2GodBDGlory

Looks good! I do really like the chassis and suspension arms--I'd say it was worth the effort!

Thanks! Using flash could be a pretty easy thing to try next time Thank you! I was pretty happy to get the gearbox in there myself. Yeah, a standalone drivetrain setup would be a cool display model! I've done similar stuff in the past in my Drivetrain Model series, but that's typically been models of much more complicated drivetrains, so that wouldn't be as good for education Looks like a nice setup! Being a student at the moment and moving apartments regularly has made it challenging to build out a proper setup for photos, but I surely could do something more with different lights

Sorry, I guess that was unclear! I meant that no, they won't hit anything. So yes, it should solve the problem

I don't think so, no

I just built a quick mockup of that module, and I don't think the wheel will be hitting the cylinder, but I found that the steering hub did hit it and limit the range of motion, so it might be better to flip that hub the other way around, if possible

Thanks! Thank you! You're right that the all-black look isn't the best for photos; I hadn't really thought about that in the build process. That's true that it might be good to think a bit more about lighting too; I guess I usually put a pretty low effort into my photos, and it could be better

After seeing @JoKo's 1:5 Motorcycle engine and frame motorized topic, I realized that I've had my BMW M1000 RR parts sitting around for way too long, without ever really making any large-scale motorcycles with them, so I started thinking about what I could build! I didn't really want to do a sport bike, because they looked all nasty and angly, such that they'd be challenging to model, so I looked for more of a classic American style. Looking for something that epitomizes that idea led me to the Harley-Davidson Fat Boy, which turned out to be a fortuitous choice, since my model was quite wide at 16 studs, and this motorcycle is known for its width! Anyways, I decided that I'd rather focus on a cool look and a simple build process rather than modeling the original motorcycle super closely, so the end result is probably more of a custom bike, but I'm happy with the way it looks! Functions: Full suspension Steering Independent front and rear pneumatic disc brakes Pneumatic clutch Realistic 6-speed sequential transmission Large-scale V-twin engine with moving valves, driven by a PF L-motor (Also a small pneumatic compressor attached to that motor) Handlebar throttle control for that PF L-motor with a PF rechargeable battery box Suspension: Suspension was super simple in the front, just using the standard fork parts. The rear was also pretty simple, and just used two small, soft shocks under the rear seat. I felt that it all worked nicely! Steering: This is dead-simple on a motorcycle! Nothing really to note here, except that all the pneumatic tubes running up to it made it spring back to the center Brakes: I used one small pneumatic cylinder per wheel, which would rotate a 2x3 panel extender to pinch the disc between two rubber axle joiners. They weren't all that strong, but it was nice to build a brake system that actually pinched the rotor on both sides for once! The front brake was controlled by a pneumatic valve on the handlebars, while the rear was controlled by a foot pedal, just like a real motorcycle Clutch: The clutch was controlled by another pneumatic valve on the handlebars, and worked using a small pneumatic cylinder, assisted by rubber bands, to press a 28T gear on a pivoting beam against an old 30mm tire. The 28T gear then meshed with a 20T gear to send drive to the gearbox. Unfortunately, this system wasn't designed well enough to actually send drive to the rear wheel under most circumstances, as shown in the video. Friction-based Lego clutches are seriously hard to make! 6-Speed Transmission: For this model, I really wanted to take advantage of new gearbox parts to make a realistic 6-speed transmission based on just two shafts, and I managed to succeed by putting two driving rings on one shaft, and the third one on the second shaft. The gear choices used were 8:24, 12:20, 14:20, 16:16, 20:12, and 24:8. You'll notice I'm using the "forbidden" 14T gear in here to sneak in a sixth speed that you couldn't get with only modern parts, and also that there's a very large 9X difference in speed between first and sixth! Still, I was happy to get a realistic gearbox construction with the right number of gears, and the new 2L driving rings allowed me to get the gearbox just skinny enough to work. The more challenging part was shifting! The logic of the Yamaha shifters I was using is super complicated to figure out, but after a bunch of thinking I decided it was impossible to have it shift in order with the driving rings spread over shafts like I had. I then realized, though, that I could gear up the shifting mechanism to cause the shift rings to rotate three positions (135 degrees) for each press of the stepper, allowing me to shift from one side of a driving ring right to the other side of that ring, just like I needed. Because I was gearing up, though, it would shift through two other positions first, so it worked much better with at least a little rotation going on during shifts; and the shift positions were a little imprecise. I used essentially the same stepper mechanism used in the Yamaha set, and it worked quite satisfactorily! It was set up in a relatively reasonable spot for foot operation, like a real bike. Engine: At 1:5 scale, I figured it would make sense to follow the example of @JoKo's bike and make a larger scale engine, with a diameter of three studs. I made it a V-twin design, as is typical for Harleys, and then started thinking about how to run some kind of valvetrain. At first I tried to make a pushrod valve setup like the original motorcycle, but I didn't think I could make it fit, or make it strong, so I ended up going to a much more basic SOHC chain-driven design. I used the new LBG 3L pins with springs over them as valves, which worked fairly nicely. It was fun to finally build something with a larger, more detailed engine! There was also a small pneumatic compressor geared to the engine, that would in principle allow for autonomous operation of the pneumatic functions. I'm too lazy to wait for something like that to pressurize, though, so I also included an old pneumatic distribution block part, which I used for its one-way valve, which allowed me to have a quick-disconnect port for an external manual pump. There was also a pneumatic air tank tucked in the front of the frame to allow for better operation of the functions, but because the white color would have stuck out horribly in the open frame, I threw some black electrical tape over it to make it blend in better. Throttle: I was quite happy to be able to include a realistic twist throttle on the handlebars! This pulled a long flex cable (made of 1.75mm 3D printer filament and cut to roughly the length of the longest such cable Lego ever manufactured), which pulled a linkage on my PF rechargeable battery box to change the speed of the PF L motor that was running the engine. It was quite a satisfying feature to include! Overall, I thought this was quite an interesting model to build, and quite different from most of my previous models! It's always interesting to take on a new type of model, especially when it provides opportunity to include some interesting new features! You can see more images at: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/harley-davidson-fat-boy

