shroomzofdoom

I just got my hands on the latest Technic space sets and I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed to say the least. The orrery and VTOL are the best by far. I really don't understand the loader and find the play features...just dumb. The rover has a bloated piece count and inexplicably awkward, kludgy mechanisms that are virtually unplayable. The whole Technic space line just seems thrown together. Into the parts bin inventory they go!

I started with a PU hub running a Pybricks program that turns on and starts motor with the power button. The elements are a variant of the one Ngoc mentions here. With mine, I push the left seat back to click the green button and run the program which simply turns the motor on/off. I went with LBG/DBG color palette which is closer to the original military version. In places where Lego panels were not available in in gray, I used 3rd party parts. I bought a sticker sheet from Brick Sticker Shop and used the gray ones to get it a bit closer to the original. It’s important to use the ‘rescue’ ones to have a story to tell. 😊 I hid almost all visible yellow, brown, red, blue, & orange with analogous Lego parts. The only non-Lego pins used were to replace the 3L friction pins. Change over shifters are still red of course, but I toned them down a bit. Because I just can’t wait for the blades to arrive from Denmark, I mocked it up using chefkaspa's blade MOC Overall, I’m happy with the way it came out. It was a very rewarding build experience and I saved myself about $900 USD by using current inventory and a few various parts from Brickowl and Ali. (next up 8043!)

Any of my fellow North American Technic fans noticing the set doesn't quite line up for the April 8 eclipse? Not complaining...but I just noticed this and was thinking I'd 'reset' it, assuming it to be related to the margin(s) of error mentioned above.

Wow, truly remarkable effort! Lego should send you a check for your efforts!

I just built the Osprey from my inventory parts and waiting to get a few third party panels. I upgraded using the standard fix with the 6ea 8z gears and all is well. The nacelles don't turn in unison and often don't turn at all unless I hold the entire model up or down. I've tried a couple of things like using non-friction pins at the pivots, replacing the 2L pin connector 'clutch' in the wing, etc...no joy. Reading through the thread, it seems like swapping out the gearing in the nacelle (from 12T/12T to 12T/20T) might do the trick, but before go that route I just wanted to see what you guys thought? EDIT: I swapped out the 2L pin connector 'clutches' in the wing with 4L axles as suggested above by @SNIPE and it worked out well. Now, I'm also noticing that when the tilt limit is reached, the inline torque clutch does it's job and slips. Given these two, somewhat redundant design elements, it's pretty hard to see the original design as anything but slightly flawed in a number of ways but overall, still a really cool model that I wish more Technic fans have the opportunity to enjoy. Will post pics once I get it colored. I went with full, boring DBG kinda like the real world using third party elements in places where there were no Lego parts

Not sure if you tried, but I called Lego customer service and was quite honest in telling them I had somehow misplaced a sticker sheet and they sent me a replacement free of charge. Different set but may work for you?

Quick and dirty for demonstration purposes. I used 88017... Not quite permanent. I like the little crank. I sit here on video calls, cranking away, and everyone wonders what my left hand is up to.

Advantages: No routing of wires back to the hub, no distance limitations ability to place motors, batteries, and weight distributed throughout large models without wires not having to ship replacements to all of the kids that accidentally break the wires. Disadvantages: Single point of failure Costly Larger form factor It's not that far fetched of an idea...think Move Hub. Heck, maybe you make the motor and the battery/hub like two separate 'bricks' but essentially hub logic gets embedded with the battery. Design execution would require designers to make the USB accessible but Lego designers are the best in the world. I think this would would make the form factor a bit larger to include battery + ASIC + compact motor. Think of a square 'bricks' with pinholes 4M x 4M x 9 M or even 5M x 5M x 11M. Connect up USB to charge...disconnect...and play!

1 MILLION PERCENT!!! With current technology, the form factor of a PU XL motor could include a custom asic and a battery for a completely wireless design aesthetic. It wouldn't work in every application but think about how a newer model like the Audio quattro could work if the motors were a tiny bit bigger and it had no hub or wires. I know it's a bit of a leap but the guy that thought of squeezing a USB into a 9v battery probably thought so too.

