2GodBDGlory

I've got a general GeekServo question to ask, and because there doesn't seem to be a dedicated topic for those, I guess I'll ask it here. For a long time, I've been wanting to get myself a high-powered (11+V) electrical setup with proportional controls for Lego motors, but I don't want to spend lots of money on a Buwizz. What I do have, though, is a 3D-printed 3S Lithium battery box (3x 18650 cells) and a setup of parts originally from a mid-range RC car. My goal is to run Lego motors from the control circuit board of this car, powered by my 3S battery, which should be easy enough, but the servo has been my issue. I've got the servo that originally came with the RC car setup, but it's not really a convenient shape to use with Lego, so I've been wanting to figure out a better solution. GeekServo came to mind a while ago as an ideal solution, but the issue is that my circuit board has a five-wire connection to its servo, while GeekServos only run on three. I'm not very knowledgeable about how servos generally work with their wire setup, but I'm wondering if two of the five wires on my board can be ignored to run a GeekServo off of it. Is this a question any of you are able to answer? It'd be quite a nice solution for me if I could get it to work.

Thanks! It's be nice to know for sure about sensor compatibility with that specific hub, but I guess there's not a lot of people trying to use sensors with that hub.

I'm considering buying some more hardware to use with PyBricks in making more Mindstorms-esque stuff than I have to date, but I'd appreciate some clarification of its capabilities before I spend any money. 1. What options and limitations are there when using multiple hubs with PyBricks? I'd plan on using two Technic hubs, but I seem to recall hearing that PyBricks doesn't allow hub-to-hub communication. Is this true? What would the implications be for a model using two hubs? 2. Does PyBricks support all of the sensors available with the new style plug, whether Boost, Spike Prime, WeDo, or Mindstorms? I'd appreciate whatever clarification I can get!

Yeah, as does 8T to 16T, but both of them have pretty high friction, higher than I think Lego would accept in a set. They're still useful, though!

Yeah, gears with teeth counts of 4n+2 would be very useful as well, but we haven't really had them in the standard system yet, so I don't really expect them (There's those 14T and 22T ones in the Ferrari, but they're not compatible). Really the only exception is the old 14T gear, which can be a surprisingly handy part! Also, I think a 10T gear would mesh with a 12T gear rather than an 8T one in that setup you had. I think the right gear to mesh with that 8T would actually be a 14T, and it actually works pretty smoothly with old ones! Also tested in real life.

Completely agreed. That's like the fifth new gear this year, which I won't complain about, but why did they have to address all these only marginally useful gears before the completely new 32T? After they released the 28T finally in 2019, I felt hopeful that they would complete the set soon, but I guess we're still waiting. Someday they've got to do it!

After I melted one of my Lego planetary hubs, I cheaped out and bought a set of four Chinese ones. They seem to hold tighter, and their pins are actually different from the Lego ones, allowing bars to be inserted. Strangely, though, they didn't come lubricated or even glued together, so I had to do that myself to make them at all useful. Without being glued together, the wheel would fall off even easier, spewing planet gears everywhere! Now these words get my attention! Still not a new size, though. Sigh. At first glance, they don't seem much more useful than the double-bevel ones, but on second thought, this looks like the first chain-compatible clutch gear! Time will tell if that's actually helpful or not.

Very cool project! It's fun seeing all those rare electronics from different systems working together! Is there any particular reason that you used the Dacta controller to control the Mindstorms, rather than just controlling the Mindstorms directly? It seems a little bit superfluous to me, though I get that it would be fun to implement just for its own sake!

Do you think we'll be doing another contest this summer?

I built a copy too a couple nights ago, and got it to work on one of my few tests without any tweaking. Hopefully I can make it more reliable yet!

I was reading about this set on Technicopedia yesterday, and decided I wanted to try building it too! The rubber bands do sound frustrating, though.

My suggestion would be to try using some #3/4/5 Technic angle connectors to lock it in place. It would be bulkier than what you have now, and wouldn't be posable, but I think it would be strong and about as compact as Technic is gonna get. You could also take a look at the old toothed connectors and half-bushes.

