MangaNOID

Your right it’s not a total failure I should have just checked the gearbox a long time ago! Still trying to figure out why, where exactly it’s clicking. Also I’ve been fiddling about in LDD and have managed to fit the m motors and switches almost exactly where the gears were. I have ordered two switches to hopefully come next week. if this works it will leave a little more room in the back... for something...or just a little more room. so I’ll probably not post on this again until it’s finished as it’s been dragging on for anyone following for almost 6 months now So hope I can get it right.

I won’t hide my disappointment. This has turned to a fail. There are a couple clicking gears for the tracks in the upper chassis part where the stick selecters are. I cannot fix this no matter how I try. if I had the MOC on a stand as a ‘show’ MOC then it would be ok, on the ground though it’s not happy turning. It is ok straight - forward or backward tracks going the same way, but I cannot live with the gear clicking. its a real shame for me as I worked on the aesthetics and came up with a compact design I was very happy with. This even had the 4x5x8 battery box squeezed in as the seat base. so my next plan might be to ditch the single motor idea and have 3 m motors. 1 for each track and a third for the pump and slewing etc. I can possible put the 2 drive motors where the gear selecters were and have 2 PF switches right under each track stick. its not brilliantly technic but it’s a way I might be able to get this to function and keep the looks that I’m happy with. and uh yea, maybe I need to build more official sets...

I agree too. I have only finished 2 builds (42042 and 8459) savoured every minute but the amount I’m learning from trying to build a MOC is , well, hopefully a lot. Especially when it comes too structural integrity. I fail a lot, especially this MOC I’m on now, but it’s pushing my building more than any instructions following will.

I hate magic so much! But I’ll support this, it’s very annoying. As you say it looks a little unfinished but make a theme out of the looks and it will be great.

for 42100, it seems to be aimed at the AFOL market entirely. Let’s hope the instructions are more adult, i.e. challenging, too. to me things are toys if they are not really a necessity. A commuting bike is no toy but a weekend use mountain bike would be, so adult market or not it is a toy.

This is marketed for people with money. 99.9% of anyone with this much money to spend on a toy will have a phone. I personally do not like that and would prefer a device of whatever sort to come with the set. I cant afford this but I like the AFOL direction technic mostly? seems to be trending. .

Nice! This fly’s Better than any paper planes I have ever made! I would say all your work payed off

big call @jotta93! thanks for adding that pressure not sure it will be that good, but love your support I find myself thinking of you as I build but I am getting a little excited each time a problem is solved. Anyway, cant make a post without a photo, so here is some bodywork attempt seeing as I am getting closer to have the upper carriage functions finished. Love working in LDD in conjunction with the real build. It helps so much.

So this is c model from 42077? personaly I would take some panels off the tail if not structural, but otherwise... ...Fantastic!

I wish I was an electronics guru to be able to do this sort of stuff. nice work!

cant wait to see this in action! its almost a shame the plane is so small compared to the controls, but this is still great to have 'realistic' flight controls by hand

I am getting a little bit confident that I can get all this to work. I have rearranged the drive gears/motor (several times) and think I have a winner now. Although I will not be able to use the standard Technic Battery box as its too big to fit in the desired space. but I think its OK as the smaller lighter box should still provide enough balance for the arm after putting in more of the rear cogs gearbox motor etc its getting heavy. slewing is nicely slow and drive is a good speed and managed to keep it quite compact. not sure of ratios. the drive to the undercarriage for the stabilizing blade and hopefully the pump drive for the variable tracks width is put in place and will hopefully work well. Although the excavator has to line up directly forwards or directly backwards depending on which function you want. the small pneumatic cylinder (below pic) will pull the axle down into the blue clutch gear. the clutch gear can then be driven in either direction with another switch/clutch lever setup, when this axle is in place which will then turn the axle. at the bottom of that axle there is a Tri point axle thingy that will connect to the undercarriage gear drive (below pic) when that pneumatic cylinder drops. then a perpendicular axle goes through the undercarriage chassis to the front to operate a small LA for the blade up or down (that bit not made yet) I still have to get the drive to that system yet though which is where the DBG and red placeholder cogs are at the moment (below pic) as I am waiting for the right parts to get here next week to hopefully finalise it. Also (hopefully) at the front, but just behind the blade will be the pump for the lower carriage pneumatics that will be driven by the same system when the excavator faces backwards. So I mean that there will be another version of the Tri thingy below (with the blue axle pins) at the front, connected to that pump for the Tri thingy to drop into. there is seven controls on the upper carriage. Not in a totally realistic positioning for some of them but is the best I could do and should be great for play-ability. If all goes well there will also be one more pneumatic switch in the undercarriage that will have to be manually switched for the tracks in or out function. how its looking overall below...messy obviously lots of bracing to do on the lever and lots else to do.

Makes me want to try build a tatra. Tis awesome just a good enviro tip for anyone with sticker residue (on anything not just LEGO) is peanut butter, smear on and leave overnight then just lick off... I mean wash off.

