Have loitered in this forum for months waiting for updates, posting for the first time (ever) to throw a few different opinions into the mix.
Firstly, have played with some big cranes in my job, and will 100% outlay the cost to have this model on my desk at work. No, I can’t really afford it, and am acutely aware of how different it looks to the real thing, but there is a (surprisingly large) community of people who are super stoked to have Lego build something so close to what we love doing (building things and lifting heavy stuff). Its a niche flagship model that’s for sure, but it’s the kind of thing I think a few people will happily pay for (already thinking about how to remove the fly jib and run it as a single boom).
Secongly, much like real cranes I’m certain that 500g is the safe working limit for stability, not part failure. Lattice booms are ultra strong, and at low radius can lift eye-wateringly heavy loads. For these cranes it’s all about stability limits, and my guess would be that both height and boom operation have been cropped here to keep it within extremely conservative limits. Real crawlers are very easy to tip without an experienced operator, Lego would have been fielding a tsunami of complaints if they’d delivered a model with realistic geometry and performance.
Overall, I think it’s not quite as realistic as I’d like, but still a model i’d love to own and build. It’s a great base from which to build a lot of modified crane configurations too, so it’s a hard yes from me.
