2GodBDGlory

Arctic Explorer Truck Functions: Drive (PF XL motor, I-3 piston engine, subtractor) Steering (PF M motor, subtractor) Torsion bar suspension Function selection (PF M motor, two-stage setup with directional gearbox, 4-output wave selector gearbox, and 3-output gearbox through the crane's turntable) Function drive (PF L motor) Blade lift Blade rotation Crane arm rotation Crane arm lift Crane segment lift Crane hook rotation Images: Video: Discussion topic:

Here's my final presentation! This model was meant to be as complex and functional as I could make it, within the two requirements of the TC26 regulations, and my limited amount of white parts required for the contest (Well, required if you have even less orange, as in my case). In the end, I managed to pack eight RC motorized functions into a reasonably compact body and the contest's four-motor limitation, through the use of distribution gearboxes. Aesthetics: I was pretty happy with how the model looked, especially given how little white and yellow I have! There's nothing really fancy, just a basic body made using the panels I had available, but I think the simplicity works well, giving it a cute/chubby look, in my opinion. The use of yellow and red also helped a lot, I think, especially with making it fit into the color scheme of Technic's 1986 Arctic subtheme. I also added a lot of accessories, including a Technic figure (with a custom sticker on his torso to match the original Arctic ones), the fuel cans, shovel, fire extinguishers, and first aid kit from my 42069 Extreme Adventure, some spools of rope, a canister made from the obscure yet handy x186 gear reduction block, a snow brush, and a little V2 generator with a chain connecting the engine with the generator part. Functions: Drive/Piston Engine Steering Suspension Gear selection Gearbox functions: Blade lift Blade rotation Crane rotation Crane lift Crane arm segment Crane hook rotation Drive: Drive was done with a PF XL motor through a subtractor mechanism, with planetary hubs driving the front sprockets. There was also an I-3 piston engine behind the cab coupled to the drive motor, for that extra touch. Performance was satisfactory, and it was able to make progress in my snow testing, though eventually enough snow would pile up in front for it to have to reverse and try again. Steering: Steering was done through the subtractor using a PF M motor. Because I wanted a certain gear reduction, I ended up doing a weird subtractor design, with a 16:20:12:24 ratio on one side, and a 16:24 chain setup on the other side (though with a 12T gear stuck between them at a 1/4 stud offset for a little extra reliability). It was a little weak and slow, but still had enough power to work fine, though steering was a little challenging in my snow testing. Suspension: There was a basic torsion-bar suspension on each track, with four bogies able to oscillate. It worked quite nicely, I think, though having both sprockets touching the ground in typical snow groomer orientation did limit how much they could do. Gear Selection: Shifting through all the different options for the distribution gearbox was handled by a PF M-motor. First, it ran through a direction-sensitive gearbox using a worm gear (unfortunately too buried for any decent pictures of it without ripping a lot apart!). Using that, the motor would run a 4-output wave selector gearbox or my unique 3-output gearbox built inside of the crane's turntable. The 4-output controlled blade lift, blade rotation, and the crane arm, and then sent power from the fourth output to the second gearbox. The second gearbox controlled both joints of the crane arm and hook rotation. Gearbox functions: A PF L-motor ran all of the gearboxes, to run all their functions. Blade lift: The blade was lifted using a small linear actuator Blade Rotation: The blade was rotated using a 5L suspension arm moved forward and backward with a lever controlled by a worm gear. This solution was ideal because it wasn't affected much by the position the blade lift was in Crane rotation: The crane rotated rather quickly, but not too fast for control. Thanks to the gearbox inside it, and the lack of wires through it, it could be rotated infinitely! Crane lift: The first joint in the arm was controlled by a large linear actuator (as was the second) Crane arm segment: The second joint in the arm was controlled by a large linear actuator (as was the first) (Also, do we still call these ones large? I guess nowadays they could be called medium, but that would take some getting used to, and I'd rather just call the larger ones XL) Crane Hook Rotation: The hook could be rotated, using one of the most convoluted drivetrains I've built! (Two distribution gearboxes, a turntable, two joints in the arm, and two U-joints at its mounting) There were options for both a standard hook and a magnet one, using an old M-Tron-grade Lego magnet. Both could be used to lift accessories kept on the bed, and the other one could be kept on the bed when not in use. Hook rotation seems rare in Lego, but it was cool to add, and adds a significant degree of control over loads. Anyways, I'm quite happy with how the model turned out! Performance was acceptable, all the functions worked, and I even liked the appearance! The main downside was the complicated control for the gearbox, which required some finesse to operate, but I think it was a worthwhile compromise to include this much functionality! More pictures at: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/tc26-snow-groomer#

I just got my first copies of the Daytona differential, and like others, I wanted to find a way to use the large gear without a differential, as in a trial truck. Anyways, I found a solution that seems to work fairly well, though it does create a degree of friction: It just has the pins going into the gaps between the protrusions on the face, which has proven to be a firm enough connection to easily stall a PF XL motor. It might be worth noting that I am using a clone part, but I'm quite confident that it would work with an original Lego one as well.

