gyenesvi

That is yet another, nice looking way to route it, so instead of 20:12 up-gearing, now you have 16:20 down-gearing, in total more than 2x difference, which should significantly ease the crane rotation! Hope the bracing also works out fine around it and it gets smoother!

Hmm, that pinhole in the middle seems quite a bit weird, I wonder if that'll be in the way for a drivetrain in case of a suspension with more travel than the F1 cars.. The other parts seem interesting, wonder what those geared things are for.

Cool idea for an alternate build from a pullback car! I like the shaping using the panels. Agree that winding up the motor with forward motion sounds more playable.

To me it seems like the Audi tires, not too bad, but not really soft/sticky either.

Really interesting to see those mechanisms at work and evolve! Can you explain in short the role of the balance wheel? What I don't see is what's the role of the whip piece as opposed to the pullback motor? If I get it right, the pullback motor gives the main power to make it move for a while. I do have an old wall clock that works with a pendulum and two weights, but it also has a spiral spring inside. If I understand correctly one of the weights serves as the main driver, the other is for making it chime every hour. So I don't know the purpose of the spiral spring, but I guess it's the same as the whip piece here?

Not sure how such mistakes occur. Why aren't all new parts in a step higlighted automatically? That's what Studio does at least..

Indeed, I see, actually I did order some of them a while ago and checked now. Pity, not sure why it needs to be flexible; it could have been useful for some purposes..

It's interesting to see that there are so many servos and other lego compatible accessories out there. I have also seen a larger servo, and though of trying it, but then the small 2kg GeekServo is so powerful compared to lego ones that I thought I don't need stronger ones for now (for a car such as steering/gearbox); but could be interesting for other machinery.

Oh, I see, I know that one, but thought that it's thicker than half a stud (the similar 5L and 11L one has ends that are thicker). So is this exactly half a stud thick?

Really nice minification, probably your best work on the topic! Nailed the looks really well, both the proportion, scale, color scheme, immediately recongizable and easy to confuse at a quick glance! Amazing that you could replicate so many functions (of an already dense model) on a significantly smaller scale, great work. About the crane rotation, there are two stages of 20:12 up-gearing in that drivetrain, I guess that's what makes it hard to operate, would be good to swap out one of those. Is there maybe room inside the cabin to change the gearing, maybe to wards the side? I'm thinking the 8:8 gearing could be swapped to 12:20, moving the drive axle further off center, and then the next gearing could perhaps be a 20:16 instead of the 20:12, though not sure if there's room for the 16T next to the worm gear..

@VladimirU, can you tell more about those PF connector sized controllers? Are those converters for RC servo signal? I know the Wixy thing, but that's a different thing, that was a receiver. Did the same guy also make another product for converting the servo signal? Did you get your order and test it out? Do you have some photos of it? Sounds interesting. @tseary did you find the time to look into making a smaller version of your converter board?

Weirdly enough, no, Chinese brands don't really get creative and produce all the missing sizes, they mainly copy the existing parts. Though Cada makes some unique parts, but those are rather new designs than missing sizes in an existing concept. I find that quite weird an sad (would be a low hanging fruit for them). Which part is that? I have never seen a thin liftarm longer than 7L. I don't buy that logic :) Odd numbers simply come from the fact that original Technic bricks have even studs (for even width builds), and they had odd number of holes shifted half a stud relative to the studs, such that there's a hole that falls to the middle, and also so that other bricks connected perpendicularly with pins would have enough clearance. Later the studs where shaved off, the ends were rounded off, and there was the birth of the studless liftarm, made around the pinholes themselves, and hence technic models became odd width because of that. But for the other two dimensions (length, height), there is no natural center, so even liftarms would also make perfect sense there, and would be just as useful.

I guess most people just try to work around that problem with some other parts that are available, but resulting in more bulky builds. Do as you find suitable, but also make sure to complain about it in public forums, so that TLG realizes that we all need some beams of even lengths, such as 4 and 6 :) The more of us spell that out, the more chance that we'll see those appear in the future!

