2GodBDGlory

The thing is, the gear still only has four teeth, so the amount of engagement is still the same

Honestly, I think that's usually the primary problem I've had with building RC MOCs with gearboxes! You can brace all the gears perfectly, but in the end, the point of least resistance has always been having the driving ring pop out of the gear, each time their internal teeth would mesh. I wonder how having the eight teeth on the new part would affect it, though! With twice as many teeth, it would have to be popping out twice as often, which might cause enough resistance to keep it in better. Who knows!

Thanks for the information! I'm glad they're at least partially compatible, but I guess I'll probably have to test it myself someday to have a "hands-on" feel for how strong that is.

Huh, that original set wasn't one I expected to find any following for! That just makes it more interesting, though--I didn't know it had that "transformation" function! Nice job, it looks like you had fun!

Huh, it's always nice to have options for half stud offsets!

Well, it's challenging, but it is possible! At a minimum, one of the MOCs at the start of this topic, and a couple of my MOCs linked in a spoiler box early in the thread, managed to do it!

It's definitely not an ideal setup, but if you want a Tatra setup in a very compact axle, it does work, and I don't think there's much you can do about those drawbacks

Well, not exactly. Here's a picture of a real-life one: There's a universal joint shaft going directly into the differential housing, just like on a solid axle, and then drive is taken from that swingarm to the other one using an extra, central, universal joint. Does that make sense?

Yeah, and one of its advantages over Tatra is that its swingarms go almost all the way across the body instead of only halfway, so you don't get as much camber change. It is more complex, though, especially for driven axles

No, it was just standard 3L axles. The axles definitely twisted first, but didn't usually snap before the connectors Here's the carnage from one day of driving: No 2L connectors in the picture, but I did break them other days

Yeah, that's definitely good practice, but even it can be maxed out! I broke many 2L and 3L axle connectors, and 3L and 4L axles in my Lada Niva MOC recently. I probably had more torque on those parts of the drivetrain than I could have, but if you need that level of torque, you'll need something tougher

On that topic, here's a rough draft of what an O-frame housing could look like on a hypothetical 2x2 axle-based system: I'm using splat gears, since they're somewhat heavy-duty looking, and interface nicely with the studs of the bricks. I'd like to use the classic, pre-Technic gears, but they can't directly interface with the bricks without having an intermediate axle, which defeats the purpose I'm now feeling kind of inspired to try building some weird proof-of-concept vehicle with a mildly complex drivetrain, in which no torque whatsoever is transmitted by axles!

Seriously, Lego? I had really thought should work! Definitely limits its uses then Hmm, ok. Well, it is what it is! I'm still looking forward to getting my hands on them!

Hmm, it would be interesting to try to develop a whole ecosystem based on 2x2 round brick axles! The obvious challenges are how it would interface with beams and gears--after all, if you have to go down to a normal axle to get drive into an O-frame, there's not much point! I'm not sure if it would be possible to build up a system that would work with that high strength and fit into MOCs of typical size, but the idea has me thinking!

Yeah, Buwizz does look really convenient! I haven't tried either it or NiZn, mainly because I'm cheap! My 3S battery was essentially free, because I was able to build it out of leftover cells from a dead hoverboard battery pack and a 3D-printed case, so I'm happy with it!

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering too. It seems quite a bit more compact, and if it holds more or equally securely, it would be a good option in many cases I suppose the fork pieces could be used with something like a linear actuator to get potentially a more secure fit, or would that not work very well?

Yep, I think you're running into some of the same problems I've been fighting with lately! I've been trying to make powerful MOCs running off of a custom 3S lithium battery (similar to a Buwizz in voltage), but it's really a fight to figure out how to get maximum power! I tried one MOC with 4 XL motors, and had massive problems with snapping parts due to the high torque. I then tried a different one with two buggy motors, which still seemed to work better overall, but at some point there's the danger of melting parts due to high rpm! Lego's system seems to be restrictive in both max torque and max rpm, which essentially limits the maximum power to the product of those two, unfortunately. I think the only real practical solution to this dilemma is to build entirely parallel drivetrains, in which different motors drive different axles or wheels without any mechanical connection between them. This way, under no situation can you have too much torque on any given part of the drivetrain. The downsides to this approach are that for an off-roader, if you only have certain wheels on the ground, you may have a lot of power that you can't actually use, and perhaps not enough torque. The second disadvantage is the difficulty of building gearboxes. In my latest MOC I've built it with two entirely separate 2-speed transmissions, but like you, I'm finding that any normal driving-ring based transmission will lead to the rings skipping out under high power. Probably a better solution is to build a gearbox based on sliding gears, but this has issues of its own. Frustrating stuff! I will say that putting a 4-speed like you have there in a performance model seems extremely challenging because of the relatively high friction involved, and so perhaps you could have better luck with a simple 2-speed? These new gearbox parts definitely offer potential for simpler 4-speeds, though, so maybe you can pull it off!