I had a bit of a break from this and went on a nice holiday to Tasmania but now back with not too much time to spend on it yet but I did play around with getting the motor in and hooking up some power to the drive and slewing systems. a lot of problems trying to get the right speed to both as simply as possible without using too much space as there isn't much of that left.Also the two axles for the drive and slewing are only 2-3 studs away from each other. I tried using a worm gear but that did not work out at all with the drive system. There is really no reduction in the drive system until the last cog set near the tracks either and the slewing needed to be really slow of course compared to the drive. the drive is a bit 'sticky' at the moment but hopefully that will sort itself out when I do a final build and keep all tolerances for free cog movement. (slewing cog missing in below photo) another thing I spent some hours on was thinking of a way to get power from the cab to the lower chassis to power a pump for the track width variation and the linear actuators for the front plowing blade/stabilizer thing. In the photo below you can see that I placed a few gears hanging down below with a clutch/gear set. The idea being that the LBG 16T gear next to the red clutch gear spins freely until one of the red 16T are selected. this LBG 16T would then drive another gear set built in to the lower chassis (when directly facing forwards or backwards) and then drive the linear actuators (forward facing) but would power the pneumatic pump down below for the tracks (backwards facing cab) Now this was all good and I was plenty happy with myself until I realised that the upper LBG cog when sitting on top of the lower chassis cog will be just that, sitting on top of it and not held to it in anyway! so I think that powering the lower chassis functions from the upper chassis/cab is finished unless I can come up with a way to quickly pin the upper and lower parts of the excavator together when wanting to use/demonstrate those functions. Is that worth it? Also started fleshing out a bit of body work. nothing new or cutting edge here, and I will not be covering the whole body up, but just a few edges smoothed out for pleasant visual benefits and to provide a bit of defined shape

Yeah, I really appreciate the hard work going on here and will definitely be building this

you know I thought of this this morning too and got a little excited about it, but then thought that it wouldn't have too many functions other than perhaps folding it up for storage etc. but would be cool to have a flying Lego kite.

Thanks @I_Igor but looking at it today it seems a little off in the direction the aesthetics are going. I seem to struggle combining the 3 main elements of building a good model but ok at having 2 elements. We shall see what happens but I’ll have a building break on short holiday and then finish the functions before further tackling the aesthetics again which I seem to find the hardest part to do.

I was thinking old-style @jotta93 but to me that’s studded stuff anyway I lost a little mojo on this so I’ll leave it for a while and go on holiday for a couple weeks, but here is a shot of scale with a 12” male model to show its all fitting nicely. the roofline is definitely borrowed from 42054 (with a Volvo sticker) but I hope I have captured the dorky look of these machines. Hopefully over the Christmas period I will get some motivation to shove a motor and some pumps in to see if it all works mechanically.

Thank you for the input @Rudivdk @I_Igor @jotta93 all comments help a lot (whether praise or criticism ) The re build has been going well, although I have only been concentrating on the upper body not the undercarriage. The battery box will be directly under the driver seat. All controls are in quite accurate position of the real one. scale is about 1:6 so I'll have to get some cheap 12" action figure to sit on here for the next update maybe I had to move the turntable forward in the model 2 studs (unfortunately for scale purposes) as that helped reduce lean when the arm was in the extended position. The mini excavators do not have much rear body on them that is behind the turntable to help balance the weight unlike other cranes or excavators. This caused all sorts of headaches with the track gearbox and coaxial positioning for me. There was not much room left upfront but after a LOT of thinking I jumped on LDD and mocked up the chassis and found an answer fairly quickly. the end result looks simple of course but that's usually the case no doubt. I haven't tested the tracks under power yet though but the sticks feel great. actually all the controls feel like they will be very intuitive (if they actually work!) Structurally I am very pleased so far. It is quite rigid and the extended arm puts virtually no flex through the chassis. left right arm movement is a few degrees off from the real one each way but I'll live with that. I also managed to move the left right controls of each stick inboard which looks WAY better than having them outside. I am struggling with the aesthetics side of things but hopefully this will help me out with more external space. I do not think there will be many if any panels used on this model though and may try keeping it more open in looks. the rear shot shows hopefully enough room to have a motor, double small pump and some gears etc.I am still hoping to activate the variable tracks from in the cabin somehow but that dream is fading. Another problem which I haven't really tackled yet is where to put all these hoses! I have been keeping it in mind but I may get a 'oh crap' moment when I try and actually hook them up. weight of the model so far with full battery pack is 1080g

Bare bones technic, this is awesome and not too large. I was just thinking today how LBG is my preferred non colour, colour. I may just get the instructions and build this. great use of pieces too, but I’m a bit weirded out about that lip at the back. Not sure but looks too pokey out or something Otherwise

Great to see that Lego will only release one Technic set in 1H of 2019, This single Technic set confirms they are concentrating on quality instead of quantity... I'll be trying to save some pennies to get this one

hate to be a negative poster but Lego over paneled cars don't really work for me. That Porsche, mostly the front, is very poor looking. the overhang of the front is huge! and that makes the wheels look way too small. if the front was fixed up a bit maybe a different story. but I guess its a technic set right, so aesthetics are aside. still the tracked loader and tracked racer are top sets for me.

So A model of tracked racer is maybe 50% faster than the B model? Depending on if larger sprockets are geared down. B model being similar in speed to 42065? 42065 must have been a good seller to make a very similar one. Maybe this says something about fast RC LEGO if this next tracked racer is a good seller too they might up the motors size again...

Some great looking builds there. That pair of old school tractors look awesome. Looks like a few bits of custom panel work? Very nicely done. thanks for showing the pics.

That tracked loader looks great! I'm glad they beefed it up with suspension too and like the fact there is a lot of those curved axle joiners, whatever they are called, is good. look forward to the new sprocket too, that could be great for some MOC's. I guess it may appear in the 2H sets somewhere. no doubt there will be 2 M motors? I wonder how the gearing/speed will be compared to the other tracked racer. My count of sprocket 'bits' is roughly 15 (compared to 10 for the current one) That's all I'm interested in.