Your question is pretty underspecified. What scale/size/form are we talking about? Car or truck? What purpose? On-road or off-road? Speed or power / good suspension? It all varies, and axles are really different. I think official 1:8 supercars are not a good starting point for that, they are too big to be motorized. I don't think you'll be able to buy such a thing directly, I mean just the axle. Your best bet is a 4x4 RC set I guess, and you can start modifying / reusing parts of that.

I like that idea, a set with a B model would indeed have a retro vibe (unfortunately on a sense). It could even be something licensed and related. For example, they could come out with a new portal hub that fits deeper rims and has better geometry than the old one, and they could make a Unimog with it with all kinds of implements, and a B model that's a trial Unimog for example. Maybe the Unimog is not the best example because there was already such a set (though that itself could be nostalgic), but you get the idea. Also, I like the idea of a set made of studful technic beams / parts, but something that never existed before. Another interesting concept could be a set that is studless technic on the inside with cool functions, but studful exterior with a really nice finish. I know it would be heavy and expensive, but just one set. Though I guess after that people would always expect models with nicer finish than all the holes on technic panels..

I get what you mean, and I'd also be okay with just some really innovative mechanics, but I guess the marketing department would disagree with us :) I doubt they'd make something for 50th anniversary that's not also large and cool looking (maybe even licensed) at the same time and hence would sell well. Maybe a long awaited JCB backhoe would be a great fit for the 50th..

Sure 853 is the most iconic from that lineup, but any modern version of a bare chassis would feel like a step back compared to the 1:8 supercars, so I don't see that happening. I'd be more happy with a good revision of the motor set 870 with proper remote control :) I think basically any big thing with sufficient details / innovation would do. I guess people would be more keen on the technical innovation than the actual surface material.

That 3L liftarm with axle hole in the middle is very useful indeed! Though often this can be used instead, but still I like a lot that they are bringing the liftarm out!

I see what you mean, sure definitely possible, for example something like a full roll cage, and winch at the front. Also, with a bunch of extra 2L reddish orange liftarms, the body curve above the rear fender can be made look smoother, like on the doors.

That Audi looks quite smooth with clean lines and little clutter. I like those fender pieces, looks like much easier to integrate with the rest of the body than Lego ones.

Very cool, I like that it has the manual and motorized options and the clip-on body. That's not an easy feat while keeping the body smooth and solid. The door mechanisms are nice too. Great work!

Does your design use external sensors? I suspect it does. For example the pin sorter machine seems to have a sensor at the base of the large rotating platform to sense its position right? That means the sensor measures the position of the end effector that you want to move / rotate. Sure, that way it is possible to move it precisely. But if you want to rely only on the position sensor inside the servo motors to figure out where your end effector is, like in the robot arm of @Sokolov Edward, it is much harder to position things precisely if there are gears / linkages involved after the servo arm. There's no way anything would work after a gear train of 34 gears. It would not even work really after 2 gears. I guess that's the key difference between the two approaches?

It's interesting to know that it would have been so easy to add separate flaps and ailerons, would have left less of a glaring hole in the back of the wing as well, but I guess they did not due it to simplify play, too many posable parts may get complicated as well maybe. A bigger pity is that it does not have a rudder on the tail, that's kind of a more well known piece even for kids. I guess it would have been difficult to solve it while having a good looking shape as well, but yet another example where a 6L beam would have simplified things :) Actually the 6L half beam exists in white..

Thank you! Actually I am trying to see if I could improve it with unlimited parts, and it's more difficult than I thought :) Thanks, funny enough, I am starting to see regular orange as a bit dull.. I like this color actually. Thanks! Thanks, glad you consider it a good one! You got me thinking about the possible improvements, but it does not seem easy to make fundamental changes with the parts available in this color.. some less significant beautification is possible though.

Merry Christmas All, and let's see what the next year brings! :)