Dryw Filtiarn

The upper one is obviously stronger as there is more plastic on the sides. I suspect that the upper one is also the latest type. I have checked my own chainlinks (all old ones, from the 8880 and so on) and they also have the thinner sides like the lower 6. Also the fact that the upper ones have the numbered markings (mold number and cavity number) most likely means that there are of the past few years as this is now mostly a common feature on most of the parts Lego produces in order to easier trace errors in production back to the molds where the parts where produced in. If the set you got them in is a new set, it might be there was still some old stock mixed into the new production. Otherwise if it's second hand it might be the 2 pieces of chain come from different sets in a different time period.

People breaking things when using the XL motors is usually due to unthoughtful and bad design. If you properly design your gearing and drive-lines nothing should break, even without the slip-gears. The most common reason for parts breaking is mostly due to stalling drive-lines with gearing designed for high torque. In most cases stalling drive-lines can be avoided and of course if you can expect it to be stalled now and then, to add a slip-gear to protect your parts. Overall my opinion is that breaking parts is something that is part of technic building, depending on what your specialty is. If you specialize in large models that need a lot of power and commonly put a lot of stress on your parts, you should be prepared of taking the risk of breaking parts. I've burst several U-joints, blown a dozen gears (they literally exploded) and twisted plenty of axles in the past few years, but it's the risk you need to take if you want something special. In general the parts that do break, are not too expensive to replace anyway. Anyhow, preventing breakage of parts starts with a proper design.

I just tried it as well and indeed it's quite sturdy. It does combine pretty well with the larger wheels, like the power-puller wheels as well as the regular racing tires that are used for the F1 1:8 technic car for instance. Using smaller wheels does give some offset resulting in needing a wide area for turning the wheels. On the other hand, I don't think that it differs much from the newer wheel hubs to be honest.

The 8880 isn't too hard to motorize if you do it properly. The 8880 suspension/wheel hub parts work excellent even in driven vehicles and are quite popular amongst Lego Truck Trial competitors. The only disadvantage as you mentioned indeed, is that they can only be used in combination with the wheels of the 8880. Though there are to attach different wheels: How well this actually works I'm not sure of as I have never tried it myself. The images come from a site I came across a few years ago: http://onyx.malagraphixia.com/Sehr_Schnell...chnell_Main.htm

The NXT 2.0 will get a totally reviewed part set. Some parts have been removed, some have been added. Also the sensors have changed, i.e. the old lightsensor has been replaced by a light/colorsensor. The standard models you can create with the NXT 2.0 are somewhat different as well.

Excellent creation. I love how you made the seats inside the car and the usage of some other "odd" elements in the model. Does the RC model still run properly with these wheels on it? My experience is that the RC chassis will only properly function with the standard wheels or identically sized or smaller ones. I noticed that when you put wheels on it that cause to much friction the car isn't properly able to steer :( Overall I'm not too satisfied with the RC chassis anyway.

I had already seen the model on brickshelf and I must say that it's a really great model! A lot of functionality in very little space, always nice to see how people manage to fit it. Keep on building those great models!

The older 4L U-joints in some cases might break indeed, though on the other I have build a trialtruck in the past which had a lot of them in and weight around 3,5KG. It managed to cope with any obstacle putting a lot of force on the U-joints, but except for 1 none broke. The 12 tooth half bevel gears on the other hand did explode. All in all for most situation the old 4L U-joints can take a lot before breaking and to be sure, you can always use the new 3L U-joints which is stronger. The only "failure" I've seen so far with the 3L U-joint, is the centerparts falling out, which is easily put together again.

