw was building the 2nd millenium falcon with coworkers over the course of a couple weeks during our lunch. Finally I went to a TRU store and looked at everything. I found the 4x4 rock crawler in stock and bought it, then another, then the volvo, then two container trucks, then the mkII crane all in the span of a month. That was followed by the blue freight train, tower of orthanc, mini cooper, blue power jet(x2), pirates chess, and a pile of pieces off bricklink to make my own steam tank engines, ninjago city, seatle space needle, flatiron building, and 4x rey speeders for another dark red tank engine. This was all from last october so I kinda burnt a hole in my wallet. Now I'm saving whatever I can for this fall's technic sets. I'm always amazed how much my two year old loves the MKII crane and the volvo loader. I've rebuilt the two crawlers into a massive scale volvo 40 series dumper to match the loader and it is a huge hit even as a WIP.

Awesome. My son is a month shy of his 2 year birthday and loves the volvo loader and mkII crane. Of course I'm supervising, but once shown how things work, he operates the vehicles. He even helped me put the crane together by pushing in pins and connecting beams - took weeks, but so much fun. I can see this porsche being assembled by him with some help and supervision next yule.

Has anyone seen this video of the GT3 R? https://vimeo.com/127918688 Maybe this model is not the RS, but a new R based on the RS. Here's another speculation: if no PF, maybe this will be the first set to include two sets of coloured panels. (both orange for street and white for race)

I'm in a similar position. Last set was the pneumatic crane truck from '92. Last fall I got and built two 4x4 crawlers and the volvo loader. Now I'm working on the crane and a volvo a40f moc(got two container trucks for parts). So much fun. All of the sets have offered varied techniques and parts. In the end they get taken apart to build a MOC of one form or another so no set is ever really a waste. Gotta love this stuff.

True, from an R/C background I would agree. For faster moving vehicles(these are not for use outside right?) lego could make a standardized multi-channel 2.4ghz controller and receiver as it would be great for fast R/C control, but it seems that TLG prefers to make slow moving indoor models more. So what about having a nice panel interface (phone/tablet) specific to your model with a pile of controls? Bluetooth is already built in to a phone or tablet, 2.4ghz general purpose programmable radio is not. For an easily customized interface the 2.4ghz option would require a usb dongle radio or something like it that seems messy to me. I'm envisioning getting this porsche, buying the necessary new motors and control (if not included), and going to the lego interface app to dowload some swanky looking porsche interface. This same interface app could then be replaced with a swanky BWE downloaded skin to control the same motors applied to the BWE model once I get bored of a PF porsche and want it as a model only. It could also be a super swanky way to control a pile of trains.

Expected to cost 300 EUR or 330 USD according to current exchange rates. This is clearly a premium 2000+ part set with a ton of features, probably a really nice book about Porsche too.

If a servo were driving the steering then this would support the return to dead center. Seems unnecessary, but if the linkages go to a servo all the way at the back then maybe it helps. Other possibility is that the steering is manual and this re-centers just for fun.