howitzer

Damn this would be useful. But probably won't ever get released by TLG, as making such a part by injection molding would quite difficult...

There's no way TLG would pass the opportunity to make it a big deal in marketing if they were able to replace traditional ABS with plant-based alternatives. For this, if nothing else, I'm quite sure there's no sugarcane or whatever in Technic parts.

New parts have been introduced in every year since the start of the Technic line in 1977, except 1985 and 1987. In some years there has been only one or two parts, but most of the time there's been more.

If you pay with credit card and there's a non-delivery, the credit card company is obligated to refund your purchase and make every effort to charge it from the seller.

Lego should use way less different colours and concentrate on getting out as many different pieces as possible in those select colours that are used. I mean, for the basic 1x1 brick comes in 58 different colours and of those there are something like 10 different hues of blue available. Who needs all that?

Delete this

GBC starter pack with ideabook for additional modules would be really nice, but I don't think it'll happen. A proper GBC would need a mains connected power source, nobody wants to run it on batteries and since it's stationary (unlike cars etc.), batteries wouldn't even make sense. At the very least it would need an easily rechargeable battery pack. But yeah, anything that's not a vehicle or construction equipment is on my wishlist too.

Now, a Ford model T would really be something.

I can second this. A while ago I gave my partner a set to assemble, it was one of the sets from my childhood (8865 Test Car) and the time it took to complete it was similar to what I spent on 42055 BWE (a much bigger and more complex set), which was the first set I assembled in almost 25 years. I still had the basic familiarity of components and mechanisms with me so for me it was mostly just following instructions (which I must say, are much simpler today than they were in 1988) but my partner had to first familiarize themselves with the pieces and how they come together, and even towards the end I had to give a hand from time to time. The next project was 8868 Air Tech Claw Rig, which went much smoother, but it still took time and there were still few steps where I had to help.

I much prefer almost anything over cars, especially sports cars (new Land Rover is a refreshing change in that). I mean, supercars provide you a nice and interesting building experience, but my interest stops there, they are far from interesting pieces to display and even less interesting to play with. That being said, I don't mind supercars, as there's clearly a customer segment that finds them appealing. As long as it's not mostly cars I'm fine. What I'd really like to see are sets that are not cars or other vehicles or construction equipment. Technic line needs more of stuff like the T-Rex from 8485 Control Center II. Also the 8480 Space Shuttle is one of the most celebrated sets of all time, and while it's technically a vehicle, it's so far thematically unique.

Has anyone else had a nice MOC which, for whatever reason was never finished, for whatever reason - like not having enough parts, unworkable design or something else? I have couple of things here which I want to show, even if I couldn't finish them properly before I wanted to take them apart for future MOCs. First, I made earlier a trebuchet design, which was in itself somewhat successful but I wanted to improve it with motorized priming so I redesigned most of it. Here's what I ended up with: Here's some more photos of it: https://i.imgur.com/fmxLhyh.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/ZltXf9j.jpg The XL motor with three clutch gears was almost able to lift 5 of the 7 weight blocks in the tail of the swing arm. The real problem though, was the 12t gears slipping on the yellow gear rack, which prevented it working properly. My intended release mechanism was to slide the 12t gears out from the racks. I tried to figure a better way of releasing it but in the end I ran out of interest and parts (would probably need 2 motors) so it just sat on my shelf for months, until I recently took it apart. --- Another, more recent project of mine was a modification of 42043 Arocs, to put in a general box container with a motorized tail lift. Note the colorful container, I had a serious lack of panels and had to improvise on the design with beams to make it large enough. Couple of photos of the unfinished tail lift: https://i.imgur.com/4fgKwYZ.jpg, https://i.imgur.com/YUtzRZ0.jpg I couldn't make the lift work properly, the movement range wouldn't be sufficient so I couldn't get it move to both closed and open (so it would touch the ground) position at the same time. Apparently the real equivalent is pretty tight on angles and relative lengths of its parts, and I couldn't adjust those precisely enough to make it work. The small linear actuator also could use a bit longer movement for this to work and then there's the play and slack in the parts. 4 actuators instead of 2 would be helpful, but there's no way those could be fitted in the space behind the truck.

