Stereo

Mostly no real difference when used as spur gears, but the thin bevels are probably a bit worse as bevels. Larger also better, I've pretty much only had 8 and 12 teeth gears skipping as long as the engagement's ok. With less ideal loose engagement, spur gears might work better, but it's going to be still quite easy to skip.

I suppose you could probe your layout for good feed locations by running a battery-powered (or push) train with a multimeter connected to power pickup wheels. You'd just short the feeder at the power supply end, instead of connecting it, then measure resistance. A dynamometer car that just passively shows the voltage across the rails could be interesting too. Might take a bit of running to get used to interpreting it.

It depends on what things cost, but I expect my minimum order specific to trains is the power pickup axles and track connection wire, so I can combine it with PF remote control. Most likely IR receiver onboard the train, for DCC-like behaviour, but if that turns out to be unreliable (no idea how much the receiver tolerates gaps in power for maintaining speed settings), wall power into the receiver into the tracks is a backup plan. Aside from being what's available first, it just makes more sense budget-wise to continue to use the working PF motors I have. Though I suppose for this specific task there is one thing - the PF 9V adapters don't connect to the "constant" side of the PF plug, which is what the IR receiver input needs. Obviously the workaround is just wire my own adapters the other way. So I might also order some short FX wires to get spare 9V plugs.

The weird thing is it's right next to a brown 1x1 Technic brick with a stud stuck in it, so they obviously know there are other parts available... why is it a headlight brick? I have heard that Technic brick pinholes don't line up with SNOT, but... surely that's a smaller problem than what they did do.

My optimist outlook is that the cars are easier to leak because people recognize them. The heavy equipment names don't mean as much and the sets look more "the same" (eg. if we get another Volvo, it'll likely be black and yellow).

https://rebrickable.com/parts/6596/tyre-816-x-142-motorcycle-z-racing-tread/ Really looks like the same size as these tires (~10 stud * 2 stud), interesting. I wonder if they'll use them in black for a motorcycle. Windshield is I guess dual molded with bars at the end. Stuck into half-pins.

I used about 1/10 of the stickers on 42125. That's about the main upside of stickers that I see. Mix and match instead of going to fully 0 or everything that Lego decided needs a print.

The boosters also swing out on an arc, they could be counterweighting it in the 'up' position.

Slipped my notice until now, but 42678 Pet Accessories Van (Friends theme) is using a Technic shift drum to wag the van's tail in an uneven pattern, driven by the back wheels. Funny part usage.

All the differentials should be about the same for wheels going opposite directions, since they use the same 12t bevels. The gears might not be slid into place properly inside it. I think when assembling it you want to drop all 5 in, have the one on the open side be floating loosely and centered, and then put the cap on. It has enough friction that a wheel won't spin indefinitely like it would if it was just an axle connected to nothing, but usually easier to turn the other wheel than to move the drivetrain.

8 small sets in the same colour is interesting, would have thought they would make them look a bit more different. I guess it's good for people designing 8x combination MOCs. To me it looks like dump truck, cement mixer truck, bulldozer, wrecking ball crane, excavator, front loader, truck crane. I can't see the 8th one, maybe another truck like the dump truck.

I think it's because of the red gears that float on the driveshaft, if you hold maximum steering, those are pressed against the axles and increase friction a lot. (both within the gear and the beams it passes through in front/behind) Zero Ackermann also contributes though, the front tires are scrubbing quite a bit if it's on a smooth floor.

Ah, but what if it's the modern Dodge Chargers from Fast 5, that they used to move the bank vault? (I know, it's going to be Dom's from 1st movie)

Well, if it was car transporter scale, it should be wider than the car transporter, not transported on it. Since it's bigger than most cars. The previous minifig Tumbler was about 14 studs wide with 4 of the 3-stud wide truck tires (which I hadn't realized have a truck tire tread until the GT40 got car tread ones).

The Technic subforum's light theme broke for me today, a lot of white-on-white text. The Dark theme's text is too dark for me to comfortably read in a lot of spots, but I don't normally use it so I can't say whether it changed.

The blue-violet's somewhere between sand blue and sand purple, interesting. I hope it gets enough part usage to be able to have it as an accent on general builds rather than needing to use the specific 20 pieces.

https://rebrickable.com/sets/31218-1/japanese-cherry-blossom-landscape/#comments This set is a good point of reference, cause the sky uses Coral, Bright Pink, (unnamed shade of coral), probably Light Nougat, so you can compare it to those options.

They're adding a new colour, that I'd speculate could be called "Light Coral" I think the minidoll in front is Magenta and most of the set is Dark Pink but those two are pretty close so photos don't always distinguish.

Yeah, 86652 wheel is compatible with the large hubs and would look good with large size offroad tires (doesn't have to be tractor style). I don't know why it's only had one type of tire for it for 30 years.

The Creel House from Stranger Things has a very neat "splitting open" function using a bunch of technic links. See e.g.

Also not really a new thing... 8810 in 1991 is a small motorcycle, 8210 in 1995 is a same size small motorcycle. Just white and red. I haven't checked how identical the builds are, but they are not far.

It would be 4.5, there's 1.5 studs past the wheel, 1 in the wheel, 1 in the beam behind it, and 1 to go into an axle connector. Or it could be 8.5 and go all the way into the differential. Or it's just a 5.5 that's brown for some reason.

Ah, that makes sense, I thought about that piece but didn't see the one side has 5x3 L and the other doesn't. Got up to 148 with the chain tensioner (and realising the part count I was looking at is wrong...), could probably hide 1-2 more pieces by filling every hole in the chassis with pins. Maybe replace a 2L liftarm with 2 thin ones or similar. It's kinda interesting how using yellow as the accent means this set really doesn't have much colour barf. There's the red bushes, 2l axles, and the blue pins. 5L axles and pistons being yellow just looks fine.

The middle layer of the rear axle seems to be a piece I don't recognize. Maybe a 3x5 frame? At least, it looks like it fits inside the wheel, rather than being spaced out from it a 1/2 stud. If it was a 5x7 then it should have 3 pinholes along the back edge and it doesn't. The other layers could be 2x3 frames or the same 3x5 rotated the other way. I guess a 3x5 L is possible but I'm not sure how you would build it into something secure that way.

I had a go reverse engineering it, but with 29 chain links (I'd guess 28 to 30, would need to build irl to know, and maybe it has a chain tensioner like the red bike), it is quite short on parts at 138 for everything visible: The grey pin at the bottom of the black L-beam is somewhat a mystery to me, I guessed a pin-pin-axle, but it doesn't seem like it has any purpose a blue 3l pin wouldn't serve. So it might have something else there. Friction pin with stud for example.