gyenesvi

Good to know, thanks for the info and @mla2 for the picture.

Oh, okay, that sounds interesting, but where does the frame separate? I guess it has to be split longitudinally then. And doesn't that make it weaker? I think one key property of the frame is that it's a single part that can be a strong core for a floating axle for example, keeping the two sides together without the need for further reinforcement. In a larger scale where it can be reinforced or in independent suspension it could still be useful though.

10L stop axles sound interesting! Yes I remember the pins with towball sockets, but I could not make them in part designer yet. Do you know how the separable frames work? What is their advantage?

That would be a nice part to have indeed. Sure, the cam can replace it if there is enough space. I’m curious which parts are available by Cada from the front page? I only know about the flip-flop beams and the beams with pins on the end. Anything else you found?

Yeah, that's something I'd like too. I think it would be possible like the old 2L one, but with its small teeth replaced with the ones like on the new 3L one, and the inner ridge made shorter so that it can slide into the new clutch gears. I have checked that the length of the teeth are the same, and the gap between the two outer rings in the middle is also the same, so it could even work with the orange selector (the ring diameter would have to be decreased slightly like on the new 3L one). Furthermore, the old 2L one can slide smoothly on a new type 2L connector that has no ridges, so that would also work fine with the orange selector when no clicking to place is required. It could look like this.

Indeed, these are gears that I have also wanted to put on the list, so I made them in part designer. Also, in one case, I would have found a 12T free spinning gear useful, so that it can transfer drive while another axle is going through it. Furthermore, another category is gear racks in different lengths, 9L and 11L would be quite often useful. I have added these to the catalog on the first page.

Well I would not say it’s that simple :) It’s got some pretty unique and interesting solutions. Nice suspension, innovative drivetrain, and I love that steering system, it’s a great idea to combine a steering rack with a linkage based solution, though I have yet to understand how the steering rack interferes with the chassis construction (I often have the problem that the chassis is in the way for linkage based steering). All of that in a small scale package, and I’d even say it looks cool. The simplicity of the paneling and the right shapes is what makes it look good. Great design altogether! Thanks for sharing! One question, at the front axle, does that assembly fit all the way into that wheel hub? That way is the steering pivot reasonably close to the wheel even with a U-joint?

Nice ambitions :) I guess you want it steered and driven as well. Quick counting: diff frame: 5 wide. Add space for diff-lock on both sides +2*2 wide. Add independent suspension (double CV joints) on both sides: +6*2 wide. Add portal hub (assuming the existing single piece) +3*2 wide. That's 5 + 4 + 12 + 6 = 27 wide. And even then you'd realize you can't use the CV joints because they don't have long enough axles, so you'd have to resort to U-joints, which would make it even wider or have incorrect geometry.

I have checked that in a virtual build but it's not that good, it does not quite reach the the two driving rings when tilted. It would need to be lowered 1/4 stud to be good, but that's not really possible. Though I am afraid that it would be pretty hard to integrate into that studful build. I was thinking in a studless redesign, did not remember that you wanted to keep it mostly as it is.. It's going to be hard to replace that special part without significant redesign, especially because of the routing of the HoG steering being in the way for everything else.

I believe the gear lever on this one is just sliding left/right on the axle, not tilting. Which is the simple solution and is easily buildable with modern parts for 4 speeds. Have you considered that?

I believe @MikeTwo9398's explanation is a quite probable one! @Herb might have just not aligned the orientation of the orange selector with the locking lever but rotated the selector 180 degrees, which is an easy miss for someone not used to that mechanism.

I don't quite get what the two different problems are. In the first case, you say that 3 wheels were moving out of 4, so you rebuilt the rear axle. In the second case, you said that one back wheel was not moving. It sounds like the same problem to me. And how do you have perfect 4 wheel drive if one back wheel is not moving? It's sounds kind of a contradiction. What I would do is I'd trace the path of moving parts when the motor spins. How far the spinning is transferred? Does it go to the front / rear axle properly? Inside an axle, is the housing of the differential is spinning properly? Finally, are the wheels spinning? If the differential housing is spinning and the wheels are not spinning, then something is either wrong in the differential itself, or one wheel is jammed and the diff is routing the power to the other wheel. Can you spin all wheels by hand? Isn't one harder to spin than the others? To check the differential itself, if you take it out from the axle, and spin one end (one thin axle coming out of it), the other end should be spinning in the opposite direction (that's normal), and the movement should be smooth / easy. How is that?

Would that be a short but wide wing shape?

