gyenesvi

This is like the most interesting and surprising news of the year! Totally blown! Thanks TLG! As much as I'd like to believe that the design of @allanp inspired this, I tend to think that the timespan would have been too short to develop and test it. I'd rather believe that they had been experimenting this for many years, and now the time finally came, though they may have been pushed by the negative feedback on the Ferrari, the ideas here on EB and also the developments at Cada to finally turn it into an actual product. I could also imagine that they did plan it for the Ferrari but it was not yet ready. I was wondering why it is first introduced in a motorcycle and not a car. Sure it's a good way to convince many fans to buy the motorcycle even if they are not interested in the subject otherwise (like maybe myself).

Thanks, I have seen all of these solutions, but so far only tried some of efferman's printed parts. The mount for the brushless motor seems like an interesting thing for sure!

I know because I tried that too recently, and so I was surprised to find them on lego.com accidentally, so ordered about 20 them quickly (same goes for the orange pin-pinhole connectors, also very useful but rare). I guess it's because they are both only used in 1 or 2 sets recently, the McLaren being one of them.

Great choice here, used to be one of my favorites as a child, curious to see how you manage to preserve the functions!

Cute little build so far, curious how it continues! BTW, 1L liftarms are available in orange (cheap now at lego.com), can be good to fill the gap on the A pillars.

So you also ended up with the theme that you are best at :) Nice choice, I haven't even known this model existed! It seems we are working with exactly the same downscaling, using the same pair of tires (rear ones for you). I agree you should go with the ballon instead of the tractor.

Thanks, glad to hear you like it :) At first I tried to build the nose as in the original, one vertical layer of blue and one white beams. That looked too much, so I removed the white one to get the scale right. But you are right that I should keep the white one instead. As for the springs, the original has yellow springs, which are not available in soft version (but the red is). But maybe I'll put in the yellow harder ones just for keeping with the original. As progress tonight, I have made an overhaul of the chassis to raise the axles by half a stud to get it more into scale. As a side effect, I also cleaned it up and strengthened it structurally. The original has many chassis parts in red, so to keep it closer I also recolored some parts there. Furthermore, the drivetrain joints had to be replaced due to the raising and changing of the angle (shortening of the axle), swapping out the U-joints to the new long sliding CV joints to account for the non-full-stud axle length required in this configuration. Here it is with the full body in its current state: I think the height is better this way, and with the red parts, it does look closer to the original.

I wonder what counts more; keeping the original functions, or scaling smaller.. I see a lot of people going really small, where many not so visible functions like drivetrains and suspensions will have to be left out, while others reduced to a bare minimum, almost like 'adjustability by hand'.. Starting to feel like I am not brave enough with the down-scaling and dropping functions :D

Glad you like the choice, well I never saw it in real life, so this will be my first time :) Here's some progress, I worked on the body last night and got it more or less done for the general shapes and main connection points. Indeed, the paneling from the Ford GT is perfect for this scale. The original model does not have an opening bonnet, instead a big part of the body can be tilted, I guess in order to have access to the electronics that is deeper in the chassis. For a manual version that does not make much sense (and would be hard to do at this scale at the cost of weakening the structure and obscuring the looks I guess), so I went for an opening bonnet instead to be able to access the fake engine. Here it is mounted onto the chassis. I think the stance is a bit too high though, so I'll try to lower it (raise the axles) at least by half a stud. The front is still missing the which mount, and of course the internals need to be done as well.

Ok, thanks for the info, I see it now. Compared to the factory hub, the mounting is indeed a bit better for allowing the liftarm directly. Doesn't that weaken the holding of the female CV joint end though? Or the bearing takes care of holding it well?

Hmm, interesting, though not clear how these work exactly, there aren't much images about it. On some graphics, it is shown without the 3-pin wheel mount. Then, when built into a model, it is shown with what looks like a regular (old) 3-pin wheel mount, and if so, it accepts an old CV joint for drive, which isn't that useful.. Kind of invalidates the use of the ball bearing itself..

I wonder why that is, they are getting the same signal, from an SBrick / BuWizz no? What's the difference? Do these Cada servos need a different signal than the Lego ones? Sounds good! Wonder if it is just an upgrade to the controller, or other components, such as motors will also be upgraded.. You mean, at last, right? :) Or did you mean at least, really? That would imply something different..

Yeah, I know, it is possible to use that combination, the reason I though I'd change it is because this way the sliding connector has a more stable pin connection with the assembly above it, instead of the axle in the pinhole. But it might not matter at all, it depends on the total weight of the build I guess. What I'd do is I'd order all the pieces required for these two final alternatives (not that much, and there's substantial overlap) and test out both in the actual body. I'd even test out my variant using double pivots and 4 of these connectors if you are worried that fixing the sliding axles too much (though I guess that was the point) would hinder steering performance.