Thanks! My personal preference would just be for Fusion360 files in the original format, so I could manually edit whatever I need to, but for a lot of people a standard .stl file might be handier. I don't want to derail this topic, but I don't think this is worth its own topic either, so I'll take my chances and share my version of a 3D-printed gearbox here, I think. My design is a fair bit more like the original Lego one, but with more flexibility and compactness than the original one. The gears are only half a stud thick, and mesh in the standard three stud spacing. The driving gears range from 7 to 17 teeth, with gears at every integer between them, and the clutch gears range from 15 to 25 teeth. The driving rings are essentially the classic 2L driving rings, but with the little cut-outs in the end like the new ones, to allow them to mesh with the newer style of gears. There are a lot of variants of wave selector at different angles for different gear counts, as well as a larger one to allow for more gears to be used. The larger, four-stud diameter of these selectors allows for a lot of gears, and I set it up to allow for up to twelve gears, allowing me to make a 10+R+P gearbox, like the largest gearboxes in cars today. (Neutral kind of got lost, but with some redesigning it could be added.) The park was a custom part that was designed to allow the driving ring to engage with it, but then lock it against the other axle. I think the whole setup ought to work in theory, but when I printed it, there was way too much friction for smooth operation. It was also a total nightmare to try to get all the gears in the right order for my monster 10+R+P demo gearbox! Some more refinement is likely necessary to make this usable, but at any rate it should be an interesting counterpart to allanp's very cool design! https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/3d-printed-gearbox

It's pretty cool seeing that! Would you be able to share STL files, or better yet, F3D files?

The set does look a bit bland, but it's got "real Technic"functionality. It seems that people like to complain about modern sets having too much focus on aesthetics and poor functionality, and that older sets were better. I think this set is a good example of that line of thinking, and I so I don't think we should complain too much about the looks. The price does sound high for what you get, but I guess it is what it is...

Cool gearbox! I've also 3D-modeled some custom gearbox parts, but yours is a much more radical redesign than mine! I do wonder, though, about how much friction there might be between the "wave selector" equivalent parts and those other sliding parts.

19: 10 24: 6 16: 4 26: 3 11: 2 9: 1

Those honestly might not cost much more than the crazy expensive original rims these days!

I actually did get it to work in one of my older MOCs, but it was an awful lot of trouble, so I never returned to the design, preferring to use wedge belt wheels as brake discs, and foregoing hubs. (See around the 5:06 mark in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eql3xzet69U&t=43s) I agree that the new rims should make this much more practical!

I'm trying to wrap my head around how the rotor head is working. It looks like that five-sided part is mounted on a vertical, rotating beam, and there seems to be a bush mounted on that beam to keep the five-sided part from sagging down. It could be that the five-sided part can slide up and down on the beam while being driven, but I can't figure out how it would be controlled, so I'm guessing there must be another bush or something above the five-sider to keep it locked to the beam's height. The beam then would likely be driven from below, but be free to move up and down from there. Perhaps it goes through the center of a turntable, being driven by some square build on the top half of the turntable, and raised and lowered from below, through the center of the turntable. If this whole assembly is lifted, and all those links coming from the rotor blades are attached to something of fixed height at the bottom, we would have a collective pitch control. Of course, leaks did mention having cyclical control as well, and there's no reason it couldn't have it--if those links were attached to some kind of tilting swashplate in the helicopter body, we would end up with both cyclical and collective. I can't say I expect this, though... It'll be interesting to see how close this guessed mechanism is to reality!

Here's another drivetrain model for my series, this time a relatively simple one. It's a model of the drivetrain of the seventh-generation Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, and has a few different features. It's got a manually operated friction clutch, a realistic joystick-operated 7+R manual transmission, a friction-based adjustable rear differential lock, and a simple adaptation of the Corvette transverse leaf spring suspension. Features: V8 piston engine, driven by a PF L-motor Worm gear operated friction clutch Joystick operated 7+R manual transmission Friction-based adjustable rear differential lock controlled by worm gear Transverse "leaf spring" double wishbone independent suspension. You may notice that this gearbox is really long, but that's really just a limitation of the Lego parts. For comparison, I think this might be a good opportunity to show off some of my 3D-printed gearbox parts. Using them, I could have made the gearbox only this long! Overall, I was fairly happy with the model, but there wasn't anything super interesting about it, in my opinion. https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/corvette-zr1-drivetrain-model

I don't think the hose itself is an issue, because it can theoretically be fit into the box; but I think if the plastic nozzle on the top of that cylinder is protruding, it is probably not ok, because it cannot be manipulated to fit.

I watched this earlier today! It's an amazing piece of work, beautifully overcomplicated and precise, with a great steampunk feel to it. I want one on my wall now!

Ah, but you forget to count the left and right variants of the triangle panel separately, so it would be a total of nine, beating out the BMW!

Does anyone know if/how the new 14T gears can be meshed with each other? It looks like they should be able to, but likely at an unusual spacing, probably a half stud off in two axes.