howitzer

I don't have the set but if I understood the instructions step correctly, replacing the tan axle with 4L axle with end stop should do the trick. You can grip the end stop with fingernails so it's easy enough to pull out even without tools.

Don't know about the driveshaft, but if I understood the problem correctly, you could move the steering link to the other side of the horizontal beam, so the servo would not collide with the ball joint.

Interesting, how much ground clearance it allows? I rebuilt the whole suspension assembly, and now it at least feels much better. Here's some photos: The only problem I can see with this build is that when the springs are bottomed out, the axle touches the connectors between wishbones and steering pivot: I guess I could move the differential up a stud, which should solve this issue. Any comments?

There are many ways to make things rotate with Technic parts, you should definitely look up on those. I can't recommend anything specific though, without better knowledge about what kind of structure they are being built into (pictures would help).

There was also a wish for it to be "bouncy" so I guess that calls for a suspension. And for a crane arm like that of the MB Arocs. I've got to see what I can do about that... Earlier iterations had enough bounciness, now I just have to figure out a way to make it sturdier. Turntable solution could be usable, thanks for the idea. I'll try it later if my current vision doesn't work out.

I'm building a kid's toy with a specifications "giant tractor" :D so there's really no definite form I'm aiming at. But I want it functional and sturdy enough to withstand play without constantly needing to fix parts of it, and that's where Zerobricks' otherwise nice design failed. Pendular axle would definitely be better, but I don't have parts (Unimog balljoints) for that so I'll have to stick to independent suspension for now. I have one more idea on how to make do with the portal axles, but if that doesn't work out, I may have to just ditch them and try something else. Unless someone can think of a way to build a sturdier design using portal axles. I did some searching on Eurobricks without finding anything usable though, so I don't have high hopes.

No it doesn't explode, not even when placed on the ground and compressed so that the springs bottom out, nothing loosens, though the differential should be located lower as the CV-joints are over their limit when the suspension is not compressed. I already did some modifications though, mainly to how the suspension arms connect to the center, but that's mostly aesthetic fix. I tried to make Zerobrick's design stronger but couldn't, there's just too much play in the wishbones considering the distance of the steering pivot to wheel. The main problem I set out to solve here was making a suspension with portal hub that would allow the steering pivot to be located near or inside the wheel, and I'm sure my design could be improved, but random or not, somehow it appears to work at least to some extent. Surprisingly, but probably not enough. We'll see when the real-world testing commences.

After some real-world testing (=letting my kid play with this) I came to the conclusion that the front wheels are not nearly strong enough and the suspension needs to be redesigned. I had used the design by @Zerobricks mentioned in here: But it's not strong enough against torsional stress, if the suspension is compressed while the wheels are turned, the wishbones twist too much and parts tend to get loose. The core of the problem obviously is the steering pivot, which is between the wheel and the chassis and not inside the rim. So I set out to design steering/suspension assembly that would have the pivot point closer to the wheel and perhaps be stronger against torsional stress. I found some inspiration here: But that's of course entirely different kind of suspension, so I had to modify it heavily in order to fit it to my vehicle. Here's a few photos on what I came up with (work in progress): The steering pivot is at the inner edge of the wheel, and when pressing from the middle so that the springs fully compress, nothing gets loose or pop out. I haven't yet attached it to the rest of the chassis so real-life testing still awaits, but if anyone can spot any obvious flaws, it would be nice to know before further work.

For POV-Ray, you need to edit the scene file and insert a planar object where the floor would be, and make a glossy material for it. Shouldn't be too hard even by hand, but I wonder if there's a POV-Ray-compatible editor with a GUI today? Once there was one named Moray but its development was discontinued years ago.

Losing linked images on site like this is a very annoying problem which is hard to solve adequately. There's no way to generate enough income with ads to meet the costs of hosting images, while a subscription-based forum would lose vast majority of the users and so the forum would die out with lack of content. I'm hosting my images on my own website, which I pay from my own pocket, but I realize it's not a solution for most people. So at least for now I guess we'll just have to accept the fact that older threads tend lose linked images.

I tend to agree, the rim/tyre-combination is not correct.

Very nice, I love how you've combined studless and studful construction styles into one coherent model.

So... if I'm new to Mindstorms, should I wait for the new 51515 to be released or stick to the old one? Or maybe go for the Spike Prime? Many people here seem to think that 51515 isn't much of an improvement, but as it's not backwards compatible with EV3, investing in EV3 doesn't feel a very good idea. I've been wanting to get into Mindstorms for a long time now, but the starter sets are expensive so I'd like to make a good choice here.

For the Technic cars, you can find some information in here, though not much about the newer sets: http://technicopedia.com/index.html Technic UCS cars (Porsche, Bugatti and Lambo) are 1:8, as are the largest F1 cars (Silver Champion and similar). The other Porsche, 911 RSR is 1:10 I think, as are the Ferraris in the Racers theme. As for the Creator Expert cars, I have no idea about their scale, you could probably calculate it by comparing wheel size to the real thing. (You can find out the Lego set's wheel sizes in for example Bricklink catalog).

I don't have the car transporter as it doesn't appeal to me, but Dyen's garbage truck seems much cooler and interesting, at least from what I've read here in the forum about it.

