Mr Jos

As a member who has witnessed ghost town so often himself (Usually it ends up in a monologue of me updating the topic over a few weeks, or just an instant finished project with 500+views, no comments), hereby my reply to you as it looks great! And the first time I actually used the frontpage image to go to a topic (normally my browser starts up in the Technic Ghost Town). Is that background a small LCD screen? And 2 glassfibres?

I've seen people who bought it there, but most don't buy at the Lego store. As it's 543€ constantly from 3rd party sellers, and still 680€ in Lego store. So for 5% VIP points you're still paying 100€ to much there.

Big changes to the GBC setup, Teardown of the old warehouse EV3 setup As I need to reroute cables, add new one, new power cables etctec I thought it would be better to label everything. EV3 taken away, as they were in the way of the 6axis robot to take pallets from the new large chain conveyor. They need to be mounted lower, scissorlift needs to go to another EV3, as I want all 4 roll conveyors on 1 brick, for perfect timing for positioning. Covered all the cables that power the 4x EV3 and 1x ESP32 to the end of the baseplate The 5 waiting stations have been added with long lanes coming from the sorter Pallets need to be modified still a bit New cables for the 2 new EV3 bricks, all nicely in cabletrays and covered Still to do mechanically; Extending the output conveyor to empty the pallets once they are taken out of the warehouse again. Still to do electrically & programming; Cabling just the Emergency-Stop [E-stop] and E-Reset, once I find a good place for them. And the balls output station that I need to invent still. Programming... Oh my god.. underestimated this. Having a 16month old that likes to climb on chairs, tables, already knows how to connect Lego and deconstruct it.. He is very fascinated by the GBC and loves to see the balls roll, but my programs have nearly no progress, constantly have to turn around, run after him. Hope he goes for a longer nap than 15minutes tomorrow.

Did you manage to get the hopper system work for the cards? Sounds like a fun project.

One mahooosive conveyor later. (And a roll/corner transfer added [Made by the youngest daughter] to make transports from the highbay possible.) Total chain conveyor length 90cm (so about 4m of small chains to make this 1 conveyor!) Next step will be adding locking levers that stop the next pallet so there is a gap between them. I should be able to position 5 pallets on the conveyor and have a 6th waiting on the corner transfer, to directly fill the gap when a pallet gets taken away.

Very well looking tower crane. For a moment you had me thinking the first MOC for the LR13000 was already finished. Do you have any real build photo's/video, or is it just a digital model? I could imagine anyone wanting to build (and buy) it would first want to see it working.

Couldn't stop myself when I found that a local seller had loads of small chain pieces. Got 1K black, 0,5K LBG and 0,7K 3wide LBG chains extra now And the build continues! Yesterday already made a prototype to stop pallets on a conveyor without using a motor.

Bringing a few of my prototypes together now. Ball pump with feeding conveyor and small swingarm (2O 1I) followed by my multivalve setup controlling 5 individual valves (2O ~1I) fits on 1x EV3 (4O 2I). It can put the 4 kinds of balls each in a lane, 5th lane starts to be filled whenever a 31st ball is detected. Meanwhile the gate holding 30balls is being opened by the multivalve, when empty it gets closed again and it acts as the 5th lane now, waiting for another lane to be filled and changed over. So no dedicated color lanes and trying to keep everything running without having to stop the ball pump. Biggest task that needs to be done now is either make a roll or chain conveyor to bring new pallets to the 5 stations, and try to keep it all on 1x EV3 as well. This will be though as a corner transfer already needs 3motors. So any ideas are welcome, I also need to be able to take a full pallet from this conveyor with my large 6DOF arm, and then have all other pallets move on a place to fill all spots again. I would prefer to have a little gap between the pallets, but don't know either how I will do this. EDIT: Just noticed I'm running out of small chain pieces, so means I have around 2K+ in use now in all my MOC's, if anyone has a lot of these parts leftover I could use them well (don't dare to ask the wife for another order at the moment ) . Guess I'm going to take one machine down.

According to all the posts on FB and everywhere around, the people that are shouting "I'm not going to buy it, it's to expensive, no one will buy it at that price!" are getting outblasted right now. Sales seem to be going pretty well, and multiple posts where people have bought 2 to make a bigger one already. But it seems they are looking for a new Technic set designer since 1st of Aug, so if you think you can do better than all "bad looking" recent sets, what are you waiting for; Technic Product Designer - Careers - LEGO.com

Indeed rigid hoses, that's why I change them in the inventory of Rebrickable, I delete the rigid hose and add the correct pneumatic one. But in the instruction they look nice like pneumatic ones, as the 5202c## which are pneumatic hoses are not available in Studio. I used the Schmidt couplings at my work before, but don't see what they could do in this case? I did use a Lego version before to try and make a paper feeder, with both rolls driven (top&bottom) and the top roll could open up. Everything in this machine is aligned already.

