Nazgarot

WOW! This must be the best looking Technic supercar I have ever seen, and the details... both in technical solutions, like the front suspension, and in looks, like the engine bay, is amazing! I would gladly pay to have this on my shelf! -ED-

I would love to see this set in a variation ready for motorization, and a variation with full RC. It might also be cool for kids if you make a couple of add on packs, like styling addon, RC addon, offroad addon etc. And it might help sell the model as well as bring a little extra income to your sponsor. Thanks for the great inspiration, and thanks to blackbird for reminding me of how important it's to give feedback in a comunity like ours. Hope to see the model in a store soon! -ED-

There was really 3 sets that brought me out of the dark ages. First I bought the RCX 2.0 for a project at my university in the last year of my bachelor degree. Then about a year after I finished the degree and got a job I bought the BIG Millennium falcon. i had found out about it while researching the project with the RCX, and was waiting for it to become available. A couple of months later my girlfriend moved out, and I watched a program on Discovery where the Howe and Howe Ripsaw was presented. I bought first one of the PF bulldozer, and had my parents send all my old lego, then I bought another bulldozer to get enough parts to recreate the Ripsaw, and it quickly expanded from there. I have since bought more than 50 Technic sets (mostly for parts), both new and old, and do now have a considerable collection. And now I've had a hiatus from Lego for about a year do to time constrains (two small kids (two and five years old), a house in need of repair, 3 old cars that needed maintenance, built a new garage), but I'm slowly getting back. But no specific set recalled me this time. I simply needed to scratch my back and made a robotic hand for it... Then the oldest kid got a RC car, and I had to make one of lego for the youngest one. Then suddenly I was back here... -ED-

The design of the M motor allows it to pull a lot of current on startup due to a "large" capacitor on the engine coils. For V1 this is not a problem as it doesn't give that much current being limited by it's high internal resistance. The V2 however with its very low internal resistance is able to deliver a very high starting current to the capacitor, and will trigger the over current protection of the receiver. This is basically a filter (RC). The capacitor will retain some charge (it slowly discharges through the circuit) from each attempt to start, and by toggling the motor on/off a few time it may have a high enough charge that the start current comes below the overcurrent limit of the V2 receiver and it manages to start the motors running. But as soon as the capacitor is discharged enough the starting problem will reoccur. I can't say why Lego has such big trouble replacing the M-motor, but it may simply be that they have a lot of "old" M-motors they need to get rid of, and not many are being sold as there is no new models with the M-motor (and they will probably not launch any because of the trouble combaining it with V2 receiver). I believe the only way the "old" M-motor is sold is through the PF add-on package. To sum up: V1: Anything without a high torque requirement, or M-motors. V2: Anything without a M-motor. Hope this helps. -ED-

Yes, I do use the old stuff. Mostly late eighties and newer as I don't have anything older. I always mix and match new and old as needed. The older and the new parts have different pros and cons, and you can always get a better result by mixing up as needed. That is one of the things I love about technic. A part will almost always have an advantage in a given situation, even if we get a new one. One example is the diffs (new 3 stud 90 degree connection, old 4 stud linear connection), another the different kind of pins (the old black is great for stuff that need to be fitted hard, while the new black is a lot easier to disconnect and move), old studded beams a great for rigidity, while new beams are good for compact 3D construction... I seldom use the old 12 V stuff though, as I have standardized on 9 V. The old pneumatic how ever is great. You have got the long cylinder, and using the distribution block with its one way valves you can make a water pump without having to put any pumps or cylinders in water... So, as I said, I mix and match for what I need. -ED- PS: I'm not in here as often as I would like do to time constrains. If you got any questions on use of old Technic Lego please don't hesitate to PM me.

This is just "taking it to a whole new level"!! Congrats with a very nice moc. I would love to see/read some more about it. Would you care to write a little about the car, idea process, building process and so on? -ED-

Anything technical, including; lego, fixing up cars, computers (repairing, building and gaming), electronics, amateur radio (HAM), RC cars, and the list goes on... Besides I'm refurbishing my house and working a lot of overtime... Did I mention the two kids? Now do you understand why I don't present a lot of models? I simply can't take the time to fotograph/film them. =) My only problem is I can't afford the time to do it all at once, so I usually have periods where I get a kick and prioritize one over the others. Lately (because it's summer) I've been spending a lot of time on the house and two of my three cars (One is strictly a hobby project, while the other two are in use to get us to and from work). Last time I had a kick at Lego was this spring, and I used all my spare time building for several weeks. Now I wanna go back and finish those builds, but I can't spare the time. :( Looking forward to becoming a pensioner, in say about 35 years... :) Among all this stuff I have going on, I have to say: I love Lego for it's creative challenges! And the fact my two sons are loving it as well. They are still to young (15 months and 4 years) to include in advanced Technic projects, but the love to play with my MOCs (the largest cause most get torn apart in short time). -ED- PS: I love LDD! It's great to just sit down behind a computer and model it when an idea strikes down...

Why do we need Lego (the company) to build things realistically when we can do it with MOC's? I would much rather buy two or three "cheap" Technic models, and make something realistic my self, than buy one expensive realistic model and have no fun designing it... The hobby is about designing! If you only want to collect realistic models, there is a lot of options in advanced RC models. This is what you would want if you really are looking for realism, and if it's not good enough looking, you can modify it any way you want... -ED-

This must be the most amazing B-model (and I'm not talking only fan made) I've seen yet. If instructions would be available I would gladly pay to implement them in my collection. I will be reverse engineering it anyway, but Nathanael deserves something more than praise. Thanks! -ED-

That is a very nice truck! Does anybody know if it has any kind of suspension? -ED-

The rims from 41999 would be perfect for this! Great chassi, but I'm not sure about the body... Looking forward to see the rest of it.