I can't speak from experience, but CADA sets, including ones with linear actuators, seem to be well regarded, so I'd assume they work alright! It does look like the official store, so it should be legit. I'm now eyeing up their XL linear actuators, since I've never been able to justify buying the Lego ones... Maybe someone else can give you some more specific advice

I'm excited for next weekend to start this challenge! I'm just realizing that I hadn't thought about how daylight savings time in certain countries might affect the times, so it's possible that the times I put in the list a few posts up could be off by an hour. GMT will be the standard! One other thing I just realized is that daylight savings time here actually ends next weekend, so we'll be losing an hour Saturday night. Because of that, people in locales coming on to daylight savings time might have some confusion about specific hours, but just refer to whatever the GMT standard is for clarification

Interesting design, especially with the rubber pieces to step the "steps"! I worry a little bit about that 5L axle through the rubber parts rotating inside them if too much force is put on the rubber band, but it's hard to say. Also, the 3L pin with towball you have won't work in real life, because the towball can't fit through a pinhole. However, that could be easily replaced with a 2L pin plus a towball with bar, or just a 3L pin with axlehole. I'd give it a test build, but I don't have any of the offset knob wheels yet...

Hmm, maybe, but it seems like the tooth profile would be different enough that some other things would need to change. For one, I think the part that springs to lock things into position wouldn't work with the split part, since it would only be engaging with one knob wheel. Also, you might need to adjust the lengths of the arms (where those #3 connectors are) to engage with different size teeth. It could be worth looking into, though!

I'm sure that a stepper could be made that way, but I guess it would require some pretty significant changes from this design

Built it now, and it is quite satisfying to use! It doesn't fit in my WIP model, though, unfortunately. Thanks for sharing!

Looks very nice! I'm working on a model with a 45 degree stepper right now, so I guess I'll have to see if it's too late to incorporate this design or not! Either way, I look forward to trying out this design!

Yeah, like you point out, it managed to have both supercar-style functions like suspension, four driven wheels, and a full-size piston engine, but also heavy-equipment-style functions like the pneumatics, outriggers, and bed! It's a great mix

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Yeah definitely! It could be an easy mod for any Eurobricks users who care about that sort of thing, though

So, I was just watching this RacingBrick video on this car: In it, he's talking about the way in which the steering wheel is misaligned, and uses this example to show that it can't be fixed naturally: I guess what I want to point out is that it is correct that the wheel can't ever be properly aligned, but at the same time, there is a way to build it that allows it to be significantly closer to center. Built like in that picture, the result is an offset of 22.5 degrees, but by misaligning the 12T gear by one tooth, we can make the axle offset by 30 degrees, and then counter-offset it with the 8T gears' -22.5 degrees, for a net offset of 7.5 degrees, like this: Does this check out? (Also, note that if the model was using a 16T pinion gear, it would be possible to offset it exactly 22.5 degrees to perfectly counteract the 8Ts 22.5 degrees. That's not possible here, though)

My favorite would probably have to be the 42043 Mercedes-Benz Arocs. For one thing, it was my first real Technic set, so there's lots of nostalgia there, but it's also just such a functional model, with fancy steering, a solid piston-engine drivetrain, full suspension, a function selecting gearbox, and four pneumatic functions! It's also just got so many specialized pieces that it's got a lot of potential for rebuilding

Thanks for the updates! I look forward to seeing the result

So true! I've done that too many times...

Great! Ooh, that's an interesting idea! You'd have to be careful to make sure that the randomly selected parameters made decent sense, but it could work nicely! It would kind of require restarting the list, though, so I'm thinking I might not incorporate it this time, at least. Thanks! I've added the polybag option to the list, but the other two both sound like they could end up excluding builders who don't have enough parts in one color, or just don't have track parts. That wouldn't really be a problem for a traditional contest, since people just wouldn't participate, but it would suck for someone to set aside time to do this, and then draw a topic that they simply can't complete. Thanks! I've added both motorcycles and the TC18 car to the list of ideas, though I think it's fine to allow them to be full-size, since larger models don't necessarily take longer than smaller ones. The pullback theme is good too, but I decided to exclude it for the same reason I mentioned above: not everybody has pullback motors, so it could limit the pool a bit. Glad to hear it! TC18 has been added--I'd actually be quite happy if it got drawn, since I joined the forum just too late to participate in that contest! One idea of my own that I added to the list is a three-wheeled vehicle, which sounds like it could bring up some interesting options!

Nice to see that they're making those again! That'll be nicer than the tan ones we've had lately Eh, I wouldn't say it's all that great, since it's not a super commonly used part, and tan wasn't even the most egregious color, but it's still nice to see!

Cool idea! That would be fun

Yeah, something like the joiner parts here would be quite nice to achieve more realistic firing orders! Image from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3517791 I should probably print some of those next time I build an engine that would require such a crank pattern...