Lipko

The black-and-white safari truck is my favourite. But why do I have to vote in both sections?

Not agreeing about the working steering wheel part in car sets. It may not be anything special, but leaving its function out is just lame. Just because something is solved, that doesn't mean it's meaningless to include in later sets. By that, we could leave out the whole independent suspension, because it's solved already and not any special and doesn't add anything significant to a car set... We're talking about cars, other vehicles pretty much never had working steering wheels as far as I remember (apart from some exceptions). But cars, well, they are pretty much just cars, it's hard to come up with features.

This is still my favourite Lego car. It's the mostest badassest beautifulest of all. I'm in love with it.

Maybe it's because the B model needs 7L.

I guess caster and Ackermann is the same here. Actually Ackermann seems not to be a big problem, because the turning of the wheel is limited on the outer side of the turning circle; on the inner circle (on which he wheel has to turn in a bigger angle) is not limited by the protruding arm thing. AFAIK toe is there to compensate the effects of chamber (with a chamber angle, the tire deforms to be a bit conical when in contact (more precisely deforms near the contact area). Running on two cones wants to abduct the wheels). Chamber is there to compensate the lateral movement of the wheels if they are independently suspended, so that the contact patches stay more or less in the same distance from each other. With the reversed suspension, I guess the chamber geometry is totally different, so is the toe geometry. I guess the only benefit here is that the driver can "leap" between the wheels in jumping mode. And that it looks cool.

I guess studless is weaker because it has only one direction for connecting and attaching stuff, while studded has two perpendicular directions to do so. Inserting plates between studded beams then reinforcing them vertically with 3L beams makes a very stiff frame (because the "layers" can't slide on each other). You don't really have to care about corner-stiffness in any directions. But with studless, corner-stiffness is always a big issue. You have to use L/T shaped stuff or the rectangular frame pieces and still, the whole frame will likely to twist in some direction. I agree that it's a design decision at TLG and I personally like this decision, because the models they produce seem so elegant and neat compared to MOCs that are much stronger.

So, what is it with those custom shock absorvers? 1974 is a former Lego designer who made this hack and it accidentally got into the booklet. Or wut?

I'd be very happy if someone would copy my work some time. Not many designers are "victims" of that. Selling is a different topic, but AFOLs know each others' names so the glory will eventually get to the real designers (quite fast), plus the money you can make by selling instructions (many designer don't even intend to do) is pretty small anyway.

I consider myself experienced in Technic building, I built the 8880 when I was nine without error. Yet, A month ago I built the Unimog with the central differential in the opposite direction. Luckily I checked early if the gears are running smoothly so I didn't have to rebuild much. Otherwise I would have thrown it out of the window... And when I was about ten, after rebuilding the 8880 at least 20 times, I made the same mistake with the differentials. Broke the car into half... *denies his anger management problems

I'm losing interest in my current project because of the so many problems with even small features, and because another project got my interest. I'll try to stick to the first one though, and make the other one in LDD. Or the other way around...

That Ackermann is actually backwards. The inside wheel will turn less than the outside wheel in a turn, which is unrealistic and maybe it will affect the performance of the vehicle too. I'd go with "rectangle" geometry.

That's just the fake jet propeller. I didn't have a propeller propeller part, and the LDD is of the submitted version with all its small mistakes (like some axes are sticking out). I'm thinking about improving the model a bit.

I made an LDD model of the watercraft It was hard to rebuild the model, I didn't make instructions for it, and I only had a few photos of it (not much more than you can see in this thread). But I believe I could rebuild the thing, maybe there are some differences in the placement of some pins in the body. Surprisingly, there were only three minor points where there was an illegal construction: The exhaust pipes (the Palm-tree trunk part), the two bushes under the panels on the bottom-front of the vehicle (you can see the light-gray axle end in the first image). Plus putting studded plates in beams is illegal, so I had to replace those parts (on the bottom of the watercraft). This is my first model in LDD, but I had only one issue: For some reason, the gear-rack part seems to be taller than 1 stud, so I couldn't put the double-pin-with-bushing part above it to guide the rack. The double-pin-with-bushing part is replaced with a purple bush. LDD file And some "renders":

I don't think it's too slow. I would guess that it's even slower in real life. And it seems quicker than many other L.A using models

That's true but you have to take pre-compression of the springs into account too. i don't know about real cars, but Lego springs have significant pre-compression. So making a too soft suspension for Lego cars can make the suspension unrealistically soft.