This evening I've been working on a new design for the track that carries the trolley. After testing yesterday it should that the version I had, wasn't reliable enough once all the weight was on. The old design was based on a single beam track with the trolley hanging from it with U shaped braces (covering top, one side and bottom), but having the weight on it it turned out that the tracks were being pulled in causing extra free space between the track and the braces. This design also had no options to be strengthened as that would only be possible on the inside of the track, were some parts of the building arm are. The new concept design I've made (I only created a small section of it for testing) uses a U shaped rail that is open on the inside, whereas the trolley only has a single beam that slides in between. This design has the advantage that once there is weight on it, the tracks push out (which can easily be braced). Next to that I it will be easier to add the sensor triggers for the touchsensor inside of the track so that they can be easily hidden in the design. And to me a major advantage of this new track next to the fact that is more stable is also that it can be properly build in a modular fasion, which will help in taking the factory to events. All in all I'm quite satisfied with the result, though it will take me a good few hours to build the new track for the full length of the model as well as installing in the structure, but it's well worth it. When I finished the track I will retest the whole thing and if I'm satisfied with it, I'll make some photo's and video's of it and will show them to you.

I fear I don't agree on your statement that a robot can't build any better. Real manufacturing robots can certainly do better of course and even with Lego if you would create a somewhat more clever concept it's perfectly doable to build rather complex constructions. Ofcourse you can't expect a Lego robot system to build complex SNOT models, but there is a lot that can be done with it, as long as you use a clever design for your robot. With a proper design most of a model like this should be perfectly posible to build by use of a robot: And considering what I have build in my factory project and the results of early tests, I have already proven that it really is possible to do this. Anyhow, current project status is that I'm about halfway programming the RCX with a testing program that controls the trolley with the building arm attached to it as well as the building arm itself. As soon as I have finalized this, I will give it a go to see how it works. If it's satisfying I will make a video out of it and post it.

I agree it's impressive (note that it's NOT mine!). Though I think it can be done better and more efficient.

The system I am building will be able to place every element that has a stud on top. These can be bricks, plates, slopes, axle-plates, and so on. Positioning the elements isn't really much of a problem to be fair. Small elements like a 1x2 plate or a 1x1 brick, can perfectly be placed with a single action. In some case with larger elements, i.e. placing a 1x6 plate, it might require placing the element in the position first and then move along a couple of the studs of the element to press in place everywhere. I've done some manual tests with the system yesterday and it seemed to work pretty wel. At this moment I'm just about to begin programming the RCX that will be attached to the trolley that carries the building arm back and forth.

In the video I'm controlling it manually with 2 PF controllers. The next step will be to automate it using an RCX.

I've been working on a new project for a while already, and after a lot of thinking, testing, building, rebuilding and even more testing, building and some more rebuilding, I'm now ready to start showing a bit of the project to the public. Unfortunalty I can't post the visuals on this forum as it's a video demonstrating what I have finished at this point, so here's the link: Short explanation of the project: The goal of this project is to build a lego factory that differently from the ones you can see here: Has the following properties: Compact, this means that I'm building a more compact factory then the given examples of projects done by others. In my oppinion those factories are despite their perfect functionality to large to what would be absolutely needed. When you look at those factories, you will note a lot of repetation of identical functional units (i.e. multiple press-towers). My factory is aimed a building a general system which uses basicly a single building unit that can handle nearly every part as long as it has at least 1 stud on the top of the element. Beauty, as previously said projects shown earlier by others are bulky and rather large. Next to that they are purely about function above design, which doesn't make it too attractive to look at. Earlier factory projects also tend to be build in rainbow coloring, which doesn't really help either. My project is aimed not just on function but also on elegance. This means that a large part of the factory is actually purely aimed at functionality, but next to that I also aim at the visual aspect, by making the entire project look like a large factory building, furnished and decorated to minifigure scale. This means that it will contain control-rooms, etc... Variable, factories previously shown, only have a single function, being able to build a single car of airplane (at least in the given examples in this post), the only variaty provides is the option to pick colors. My aim is to build a factory that can build more then a single model. Eventually it might be able to build a small house, a car, a plane, a boat and maybe even more. Detail, beside the detail already mention in the "beauty" item, I'm also focussing on detail in the models the factory will be able to build. Previous factory projects produce rather primitive models. A car consisting of 2 sets of wheels, a plate, 2 slopes and a brick. This is not what I want to be able to do. I want more! Goal for me is to be able to build cars that would match the tiny-turbo series Lego produced. This means that a single model is this factory might consist not of just 6 pieces, but that a model might contain 50 parts or maybe even more. (At this point I would be able to build models (of any type) which can be 14 x 14 studs wide and up to 3 2/3 bricks in height)

