2GodBDGlory

Done: I now think you may be right! I see I have an antenna in there, which I don't recall seeing on Lego IR ones, and the remote seems to have to pair with a receiver before using it, unlike Lego ones. Would 2.4 GHz be seen as an advantage across the board, or are there disadvantages as well?

I should probably mention that this design, while strong, may have some friction in operation; spinning it by hand seems to lack smoothness, and my high-powered MOC would likely shrug off an additional load without my noticing it. Thanks! I wasn't aware of that idea, but it certainly is a similar alternative. I agree that the four prong design should theoretically be stronger, but that isn't necessarily how it would play out in practice. Yep! I'm not sure those would help here though, because I need two-stud protrusions to achieve a great enough angle, while ball joints would only provide one. The Bohrok eyes also seem like they would need a larger bracing to work properly. Perhaps you've got a better imagination than I, though, and can see uses for them in this application! Thanks for the input!

Does anyone have good images of the new track link and linear actuator yet? I'm working on the 2021 update to my book, and I'd like to include those. @Jim, do you think your review will have such images? Thanks

Thanks guys! What do you mean by that? Just to put more behind the first one so the axles can penetrate further?

I recently built the MKII from the online instructions using generic parts from my collection. It was a fun set to build, but it was even more fun once I was done modding it! I added my quasi-hobby motor setup to drive the middle axle and steer the other four axles, making it a very fast RC mod, clocking in at roughly 10 km/h! It was definitely interesting to control with the steering, and would roll over in corners if taken too quickly. Here's a video of this quick, goofy, little Mod:

I really don't know. It does seem to need line-of-sight, though, which I don't think would affect radio.

Here's variant #3! This time I tried to make a crawler F-250, using the quasi-hobby stuff again. There was more gearing down than the previous truck, but it ended up being way faster than I anticipated, and probably needed a bit more torque to really crawl. The suspension was also a bit too uncontrolled for crawling, and the center of gravity was too high. Almost any downgrade made it do a somersault! Despite its failure at its intended purpose, it did end up having a very fun personality! The body roll was probably even more dramatic than version #2, it could do mild off-roading effortlessly, and it was enjoyably fast! The center of gravity even allowed it to do "stoppies" when I braked at high speed! The model was based off of a single cab shortbed truck, but the bed was replaced with some sort of tube assembly for some diversity in the aesthetic of the trucks in this series. Here are the functions: Drive: Drive was by my quasi-hobby motor, geared down through two sequential planetary hubs, moved downwards using doubled 24T gears driving doubled 24T gears. The front axle then used a HD U-joint to old, heavy-duty red 9T gears in the axle, followed by Lego's new CV joints, and then 24:40 portal gearing, which made for huge ground clearance. The rear axle was driven by a new multi-piece heavy duty CV joint I designed, followed by the 9T gears and portal gearing. I should also mention that I was using MouldKing carbon fiber axles in several places, and the fact that I managed to snap one right as I finished filming is a testament to the fact that Lego ones wouldn't have lasted a minute! Steering: Steering was using a PF L-motor running a large linear actuator. It ended up being a little slow for the model, since I was expecting a crawler, rather than a frisky little puppy of a truck! It was controlled off of a separate battery and receiver Suspension: Suspension was fairly basic live axles front and rear, with the front using two long hard shocks and two long soft shocks, and the rear using two long hard shocks. Earlier, I tested it was two hard ones in the front and two soft ones in the back, but the torque effect was far too pronounced! It was a fun little mess though . This model was lots of fun! https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/ford-f-series-7th-gen

I was building a MOC the other day that desperately needed a heavy-duty U/CV joint, but the space available simply wasn't enough to fit any existing HD U-joint design I'd ever seen. I messed around for a while, and came up with a heavy-duty CV joint that fit perfectly, and that I have never seen before. Additionally, it worked flawlessly in testing in a very high-powered vehicle, with zero failures. Perhaps more interesting is that the front axle of the truck used a more conventional HD U-joint, since I had more space, but that one failed several times! Anyways, here's the image: As you can see, it is not one piece, so it has to be prevented from sliding out by a frame. This can be an advantage, though, since it allows for a degree of extension. Perhaps some of you can use this unusual design!