Normally if you have a heavy weight pushing on a cylinder (like an arm here); Opening the valve completely fast will let out all the pressure build in the bottom of the cylinder (the pressure was needed to push the weight up) through the valve This results in no power left to keep the arm from dropping down on its own, but.. at the top side of the cylinder there was no pressure, that side is now closed by the valve in connection with the pump, so you will create a vacuüm. This vacuüm results in a slow lowering of the arm, by slowly pumping extra air in the top of the cylinder you can control the lowering speed. Going back up is easy, switch the valve and start pumping to build up pressure. If the weight of the arm is lower (like the 2nd arm in this model), the vacuüm will be enough to keep it in place very accurate. Slowly opening valves only make it even better to control heavy arms.

Directly uploading on this site does not work (good), you need to use an image uploading site, and use the link here. (Like www.flickr.com or www.bricksafe.com ) I don't have the set, but if you show photo of your model, and the page in the instructions maybe I can help.

I would love a 16motor hub [Outputs, O], but would also need some Input ports [Input, I] so total of 32IO ports. My warehouse has stacker crane [4I 3O], Conveyors [5I 8O], 6-axis robot [5I 6O]. So a total of 14I and 17O (Total 31). If they are dedicated I or O ports I would need 2 of these new hubs unfortunatly. But I already want to expand the conveyor system for a long time, but 1 corner transfer (1x chain + 1x roll conveyor incl a lifting system) takes up 3 motors already, so nearly a full EV3 hub. Having 16motors 'with encoders!' available would make me happy and make a large logistic system. Extension cables would be 100% needed, the EV3/NXT system was perfect, cheap to make them yourself and all parts easily available. Having Anton's LMS ESP32 connected to the EV3 already makes for a great GUI (Graphical User Interface) with a touchscreen attached to the model. So for now I'm just going to stay with EV3's, but wouldn't mind a newer version with 32 IO's.

Showing a photo of your problem could be a help.

@eric trax well, here it's on topic to try change your mind about pneumatics. As it uses only pneumatics for the 2x boom + end effector. I don't think it lacks precision? Both up/down and with enough power are possible. About taking up space, ok the compressor part a bit yes, but you can put it wherever you want, you don't need a complex geartrain that goes through the exact middle of your model where it hinges. Just run 2 hose lines for each cylinder, this will free up some space in the model. I did make a dual compressor unit (pretty compact and strong, 2motors for 2valves+cylinders) for every motor possible (PF/PU/EV3) If you could put that in your model, and in the middle you have space to put your drivetrain motor/axle/gears etc, it's not that big? And you have 2 independent movements with pneumatics, that are precise.

I will, you just need to have 1 dedicated pump per cylinder, then it can have realistic movements, and very good power.

@Ngoc Nguyen if that was part of an official Lego set, I wouldn't want to see the rant topic about it.. No doubt it will have better proportions at the end than Lego's version, but the driveability now already looks jerky (he just put waaaay to many gears in it, look at that 24T geartrain), same way to fast slewing, amount of parts&price will be skyhigh, brickbuild counterweight would be called a parts dump to raise piececount. Where the current counterweight makes people say the piececount isn't high enough, imagine TLG put 2.4K parts in making 1kg counterweight, we wouldn't have the "it's only 3K parts!!" The complete liftarm/panelling a rectangular box would be broken down hard in the comments. No doubt that will be a fun/nice MOC if finished, but not at all a "Lego should have made it like this". If we wait like 6 more months, Liebherr will have made a real LR13000 with exactly the same proportions as the Lego version to bamboozle everyone.

Thanks, yes they are available in Studio, but not all current ones, and by the same numbers. You can find them by "75c##" , where ## is the stud length of the hose (1L = 8mm, so a 10L hose = 80mm , will be 75c10 . Then later in the instructions + on Rebrickable I have overwritten them by currently available hoses+colors from sets sold starting 2015-2023, so a lot of work one might not notice, but it was there. And starting to model them in Studio might be a pain, but the more you do it, the better you get at this. Warning before you try it (don't do it if you have a swear jar at your home): Hoses don't snap to cylinders. Hoses don't snap to valves. Hoses don't like to do what you want at all. You need to learn that they go far in the depth, and make very small movements, as it crawls like thick tar. First position one end at the perfect spot, then start taking the other end in bending mode, and try to get it where it should end up, this is one of the hardest parts, because they don't snap. Now the fun part starts, start pulling the middle part in bending mode, ready to press ESC key to stop it crawling. Go back in bend mode to pull more/let it crawl. If you need to go through small holes is the hardest. They don't stay in place, so if you need to go through more than 1 hole, good luck! And have enough €'s for the swear jar. Example from my inventory page, where I added the correct number. And how a step looks like with these hoses, length etc is shown enough I guess.

