howitzer

You should familiarize yourself with the newest Mindstorms hub, it's about the same size as the PF battery box and the large number of different kinds of motors give a lot of flexibility in design. You can also use a gaming controller if you want a physical remote. Of course using all that requires a significant amount of programming effort but the possibilities are there.

As I understand it, typical development time for a large Technic set is something like two years, so the Zetros must have been pretty far in the development during the last summer when the Osprey incident happened.

Few Bionicle parts (like ball joints and 1x3 tooth with axle hole) have indeed found a lot of use elsewhere too, but vast majority of them are somewhere between very hard and impossible to use for other things than their original purpose. The aforementioned 1x3 tooth for example has been used as function selector handle, pneumatic hose guide and as paneling, either standalone or to fill gaps with other panels, and that's just for Technic, so it's a very useful part. And of course every part ever is a spaceship part. But beyond those, looking at the parts catalogs, I can't really fathom a situation where a Bionicle part would be the best solution to an engineering problem unless the problem in question was about building Bionicle-like figures.

11: 10 7: 6 6: 4 12: 3 17: 2 20: 1

Which company? Still though, LiPo insert to replace the battery holder is only slightly better than having to change the AA cells as it still can't be charged while connected (without mutilating the casing anyway...) but the RI hub can, so beyond the price I don't see much use for the 4-port C+ hub, the AAA hub at least justifies its existence by being smaller so if you don't need more than two motors, it saves a bit of space and weight.

I think I saw this in one GBC module, used in such a way that it was actually useful: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=32311 Can't remember where though.

AA's are a hassle, yeah. PF isn't any better in that regard though (I'm not sure how easy or hard it is to change the batteries in the C+ hub as I don't own one, but with PF battery box it's pretty painful. The old 9V battery box was much better in this regard.) M is intended more for System use, so yeah, more studs. Still, it's not that hard to use with Technic either. PU angular motor also allows insertion of axles from both ends so it can replace the PF servo in your application.

My apologies, I should've been more careful with the wording there. The sentiment is not exactly an opinion of mine (I have nothing against Bionicle in itself), but more the feeling I get from observations on how people tend to think of them. I'm not dismissing Bionicle creations as unworthy, it's just that most of those parts are so difficult to use in a meaningful manner with other Lego that they are almost useless (and thus mostly a nuisance) unless you're a Bionicle builder. I've seen a few builds here and there which make use of Bionicle parts but those are few and far between and even in those cases I often get the feeling that the builder wanted to use a Bionicle part so they designed the rest of the build around it, rather than making use of the part's unique properties in a manner that would be difficult to achieve with non-Bionicle parts.

Nobody forces parents to use alkaline batteries, the rechargeables are widely available. Why TLG does it instead of including LiPo in every power source? Well, the rechargeable batteries are a huge logistical pain (with all the special procedures in shipping and handling) and to be honest, it's probably also a cost cutting measure, considering that it's much cheaper to manufacture and distribute power sources which take alkaline batteries. But as I said, a small rechargeable dumb battery box would be really nice addition, even if it was expensive and had to be bought separately. You're lucky to have many rechargeable bricks but most people don't have those at all (me included) so I'll have to stick to either on alkaline, Ladda or RI hub (which appears to be better in every respect than C+ hub).

Umm, specialized parts have been around at least from the 80's, or how many different actual uses you can think for an excavator bucket besides the obvious use? Nothing new there with the cement mixer, and let's be honest: without that specialized part we wouldn't have a cement mixer, which was something new for a change. One of the major problems with Technic, as I see it, is the repetitiveness of the lineup, new kinds of sets are very few and far between. While it's true that the mixer drum isn't exactly easy to use for anything else, it really isn't a problem here. With the banana gear you do have a kind of a point, though I don't see the problem really with it either. TLG has indeed failed to make good use of it after the BWE but there are tons of MOCs out there utilizing the part in imaginative ways, which in my books means that the part is just as usable as any other part. Colour palette could be a problem because, as you say, many parts are not available in most colours. Still, the parts available for each colour expands constantly, especially the large sets like Sian add a lot to it. Talking about the Sian, if you disregard the colour consistency issues, many people seem to like the radical lime-coloured supercar, which is entirely in line with how supercars are made in real life too. Granted, the colour makes for a harder reusability if you don't particularly like lime but that's a limitation with you, not with the set or Lego in general, and now with the Sian we have quite a wide palette of lime pieces to make MOCs with. PU motors btw. are 1 stud longer than the equivalent PF ones, but come with more connection points so they are actually easier to integrate in a MOC. Blockiness doesn't make them larger and beside that we also have the angular motors, which add to the possibilities of motorization. The C+ hub is slightly different shape than PF battery box but it's not much different in actual size. The smaller rechargeable battery is of course nice but it was discontinued already years ago and there's a PU equivalent of exactly the same size available too (though not with rechargeable battery). Then there's the RI hub which is great, but a small rechargeable dumb hub would be really nice to have too. --- My major problem with Technic and it's current direction is the huge focus on licensed cars, which are really boring and even more repetitive than the heavy machinery side of things (which hasn't been able to produce that many interesting models lately either...) The increasing flagship size is also somewhat off-putting, I don't want to invest 400€ in a set which will be taken apart at some point and even less in a dust collector. As for their parts, I have enough structural and functional parts already so as parts pack new sets are only worth their panels, which generally isn't much. My latest purchase was the Volvo Zeux which was on sale at a local retailer, I wanted it mostly of the tyres, though I'm also curious about the functions and the looks (didn't open the box yet), considering it's also something different. You really should invest in rechargeable batteries instead of alkaline ones. Ikea sells high quality ones for 6€/4 batteries and their cheapest charger costs 7€ and a better one 20€. If you can afford the Liebherr, surely the cost of the batteries isn't a problem.

