howitzer

Can we have a new, separate topic for the actual challenge where its idea and guidelines are posted, in addition to posting the results?

Great review as always, and how nice of him to compliment our reverse engineers here in the forum for their work! The set is as expected from the photos and analysis provided here, so I didn't learn much, but it's nice to have our thoughts confirmed. I'm sort of bummed about the complete lack of aesthetic touches but as @kbalage points out, it's great to see all the gears at work. I wonder if it would be possible to achieve some sort of finished look while not hiding the gears too much...

This is awful. For such a parts they really ought to do better quality control.

Funny that some people and even some reviewers criticized the set for its "unrealistic" colours and configuration, but what do you know, those are entirely realistic and the critics were just unaware of how things are in real life. Anyway, I share a lot of your sentiments about this set, and I'm similarly happy about it even if it was really expensive purchase. Obviously it's a compromise of many factors but overall I feel it turned out in the end much better than I initially thought.

My comment was a bit of sarcastic one, I have tons of those old light gray ones, far more than I can ever see myself using... so having it in lbg is completely pointless for me.

So.. now frictionless axle-pin exists in light gray and light bluish gray, yay!

Or towball sockets with pin or axle...

Very nice! Maybe this will give some inspiration to others in attempts to build something less usual in Technic. I've also contemplated on building a lathe, albeit with a bit more ambition. In my idea there would be multiple speed gearbox and a bore through the machine (so you could turn long stock) and main bearing made with Technic metal balls. Perhaps even automatic feed through lead screw. But as with many other ideas, that has to wait until such a time where my schedule is not so cramped...

In principle, yes, but considering how it's marketed, that's less of a concern. Considering it's intended for robotic and programmable applications, most of the time it's not connected to several powerful motors being used simultaneously, but rather it's going to have many low-power sensors connected which leaves plenty of power to motors. I guess it's possible that it also has more robust electronics as it's much more expensive than a C+ hub, though I have no testing data of this.

Spike hub isn't that much bigger than C+ hub or PF battery box and it has 6 ports so size-wise I don't see a reason not to do 6 port hub. I'd be more concerned about people connecting 6 XL motors to it and then attempting to run them with maximum load - either it would cut power instantly or it would require pretty robust electronics and I don't think TLG is willing to have either.

I believe this is the reason TLG hasn't officially used axles as torsion springs, people would inevitably display the models in articulated poses and then complain about permanently twisted axles...

Very impressive! Most of the time large Lego builds tend to be just basic bricks stacked on top of each other in a way that creates sculpted looks, but yours is something different as it actually takes advantage of the possibilities of Lego as it is today instead of being something that could have been built in the 60's. I can only imagine the hours and effort spent on designing and building this model, especially the tyres are really cool.

That's why it's a challenge and not a contest. No prizes, just show-off of creativity. Most people don't work on weekends so I guess that would be the best time for it. And of course you don't need to spend the whole 24h on it, you can build only 8 hours or whatever if you feel like it or can't spare the whole 24h but could spare less.

I believe the idea is to take 24 hours of time to design and build something from start to finish. The different timezones etc. of course pose a challenge but it's an interesting idea, and I'd like to participate if possible. But taking 24 hours off from normal life is a tough deal...

Yep, there's definitely a change in the part, the finish is glossier in the old ones, and they are slightly stiffer too.

8421 had three-stage telescoping boom and its lifting was even pneumatic so scale poses no issues for such a set.

Do you have some sort of official source for this pattern? Because just having three crane sets with 5 year intervals makes for a pretty poor pattern, and TLG isn't under any obligation to follow such patterns anyway. Flagship scale mobile crane would be nice though. Hopefully with three-section boom with synchronized hook travel and at least 6 axles.

I don't think it's possible to break a truss made of new parts without breaking the parts themselves, and at that point we're talking about forces far exceeding those that any Lego is expected to withstand. When used as intended they connect really securely and are indeed strong in both directions. It's true that other cross sections than 7x7 pose challenges, though I think strong 7x9 would also be easy using flipflop beams along with the truss parts. I think variable cross section boom is going to be difficult no matter what your technique, as are triangular cross sections and so on, but those are concessions that we're going to have to make with Lego and not diecast scale models.

Tower crane is weird in that it's one of the most visible piece construction machinery out there so it feels like a natural subject for Technic set but there's never been a tower crane set (b-models don't count). But I guess the boredom of truss building and necessary hugeness of such a set have prevented it from being realized so far. The new parts from 42146 however should change that, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a tower crane set in few years.

Liebherr Liebherr no weights Daytona Zetros Airbus John Deere Audi Weight 7,982kg 7,082kg 6,99kg 3,3kg 2,69kg 2,42kg 1,87kg RRP 680,00€ 680,00€ 450,00€ 330,00€ 210,00€ 190,00€ 170,00 € €/kg 85,19 96,02 64,38 100,00 78,07 78,51 90,91 I ran some numbers on a few recent sets for comparison. Yes the counterweight pieces affect the outcome, but they also serve a purpose, it would be a pretty bad crane without counterweights. The truss pieces are also quite heavy, and so are the 3x19 and other frames which are quite plentiful there - not to mention the electronics. From the numbers above I'd say the Liebherr isn't exactly a great value but it's not abysmal either. I guess it comes down to whether you find the electronics and tons of frame parts useful or not, so it's not objectively bad or good, it depends on what you personally want. Funnily, it appears that Daytona is actually pretty good value in comparison to these other sets, though the lack of electronics certainly helps there.