Did you consider weight of the set as it sits in a shelf of store, or did you only take into consideration weight of the completed model? In other words, how do the packaging, manual, etc. affect the numbers? If you separate the weight of the model itself and the weight of everything else, is there a proportional difference between different sized sets?

7200 rpm is really fast, you won't find many household appliances running anywhere near that speed. Most power drills for example are much slower, though for example Dremel multipurpose tool can get higher. Considering Lego gearing, you'll probably lose a lot of torque to friction if you're going to gear it down to any reasonable speeds, but still I guess it's worth a try.

This. TLG always has to consider how appealing the proposed features are for target audience (=kids), especially for non-flagship sets (which seem to be more AFOL-oriented nowdays). Given that even very few adults have any idea what VSP is, there's really no chance something like that could be realized in an official set. I also believe it would have to be an actually floating boat, one that you can take out in a bathtub or a pool to see it working, and there's no way TLG would engineer the necessary new parts for it, especially watertight motors and battery boxes. That being said, I would love to see some kind of functionally interesting boat (way too long since 8839) and generally I like anything that's not another car, truck or construction machinery.

There's a number of Technic bricks which haven't been used in a good while, for example this one was last used in a set in 2003: And this pair was last seen in 1997 (connector) and 2002 (bushing): Though there's a similar replacements for both, only without the toothing (so they lost some functionality compared to the old ones).

http://sariel.pl/down/heavy-duty-track.pdf Here's instructions for a heavy duty tread chain.

I visited Legoland in Billund today, and saw the Spider crane and Car transporter at the shelf of the main shop there. I think I would've bought the crane if not for Sariel's review. I had much higher expectations for it, but the non-functional outriggers were a dealbreaker for me. The car transporter I don't find very interesting so I never really considered it, and other new sets weren't available yet. Got a couple of non-Technic sets in the end.

Thanks a lot, exactly the sort of thing I was looking for! Especially the info concerning lunchtime is useful, as we're probably going to eat in the cafeteria to save effort (travelling with kid an all that...) I don't think I'm going to buy much of Lego as it's probably less expensive elsewhere. Some souvenir is must have of course but beyond that only if I find something of special interest.

Hi, I couldn't find any relevant recent topic on the subject so starting my own. I'm going to visit Legoland in Billund with my family later this week, so I was wondering if the community had any tips on visiting? Anything special to look for, or if there's anything not worth wasting time on? Anything else to be mindful before going there? Maybe recommendations on restaurants? We're going by car and staying in AirBnB so travel and accommodation is taken care of.

My immediate thought was an upgrade: Separate selector mechanisms for both players where either can't see what the other is choosing, then a third mechanism which reveals choices of each player at the same time. It would need to be build in such a way that selection is either silent or the sound is identical for each selection so the other player couldn't make deductions based on sound.

I wouldn't count 16t gear among those that mesh with 28t (at least not in the configuration shown), as it'll probably skip very easily under load. The meshing doesn't seem to be very good, there's a significant gap between the teeth.

I also recently got the same set, and I have to say the pneumatic hosing is huge pain to get right, because the space is very tight and getting the crane to turn smoothly seems almost impossible with all the hosework stuffed in there. But it's a beauty to behold once you get it to work well enough.

Saturn V is probably one of the best official sets ever, and now I want both, the rocket and this tower to complement it... Really nice work!

I have the model built, right here in front of me. The trumpets are fixed on level with the roof, and the roof has no angles, it's assembled on top of two 8 stud bricks. The trumpets are attached to the same 4 long liftarm (BL item no. 2825) as the exhaust stacks. The liftarms connect to the roof between 4 studs (same as the axle and pin connectors at the front end of the horn), and there's no other connection, so if the roof was sloped more than insignificant amount, the liftarms couldn't be attached on it as the placement between studs wouldn't stick. Behind the exhaust stacks is the battery box, which isn't connected to the roof at all.

Next up: Winterfell, Meereen, Castle Black, Dreadfort, etc. ;) But seriously, awesome work, I always love to see Technic MOCs which are not another vehicle.