gyenesvi

Thanks for the link, it has nice illustrations.

Interesting.. Is this chaotic in the sense that a small difference in the initial position leads to a very different movement pattern?

Oh my, I'd love to see something like that too! I have just built this suspension on a Jeep (pictures in this thread). Exactly, I have seen such builds too, just wasn't sure if it's okay to post here.. Anyways, I expect that those beams will change things quite a bit!

I observed the same with live axle suspensions, it seems impossible to build a slim axle with only a compact differential housing in the middle just as it is usual in real vehicles. Lego axles always seem way too bulky, especially with steering involved.. I wonder what the key missing pieces may be for simplifying.. Maybe liftarms with perpendicular holes would allow for more compact builds via more connection options. Has anybody spotted those new type of liftarms on the leaked images of upcoming sets?

Thanks, the good color match was also one of the reasons I chose this for building.

Actually, I prefer the real thing without the roof too, that's the more iconic image, I guess it's mostly used and seen like that, and in the beginning I found the roof a bit ridiculous in reality, but now I got used to it and think it's not too bad, that's why I modelled it :)

Thanks, with the bodywork now on the suspension works quite well, it feels like the Land Rover, but uses only one hard spring. Here's an update, I have finished the rear part of the bodywork and the interior, although the wheel arch is not a perfect match here, I obviously used that one, it's good enough. Also, I have added a detachable roof, the real thing has a foldable sort of linen roof, which I tried to imitate, and I think it works quite well, resembles the real one. I have also added some exhaust pipes on the side which also helps to get the right height of the side panel visually, which was too high in its original 5L size. Furthermore, there's a detachable spare wheel and a jerry can on the back. And here's a cleaner photo of the rear suspension:

Here's an image of the front suspension from the side, and from the bottom. As you see on the bottom image, it does not have a central differential, instead, the main drive axle is not in the center but split into two parts, and the front part can be detached from the drive with the orange shifter piece, this is how the RWD/4WD switch works. Here's a photo of the engine too, that I have worked on a bit.

Hi, Since I read in another thread that you guys like WIP threads, I decided to put out my alternate of the Land Rover set as I am making it. As the set has a great array of suspension related parts, I wondered what kind of an off-roader could I build with a fundamentally different suspension than the original model. Given the green color, the Willys Jeep looked like a good choice. I like its simple and symmetric chassis, and I have never built a leaf spring suspension before, but it seemed definitely possible with 8 A-arms in the set. The gearbox parts of the Land Rover set also allow for lots of possibilities to build. I did some research, and found out that besides the gearbox, the Willys Jeep has a hi/lo gear selector, and also an RWD/4WD switch, all seemingly possible from the Land Rover. The engine is an inline 4. Here is my progress so far, maybe I am throwing it in a bit late in the process, but at least the bodywork is already getting recognizable. I managed to build the leaf spring suspension for both live axles, and I squeezed in a 4 speed H shaped manual gearbox, as well as the RWD/4WD switch and the hi/lo gear selector into a fairly packed design. The steering is functional, and there's also HOG steering. The inline 4 engine is functional, the hood opens and the windshield is foldable. Let me know what you think! Cheers!

Amazing what can be achieved when mixing technic with system pieces, especially when the whole model is RC. I like that the PTO shaft contains two RC pneumatic channels besides the regular motorized axle, really takes the possible complexity of attachments to the next level! Great work!

Interesting to see that those mechanisms that you list can be useful for implementing logic, looking forward to it, thanks!

Well, will be interesting to see how this evolves, after a quick search, I found that arithmetic has indeed been implemented before, although that was based on presence/absence of rotation, and not rotation direction, wonder how the two systems will compare. Will you be posting progress updates?

Quite a nice idea to explain and visualize how a computer computes :) It reminds of Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, always wondered how that works. So will the registers be using the same encoding, the direction of rotation? I am guessing that you will be able to set the value of (each bit in) each register with switches, right? How many bits per register are you planning? And then it will be able to calculate the given operation on the given data, and 'show' the results somehow? I guess you need a way to translate back the direction of rotation into a switch position in the end.. Wondering why you start with the instruction set, have you managed to implement arithmetic already, like an adder or something?

This seems quite an interesting project based on the bits of information and the video, however, from the available info I don't quite understand how you plan it to work. You are building a simple mechanical calculator, right? Can you elaborate on the encoding you mention? If I understand correctly, you want to use rotation directions of a set of gears to encode a set of bits, right? And this will be the part that represents the selected instruction in your CPU?

Hi, In yet another alternate from 42099, a trophy truck, I wanted a floating axle with long travel using only the available short hard springs. I designed an axle which has the drive motors built in, and has two degrees of freedom using the large turntable. The springs are also mounted in way to allow for tilting to the sides as well. Not as fancy as with a ball joint, but still works. Here's how it looks built into the frame: More info, pictures/video on Rebrickable. Let me know what you think!

Yeah, that’s true, I sometimes loose lights and maybe some bushings from the end of axles that actually rotate and take some load. Thanks for the info on the music, I’ll check that out.

Wow, great MOC, it's really cool that it works so well in the relatively deep snow. I guess it's built strong, but aren't you still afraid of losing some pieces when it's covered all the way to the top in snow? :) MOCs like these just make me feel like I want to build, build, build. Wish I had even more time for all my ideas. I wanted to build something for the snow as well but it never really arrived here this winter.. BTW, where do you guys get the background music from for these videos? Is there some site for such stuff?