You raise many valid points but there's a few that I feel aren't entirely justified so I'm offering some thoughts on them. I can understand your disappointment with 42083 as it really is a display model with no play value and flawed functions. But 42082 is entirely different story in my opinion. Great big fun set with lots of parts and extremely well working functions, not to mention very affordable price in relation to the parts count. I even found the build pretty interesting, though not the best there is. Its major flaw was the abysmal B-model but I guess you can't have everything, especially considering the way B-models have gone lately. About the C+/PU: Yeah, the ready-made C+ profiles are very rigid, if you want to build a MOC with them it must have the exact same motor configuration for it to work. But you can create your own profiles with PU app, even though it is pretty hard given the current state of things (lack of documentation etc.) I'm hopeful though that C+/PU will improve in the future and maybe we'll even get those programmable light/sound kits some day. A new micromotor would be really nice but I'm not holding my breath. It is true that PU needs a lot of development but I see think that the potential is there, TLG just needs to unlock it. Ideas is something I always thought more as a marketing stunt and a way to engage fans and the community than a line of products with profit-oriented design. Still, few of them I have found appealing enough to buy (and others decidedly not) and the variety is pretty nice, except that there has never been a Technic Ideas set which is pretty disappointing. I'm hoping that more and more Ideas sets will be accepted/released and that the variety increases further.

Same here, all these problem-threads made me want to build the set so I could see for myself if there really is something that's easy to get wrong. Or maybe it's just that for some reason many people inexperienced in Technic have obtained this set and are now experiencing problems where a more experienced builder would have none and we're seeing few of those people asking for help with the set?

Not really related but reminds me of this gem: https://ironychan.tumblr.com/post/137070533675/this-is-the-great-pyramid-of-king-khufu

I was deeply in my dark years when Bionicle happened so I don't know much about it, but since I've gotten back and have been buying parts, I have always felt that Bionicle parts are a sort of toxic waste of Lego. Hard to use for anything other than their original purpose, always polluting lots of mixed bricks and nobody wants to have them. My local brand store even has a separate bin for them in their used bricks section, sold for less than other parts. So I'm really not that keen on seeing Bionicle as an anniversary set, for me it's obvious that other classic themes (space, castle, pirates) are even much more popular but their votes were split between various incarnations of the said themes - and still they managed to get into the final round of voting. That being said, the whole voting feels a sham, as the final round results are not released until the release of the set itself, so basically TLG can do whatever they want and say that's what people voted for, there's no transparency. When the set is released, I will buy if it's good and will align with my interests but otherwise not - like with any other set available.

Great topic! I don't have much to contribute for now, but your tips on the servos are very nice to know, as my excavator project has a gearbox selector which needs to work like servo. I thought of running it "blind", just having the motor turn for a set amount of time so the gear selector would switch, but calibrated movement might be better. Right now I'm learning to code with Python, so it's hard to say how much of this code block knowledge will translate there...

Pin with axlehole and pin connector perpendicular with pinhole. Both of those are sorely needed. More connectors to make 0,5-module translations would also be great.

Very nice B-models, now I just might have to buy both sets even though the orange colour scheme in the hovercraft is somewhat unappealing (I don't have much orange parts so it's hard to make use of them in MOCs but that's just my personal problem).

They should make the real machine with this colour scheme.

Apparently 42028 is designed by Milan instead of Markus.

Umm, it's not a review if the submitter hasn't actually _reviewed_ the product - as in handled and tested it. While the product is obviously overpriced and has its other issues, I'm not seeing any problem in removing "reviews" which are obviously made by someone who has never seen or actually tested the product. That kind of commentary undermines completely the purpose of the reviews. To see if TLG allows negative reviews I checked their online store by selecting random item which happened to be the new HP Diagon Alley set. The average rating is heavily on favorable side, but there's still 4 one-star reviews and 3 two-star reviews and 6 three-star reviews. So it's not like TLG is censoring all negative feedback, it's just that they want the reviews to be based on actual purchases.

There is indeed something like this going on. Since the end of my years of darkness I haven't had any part breaking and only a handful from my childhood. All the aforementioned part types are perfectly usable, almost as good as new. So I guess there really is a factory that's outputting poorer quality parts or some other such factor that causes some people to experience a huge amount of quality issues while others experience almost none. The colour variations on Sian are inexcusable though.

Why is there two motors for outriggers and one for drive? Wouldn't it work better if it was the other way around?

If you want to invest money for profit, Lego is a very risky business. Beside the aforementioned storage/damage concerns and more investors today than in the past, there's also the risk of TLG deciding to re-release a set - this happened to the Taj Mahal and it's not the only one. I'd definitely invest my money rather to the stock market.

Even if it happened to get past the review and become accepted as a set to be released, we won't be seeing it in the shelves this year. TLG designers are going to make their own version of it and generally development of a set takes at least a year, maybe two. And no Technic build has ever been accepted into Ideas so I won't be holding my breath anyway...

New Elementary listed the new parts of January releases recently, and there were many new Technic parts or recolours, most of which we of course knew already from the new sets, but few recolours were released only in non-Technic sets, like the 3x3 connector (biscuit piece) in DBG a super heroes set (76174) and pin joiner in dark turquoise in new Ideas set (40448). A number of other connector recolours is also worth mentioning. https://www.newelementary.com/2021/01/lego-parts-january-2021.html#cat_31