As this seems to have become the go-to topic for all Chinese electronics, I'll use it to share some findings of mine. I've bought myself four generic IR receivers off of AliExpress to supplement my four Lego PF ones, mainly because I like the idea of running 16 different motors at once (The Chinese ones use different frequencies!). For no good reason I ended up using one of these Chinese receivers on a truck of mine outdoors today in the sunlight, and I noticed that I was getting really good reception--no cutting out at all! I then gave it a rough distance test, and was shocked by how much range I was getting. Tonight I decided to do some basic testing, and set up LEDs connected to two receivers, one Lego, the other Chinese, and then proceeded to pace backwards to see how much range each would give me. I did two trials, and switched batteries in between in case that made a difference. Here are my findings: Trial Lego China 1. 13* 23* 2. 12* 26* *All units in paces As you can see, the $4 Chinese one performs dramatically better, with almost twice as much range! Perhaps some of you will find these handy, but then again, maybe not. Maybe in some cases it will get the IR range to an acceptable level, avoiding having to use Bluetooth?

Your bikes are one of the things that make me want a Buwizz the most... Great job!

I for one would love to see motorization! As for PU vs. PF, it probably depends on whether you go full RC or not. If you are having four or five RC functions, I would recommend PF because you would only need one small battery (and 2-3 receivers) rather than at least one large Technic hub, or more if you have five functions. Two other pieces of advice: First, I have my doubts about whether the chain you have will work well under load. I find that they tend to fall apart when stressed, and it would likely be in a very annoying spot for fixing it all the time! I would probably use axles between each set of actuators using sets of three bevel gears at each corner. Second, I would suggest adding some sort of friction clutch to the mechanism for sliding the car out, unless you are willing to rely on quick reflexes to keep it from breaking stuff. Good luck!

Do you think it does have preset coding to know the position of the motors? In past PU sets I thought it determined it when the set was turned on by running until it found both limits to its motion.

I like it! I think this is the first model I've seen to use quite so many hubs! Fortunately you seem to have space for them all... Powered Up isn't supported on my phone anymore either.

I just meant that your MOC is the only one I've seen with remotely controlled pop-up headlights, not that the original Toyota did. This is correct, right?

Nice work! The "drifting" mechanism is interesting, it has the only RC pop-up headlights I recall seeing, and it models a classic Toyota. What's not to like?

Good work! These mods would probably add a lot of play value to the original set!

I'm back with my first variant based of off this bodywork. This time it's a Ford F-150 with long-travel independent suspension all around and high-powered rear-wheel-drive, using my quasi-hobby motor setup! This makes it reasonably fast (I clocked 10 km/h in an informal test), though not amazing (My burnout/donut dreams were crushed ) The most interesting performance characteristic for me was the suspension. There was dramatic body roll in corners, and you could definitely see the suspension working over speed bumps and such. It was a lot of fun to drive, and helped confirm the hypothesis that a fast, good-looking (relatively..) MOC is the one best suited for use as a toy. Here are some mechanical pictures: There are some more images at: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/ford-f-series-7th-gen

I once painted a whole pile of panels to LBG by hand using acrylic paints. The finish isn't great, but it's close enough for me, at least. Now I'd probably just buy LBG stuff from China, though.

Thanks! I am noticing a lot of embarrassing mistakes in the book, but I plan to fix them when I add the 2021 sets in a month or two. I agree, it would have to be bigger to improve structural integrity, but then weight would be an even bigger problem. I always find that I need all available space for the functions I have planned, and then have no room to reinforce stuff properly. I can't tell you how much it weighs though, because I already took the chassis apart... Thanks for appreciating my focuses (foci?). I think the wider rear end was a direct result of Lego's tires being too wide. Originally I built it with the 81.6 tires from the front all around and built the rear axle so that a single-rear-tire version would be flush to the side of the standard bed, and then just added the width of a second tire to the bulges. I guess my reasoning involved the fact that I'll be building other variants with single rear tires and I wanted it to fit that (rather than having a recessed inner tire). If this were my reasoning, though, it would be flawed, since my other variants will have different axles anyways. Oh well...

