howitzer

Very interesting! Has there been any other set before with similar upgrades to fix issues in the original release? At least for me it's the first time I see such an upgrade. The new screwy hub will be an annoyance, but I guess there's not much they can do if the laws are such that battery boxes must require a tool to open. Thanks for the good work on reporting these changes @kbalage!

Thanks! I will see if I can get something finished in that time. Now that the holidays are over, I'm much shorter on time to concentrate on building but we will see...

Just my own guess. I don't think there's a good enough reason to make another two-hub model so soon. The Liebherr was clearly a demonstration set for the new system where two hubs were justified, and with the recent inflation the set would get too expensive so unless there was some new electronic parts introduced (lights, pneumatic switches or something along those lines), there's no way TLG can justify a set that would be much more expensive than the Cat. But this is the speculation topic, so I might be wrong of course. Only time will tell.

My guess would be the toothed hinges like 47975. Those have the same angles as the Technic angled connectors (which are rigid), but can wear out in use if they are rotated a lot.

Future is a long time, so it's probable that at some point another two-hub model will be released, but I don't expect it to happen any time soon. Certainly not this year and very unlikely to happen 2023 either. Maybe at some point after that.

8043 is fully RC. One motor switches the selection of three function selectors simultaneously and three motors drive the functions. In one position the motors drive both tracks and slewing, in other position they drive digger functions.

Has this been discontinued already? It has disappeared almost entirely from the shelves of retailers and even lego.com shows it as out of stock (at least where I live). I wanted to buy it but thought I'd have time, as usually Technic sets stay in production for two years or so.

I agree, considering that two hubs and associated motors would raise the cost enormously (regardless of justifications TLG has to consider how the price is perceived) and while 42100 had two hubs, it also was the demonstration set for the new system, beside not really being possible with only one hub, not without serious stripping down of features at least. So I'm predicting only single-hub sets from now on, at least for a couple of years.

I bought recently 10 pieces of the 2x3 panel extenders in LBG from B&P. There's still some variation, but much less than with the yellow and black ones which I bought last winter. I can't say it's not noticeable, but I don't think the variation is large enough to be problematic.

So... UCS cars aren't flagships?

Isn't every car set basically a repeat of previous car sets?

I agree with ord, the dull black box is more readable, and the narrower gap between numbers would improve readability still. I wonder if the motor could be moved to the backside of the flap wheel, that might eliminate stud or two from the width? Maybe with a chain-based transmission?

Yes, the difficulty of it surely limits participants. It would be nice to see a few more though.

Searching for "[TC21]" yields 12 results that seem to be an entry topic, so it's not an enormously popular contest, and I'm sure few of those won't submit a finished entry. Extended time might allow few more to join if someone is struck with an idea, but I'm not sure how much would be needed. At least few weeks I guess?

There's no way I can finish my entry in time, so unless there's a significant extension (at least few weeks) to the deadline, I won't be participating after all.

Any way to make the gap between numbers narrower?

Yep, I'm also guessing normal LBG and some lighting/photoshop-effects based on the photo of the box.

Yes, but only slightly. They also don't have the efficient screw-driven actuation, which needs lot of reduction and causes efficiency losses through the drivetrain. I think I'll have to connect the linear actuators to somewhere else, in order to get the desired effect, but that also complicates the drivetrain so we'll see if it works out or not...

Ok, so I wasn't at all happy with what I had built. Too complicated drivetrain, too many badly reinforced places in the chassis and so on, it probably wouldn't have worked. So I set out to completely rethink the mechanisms, and after a couple of days of trial and error I have come up with this: Now, the problem here is that the XL linear actuators have too short of a travel. Otherwise the thing works really well, but they hit the maximum travel at maybe halfway of what I want. I'm currently pondering if there's any way to make it travel farther (some kind of lever mechanism) but I fear I'll run out of time as the contest closes soon and there's so much to do still...

I believe the reasons for the current state of world economy is beyond the scope of this discussion (or this forum). Whatever the reasons might be, the fact stands that there's significant inflation going on and Lego prices will reflect that.

I believe Mixel joints are compatible with Technic towballs for connections with friction. Of course they come only with studs/antistuds, which makes them harder to use in tight spaces as opposed to hypothetical towball socket with pin or something.

I believe the main reason for the high cost of C+ sets is that inflation is running high these days and all kinds of stuff is much more expensive now than couple of years ago. The reasons for that are far beyond TLG's control and reflect the economic state of the world, and TLG too has to adjust. 42100 was released before the current economic flux started, so it indeed is much less expensive if you do a direct side-by-side comparison of the contents relative to price. It's true though, that PU stuff has a lot of development cost to cover as a system and the individual sets also involve more development costs, as there's all the set-specific coding and interface stuff which, I'm sure, requires a lot of testing before it can be released so in that sense a PU set indeed would be somewhat more expensive than equivalent PF set.

Yeah, I don't think the LBG 3L frictionless pin has been around since 2007 or something. On the other hand, they just recently released the 77765 pin which is also LBG and 3L so that's going to confuse your sorting system unless you avoid those. As for the 3L pin with bush, I guess your machine could be used to colour sort them too, just have to account for the large number of different colours.

You can have that with PU and BrickController or Pybricks. Yeah, not as easy as PF but not rocket surgery either. (But let's not turn this thread into another PU vs. PF discussion...)

Yes, but separately it has a much higher price than it would in a set (discount notwithstanding). Also, it's currently sold out here.