Divitis

Hey @Brick900 only seeing this now. I think it's a very nice project, but maybe you went a bit too far on the texturing. The 1x1 tiles sticking out of headlight bricks, the columns build with cones, the wedge bricks with the 'cuts' underneath... all together they hide the building's main lines, which are interesting by themselves and should get the spotlight.

Thanks all for the support, however what I was really looking for was to discuss was: Am I the only one missing a 'Warm light gray' (limestone) shade or a 'Very dark gray'?

Not enough parts in these retired colors. Which do look more natural to represent stone (but less for metal). And tan on the left and LBG on the right probably, but it feels limited to me. Granted, every year we're treated with one if not two new colors, so one gets easily spoiled these days :)

As I'm designing a building, i was looking at color options for the facade, and it struck me that we are stuck with only white - LBG - DBG - Black when for all other hues there are so many more options. Am I the only one missing a 'Warm light gray' (likestone) shade or a 'Very dark gray'? Here's a IRL reference of buildings which I don't feel can be reproduced with what's available. Ps: I couldn't find an existing thread where to post, please move this as needed to keep things tidy.

Definitely two axles, like in the original. In fact, I would go for two axles for the trailer as well, there seem to be real life counterparts: I owned and loved this set, so I'm following this project closely.

Can building around a differential help? First motion happens until the door is unlocked, than that becomes the path of least resistance.

Hi folks, just letting everyone know that sport balls are available on Pick a Brick for 66 cents (at least in Italy). LEGO® Pick a Brick | LEGO® Shop ufficiale IT Maybe everyone knows about that, but last time I looked they weren't there.

Some progress. The motorized contraption spins fast enough for the balls to escape. Now for some better bracing and I can move on to motorizing the sliding of the driving gears on the disc. I'm thinking of using a chain to be have full control over the timing - any suggestion is very welcome! The rails with the wheel on top somewhat visible in the back are the 'ball accelerator' which will propel the balls inside the cone from below. I wanted to use gravity but the tower was going to be ridiculously tall. Will post a video of it once it works properly, the prototype was satisfying but I must have messed up some distances when rebuilding it here.

That's a very compact implementation indeed, how was the torque and reliability? What's really working well (for my standards at least) in my design is driving the disc from both sides. This ensure good traction while eliminating the need to brace the large disc to make it spin perfectly flat, which generates lots of attrition. One day, this will become a GBC module. Balls will enter the conical basket from below, that's why the opening in the base, and then exit from above once the cone spins fast enough. I also need to time the CVT so that the cone only reaches 'escape velocity' for a couple seconds and then slows down and keeps going slowly for some time, while more balls are loaded in. In terms of ratios, I should be able to get to 4:1, which should make the change in speed interesting enough. This requirement dictated the two pieces design, spinning a disc with a hole and basket directly on top means that the closest to the center I can get with the driver wheel is 5 studs. And the disc would need to be 40 studs in diameter to have the 4x velocity change. A bit impractical.

I am building something big, both in scale and ambition. The first module is a heavy duty CVT with minimal friction, capable of spinning significant mass (that cone is heavy) at high speed and... with a hole. (21Mb gif, give it time to load) So far, so good, I think. I'm really happy with the inertia it has, even when spinning it from a bare axle which is rather disadvantageous force wise. Will try motorizing it next. Feedback is welcome, and I'll share the LLD with anyone interested.

It's a veeery interesting look, fully smooth if not for those exposed holes. It gives off a vintage vibe to me, almost as a modern interpretation of a classic model team set, only with holes exposed instead of studs

In the real life version, there is nothing. That controls the shifting of the racks, their 'eccentricity' The input is the banana gears, which one would have to spin by hand. Not super practical but I thought it'd be enough to see if things are working before complicating things even further. Yes. My bad again. For now the simplest solution is replacing the 7L axle on which they sit for a 5L one and leave them without bracing at the top. Given things move slowly it should still work. I also noticed I only included one bracing/stopper for the 7L rack (the white 1L liftarm). Another should probably be placed on the other side of the 7L rack. Thanks! Kudos for your patience :)

Oh poop! Quite a basic case of 'building digitally where everything is stationary'! I only put them there to support the banana gears from below, so if you feel they are not needed, toss them away. Otherwise, maybe they can be moved to the last holes of the dgb flip flops maybe? Very glad to hear the progress on this. My Lego is still all in moving boxes!

I'm really sorry that's proving to be an issue, I thought 4 gears in that configuration would mesh smoothly enough, and in theory they should, no? Are they too tight?