Very interesting topic and diverse opinions! As I am relatively new around here on the forum I cannot tell whether the number of MOCs is decreasing, however, I can confirm the experience of some previous commenters. After skipping 20 years of Lego Technic evolution, including the PF revolution (which I am sure I would have liked a lot since I used to be into Lego RC stuff 20 years ago already), I did have the first impression that everything has been built (but I still want to build them anyway since I missed them). On the other hand, I still see a lot of opportunities, for example for improving mechanics (maybe simplifying with newer parts) and improving RC with PU. Maybe we'll have to think a bit differently, I guess PU will require more integration with software (programmable controllers) to open new possibilities and get the most out of it. I am also looking forward to the new BuWizz battery and motor, bringing back the possibility to build all those power horses that were only possible with the now almost extinct RC motor. I think those will give an interesting spin to RC stuff. The reason I like RC is because it gives a chance to test our builds under more demanding and realistic circumstances and force us to build in a more robust way. I also see the proliferation of sports cars with less technical details, and I can see that those do get more attention than technically challenging but less visually pleasing builds, which is a pity, but that's just the way it is. Not that I don't like aesthetically pleasing cars, but I prefer them done in creator expert style. However, I still don't see too many RC versions of those cars with gearboxes, which would actually be (more efficiently) possible by now. Not to mention that PU will make automatic gearboxes possible (when software support becomes better), which could be used in those cars. I also experienced that posting on this site often gives you zero or little responses, which is discouraging, while posting on FB gives you a lot of comments and likes. I believe it is partly due to the fact that there are so many posts here, that most of them are only visible on the forum front page for a few hours, and never seen again afterwards. One thing I am missing is (thumbnail) images and a short description of the items in the list of topics (similar to featured topics on the site's main page, but with smaller images). I think that could guide the attention of readers better. Also, the list on the forum page itself could be longer, to allow for more items to be visible (by default). @Jim have you thought about that before? In essence, any ideas to simplify browsing and discovering interesting threads could possibly improve the situation. Also, true that many MOCs are rather posted on Rebrickable, which I see as more specialized place for that purpose. However, also true, that you can get more quality info related to building techniques here, which is valuable and should be kept up and even condensed maybe. For example I love the axle collection thread, more similar ones would be great. I think threads that are kept alive for many years are more useful than the short lived ones, since many people could be interested in a topic, but may not be present when it is started. To challenge myself, along with unlimited builds, I decided to build alternate models of official sets. Limited parts make you think about alternative solutions even for problems that have already been solved before, and it also gives an easier opportunity to others to reproduce your build without the need for lots of rare/expensive parts. Anyway, back to building :) I mean, after work..

Thanks, about the round clear pieces, I have used those as headlights twice in my previous builds out of the same set (you can check them out on Rebrickable), so I tried something new this time. And I wanted some aggressive looks at the front for this one, that's why the massive flat face with the bone-like grill.

Hi everyone, In an alternate build of 42099, I wanted to create a floating axle rear suspension. I found @Sariel's live axle in SandRail interesting, and the set would have had enough links and tow-ball pins to build it, however, I found it a bit wiggly, mainly stabilized by the driveshaft, which I think may put some stress on it in a larger, heavier model. Also, I wanted to use the large turntable for something interesting, so I came up with the following design: Would you still call this a live axle? It has freedom of movement in two directions: rotation by the turntable, and up-down movement by the 4 parallel links, which keeps the axle centered and prevents it from tilting forward/backward. The two together allow one end of the axle to move up/down while the other stays in place. It is quite robust and provides good enough articulation for the rear axle (wheels up to the rear fenders). It looks like this built into the full model, the chassis around the springs is quite strong: What do you think of it? You can find more images/video on Rebrickable, I have tested it on some real terrain.

Since we are talking about possbile new parts, I think nobody mentioned one seemingly obvious novelty: the recent buggy had a new 15L beam with perpendicular axle holes, which seems something that should be abundant intechnic as it would simplify many builds. I’d expect these new large models to introduce more of that in various lengths and colors, it seems like an obvious direction of evolution. What do you think about that?

Quite a few insightful opinions in this thread! That's an interesting idea, I never thought of it that way, because I never keep the A model for too long, but may be true for many. And it seems also true that many are not aware of sites like Rebrickable, I often see posts in facebook groups asking where to find alternate builds of a model. This is also convincing, at first I thought parents would not care too much about a B model, but I tend to agree with the above. If this was commonplace, it could really work I think. Has it ever happened before? Are there any such examples (specifically for Technic models)?

Sure, they are quite similar, the main difference I see (at least in case of the technic hub's FW) is that steering can use the absolute zero position of the motor (baked into the HW, small max angle), while moving the LAs uses relative positioning, which can be preset and has a large max angle range. Just wanted to know if both will be supported at some point in time. And starting with the most demanded features is totally fine and understandable. The applications that I have in mind would also target construction machines with LAs, so wanted to clarify if it will be supported at some point in the future. Also, more important for me will be the FW support for control commands, once the protocol is published, I could program all sorts of exotic control interfaces on top of it in my own app.

The statistics and the speed gauge sounds great! I did not mean inverse kinematics, such as controlling the end point of an arm with 3 joints, I understand that that's complicated and not your target application here. I was only referring to controlling a single large LA within its full range, and the possibility of calibrating its range (to be able to stop at the ends without running on the built-in clutch). Would that be possible? For that no predefined lever lengths are needed, just to be able to search for the end positions by detecting that the motor has stalled.

Thanks, that sounds really promising with all the customization options and the release of the protocol! Does this also mean that large LAs could be controlled for example like in the Liebherr profile, where the whole range is more than 20.000 degrees and after calibration of the end points, it can move to any position within the range, or it can just move up/down the range and stop at the end points automatically? I understand that such advanced behavior may not be pre-programmed in the Buwizz app itself, but would the possibility be there in the FW to program it on the controller side? From what I understand about gauges coming in the Buwizz app, I am guessing that reading back motor info (speed, absolute/relative position) will be possible, right?