MinusAndy

That corner panel is great. I’ve been waiting for Lego to get their act together and bring those out. Are you doing them in the other panel orientation as well?

I also considered having a ground support vehicle with it in but I decided ages ago that I want this hung from my ceiling when it’s done. I now have this gearbox built and powered by two l-motors. The grey output is constant and will run the engines and the gun. The yellow and black outputs are switchable for direction and run the landing gear and flaps and slats.

I did look into a central drop tank but it would have to be far too big to fit the battery box in. There’s a couple of other parts that I felt could be upgraded too so this rebuild was inevitable really. My desk already looks like a crash site so it’s time to get back into it.

Having got this to the point where this all works I still have no space for a battery box. I have decided to power it with two l-motors in the wing roots and that will free up a load of room behind the cockpit for a battery box so it’s time for a strip down of the wings and gearbox again.

Ironically I think this fiendishly complex set of mechanisms is also some of your best looking bodywork! I think it looks and works great and it’s really ambitious.

Having spent a few days staring at a pile of bits I’ve managed to shrink the auto switching mechanism and run the axles for the rear control surfaces through the gearbox which should eliminate around 8 universal joints from them. I’m excited about this build again!

Yup. Imma get me some of those. I think for the longer axle runs they will make a huge difference.

I just checked out your typhoon. That’s a great model! I’d forgotten what a beast of an engine they put in that plane! Does anyone on here have any experience of the cada carbon fibre cross axles? Are they genuinely stiffer? Or is it just marketing hype?

I will give you a shout. Go bricks don’t do them. They’re the only panel they don’t do in that colour but if you can find them then I’m very interested.

Cheers man. I sometimes wish I’d gone the lbg route with all of it as stuff like the long fairings aren’t available in dbg, even from one of those companies we dare not speak of! Having built this new compact gearbox I’m pretty excited about it again so I’m cracking on.

Off the top of my head I’d say the area around the steering servo looks like it would twist. Maybe brace across the top of there. Also the shock absorber mounts look a bit high and spindly, bring them closer together and brace them across to each other. maybe use some more rectangular frames in the build instead of loads of lift arms? finally, your steering arms will have a tonne of flex in them at that length. ideally post a video of it flexing and bending but I would start with the above. Hope that helps. Andy

Back to square 3! I needed to address some fundamental issues with this build so last night I bit the bullet and stripped it down. The gearbox was still too high so I gave now made it three studs lower and strategically form locked it. Next step is to shrink the auto switch off mechanisms and route the control surfaces more directly through the plane. Im keeping my cockpit design, wing root and joystick mechanism, tail plane and engines. Also the Knobs of God as I found it surprisingly tricky to make a low profile way of joining the three axis of control and staying within a 5stud wide area on the top of the fuselage. https://flic.kr/p/2mHnn1Y I think this is my third full on strip down of this project but I’m so invested in it now that I have to get it right.

Maybe put some sort of retinal scanner module by the door?

+1 for a better look at the cylinders. IMHO This is a perfect model team build: Fantastic scale appearance with great functionality. I’m really glad the scale modelling forum and this one have merged as it really opens up info and inspiration to both sides in terms of building techniques.

Realistically it’ll probably have a four speed box with a rubbber band driving the engine and a bit of bendy plastic as a windscreen or maybe an outline in flex hoses. id be glad of some bigger bike wheels and maybe some bigger suspension units though.

Ooh good shout. I’ll try that when I muster up the enthusiasm to delve that deep into the innards again!

I think it’s the angle of the photo. I know what you mean about catching but this one doesn’t seem to do it. I feel like the 24 tooth may be slightly high and that’s what’s stopping it from snagging on the shuttle ends. I’ll post a video when I can work out how to power it and film with my phone at the same time!

That looks great. Very dense! I had to google boolean. As promised, here’s how I’ve used a sliding worm to perform two functions. Input is via the red axle, the worm climbs along the dark grey gear due to friction added to it using the dark grey 8t gear mounted on a friction pin. the worm has a shuttle mechanism attached to it which has around 3 studs of linear movement. When it reaches either end of its limit the worm then turns the grey gear and the output from that is used to disengage the power from the input. The limitation on this is that the shuttle mechanism can only move something that requires less effort than is needed to turn the grey gear.

Wow! That is an incredible project, and a huge build. Do you have any more wip pics? Next time I access the inside of my Moc I’ll take pics of the sliding worm switch.

I don’t like the fact that you can’t see the workings when it’s working. The point of technic is to see the workings and if a kid doesn’t know how a diff works, the new ones are basically witchcraft.

These are great. I’ve used something similar to your worm gear clutch ring mechanism to auto disengage the clutch when the worm reaches the end of its travel. More importantly. What’s your big project???

I’m pretty sure the wing wouldn’t work as a lifting body with a solid wall of bombs under it! Do you have any pics of the mechanisms and functions? I really like the shape of the cockpit and nose area.

This looks like it would work better than the Lego one. I feel having the intermediate part may help prevent the catch from binding under load. A curved transition between the flat engaged slot and the angled slot might help with this even more. Awesome work.

How do I build my digital models? Badly. Is how. I tend to get stuck for hours on aligning gears and axles and it really puts me off. I’m pretty sure there are simple shortcuts to achieve what I want to do but I haven’t found them yet. For me, the things I’d want to build virtually are the things I would find hardest, like connections at strange angles and flex axles. As much as building mechanisms and gear trains seems great I often find that the digital solution doesn’t take backlash and power soak into account.

The headlights look more like a beetle or 356 headlight. Other than that it has really nice lines.