@msk6003 and @efferman Appreciate the info! The only place I was able to find this part being used was in the DF-21D missile truck. It's usage was definitely a portal axle but I don't think I'd have arrived at this design on my own. I reproduced this from a speedbuild on yt: Since it's hard to make out in my preferred 'all black' color palette...I also mocked up up a version using trans clear where the CADA part can be seen as the only black part: With all of the spare time I had left over, I even made the sculpture for @Aurorasaurus

Nice work! I'm stuffing some cash into an envelope now. Hahaha

Just wanted to ask if any of the CADA designers have ever had occasion to use this part and if so, how did you use it? I often pick up 3rd party parts from various places. These are CADA branded. I picked them up thinking I might try making custom portal axles but the spacing doesn't seem good for that. They seem like they might be useful somewhere and I have about 40 of them so looking for some design ideas.

Maybe TLG saw how far their little PF connector has come since they killed it, decided to do a whole nostalgia thing and bring them back with USB C upgrade. (I know crazy talk, but I can dreamzzzz can't I?)

Finally got around to testing out the controller function. Worked flawlessly for me on a PS4 DualShock! #@*!# YEAH BUWIZZ!!! Love this!!!

Yellow technic pins w/o friction in 60430. Neato. Kinda useless but also...cool

I'll try anything once and I sure appreciate you trying and sharing! Under higher torque applications I could see this disengaging and stripping clutch gears though. I was able to get a picture of the taper. Under high load, the new 2L rings wobble and definitely have more engagement issues when compared with the 3L ones. I hope this gets addressed in the future...especially because these 2L rings are very expensive. The taper is the only thing I can think of but I can't prove it.

Me neither

I'm gonna try this out today. Thanks! Not sure if you guys are experiencing the same thing, but my experience is that the new 2L shifters seem to hang up more often than the older 3L ones during shifts. It seems to happen with all the current clutch gears (16T, 24T, 20T). I've been working this week to shorten a 4 speed transmission design I have and actually considering giving up on the 2L shift rings for now. Edit- I suspect this has to do with the fact that the 2L axle connectors have a slight taper to them.

Interesting. I hadn't really looked at the space sets previously and that 49699 part is new to me! Thanks!

What's going on here?

Some similar examples (not Curiosity): https://www.wired.com/2012/08/curiosity-rover-made-with-lego-mindstorms/ https://pybricks.com/projects/sets/mindstorms-robot-inventor/fan-inventions/exploration-rover/

In it's current state, the wheel stability would be difficult to say the least. If you push it with your hand and turn it at the same time you'll see what I mean. You're probably going to have to consider scaling up the size of the legs to support these elements being motorized. Nothing in Lego (or engineering) is impossible...it just often takes just time, parts, and dedication!

The technic bricks are crudely zip tied to the RC platform. I like this.

After the original post I realized that there are regional variations to Lego Masters. I watch the US version and it was S04E08. In it, they smash together two other designs and use only those bricks to finish off the chassis. They them race them around a rally track and the winner gets their design featured in the Drive video game. If you torrent or Usenet you should be able to find it. I found this later on https://www.trackstarrc.net/blogs/news/track-star-r-c-chosen-to-build-lego-masters-r-c-platforms Though if @kearkor recognized it that's prob the most likely scenario. I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't use Lego for every single challenge that uses RC. Some episodes featured boats, erupting volcanoes, and it would be impractical

I found it interesting that Lego seemed to have chosen a 3rd party RC chassis to use as a base platform in the most recent episode 'Lego 2K Drive'. I've always realized that making an RC 4x4 chassis is not easily done with legal Lego design and that we like to push the envelope but I'd also like to imagine TLG advisor and show producer had to look at the current options for Technic to say 'yeah, let's just get an aftermarket chassis'. It just seems to be a big miss to not build a Lego RC platform for this purpose. Maybe I missed something and they are using some future design... maybe the lack of attention to PU and the fact that they've killed mindstorms points to some divestiture from this kind of market...Part of me hopes they realize these shortcomings and are hard at work at some next gen power and RC stuff. I can dreamzzz, can't I?