Nice moc! I love the originality of it. Does it have working steering? It seems like it might... -ED-

That was a much better video! And yes, I admit it works! The reason it works seems to be the same as your problem with torque. The ball is not aligned on it's center. This gives the contact points on the ball a relative difference in speed. Very clever! But it also gives you a problem with torque as the ball is pushed out from the rings. In a real CVT of this kind the torque transmitted can be a lot higher because the ball always is contacting the "friction surfaces" through it's center, so you can apply a lot more force from both sides of the ball without losing much power to friction. I'm afraid that you are at a limit of what is possible with lego at this scale the way you have done it. I would however very much like to participate in a community build to make a working CVT on a slightly larger scale. Your work is a great inspiration as I have never before attempted a CVT of this kind in Lego before. Thanks! -ED- EDIT: It might be possible to realize this without using balls. I need to draw a little... No, it wasn't. But I might have a different idea. It needs a lot of work, and will be bigger, but it should be able to transfer more torque. EDIT 2: There is a old rubber "balloon" tire from the old Space line that might come in handy, Link It might let you increase torque in your setup if you can modify it to fit the tire.

But it doesn't, because it lacks a very important factor. There is no change in the contact point of the red "balls". if you hold a ball between two disks it doesn't help rotating the ball in any way as long as you don't change contact point on the disks. The ball has the same radius no matter what angle it is rotating at. This can only work as a gear if one disk changes contact point with the balls relative to the other (As can be seen quite clearly in the video of the bike CVT, look at how the contact points changes relativ to output speed). And with this construction it doesn't. Sorry... But the idea is nice, though very hard to complete in this scale. -ED-

Hi again, I do understand the Principe, but I still see no gearing. Only a reduction in speed due to friction. There is no change in the radius in any way as the red "balls" are locked in place, and no way for the "drive rings" to change contact point with the balls. That makes this a clutch and not a CVT. A cvt is capable of changing the speed and torque of the output compared with input. This only slips (friction) when the output is held. There is no increase in torque. I also tried to embedded the video. To embed a video you normally put ["media"] before a link and ["/media"] after it (without these " signs). But I can't seem to find a direct link to the video... Maybe upload it to youtube? -ED-

I can't see how this would be a variable speed transmission. It seems to me like a fixed speed transmission (i.e. a linear clutch). A video would be very helpful. -ED-

You should take a closer look at LPE's ideas to realize realistic suspensions for cars. This chassis has a combination of multilink (double lower links) and a-arm (upper part) in the front that I haven't seen before. But it should be quite easy to make it if you can scale it freely. The car might get big how ever, if you want to incorporate every detail. Link to LPE: http://www.lpepower.com/ I would especially recommend seeing "The LPEpower show" episode 1 - 10. -ED-

Try the cad forum. They have lots of experience with this kind of things. The mechanism is really quite simple, so you may be able to build it form the pictures... -ED-

Hi. I built that, and the instructions should still be available here, as an .lxf file, as well as a few picks. I have later modified it to increase the speed. I converted it to use rubber bands rather than springs, and exchanged the 24 tooth gear for a 8 tooth one. I also had to modify the "hammer mechanism" a little to ease the load on the motor. Unfortunatly I have not taken any pictures of this, and i have destroyed it... But it should be an easy mod. I makes the speed of the hammer a lot more realistic, but a lot less powerful. -ED-

That is actually possible. I've built it my self, and it requires a minimum of bending to get the parts in place. Taking it apart is a very different thing... -ED-

Thanks for bumping this thread matthewclso I hadn't seen the "panzerschnellbrücke Biber" before, and I truly am amazed. This is a great feet of engineering! It makes me want to build one of my own. I would however make it semi-automatic with an old Mindstorm RCX brick... A great project, but we will have to see if I can find the time... -ED-

Fore some reason I'm not so impressed by models of this scale. The large size gives room to implement anything you want, and doesn't have the same requirements for coming up with creative solutions to get the functions you want. it alsp seems wasted to have so "few" extra functions when working on this scale. Most of all I'm disappointed by the small LA's in the stabilizers. At this scale there should be room to make stabilizers that could lift the crane... But, all that said, the scale itself is impressive, and it's hard to get a vehicle of this size structurally sound and movable. So, all in all good work even though I'm not to impressed. :) -ED- PS: Matias bendtsen's crane is very interesting, both do to functions and the great looks. matias bendtsen

This being a very unusual solution isn't in fact unique. The Norwegian Moxy dumpers had a design where they used a pendular front chassis (cabin) with a semi independent suspension on the axle to increase ride comfort and offload stress under loading. When Korean Doosan bought Moxy they continued the design and the new Doosan dumpers come with the same solution, and to western markets they are selling under the Doosan Moxy name. More information can be found here. Maybe you can get some good ideas from this... -ED-

That is a very sweet little machine! I love the compactness of your solution, and the mix of manual vs IR functions. Nice build, and good improvement on the first version. Maybe a little white could freshen it up a bit? -ED-

This is shaping up very good. It seems even better than your RPA 15. What scale is it (I can see from the first post that you are scaling it for 1:30, but is that accurate for all details as well)? It seems fairly close to minifig, but I can't make it work with a few details like the searchlight on top of the cockpit cabine... -ED-