Hi guys, I suspect that the best set choices for the shrinking contest are large and mechanically rich sets, but I just had to stay true to myself and build an off-roader :) Especially that I don't yet see any such entries. So first I thought about the ground-breaking 9398 set, which I never owned because it came out in my dark ages, but then I realized that its redesigned version, 41999 is even cooler. Plus the recent Ford GT that I bought seems to be a good parts pack for the body in the right color. Now as ground-breaking as these sets were in their time (for introducing PF motors and utilising relatively new ball joints and portal hubs), I find their (shared) mechanical side horrible; awful suspension and steering geometry, huge axles with unrealistic drivetrain, resulting in an awkwardly high stance and bouncing of the whole body as it rides. That should not be too hard to reproduce :))) So I'm going to aim for that at about 70% scale, using 68mm balloon tires (that I'll have to buy for this) on 43mm rims! Planned features - live axle suspension on 6.5L springs, keeping portal axles (okay, I'll probably get rid of the negative caster) - all wheel drive, adding a mini fake engine for this to make sense - all wheel steering with HoG, linkage based - working winch - openable doors and hood - (I have been thinking that maybe doing a swappable body would be nice, to that of 9398, will see if it's possible / if I have parts for that) Here's a sketch of the chassis and the axles I made. Besides of course the compact portal axles, one tricky point is to make the steering and drivetrains intersect each other in the right point to make it feasible. Another one will be to build a tiny enough fake engine to fit under the hood. And here's some actual progress I made with the axles to test if the portal setup is strong enough to hold up. It seems to be okay (so far tested with non-ballon 68mm tires).

Ooops, I noticed a problem with my single pivot design.. If one of the pivots is fixed, and the center point moves (say, backwards), then the upward going axle would also move (backwards), but that cannot happen if it's held in place by a technic plate.. So it really needs the pivot points sliding on both ends, and then maybe the double pivot makes for a more stable build (just as @vascolp did right now), but the single-pivot can still be used. Here's my updated design, I have changed the sliding-axle part to have an axle-pin connection instead of the axle in the pinhole, though it has the disadvantage that the excess of the sliding axle protrudes out of the 8 module long assembly, not into the inside, as in the build of @vascolp. His design is a bit more compact and solid enough I think (especially with a barrel piece). I could actually test this later though..

Well, currently it only seems to make sense with the Minstorms / Spike rechargeable hubs, what I don't quite get is why this is needed, and why now, it has been used with general purpose charging adapters so far I guess. Hope Lego is not going in the direction of Apple, in the sense that you are only advised to charge their stuff with their own adapter..

I guess sooner or later you'll have to order it if you want to build that bus anyway :) Plus all the constraints only come out once you have the proper body around it. I'd be lacking system parts anyway..

Oh, I see what you mean now. But I think the barrel piece can have the same role. My idea was that it would be covered by a technic plate from the top to route the axle and build the floor of the bus anyway, so that would hold it in place from the top, and the pivot points would be held from the bottom, that should be enough I guess. Also, the barrel has a pretty flat surface (unlike the pulley), and it could give good stability and smooth movement. Agreed, I think it's time to experiment physically instead of overthinking :)

I've seen those as well, they look like 15x5 H frames with diagonal links in the middle for reinforcement, and the longer sides have thinned walls. It seems that they were really trying to save weight here, otherwise they would have probably made it a more reusable part (no thinned walls, more pinholes instead). So probably even at this size, that's what's required for safety/stability.

This is a really neat entry, looks cool and works well, and it was quite a quick build!

But now with the single pivot version, one of the two pivots can be fixed (to a technic plate for example), as it was in the original design, so that would not allow it to slide back and forth, neither rotate horizontally. Is that what you meant @vascolp? Also, maybe using this piece instead of the pulley would be more solid than fiddling with the half bushes? It does not need to be held there vertically, vertical positioning will be taken care of by the pivots.

It's exactly the same as the versions above with the double pivot, only this part is replaced with a construction with 2L thin liftarms in LBG and the DBG axle-pinhole-axle connector. Does this make it clear?

Wow, you nailed the looks so well with this one! I used to love this set as well :) It's a pity though that most of the interesting mechanisms of the original needs to go away at this scale (I was fascinated about its suspension at the time).

Interesting! It's on lego.com as well: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/lego-usb-power-adapter-88019 This is the item we were trying to guess around page 22 in this thread.

It's not actually sure if it's really retired or just out of stock, because it happened before that things were marked as retired in some countries when they were actually just out of stock, and then they came back (for example the PU M motor I believe). But I am holding my fingers crossed that they are actually being phased out for the reasons you mention and that we'll see some upgraded version in the near future, though I would not be surprised if that did not happen either. The Liebherr crane and the CAT simply use the angular XL motor where more power is required, so TLG might just leave things as they are (out of laziness :( ), even though there would be room for a few more motor sizes in the lineup..