This looks really clean indeed. The design is either 3D printer friendly with that flat surface, or you polished it a lot to look nice :) I think a reason might be that at this size you'd want to use them with a wheel hub with a 3-pin connector, but a 2 stud long steering arm that those have would not fin inside such rims, so it is kind of not usable with existing 3-pin wheel hubs for a steered axle, only that small one. It could maybe work with a wheel hub that has Ackerman geometry on the steering arm. Thanks, that's good to know! Is it something new? A few weeks ago when I looked through all the parts I have not seen them.

I assume that would be a solid axle, so a much simpler solution to your problem would be one of the proposed shorter suspension arms.

Looks good to me! Thanks! I like this idea, it would make the mounting more stable and it's good that it leaves space for the springs, though I don't see any other options to place the springs, which could limit its use. It would be nice ti have a part file for it so that we can experiment with it virtually.

Amazing piece of engineering! The looks are smooth and fluid, and the mechanics are great. For me the dynamic steering and lifting feature is what makes it most interesting. I like how the two features are made possible at the same time, not bothering each other. Great job! No wonder it takes so much time to build something like that, but it is really worth it :)

Ha! That's a great idea! A bit more curvature might be necessary towards the neck of the towball, just like on the outer edge, and then it should be fine. And I guess the 4th ball is unnecessary, so we should take that off in order not to weaken the structure on both sides. I was wondering how we could test this idea. If you'd put this out to shapeways, we could print this and when the Ford GT comes out, it should be possible to test with 5L liftarms and the new CV joint part. Also, I see you have 5L steering links on shapeways so we could use that as well. By the way, how is the quality of printed steering links and towballs, towball sockets and CV joints? I assume you have tested them already.

That would look great, but unfortunately I found another problem. Although the suspension arms have enough clearance to tilt on the ball because their tip has a slope cut out, the steering link does not have enough clearance and cannot tilt. I tried it on the short towball on this hub. I see you made the wall of the female CV joint housing even thinner, but I think even that's not going to be enough. It would have to be almost just the radius of a 1x1 liftarm to make enough room for the steering link, but that's not possible..

I don't think it would be fundamentally impossible regarding the space. I derived the ball hub from this hub which has the female CV joint in it. True that that CV joint head in this one is a little bit slimmer than the standalone female joint's head, but with a very little widening of the hole, a regular female joint would fit and could spin. The bigger ring that holds the towballs would still be thicker than a liftarm's wall, so if that's solid enough, this would also be, especially for smaller builds. I think we could 3D print this hub for a test using a regular female CV joint :) @efferman, do you think such a hub would be printable (while having a female CV joint insertable)? I know Efferman also has printable steering arms.. Or maybe @Zerobricks would want to experiment with these as well :) Moving on with parts, here are a few generic connectors that I could have used in some builds. They are mostly variations on existing ones. My personal favorite is the one at the bottom corner, which is a shortened version of on one side and having an axle hole in the other side. The one above it is a longer version of the same existing connector. Then there's a variation on with the orientation of the two ends swapped. The axle-to-axle connector has been mentioned by others as well, and then there's the variation of with the extensions cut off. This piece is really versatile, but sometimes that extension is in the way. The L-shaped corner piece I found in the page of Barman referenced above by @allanp. It could be useful as an alternative to because it has its pins fixed, some of which are sometimes in the way and different pin types cannot be used (3L or axle-pin for example).

Oh, that's a pity :( Any chance of going back to it? I'd be interested in testing a printed version at some point, and it would be great to share the part file so that we can experiment also in part designer and virtual builds. @allanp, though in this thread I was thinking more about simpler parts, that could actually be produced by TLG, I really like some of your ideas. This is an example that's specialized but would be quite reusable in many car models I guess. It would be great if you could make part files from these, I'd really like to experiment with them in studio. I guess you have a 3D model anyway used for printing already. Not sure how to turn them into part files, but @efferman probably knows, he seems to be doing that. Thanks for this link, quite a few interesting ideas in there, some of them even matching my ideas! I'll try to turn some into .part files. As cool as this could be, I don't see these being produced by Lego, because this could be a very deep rabbit hole I guess. I like this idea of a composable link, but I'm not sure if this would be strong enough, whether the clips/axle connection would be able to take some abuse of a 4-link suspension on an off-roader. But if such a towball socket part with a regular axle hole would be available, I'd surely try to glue it with some axles of various length :) That would be good for all kinds of rims. Would love that. More sensors for the PU system could indeed be interesting. And to keep listing my ideas, here are some more special beams from the alphabet, some of them have been noted by others as well. The S shapes would be useful for frame structures, maybe the 5x10 is less important because it's similar to existing ones, but the 3x9 in the middle could be really useful, sometimes the existing similar part turns in the 'wrong' direction. The Z shapes (3x7 or 3x9) are also interesting mentioned by someone I can't find now. The T and H shapes are things that I occasionally would find useful (for example the H shape in my render of the small independent suspension above, and the T shape can be useful for connecting geartrains in a solid way).