Something I look at the price per hour of the entertainment i choose. For example, a movie night is 12€/hour with poocot A book, probaby 2€/hour With this calculation, I am never feeling guilty buying Lego

Bought this today as a parts pack but couldn't resist building it. It was a great hour and a half of meshing gears ... it's one of the sets with the most gears per parts ration, which is why I chose it in the first place. Oh, and the end result is very satisfying. Recommend!

That's great news! And nothing like an anonymous donor :) Timing works, I won't be back at my Lego desk before a month or so anyway,. Also I must confess that I'm one differential short myself .Maybe I'll decide on ordering one more dased on your feedback.

I am sorry to hear. I had no idea and apologies if my comment was inappropriate in any way. That's an interesting prototype, even though technically you're right that it's stepper operated. From what I read the problem with ratcheting CVTs is that the output isn't linear. I reckon the four arms inside a planetary gear help with that, but then they further smoothed it out with elliptical gears (not sure how that works but we don't have those in Lego anyway) So, no takers? with 4 diffs, 5 turntables and 16 banana gears laying around? ;)

I was looking for a CVT for my next project when this came up: About a year ago an Italian start-up got a patent for a gear based CVT transmission module (however there seem to be earlier implementations of ta very similar system). The video above illustrates its inner workings in detail. Obviously, I could not resist and had to recreate it. But as I'm spending summer far away from my Lego, all I could produce is the digital model, which you can download here -> https://bricksafe.com/files/divitis/miscellaneous-/CVT.io Now, do we have a volunteer with a good supply of bricks and time on their hands (I'm looking at you @Auroralampinen) who wants to build it and test it out for the community? It's a no-motor setup, meaning one has to turn the yellow banana gears by hand, but hopefully it's enough to see if and how this works out with Lego. Note: The original uses small electric motors to control the displacement of the arms attached to each of the sun gears. I devised a mechanical system to do that, and that's what the black 16t gear which sticks out is for. It controls the displacement of the upper arms through the red differentials. When the diffs are stationary, the blue 12t gear above spins at the same speed as the 28t turntable and the rack doesn't move. More info available to the brave and the curious :)

I did a cursory check and came out quite confused... probably could have been more thoroughly. Appreciate your support though. I owe you one

Hello world, Can anybody check if this ball (piece 52629) is compatible with only this socket 39370 (which it is matched to in official sets, such as the drifting Nissan) or also either of these two? 1. 44358 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=44358&name=Cylinder Hemisphere 3 x 3 Ball Turret Socket with 2 x 2 Base&category=[Cylinder] 2. 92911 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=92911&name=Technic, Steering Ball Joint Large Receptacle&category=[Technic, Steering] And how smooth is the rolling? I am thinking of using it for ball bearing. Thanks!

Glad to hear, and looking forward to seeing it!

They do. They did for me this very morning I tracked down the actual bus model for confirmation. Specifications PDF: Citaro PDF GPT extract:

Hello folks, instructions WIP are available here: https://bricksafe.com/files/divitis/miscellaneous-/125s-wip/ferrari 125 s - instructions test_compressed.pdf And of course the parts list for the steps covered: https://bricksafe.com/files/divitis/miscellaneous-/125s-wip/Ferrari 125 S - instructions test.csv Comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated. This is going to be a daunting task which will accompany me through the hot August nights and I don't wish do do it twice :) Does making instructions mean the car is finished? yes. I'm both having enough of it and don't know what to improve anymore. It is a bittersweet feeling. Next up: New pieces = bodywork enhancements

Your love for coaches is truly commendable. They are a tad repetitive for my taste, with all these seats, but surely come with some technical challenges. What I would try to implement, given the space, is some sort of motorized distribution gearbox, so that instead of having one motor for each function, you only need two. One to switch between functions and another to operate them. Even more, you can combine these functions so that only one motor is required. Here's an old solution I put together, which proved to work well and could even handle a good amount of torque. The input (red) connects to either of the two 8t gears depending on the rotational direction. One operates the gearbox (the yellow 'stick' is a shock absorber). The other drives it. Stud.io: https://bricksafe.com/files/divitis/miscellaneous-/motorized distribution gearbox.io The trick with the worm gear is best explained here: Careful what you wish for. Just today I discovered that buses here can lean towards one side, effectively lowering the side closer to the platform to facilitate clumsy humans with a stroller (me) hop on. I dare you replicate such a feature.