True; it might be simpler to do it mechanically, but it does sound more interesting to use extra motors if you're happy to do that!

I'm curious--would it be an option to just have a second U-joint so you can split the angle between two joints? Or you could try just using a bevel gear setup in place of any universal/CV joint in order to get more articulation? (though bracing it could be hard)

Cool stuff!

Thanks for the pictures! It's pretty interesting to see inside those. I'm surprised they even have the plastic bearings!

Impressive how much you can get into a System model like that! Those micromotors are really cool; I might need to buy some

Anybody notice the Aurebesh text in the Venator's trail? It appears to spell out "Resolute," which is fun, but not a hint at future product

Thanks! That's a fair point that the crane looks a bit big for the model--I wanted it to have enough range of motion to reach down to the ground, and also up onto the bed, which was a bit hard because the bed ended up being so high. Perhaps I could have figured something with small linear actuators, but I'm something of an amateur at building cranes anyways, so there's probably some other solutions that could have been pursued. I can't say I mind too much, though! I feel like the whole thing is proportionally a bit odd, with the body being a little high and a little stubby, but I think the effect is more cute/cartoony than ugly, in my opinion.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it! Hmm, you're right that that TC stuff is an interesting branch of Lego history, and something I would probably have never heard of if it weren't for you guys. On that level, it'd be cool and educational to include in the book, but at the same time, it seems a bit outside the scope of the book, given that I haven't even included Mindstorms in there, and that there don't seem to be any models included in the sets (that I see at quick glance). I do also feel completely unqualified to write about these mysterious pieces of circuitry, but of course that's what forums are for!

Very impressive! The body looks great, and the performance is really impressive too! I like seeing the possibilities of that micro-motor. Great idea for the suspension, too! I did something somewhat similar on my recent Geo Tracker MOC, but that could have been another option! Also, is there any trick for getting the spring over the ball? I just gave it a shot and couldn't get it to work, even using tools, but then maybe I have a different spring variant

Hmm, that's true. It wouldn't be as helpful as true page numbers, but would be something. It'd probably be harder to format that way, though, so I'd probably still go with having roman numerals and Arabic numerals for different parts.

We were discussing that the other day in the General Parts Discussion thread: Basically, the consensus was that prices do decrease (with the 20T clutch gear and wave selector from 2018 being used as examples), but we didn't have any clear information on how long it takes for them to go down. I'm in the same boat as you, really wanting those new parts, but not willing to pay those prices! Probably patience will pay off, whether via Bricklink, cheaper sets being released with those parts, or PAB getting cheaper...

Ok, that makes sense!

Is that really significantly more convenient than just using existing suspension arms to build a link? I guess it may not be a fully optimized design yet.

Oh, what I mean about the page numbers is that if I print out a copy of the 2023 edition, and then want to add pages next year for the 2024 edition, the 2024-edition page numbers won't match the 2023-edition ones, so my printed copy won't match up unless I reprint all the automatically updated pages from past years. You're right that it wouldn't be a problem online! Though, I did realize that I could also just number everything introductory on a roman numeral system, and then number all the normal pages with an arabic numeral system, and then just add to the end of both numbering systems, so it's not unreasonable if I can figure out the formatting.

Thanks! A. That's a good point--I probably should make a rear cover design, and also update the front cover to have some post-2018 sets. B. I can add basic page numbers easily enough, though on some pages the images would be covering them. The main reason I haven't done them before is that my printed copy changes every year or two, which involves adding pages early on in the book (in the timeline section), which would throw off all the page numbers following it. I guess my assumption is that page numbers are a bad idea on printed copies for that reason, and that they're unnecessary on digital copies, because most programs list page numbers. Do you think it would be worth doing them in spite of that? [EDIT: Come to think of it, I could always just put, say, six blank pages after the timeline and fill them in over twelve years, which would push any updates to the page numbers/index into the distant future] C. Hmm, an index could be handy, but again the issue is that page numbers change every year when I update it, so the whole index would need to be changed each year, which sounds like an awful lot of work. I typically just use the timeline section in the front as a sort of pictorial index, because I can quickly determine what year a set is from, and then page through to that year's section to find it. Is there any particular reason that books always have pages in multiples of four? This reminds me, another person on here was working on reformatting the whole book a couple years ago, including some of those improvements, but I kind of forgot about all the progress he made. I'm not sure where that project is at now, but if something based on it could come together it'd be nice!