[EDIT] I build five significantly different variants of this truck, so feel free to take a look under the main one! Well, I'm back with another MOC, in a similar vein as many of my older ones: Large scale, LBG, flimsy and unreliable, but with some interesting never-before-done functions. In writing you're supposed to have a "hook" to draw readers in early on, so I'll quick hint at the highlight features (in bold), and then start explaining my intentions for this model. Features: Opening stuff Rear-wheel-drive with I-6 piston engine Twin I-Beam front suspension Leaf-sprung rear live axle Three-speed automatic gearbox (Only two worked) Steering with working wheel Pneumatic rear differential lock Pneumatic bed dumping Realistic disc/drum brake setup, using a master cylinder setup rather than a valve. So, this model was built for a few reasons. I wanted to try making a three-speed automatic gearbox using a Servo motor and switch, I wanted to try building Ford's unique Twin I-Beam suspension used on rear-drive trucks, and I wanted to build something with easy bodywork to build. As many of you know, I am not a fan of building bodyworks, so on this model I devised a little scheme to get the most out of a single bodywork. Namely, I will be building five different trucks with the same basic bodywork, so as to minimize the amount of bodywork I have to build. The five models planned are as follows, with the '83 F-150 being the next one planned. 1982 F-100 (4x4 truck with lots of complex functions) 1984 F-350 (4x2 truck with lots of complex functions, as seen here) 1987 F-250 (High-performance off-road crawler) 1983 F-150 (High-performance, high-speed off-roader) 1980 F-100 (High-performance street truck) Aesthetics: I like the way the truck looks, with the blocky front, pronounced "dually" bulges, and especially the black stripe, but I know it's far from world-class. One detail I like is the use of a sideways 20T clutch gear as the Ford emblem on the front. The rear tires are different than the front ones mainly because I only have four of the tires used on the front, but also because a lot of the junky old rear-drive, dually trucks I see (usually rotting away, unused) have all-terrain tires on the rear, but street tires on the front, and this allowed me to replicate that. The rim size difference is unfortunate, though. Opening Stuff: The hood, doors, glove box, and tailgate open. Interior: The interior had quite a bit of attention to detail, with an opening glove box and working steering wheel. Suspension: I put quite a bit of effort into my attempt to provide realistic suspension on this truck. The front end has Ford's unique Twin I-Beam suspension design, used on many of their rear-drive trucks over the years, and even on their new rear-drive F-250/F-350s. (Although these are popular trucks in Canada, next to no-one buys rear-drive here, and the ground clearance is low, impeding my view, so I've never actually observed it on a new truck). This suspension is something like a swing-arm or Tatra design in that there is only a pivot at one end, so the wheel camber changes through the suspension travel, but unlike a Tatra design, the pivot is not placed adjacent to a central differential, but is placed on the far side of the truck, creating a very long swingarm that minimizes the undesirable camber change. My setup has not only the basic I-beam, but also longitudinal radius arms and an anti-roll bar, and is coil-sprung by a long hard shock. According to my Wikipedia perusing, this year of F-350 actually had a simpler leaf-sprung I-beam setup without radius arms, but I wanted to build the complex one used on lighter-duty trucks anyway (later in the generation, Ford switched to a solid front axle on rear-drive F-350s). The suspension ended up being quite close to bottoming out on the final truck, but still retained a little travel. The rear had a simpler design of a leaf-sprung live axle, but maintained the added complexity of an anti-roll bar. This also ended up being very close to bottoming out. Drive: Drive was done by two PF L-motors through the three-speed transmission, to the rear axle, where a planetary hub reduced speed prior to the new HD differential. An I-6 piston engine, replicating Ford's durable 4.9L design, was included to add some variety over the V-8s more common in trucks. Speed was low, but it drove on flat surfaces without complaint (Obstacles caused skipping between the 12T double-bevel gear and the new differential in the rear H-frame. Steering: Steering was rather complicated, using a PF L-motor under the hood, which drove the steering wheel, but also sent a shaft straight down into a small linear actuator, which moved a couple linkages to steer the wheels while allowing the suspension to work independently. I found I was having trouble with the linear actuator's clutch slipping, so I grabbed a fake one I bought a while back as being too cheap to pass up, popped it open, found where the orange shaft compresses for the clutching, and stuffed a wad of paper inside to essentially override the clutch. It worked better thereafter, though it still made nasty clicking noises sometimes. There was castor angle, kingpin inclination, and the rather undesirable reverse Ackermann geometry. Transmission: The transmission was built to be three-speed automatic design. Physically, it was very simple, with the three gears being 1:1 (16T gear to 16T clutch gear), 3:5 (12T gear to 20T clutch gear), and 1:3 (8T gear to 24T differential), which was