It would be interesting to see comparison of various techniques to build lattice booms with older parts. As I understand, the new parts simplify boom building greatly, so I see them worth it, despite the cost (and it's not like they are that expensive either, they are available Bricklink starting from 2,5€-3,5€ apiece or so). I also don't think 8288 or 42042 compare as the former while it has certain realism, has no electronics and is much smaller and the latter is quite unrealistic and lacks important parts like jib and derrick boom. I went through stuff that Rebrickable has to offer, and if you discard small builds, stuff that's not exactly a crawler crane and builds that are mods of 42146, there's not many left. Those tend huge and would've required significant investment in parts anyway, and there's not much in the way of quality guarantees on the build. I did spend quite a bit of time considering if 42146 is good buy for me or not, weighing in the parts, the expected building experience, etc. and came to conclusion that it might be worth it after all. One thing that actually swayed my opinion to the "buy it" side was the comments from @allanp earlier in this thread. It's obvious that you have different opinions on many of the points regarding the value of the set, and that's fine. I brought up the "worth" of the set because it's definitely not a necessity and it's not even something of practical use to make our lives easier or more comfortable (as for example a car or a computer would be). It's a luxury toy and as such the concept of value in any general sense becomes pretty useless. Being luxury toys they are stuff that some people want really bad while others view only as a frivolous waste of money, regardless of price. As such some of them I might want and can afford (such as this set) and some I might want but couldn't ever afford (such as big yacht) but stuff in either category is stuff that can be assigned a price, but not value. As an investment... well, I don't think my hobby has to be something which returns money to me.

It's true that backhoe or many other machines wouldn't need all motors to be running simultaneously, but the hubs must still be able to account for that, as people are going to use them in their MOCs with no considerations of what they are capable. Having six ports would require heavier wiring and electronics, which would drive up the cost.

But I don't see them doing anything, regardless of the load on the hook. The battery box tilt is entirely independent of the springs. Ok, this is a good explanation, and of course those springs worked in similar fashion when assembling the model. Thanks!

So, I finally finished building the set. Here's some of my impressions and feelings about it. First I must say that none of the photos I saw beforehand prepared me for the size of this thing. Now that it's there, sitting on my building table I really see how huge and imposing it is, I don't think any of the photos I've seen of it do it justice size-wise. The proportions are still significantly off, but seeing it live it's not nearly as bad as in photos, I think especially the main photo on the box is badly chosen from this point of view. There's of course the downside of it being really difficult to move around the house. As a building experience, I'm not sure what to feel. The bottom part (understructure, tracks, turntable) was quite boring with mostly structural stuff with minimal mechanical builds and almost no interesting building techniques. I get why it is so, but it still doesn't change how it is. The upper part with the booms was much more interesting, and especially the string routing was challenging and required care and thinking, something that I don't encounter too often in today's Technic sets considering the dumbed down instructions. I also had some leftover parts which I feel shouldn't have been there (mainly pins, but too many of them or such that there's never extras) so it's obvious that I made some errors. Whether that's my fault or if the instructions are unclear is debatable. I also routed the hook string wrongly in one place and only noticed after making the reel knots, which is kind of annoying but not a huge issue. As for the functions, the set works well and it does what it's supposed to do. It also gives nice insights at the workings of such a machine, even if the ballast on rollers is unrealistic. Something I don't get though, is what's the purpose of the motorcycle springs supporting the derrick boom? They don't seem to do much. The load sensing function on the other hand is nice even if it would be great to have it even more sensitive, though it's obvious that making truly sensitive load sensor would be quite hard with current parts. The counterweight parts look nice but are otherwise disappointing, as the lack of connection points and shape makes them really hard to use anywhere else, which in my opinion goes against the spirit of Lego. There's also several places where the design felt unfinished or hurried. The aesthetics is minimal and feels half hearted - most of those could've been left out entirely and it wouldn't even be noticeable. As for the price... I was interested in building it and seeing it work, but I also wanted to make it bigger and do other modifications, so in that respect it's a good buy. I guess I could've attempted to make a crawler crane entirely of my own design, but I don't know much about crawler cranes so it would've been daunting task, and now I at least have learned the basic principles first hand and and gotten insight on some of the technical solutions necessary to build one. In the end though, I don't think there's much point in the discussion if it's a sensible purchase or worth the price. Some people pay 10000€ for a bottle of whiskey, and I guess they are happy with their purchases and think it as money well spent, and this crane feels similar. It's expensive, sure, but I wanted it and I could afford it so why not buy it?

I don't see them using that hub in Technic sets though, so while it exists, it's not like we're going to see it in actual sets outside educational sets. I hope I'm wrong though.