That's quite disappointing to hear that they don't handle torque any better than their predecessors! That was one of the main things I was hoping this system would improve

I'm definitely looking forward to trying these parts out, but I think like a lot of people, I'm not willing to buy the whole set, especially since I'd really need two copies to build larger gearboxes, and strangely it seems that only two copies have been parted out on Bricklink (last I checked), and all the gearbox parts were bought up! Until they're available on pick a brick, or more people part out sets, I think a lot of us will just keep waiting

Well, it's that time of year again! I'm starting work on the 2023 edition of my Technic history, and as a part of that, I'll need to know all the new Technic elements released this year. This is the list of what I've thought of so far, but there's been so many new parts this year that it's quite possible I missed some, so I'd appreciate it if you could check my work, or at least point out any parts you can think of that I missed! 73764 Block for 6L worm gear 2393 Steering arm part from the little dump truck 73763 6L worm gear 2387 Mini wedge panel #7 2389 Mini wedge panel #8 2395 Mini triangle #9 2403 Mini triangle #10 2457 Mini angle panel 2459 Mini curved wheel arch 2391 7L Pliftarm 2438 Corner panel L 2442 Corner panel R 2509 GT rear wheel arch 3538 GT front wheel arch 2405 Double-ended CV joint 2477 3x5 Pliftarm 79768 A-frame 2502 Big claw 3249 Chain link with bar 100942 Mars Rover wheel 80295 Big spool 3916 9x3 L Curved beam thing 79767 5x15 Truss 79766 7x15 Truss 4159 Shifter Fork 4158 Rotary Shifter 2473 2L Driving Ring 2471 24T Clutch gear 2474 Stepper wheel 80428 Counterweight 4192 2L Axle HD CV joint 100943 Ungeared Hub 2491 Audi tire Incidentally, this is a DANG LOT of new parts!

No, mine doesn't appear there, but today when I tried it, it connected to my computer fine, and then the program recognized it, and allowed me to start controlling stuff with it! Well, I got the controller paired now, but binding things to its controls doesn't seem to work very well. Whenever I try to set a bind, it pretty much just defaults to either the left or right on my D-pad, and it just immediately binds to that, and doesn't give me the opportunity to bind to any other control, or to any key on my keyboard. Then, even when I got drive bound to the left and right on my D-pad, it was running something like -63% speed with one button and -27% on the other one, and I don't see where I could have accidentally input something to make that happen. The controller I'm using is a EVO VR MIC-VGP02-101. Anyways, thanks for developing this project, even if I can't get it to work quite 100%

Yeah, I think there can be different styles here, with different challenges One option is building with pure Lego, with the challenge of overcoming the limitations of the system Another option, like seen here, is the challenge of designing the chassis and suspension of a high-performance RC car, which is something that really can't be done with such ease in the hobby RC world, and the Lego parts are more of a means to an end than the whole challenge in themselves

Sounds good, so long as you can drill out the metal screw successfully! I've always just used generic superglue when gluing Lego, without issues, but I'm not an expert, and who knows what effect the grease might have

I think it has a hole all the way through, but the issue is that there's a screw inserted into that hole from the other side, so you're going to have a pretty hard time drilling it out, I think. You'd need a pretty small syringe too, but it might be feasible! I'd just make sure to have it extended when you insert the glue, so you don't glue the shaft into place as well Since (as I recall?) you've already broken an actuator on this model, you could always try tearing down the already-broken one first to see if it's possible to do it without destroying stuff too badly

Here's some pictures from the Technicbricks blog I used to frequent before it was shut down (accessed through the Wayback Machine): Based on those, it looks to me like it'd be a pretty simple matter to superglue that orange piece to the white piece, but according to the article, it's quite challenging to actually open the actuator in the first place, because of the glue on the DBG part in the base. If you want to see the articles, I'll link them here: http://web.archive.org/web/20181115020450/http://www.technicbricks.com/2008/07/tbs-techreview-02-technic-pf-line http://web.archive.org/web/20181115020448/http://www.technicbricks.com/2008/08/tbs-techreview-05-technic-pf-linear