Yes, but I think we are talking about two different things. I think you talk more about proof of concept design than supercar model design. In my opinion, when talking about supercars, the builder focuses on the final product (I don't mean it's for selling or for the audience). And the final product (in Lego building, or in engineering, software, architecture etc) is about making compromises and to actually "ship" something. And you have to decide what you focus on, and at some point, you have to drop features that you want to implement just fort the sake of implementing it, in favour to the overall quality of the final product. Proof of concept building is different in my opinion. In that case, you focus on a single feature or a few closely related features and not care that much about the rest. In both cases, the process of creation IS the value (for me too, and I think for every hobby builders), but the satisfaction is maybe different.

Take a look at the recent civic thread for example. But Hopey is right, you should get some better suspension pieces. It doesn't have to be the 8070, as far as I remember the orange quad has some wishbone pieces too. They are from the smaller kind, but you have to build long wishbones anyway.

Yes, I think rebuilding will help. That was the plan anyway, to build a sketch version, to see if the model "works" at all (looks cool, functions cool, the theme is interesting enough, the whole thing is exciting enough). If it "works", then i make instructions take it apart and rebuild the whole thing again (instructions only for reference). The best would be if i had enough pieces to keep the sketch version built. but that's not an option. Maybe I'm just a slower learner. Being and engineer helps a lot, but with rather simple things, like gears, gearboxes, suspension etc. But combining the limited set of pieces into something I want is very tough, it really looks like mechanical puzzles to me more than anything. No matter how much I know about differentials and differential locks, I just can't stuff that into that limited space.

This. That's why I dropped these suspension features. Apart from the Ackermann and shock absorbers, the other stuff don't add value. If exaggerated, they actually ruin playability and realism. If the are set realistically, it's pretty much impossible to notice the difference between no such things at all. And it's not lulz to struggle with unnoticeable features.

2 battery boxes in series adds the voltages. Amperage depends on the things you connect to the battery box. Maybe he wants to connect the PF elements in series. I'm not sure how can one do that without modding the connectors though. When putting the PF elements in series you can use doubled voltage on them (I mean the series of PF elemets). EDIT: I'm not sure about connecting the battery boxes, maybe you can't do so without modding the connectors... EDIT 2: I think you can only connect the battery boxes in parallel without modding the connectors, so you have to add the switch (to reverse polarity) between them. So with the switch, you select between parallel and series connection of the BBs. Please someone confirm.

Congratulations! So are you allowed to post in this forum? Do you have to speak some Danish?

Based on this thread, I have to ask: does being good at mechanical puzzles make you good at designing your own models? Or is it required to be good at mechanical puzzles? I start to think so. I'm a mechanical engineer (constructor) and I'm okay in it (it wasn't really tested yet). I consider myself creative, I am a hobby programmer, written many games and stuff from scratch, I did paper modelling (I designed and developed the models completely myself, I "invented" all the techniques and technology paper modelling required, because I didn't know about anyone else doing it that time). But I suck at mechanical puzzles. And the sad thing that it seems I suck at Technic building too. I made 3 okay models, but the first model that is a bit more "advanced" gets over my head. I can't solve even simple stuff, because it will "contradict" the other stuff there. I'd need to continuously rebuild the whole thing to integrate the new feature, it's just too complex for me. Opinions? Are you good at puzzles?

The steering will be the tricky part. I'm struggling with it at the moment. If you go for rack-and-pinion steering, make sure the rack is guided from all sides. I mean guide it from the toothed side too somehow. If you don't do this, the 12 tooth gear itself won't be enough, and the steering will be loose (you can push the wheels towards each other, because the rack can move a little vertically).

That is the mostest awesomest thing. Supported.

Nice fake fake engine, but you could also give up the 12 cylinders and use only 6 or 8 real fake ones.