And I made a little menu in the program, now it has 3 modes (2game modes [Whack a mole and just playing with the sensor for the little ones] +1 preset routine) Using many of the EV3 capabilities. Speech, accurate positioning, random generator, onscreen menus, etcetc WHACK A MOLE Now the breakdown will really start.

After a long day designing this MOC in Studio, searching currently available pneumatic hoses in correct colors on Rebrickable and molding them with the "great" Studio flex parts.. I have finished instructions, renders etcetc for this model. (Most of my MOC's, including this one, I make for myself so I can remake it when I want it later, for an event, or for repairs/cleaning etc) LEGO MOC Quadruple individual pneumatic valve control with 2 motors only! by Mr_Jos | Rebrickable - Build with LEGO I programmed it so when you show the sensor a color, it will extend the corresponding cylinder untill you remove the color from the sensor. My son (1year 4months old) has been playing with it all day whilst I was modelling in Studio, took him 20seconds to know how it worked! So it had a good stress test already. Now this is finished, I can break it down to try to get 5 or 6 valves inside, so I can use it in my GBC. For anyone interested, Rebrickable/Bricklink has these cylinders/pumps/ some hoses very expensive. But they are for sale at Lego Pick a Brick! Around 5€ each only, but comes with 6weeks shipping time at least. But the total price will go much lower.

Yes, it will be for one of my industrial machines indeed. First I wanted a multivalve solution for my gantry pinsorter. Pins would be put in the top bins, and cylinders could open up the trapdoors, 1 by 1. Conveyor underneath would transport the pins to bag them. But now I'm actually trying to make a ball sorter GBC that stores the balls temporary in my high bay warehouse. For this I need multiple 30ball waiting locations, that are closed by gates. I think this is a good solution to open those gates and close them fast again. Yes, few photos here, and I think I will make instructions for this one. At least there's more interest in this design (or it's just because I posted it separate and not in my WIP topics, or if this was in a directly completely finished MOC topic). Slower certainly as it would need multiple rotations for the actual opening/closing. With pneumatics you can 'preload' the force and quickly apply the power. Routing the tubes is indeed easy to do at far locations instead of axles going everywhere + you would get a lot of gear play. Pneumatics are lovely and great to use, but expensive Most of my MOC's are massive indeed, so space enough. Still need to invent the extra GBC layout, but will have to take this in account to put it somewhere nice (it's great to watch on its own already) Every 12studs long (between the 5x11 frames) I can put a reinforcement on the lower side to keep the side tracks together, so track length/sturdyness is no problem. The small chain is also relatively low weight and the carriage being pulled forward/backwards is always the same weight. I use this type of chain in a lot of my MOC's, they are very usefull.

Yeah using the wave selector and dedicated pump position would be better than clutches indeed. Fun it is certainly, I just programmed a color sensor to operate the valves. If I still have this prototype in 1 piece when the next event is I will certainly take it with me to let children play with it by holding a matching color flag above the sensor to extend a cylinder. Just been doing it myself for a few minutes.

That's what many people say about my camaro as well, why can it go 255km/h as just 120km/h is allowed and safe. Answer is because it's possible (and Germany exists). For the crane, if you want to rotate 180° without anything on the hook you might reach this max speed even when using a soft start/stop movement. But indeed they should have like programmed this soft start, pull the lever directly 100%, but it goes only 10% faster each 300ms, gradually. Disadvantage would be a slowdown would make the crane turn more then wanted if you don't pay attention. But I'm more impressed that it could lift 3kg+ without snapping out any pins. I do feel like making a liftarm boom would bend much more when lifting this 3kg, as there would be many more possible bending locations.

About the fast turning turret, can't you make it rotate slower by only pulling the lever a little on the screen? It looks like it's not just -100% / 0% / 100%. If so, you need to slowly start driving up the speed to prevent it jerking like that, slowing down the same way. It's kind of how I rotate using a real rotating telehander at work as well, I'm not going to jerk it directly 100% in any direction. But once again, having tactile controls would be easyer to do this slow ramp up/down.. Or they could even program a soft starter, oh well.. maybe it's just me..

I just used PyBricks ".run_until_stalled" to find the home position of the carriage. The valve lever I don't have an automatic homing for yet, as it's just a prototype. For now I just make that it's flat at the start (normally when a program is ended it's still flat as I force it to hold within 2° of the starting angle, this is also a feature in PyBricks ".control.target_tolerance(1000, 2)". This will ensure that the end location is between 358° and 2°, so I can always go through all valves safely. This would work for max 4 valves yes with the orange wave selector. But it also would make pumping air always having to make the clutch slip=more power needed=faster broken motors. This way I have now, I just need to extend the guidings and add more valves, and I can pump "free" in between the valves without having to power clutches. Another advantage is that I can put all valves back in center position, so they are closed and don't move anymore. Using clutches it's guessing when it will reach center again.