shifted by a PF servo motor using wave selectors. The more unusual part was the automatic setup, where a PF switch, spring-loaded to stay at one end, was driven through an 2008 28T differential hooked up to the truck's drivetrain, such that high resistance routed torque to the differential housing instead of transmitting it through the spider gears, flipping the switch, and hence the servo, shifting into a lower gear. It sort of worked, but the friction in the switching mechanism caused problems. If I set the rubber band stiffness high enough to overcome the friction and flip back into third while cruising, it ended up being high enough that the 12:28 gearing in the rear differential would skip before shifting into first, while if I set it to allow shifting into first, it would no longer shift into third on flat ground. In the end, I settle for having just third and second work, though first could be activated by manually holding the switch back. Apart from switching woes, the tranny worked well. Differential lock: There was a basic rear differential lock, powered by a small pneumatic cylinder. This was powered by a PF M-motor under the hood running a compact autovalve. This means that the motor was continually running a 6L pump, but would flip a switch one way or another depending on direction. It proved to be a convenient way of control. Bed Dumping: The bed could be tipped using two large pneumatic cylinders, and was controlled using a Servo motor flipping a valve (using a method I discovered the other day in a sweet Air Claw Rig-inspired MOC on here). The pressure came from the diff lock's autovalve, so both levers had to be pressed to dump the bed. In the end, I had to resort to using only one port on each cylinder, so the bed falls uncontrollably when released (Like the 2005 Mobile Crane's boom). This is undesirable generally, but in this instance I simply had no space to put any hoses on the top, because the first stud of hose off of the port would interfere with the bed. It took a few seconds to build up pressure, but worked satisfactorily. Brakes: The brakes were extremely complicated, requiring a PU hub and three motors to function. The basic brakes were fairly simple, with a small pneumatic cylinder per wheel, providing front disc brakes and rear drum brakes, but the control was something else. Rather than using a typical compressor-valve setup, I opted to aim for something more realistic. Real cars have hydraulic brakes, of course, and are controlled by moving a master cylinder connected to the brake pedal, which forces hydraulic fluid through the system, activating the brakes. To simulate this, I hooked up a PU XL motor to a medium linear actuator, which was connected to two large pneumatic cylinders, such that running the motor extended the cylinders, adding pressure to the system. In order to work properly, though, there had to be the right amount of pressure in the system to begin with, so I used a PU L-motor to run another 6L pump to pressurize this system. In order to make it make the right number of pumps, though, the program had to know the current pressure in the system. To do this, I hooked up a red cylinder from the original pneumatic system (The lack of an upper port means that there is no rubber seal at the top, lowering friction) to the braking circuit, so that it would expand as pressure increased. It was spring-loaded, though, to stay contracted until the pressure went up, and was then geared to a PU L motor working as a rotation sensor to let the program know an approximate pressure (and friction in the motor did make it very approximate). The brakes sort of worked, but were far from strong. Nevertheless, it was quite an interesting engineering exercise. Fun Fact: Of the ten pneumatic cylinders used in the truck, only one of them (the diff lock one) had hoses connected to two ports! Overall, the truck's reliability was annoying, as usual, but I liked the look and the advanced features. I've got pictures at: https://bricksafe.com/pages/2GodBDGlory/miscellaneous, though there's a bunch of other stuff in the folder, since I accidentally put them in my miscellaneous folder...

To an extent they can be used as spur gears. I semi-regularly mesh two of them with a 20T double-bevel gear in the spur configuration, though meshing them together would be hard. And weak.

I think that you're exactly right!

I plan on fitting my high-powered quasi-hobby RC setup into it and taking advantage of a seemingly well-designed suspension and durable, decent-looking bodywork. I wouldn't MOC a truck that basic, but I find adding power to sets like this makes for a fun toy, if a less fun build. 4WD would definitely be cool to add too, but I think some major compromises would be necessary.

Nice work! That's a car I've read about and been impressed by (and been tempted to build), but I've never seen a Technic model of it before. Good work on the functions! I appreciate the MacPherson strut design.

I see that this question had already been answered in part, but my reasoning is that the shifting mechanism for any sequential multi speed gearbox over four speeds could be used. Generally this involves a stepper to switch a second gearbox after the first one had rotated 360 degrees, but other things (that Lego would be very unlikely to do) include meshing a wave selector with three adjacent driving rings (See my TC19 entry), or building one of Sheepo's pre-wave selector sequential designs. None of these are good options, but it is possible.