Okay, I thought you have less ambitious plans regarding the spacing and the steering pivot. But you are right, why not. So indeed, in that case we need to go smaller. I've got these rims and experimented. So here's the updated part. It goes all the way into rims 56145 or 56904 and 42716 from the deep side, and there's basically a 1x1 beam between the female CV joint's head and the rim. In case you are wondering if that half stud sticking out could be removed: with rims 56145 or 56904 it would be pointless, it could not go deeper anyway, only with rim 42716. But even in that case, only a 1x1 half beam would hold the female CV joint, and it would be pretty wobbly I think. Yeah, I figured that's the only way, and that is also only possible without proper differential I think. So here's what I built with these, it uses quite a few parts from this catalog (the small hub, 4L towball arms, 4L links, the 4L double headed male CV Joint, and also a female CV joint with a longer 3L axle on one side to be able to connect the two sides). What do you think? Don't worry about that, we are just throwing arounds some ideas :) That's TLG's problem, haha. But jokes aside, how many parts do we have so far? 100 maybe? Just look at how many crazy not so generic parts other themes have. Many of these would actually be pretty usable in various contexts. Okay, got you, then it would work in principle, but as we noted, those U-joints would probably be too fragile (thin material) to bear large load. Yes, that's a good idea! Hmm, interesting, is that meant for locking two free spinning gears together (permanently)? And extending that diff housing for more gearing options?

@efferman do you maybe have a part file for a 32T gear? Also for the modification of the official lego portal hub that we came up with together a while ago? Thanks!

One thing I may have misunderstood. Do you want this to go inside the deeper end of the rim? I thought you want to put this on the shallow side, then it would not rub. If on the deep side, then only your idea could work on the hub side. However, answer me one thing. How on earth will you route your steering links around the differential (or smaller gears instead)? That placement is just too close to the axle center longitudinally I think. It's already quite challenging with the longer steering arms.. The difference will be in the ground clearance. And the authenticity of the mechanism; portal vs planetary.

Indeed, a poll would be interesting, I think we need @Jim for that. However, it is a bit meaning as long as we are only doing this for ourselves and we don't have any means to communicate it to TLG. Though I only wrote it somewhat jokingly that they would look at this and make any of these parts. I think they have already considered or even prototyped most of these. But it would be quite cool if a part that we vote for would actually be produced. Also, for actually understanding the utility of some parts, example builds would be needed. I was actually thinking of a virtual building contest with all these parts.. I've got a couple more categories to cover, almost done just need to make renders and organize them into the catalog. Here's another interesting category: steered driven wheel hubs. The first is @keymaker's idea, something like that, right? I had a similar version, but with 3-pin holder, the second one. The third is similar to the currently existing steered one, but the steering arms centered. I often find that better, like on the planetary hub. The last one is an updated variant of the portal hub that fits completely inside the Defender rims (we designed this together with @efferman, btw do you have part file for it?). With Unimog tires, this setup has it's steering pivot 2.5 studs closer to the wheel than the current portal hub! Unfortunately, with large tractor tires some more (half stud) spacing would be required, but even in that case, steering center would be 2 studs better than with the current one. Finally, the planetary hubs could have an ungeared variant too (maybe also with these kind of slimmer steering arms, as that L shape on the planetary I find practically needless for steering, it's just in the way all the time). @1gor, just look at this beauty :) btw I don't think that U-joint idea would help with the current portal hub, because you cannot move the steering point 1 stud out towards the wheel without moving the whole hub (there's nowhere to build mounting points 1 stud out on the hub frame). Or do you mean you'd use the 3L side in the portal hub, and the 2L side in the diff frame (first I guessed the other way around)? That's quite a small family, and that part does not have an actual head. I think that part would be a shorter version of this part, that's why the head should be like that. Okay, then manufacturing could work :) Now I better understand your motivation about it. But what does POOP mean? I guess it's an abbreviation for something :) Okay, so then you don't need the gear there, but rather an axle, onto which you can put the liftarms (which already exist). The problem is with the servo not with the lego parts I think.