N00b1nat0r

So started build last week and finished it off at the weekend. My children and myself have been having some fun with this, firstly the youngest daughter (3) was just messing with the boom and turning it. My son (5) was doing some lifting and moving the crane around our kitchen (largest area with space) very well, he could, lift, move and lower his 1kg water bottle with some considerable skill. Even after a bit of time he was using the app very well! My initial thoughts with this set is the size is BIG, really big, my son is just taller and the tip of the luffing jib is our kitchen counter height. Its has really great playability features, and also learning features, such as COG movement and weight capacity(my son was really interested in these) and we high the limit with two water bottles! Controls are good with some fine controllability, with practice I could, hook up, lift water bottles, move them and place them with some accuracy down and unhook them. I found the instructions quite a long process, and broke it down into 2x hours a night but with a lack of sleep I did somehow manage to miss 1x black pin, 2x blue 3L pins and 8x yellow bushes in the build. I suspect the bushes are from the ring build, and no idea where the pins are from. It however seems to be working all ok. I think Lego have somehow come out with a crane that has both a boom, Luffing Jib and be of some size and use but not over sized. If you compare it to the alternative MK version I would not purchase that one at all just on the build and size of it alone. I find this one is a compromise between parts included, size and features but have the ability to MOC it yourself as seen. You can go single boom, short luffing jib or purchase more frames/2nd set and double it! They could have gone down the old blue crawler crane route and not given us a luffing jib and the A frames. I think if they had increased the size of this, it would have increased the pricing and size too much and moved this out of some buyers reach/homes! In regards to the colours and also the size, I did see one on one video and eventually came across this on the Liebherr site Fourth Liebherr LR 13000 crawler crane handed over | Liebherr where when looking at the images you can see the crane is yellow, and the boom ends are red just the same as the Lego version. Also the proportions are similar with the Derrick boom being shorter than the main boom. I think proportionally this is the offering in 42146, however what they have had to do is fit in the controller box between the counter weights attached to the body, and the counter weights supplied are the derrick ballast but with no lifting ability and attached to the main body. The other thing to point out is when looking at the options for the LR 13000 you can see as per the images on that page, the size of the boom actually goes from heavy to light (Thicker to thinner) on the luffing jib, I suspect Lego were not able to come up with something similar and this could have been another reason for the size. So overall a compromise in my opinion and I think Lego know this is the case. Overall I am happy with my purchase, I am also looking at ways to modify this and extend the boom/jibs (total of around 6x or 7x frames lengths shared with all 3x booms/jibs) adding extra counter weight in front of the current counter weight (inline with the winch controller box) but higher up. At the moment these parts are just under half the cost of what I paid for this set new so I am waiting for a price drop or a 2nd hand one to be at a good price, however these are currently fetching the same as the new price!

Thanks Tom, I saw tour crate and wondered how it was made and of what materials. Interesting out of subject build and materials.

Just joined as I have got this for my birthday next month after buying it in the UK for £400 at Smiths. I've been lurking around here and Reddit looking at ways to potentially extend this set especially now the boom frames are on Pick a Brick here too. Sadly the cost of what's on a simple list to extend comes out at £180 on PaB which is less than the alternatives but still nearly half the current UK price at Smiths or Amazon. I've been tempted to get another set but sneaking that past the Mrs will be a hard job! I'm really looking forward to the build and playability of the base set and really want to see if extending this is worth it plus what's the best way to do it. Currently I haven't really formed an opinion on the set other than they should have supplied something for it to lift like they did in the Rough Terrain Crane set, which is also potentially another reason to buy another set to extend the main one, build some lifting item out of the spares left over and or potentially a smaller crane too...