As I read the words of "not wanting to use a battery for a question of autonomy," my first thought was a pullback motor combined with some sort of windup-mechanism, so that while loading the balls the mechanism would wind up the pb motor and then release it on the track to travel to the unloading station, where a similar winding would happen while unloading the balls. I have no idea how this could be achieved though or if it could be made reliable enough and I don't even have the train parts nor pb motor to try to build it myself (nor any experience in designing my own GBC modules...) Nice job on the external power delivery though!

Over the years there has been a huge variance in the quality of stickers, some are good after 30 years of play, while others have started peeling and cracking after a couple of years on shelf. Prints on the other hand usually last much longer and when they wear they fade rather than peel or crack like stickers, so it's not as big problem. I've made the choice of not applying stickers on my Technic sets, except for those that direct functions. This is because I want my parts to be usable in MOCs and I can't afford to buy more parts to replace panels and such, just so that the original set looks slightly better. I have of course kept the sticker sheets with unapplied stickers, in case I ever wanted to sell my Legos as a set, instead of just loose parts. As said, stickers have their place in smaller sets, as they can make them look a lot better than what's possible with bricks only and they help to keep the cost down, as printed pieces are much more expensive. For flagship-level sets I'd expect prints, and it was a delight to see this happening with the Sian. Stickers on Chiron on the other had made it feel much cheaper than the price point would suggest and according to some reviews, even the quality wasn't exactly great either.

Once I had a few missing pieces, which the seller sent immediately at no extra cost, so it was obviously an honest mistake, which are quite a common when we're dealing with thousands and thousands of different little parts. I really needed those parts so I had to ask them to be sent, otherwise I wouldn't fuss over few pieces worth tens of cents. I pay usually through Paypal in order to make sure that I'm eligible for a refund if a case of NSS happens - that way you're protected even when buying from a new seller just starting out their shop.

I guess you could use it as a short-term energy storage, to drive some function that has to work for a short while without electricity. I don't know what kind of practical applications there would be though.

But mounting points are a significant restriction. The AAA PU hub has a footprint of 4x8 studs and is 4 bricks high. It fits poorly into typical odd-sized Technic models, as you'll have to create half-stud offset for symmetrical mounting. Of course for some models it doesn't matter if the mounting is symmetrical or not, but for example for most vehicles it does. The height of 4 bricks is a tiny little amount (about the height of the "LEGO" on top of each stud) over 5 studs of length, so fitting it between beams 5 studs apart means putting stress on the elements so if you want to be purist about it, you'd need to have a space of 5,5 studs high for mounting it, while it's width requires 5 studs of space unless you can think of an other use for the half-stud wide areas on the sides of the hub. This makes it effectively 5x8x5,5 studs in size, as for symmetric Technic models are concerned. It's still smaller than the AA hub but not by that much. 42109 of course was designed around the AA hub so it fits well, and I'm not sure how it would be improved by changing the hub to AAA type.

Yeah, I copied my message to the other topic so the discussion may continue there.

(Copied from the Sian topic.) If the 20t gears are too thick, wouldn't it be quite easy to thin them a little bit by sanding couple of tenths of mm off on both sides? Not that I have personally noticed problems but this is something I might do such a problem with them ever comes up... I took a measurement of random 10 random 20t gears with a vernier caliper, and all were between 7,92 and 7,95mm. All have been also bought with fairly recent sets, most from 2016 and 2018 and maybe few from 2013 so at least for me the thickness isn't a problem. Maybe there are different batches made with different moulds, and some moulds for some reason produce slightly too thick gears? But I don't think it concerns all recent gears of this type.

If the 20t gears are too thick, wouldn't it be quite easy to thin them a little bit by sanding couple of tenths of mm off on both sides? Not that I have personally noticed problems but this is something I might do such a problem with them ever comes up... I took a measurement of random 10 random 20t gears with a vernier caliper, and all were between 7,92 and 7,95mm. All have been also bought with fairly recent sets, most from 2016 and 2018 and maybe few from 2013 so at least for me the thickness isn't a problem. Maybe there are different batches made with different moulds, and some moulds for some reason produce slightly too thick gears? But I don't think it concerns all recent gears of this type.

My kid asked if we could make a giant tractor out of Lego. So I set out to work on something that should be satisfactory. I don't have the Claas tyres so I had to settle for Unimog tyres but maybe I'll buy some Claas tyres some day. I haven't done much MOCing in Technic, especially vehicles of my own design so it's interesting to see how this project turns out. So far I've finished the chassis, with independent suspension on all wheels, steering and rear axle drive. I've routed both steering and driveshaft along the centerline, and where they cross, there's a red idler gear to transmit driving while steering shaft goes through that gear. I intend to make the exterior brightly coloured and toy-like, but I don't have a clear picture in mind how it'll look like. Though I planned to use yellow and black banana gears as mudguards. Bottle for scale.

One must hope that the new parts like the mudguard, the rotor and the wedge panel will be available in other colours in the future... Osprey of course has the two latter in other than lime (black and DBG, respectively) but that still leaves us wanting. Wishbone is already available in black and DBG so one of those colourswaps could be possible some day. At least the wedge panel will probably be used in many colours in the future, although it's anyone's guess if usable colours will be released next year or in 10 years from now...