I've got the 2023 update to this book done now! Hopefully Lego doesn't drop any surprise late-November 2023 sets to force me to edit it... Here's the link to the new version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J95q3pTi8s_HVfQZ17GFtDN67wZmT9El/view?usp=sharing

I believe it's just that CADA breaks that part up into two subparts to avoid copyrights, which makes for a more annoying build experience, because you have to combine the two halves all the time.

If you check the file again, I've now added submodels, which allows me to easily share a couple screenshots of the bare chassis!

That's a good point that submodels at least would make the building process easier--I'll have to try that! A wave selector would have been ideal for the transmission, but I had already pretty much committed to having a 7x11 frame there, and so couldn't really fit one anywhere. Although my solution was bulky, it was very strong, and I never had issues with it skipping out of gear. And yeah, that extra wheel must be an accident! Thanks!

Well, after an impulsive afternoon Studio session and a skipped supper, I now have a Studio file for this model. It's almost 100% made for my own reference, and as such I ignored all the good advice people gave me about my mini Arocs file and the importance of making steps in the file, so everything is in one enormous step of 1201 pieces. If you'd like to protest Lego instructions with only one piece per step, this would be a good way of doing that! I didn't think putting in the time to make steps would pay off for my personally rebuilding it someday, since I don't mind digging through a full model and rebuilding without steps, and I really don't expect any significant number of other people wanting to build it. After all, it requires uncommon things like a MouldKing 6.0 battery, metal universal joints, and Ford GT wheel covers in custom 3D-printed black, and cable management would be nasty! Anyways, that's why I didn't think it was worth making steps for the benefit of that tiny/nonexistent group that might want to build it. Nonetheless, because I have the file, I might as well share it, but it's very much NOT instructions, and dedication would be needed to rebuild it! The file can be found in this folder: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/1995-geo-tracker

Well, I think the model is done now! I'd like to take my final pictures in the snow, and while we've had some heavy snows already, it's all melted at the moment, so I'll have to wait a bit longer before a final presentation. Anyways, until then, here's the finished product: The first thing I added was the front blade, built out of my very small stash of yellow parts. The 5x11 panels I got from the stand for the BMW M1000 RR were extremely handy! Lift and rotation are handled by two of the outputs of my primary distribution gearbox. Lift is accomplished with a small linear actuator, while tilt is done using a worm gear mechanism to push and pull a 5L steering arm to perform the rotation. The crane arm is relatively typical, with two large linear actuators (controlled from my turntable distribution gearbox) being used to articulate two sections of the boom, and the fourth output of my primary distribution gearbox being used to rotate it. The third function in the boom, off my final turntable-gearbox output, is a rotating hook/magnet. I've observed rotating hooks on crane trucks in real life, and always thought it'd be cool to see in Lego, though it seems to be done rather rarely. It's not a complex function, though routing drive through so many joints to get it working was somewhat hard! I also provided a choice between a large hook for lifting loads, and a magnetic attachment, using old Lego magnet elements, to allow it to lift some different objects. (The "hook" not in use can be carried around on the bed.) The crane is working just fine, though shifting the turntable-mounted gearbox proved to be more finicky than I'd hoped. (Because of slack, the assembly doesn't move up or down quite a full stud. Perhaps I should have compensated for this by using a 1.5L stroke on my eccentric rather than just a 1L one, but it seems that doing so would require weakening the structure and adding more slack). After completing the mechanical side, I decided to throw together some accessories to load up the model with, in order to give it a "loaded-for-exploration" sort of look, and to give the crane some things to lift. I started with the fuel cans, fire extinguishers, shovel, and first aid box from the 42069 Extreme Adventure set, then added another crate, a couple spools of rope, a Technic figure (he may get a custom Arctic sticker for his torso), a spare Technic figure helmet, a canister made using the obscure x186 20X gear reduction block for a unique look, a snow brush/scraper clipped to the side, and most notably a model generator, with a V-Twin engine driving a 2x2 round brick via a chain. Anyways, I'm quite pleased with the way the model turned out--the white, yellow, red, and grey color scheme works well for me, and helps my model look like the stuff from the 1986 Technic Arctic subtheme. The functionality was definitely different from what I typically do, and an interesting challenge that way. Mainly, though, I'm happy with the large number of RC motorized functions I was able to achieve under the four-motor limitation!

Quick question, @Jim: Am I allowed to use some prebuilt accessories from my 42069 on my entry, like the gas cans? https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=42069-1&name=Extreme Adventure&category=[Technic][Model][Off-Road]#T=S&O={"iconly":0} I think they'd add some nice character to the model, but I don't think I have the required System parts to build original ones, so if I can just use the ones from that set that'd be great!