sed6

I really like you work! No way I can make such mods myself. Mine are simple but I still cringe everytime I remove or add a piece, getting father away from the original design (though they sure left us with a lot of options). I filled the gap with a little wing from my old collection. 2 pairs will do both sides. I need to clean them up in hydrogen peroxide to get their coloring restored. Not really. My mandibles have about 5mm of vertical flex. So half that, 2.5mm of droop? Totally acceptable to me. Besides once I get it hung on the wall it won't droop at all.

Flattened out the rear, looks much better to me.

50cm is plenty. Each rear engine grate measures 22cm so 44cm total. Less since you'll be working in the inside and the diameter is smaller. One thin strip is perfect to hide behind the center blue tube. Two strips centered would shine between the tubes. One is more than enough! I cheated and used a tiny bit of clear tape (hey at least it's not Kragle) to keep the LED strips pulled tight at each end to prevent the strip from sagging. Have fun, its really easy.

Thank you! The pics on pg1 and the parts list will be enough. And thanks for the light info as well.

Really nice work so far! Did you cut up your light trans blue corrugated tubes?? What can you tell me about your lighting system? I think I see a charge light and charge jack hidden below the gunner? I'm not familiar with it.

Thanks! No worries about heat or melting. Some high power LED's do put out lots of heat, but not these little strip LED's, mine are cool to the touch after hours of use (in applications with the same LED's in other projects).

Between the mandibles. Looks like a 4x8 plate, vertical with greeblies. Curious to see it up close and how you attached it. Thx!

Can you post another pic or two of the detail between the mandibles? Perhaps pull the piece out and show how you attached it and some more detail? Love the look and want to try to replicate it!

Thx! I'm gonna go the OCD route and flip back through the instructions.

Good eye! But where...?

Not much of a mod but here's how I'm considering hanging my MF on the wall. The ugly board is just for proof of concept and testing. Some simple strong cord is tied to the frame and run out the bottom. If you tie the cord at just the right length it won't touch or contact and body parts.

Indeed. I ended up with ~140 extra pieces! They were all singles and 1x1 or otherwise unique. I'm gonna use the extra greeblies to detail the front between the mandibles.

Now that I have the picture hosting figured out, here's the lights I used and the battery pack to power them. About $8 each on Amazon. You can see very little modification was needed. Here's another pic of the details. I needed only to substitute a 2x3 gray with two 1x2 blues to make room for the LED strip to pass through the middle. A little piece of clear tape secures both ends in place (better than kragle right?) until the tube ends are put back in place.

Added some lights. RF controller with 20 color options. Powered by a rechargeable USB battery.

Thanks for the good links! I just completed Out of Sight's mod and love it. The pic or post I'm looking for showed an excavator from the side with a large gray area shaded to represent the full limits of travel of the bucket and boom. I can't recall if it was of the stock travel or maybe modded travel, either way I want to review it again.

What a fantastic forum! I've spent hours reading and reading and am happy to learn I'm an AFOL and I'm not alone. In reading about the 8043 I saw a fantastic pic where someone had shaded the complete range of motion of the bucket and arm, but now I can't find it. Does anyone have a link to the pic, post, or thread? Thanks much! -Scott OKC, OK US