Aurorasaurus

We already know this is dark azure, the part inventory is out somewhere.

Yay- my favorite set! Maybe I'll build this one and motorize it... Yeah- dark azure has been in use for a long time and still isn't available on all parts. But on the other hand, regular blue has been around since the beginning of Lego. Dark azure is a good match for that rapid blue, though.

https://www.zenebricks.com/products/high-performance-rc-brushless-esc-accessories-for-motorized-lego It seems like it comes from zene.

https://m.traxxas.com/products/models/electric/x-maxx-ultimate On a more serious note, I'm aware of carbon fibre axles, have you tried those? I doubt that anything thats the roughly 5mm thick thats required for lego compatibility will be able to take the load you're putting on it.

I saw this on rebrickable today, its quite clever! But to me, the back braces from the top of the cab down to the bed feel slightly too long. Other than that I like it a lot.

I'm curious how come you want to use a buggy motor rather than an XL motor, is the form factor whats important? Or the power density?

Thank you, its been a bit of a rollercoaster, getting overwhelmed with it and such. Its just printed in PLA+ Thank you! I'm thinking a land rover... but we'll see.

Finally, after many tries, I have a completely working prototype with bearings! So, lets talk about what changed from my initial plan. Main bearing Initially, I wanted the big bearing to be able to be removed from the hub easily. But it just proved too difficult to design, and not worth the far increased complexity. So, I went with the option to put the bearing inside a part that holds it while 3d printing, so that it becomes trapped inside. This part will be strong enough. It takes drifting on pavement with a brushless model to break a smaller amount of plastic. This will be plenty strong for slow models. How do you do it? Once you put the parts into your slicer and slice it, use the layer preview slider to go to the last layer before you can no longer drop the bearing in. Then add a pause, once you print the printer will stop automatically and you can drop the bearing in place! Then just continue the print and everything will work fine. The main body of the hub looks really scary to print, but at least on my printer it was super easy! I let my slicer auto orient it and it turned out perfectly. The holes for the small bearings are not as deep as the bearings so they stick out to ensure the gears never rub against the walls. The insert part has changed a bit since the original plan too. Now, it has 22 teeth, for a higher gear ratio and an astounding 1mm of extra ground clearance! Wow! The slicer thinks it should print with support, but it doesn't need it at all. And finally, a video of the hub and how it all goes together. STL files: https://bricksafe.com/pages/Aurorasaurus/miscellaneous/ultimate-portal-hubs-/with-bearings/first-successful-version

I agree, I was excited for space sets last year but then they were kinda underwhelming as an AFOL. Maybe part of the problem is us becoming better builders so all of Lego's offerings aren't sufficiently better than what we think we could do. Especially with the higher prices and lower quality of the parts these days... It feels like they're trying to convince unknowing customers that Lego must be so much better than clones by just making the price difference even more. Not advocating for clone brands, but I'm aware of growing awareness of them.

Thank you!! For recording I'm using a Samsung S25. My daily phone, an s23fe, seems to produce a good quality too. Maybe for avoiding the reflections, point the lights lower or higher? For me both work, because I have a shelf above to bounce some light back and diffuse nicely. I noticed your background is very dark, much more black than gray. Black is unforgiving, a lighter one would probably look better. Maybe you can make one from stuff you have laying around to try it out.

For me, using a phone, I like to have it back pretty far and use 3x zoom, which is just as clear on my phone (telephoto or something?) and gives a much less distorted image. Maybe that helps with focus too since its further away? Here's a link to a video with some parts filmed like that, keep in mind youtube compression has no mercy. I really like filming just with a phone, its not as expensive or complicated as a fancy camera, but to my eyes its easily "good enough" Keeping everything nice and bright really makes a huge difference, if you don't have big lights it might be time to get some. I'm enjoying this conversation and I'd love to see what video you get at the end (or right now!)

Heres the one I was thinking of. It seems to have messed up my text box on mobile so sorry if there's misplaced characters or weird formatting. My personal photo setup is just my windowblind draped down the back of some industrial shelves. Then a family member happened to have some big lights (they have a bulb bigger than I've ever seen in a normal store and go inside what feels like a big metal cooking bowl) and a tripod so I borrow those as I need them. Heres my favourite photo with that setup, I just take photos on a pretty new smartphone and they look pretty good to my eyes. Hopefully this helps

The video title is overhauled, did the front wheel hubs change? I've only ever briefly looked at that model but the use of the 3 ball and 1 pinhole wheel hubs struck me as a poor choice; links popping off and low steering precision plague lego models using them. Cada offering a proportional control system seems like a good step if they can do it with a nicely integrated physical remote and a decent servo.

There are a couple on photography, which is valuable but not exactly the same. What sort of video are you trying to make? If you can identify the important things going on in a video you like you can start to copy those things. Just have fun with it.

You can probably wiggle it a little bit, then slip a knife blade under the end of the axle stop and lever it out. You can also (in other similar situationd) use the tip of a knife to go through the grooves in an axle bush or other part and move an axle like that too.

They probably did some market research and the target demographic liked dark azure best. Or maybe its some iconic color for the car?

If you zoom in under the door you can see a blue pin and its quite a different color to the body. I think it will be one of the azure shades. I'm hoping for dark azure personally.

I dont have one, but as long as the line between the two axles is not changing direction somewhere, the diffs should be flipped at one end. If you think about how turning the gears would turn the central shaft you can see why. If you pick the model up and spin both the back wheels, do the front wheels go the other direction? Then you need to change one of the diffs. Otherwise the problem may be elsewhere. Good luck!

As some people mentioned earlier, a version of this hub with bearings would be even better. The original might work with injection moulded parts but 3d printing them at home just wasnt an option for using this concept in an actual model. So I've started designing one with bearings. I'm using a 25x37x7 (25mm id) bearing to go around the "insert" part, so that it isn't hanging in the air or leaning too much on one side of a further back bearing. Then I'm using 5x8x2.5mm bearings for all the axle and gear parts. As Zerobricks suggested earlier, I've combined the insert and the lower gear part, for simplicity and strength. I'm also using a 12:20 ratio instead of 8:24, because as we all know, 8t gears are much too weak. The big bearing will drop into the main housing, then the insert goes in. Then, from another direction, because it would otherwise collide with the main bearing when you try put that in, a separate part with the 5x8x2.5 bearings drops in. Maybe I will have that get fixed in place with a clip or something, not sure yet. Then you put the 12t gear in, then axles, and finally the wheel. Here's a video of the whole process in reverse. (easier to make the animation in reverse) I can upload CAD files but this is very WIP so I haven't as of posting. Roughly sketched in black is roughly how I will do the rest of this thing, simply more parts joining onto that front ring to hold everything else, but at this stage many things can change. I'd love some feedback, am I going in the right direction here? Is anybody else working on this/made it already?

You can use U joints to replace all those 12/20t gears that aren't braced at all. Unless the direction of rotation of those shafts flipping around is mission critical I can't think of any good reason not to use U jounts instead.

Just put videos on youtube and unlist them. It's so much easier.

Hmm, what is it then?

Land rover?

I'm glad to see some of the littler sets getting some attention. But maybe this thread could be a part of the larger thread for mods and improvements of this set?

Whats the diameter of the rope? What model will you use it in?