Offtopic to this topic regarding the 6 wide (4 wide in between tracks) rails in the indy set. But regardig the flex-track, theoreticly they would allow for double width rails as you can smoothly guide them inside or outside of the regular RC tracks. This would mean with a double track this way you might be able to build 18 wide trains. Or possibly something like Schwerer Gustav: Which uses a double track to ride on. With the current tracks this would be impossible, because you can't make double paralel tracks with them. The flex-track might allow to do this.

Judging by the color of them on the photo, they look as glow in the dark indeed. Similar to the creator PF dinosaur. Regarding the tracks, they look promising to me, but the're not very usefull if TLC is not also planning on adding straight pieces to the 4 wide rail.

That's a really nice model. Nicely detailed with a lot of building techniques applied to create those details. Excellent work.

I'll for sure keep MOCcing :) The last half year I haven't really found the time (nor did I create the time) to be building with my Lego, but I'm currently forcing myself in doing so :) So there'll be more to come. I have a half modular building finished as well, might finish that this week if I feel up to it. Next to that I'm also working on a really huge Technic/Mindstorms MOC which is also combined with a whole lot of minifig scale detailing, but more about that last project later as soon as I finished more of it and actually got things working :).

I've made a couple of pictures already, but it's definatly better do it with daylight, so I'll do them again tomorrow. For now you can already enjoy these: Let me know what you think and what I can improve.

The overall pictures will come later, when I have my digital camera present :) The photo's my phone makes are just crap, so they're not worth posting anyway.

This week I've been working on my first city MOC after I bought 3 of the 4956 Creator Houses as they were on sale. I've just been playing around a bit to see what I could create and what I can do with the detailing of the model, as I don't really have that much system parts (I'm usually more into Technic & Mindstorms). At this moment I can only show a somewhat blurry preview as I don't have access to my digital camera at the moment. Later this weekend I will add some more photo's of better quality. Any feedback on how to improve my building techniques is welcome...

I suppose these are the prices you would pay when you would get the parts through BrickLink. By doing some smart shopping, i.e. use LegoDirect for ordering some of the parts (like the pneumatic switches, t-piece and (depending on what color of cylinders you want) the cylinders as well as the linear actuators) you can get them more price-efficient. I ordered a bunch of the LA's at LegoDirect and I believe I payed something around 4 euro each, which would be around 5.5 dollars. Obviously though, the power function parts won't come any cheaper then you mentioned. My oppinion regarding which is best I tend to say that I like both. In some cases the pneumatic parts are better, in other cases the LA's are better. When I look at the things I've been working on lately I tend to use the LA's more then pneumatics though, but the main reason for this is that you have the advantage of good control on the rate at which it extends and the amount it extends. It's also easier to use LA's in combination with the IR elements to have remote control over a model, though obviously you can also achieve this with pneumatics. For me there's no real better one though, I like them both.

I had the parts, until I gave the model to a friend of mine, after all it was a gift. Unfortunatly I won't be able to build an exact copy at the moment as it was quite a struggle to get 2 affordable red webbed dishes, they are quite rare and expensive (at least compared to other parts). Most of the parts I do have so I might build the actual model again with what I have and replace the red parts in the wheel hubs with either gray or black. I'll see if I can manage it short-term, if I do, I will make some photo's of the model and will post them in the topic.

For a first MOC, you have done a very good job. I like the model and it's something that hasn't been made before I believe. I love new things that have never been done before.

The mainmodel looks pretty good I must say, the secondary model on the other hand I don't really like. For the price you get a fair amount of pieces, though nothing to spectacular except for the T beams maybe. Anyhow, a great review for this set.