Lipko

Wow, it looks great, thanks for sharing! One little thing though: the aileron should be almost straight with the flaps (the back contour of the wings should be straight and pointing slightly forward), I think the perpendicular connector holding the skeletal aileron near the end of the wing is flipped. Maybe that's the reason why it's so hard to get it balanced. It took me ages to get this right, but at the end if you do the gear teeth alignment right (which is modelled properly in the LDD), it should not be necessary to tweak anything, everyting on the axles are "in system". Another smaller thing: the elevator linkage at the tail is slightly different. With your solution, the movement range of the elevator is much larger, but may be harder to operate at the same time. The landing gear also needs synchronizing, but if all the landing gears are deployed and locked, it should be very easy to insert the small operating gear and having everything synchronized.

I have a contest idea, it's not fleshed out yet. Build anything, but use some specific parts. Not obvious part like wheels, helicopter blades, pullbacks, but something different, maybe the new A frame, bent gear-rack, whatever. The part has to be integral part of the model (solve something that can't be solved neatly with other parts). Maybe there could be prohibited parts, fixed number of parts must be used, whatever. Just an idea...

I think he refers to the holes ín the studded brick. Those don't align properly of you want to connect them perpendicularly. I guess ...

Maybe it's just me, but I think in general we should not discuss the next contest until the currently running one is closed. Talking about the next totally removes the focus from the current. See voting, see how fast the result topic is being unpinned, how easily it's forgotten to put the winner(s) to the Hall of Fame, etc. It also feels a bit dishonest to the contestants of the current contest.

Thanks, I sent the windup-insect things: http://lipkovicsdesign.blogspot.com/p/windup-insectoids.html

I am contacted by TLG that they want to include my stuff in this project. Anybody else? How many models/creators made it in this round? Though it doesn't sound like a round but the final, but could be wrong. I have the superpowers of screwing any opportunities of getting recognition, so I should calm down this time too.

That's pretty hard to answer since it's a chicken and egg problem. I am a mechanical engineer myself too, so I haven't leart any new principles with Lego, but for more specific areas, such as cars, airplanes and construction machines, surely I have. But that's the chicken and egg problem. I learnt about those stuff because I needed to look into them when developing Technic models, but I was into Technic because the engineering behing it. So if I would have chosen a different media (such as meccano, game programming or scale modelling), I would have learnt about these similarly. One thing that I saw (but haven't looked into it because I haven't need it so cannot say "learnt") in these forums is about perfect geometry stuff than can be achieved with beams. Sorry, I don't have time to look those threads up.

Well, maybe not a good idea, I don't have time and bricks to get into it deeper.

Sorry if it was mentioned earlier, but I think the vertical size of the rotor mechanism could be decreased by utilizing piston rod part (2852) with the new 5L suspension part too. So no custom link needed.

I'm sure you care, so I thought I report on the issue. After eliminating the high humidity issue (from 80% to 60...70%) the problem is gone, the models work (not as smoothly as new, but that's dust I guess). Now only the smaller issue remains, the mould destroying the house...

Looks good but I agree that the color-scheme looks dull.

My models have very simple gearboxes, and was working for years without problems. Relatíve humidity is around 80%, that's very high... Could that be a problem?

Hi all! Some of my models have been assembled for several years (3.5..4 years). They were okay until I tried two of them today, both of them had jamming transmissions (total jamming) in some speeds (cars). Last time I tried some months ago and I didn't notice anything. Did anyone experience similar issues of models that are built long ago? What is the reason? I don't see any hair wrapped around axles and all axles I could reach had sufficient axial play. Dust? Permanent deformation of some parts? Can it be solved without disassembling the whole model, for example with some lubricants? I don't plan to disassemble them ever, so I would be okay with "permanent" solutions too. Thanks for any hints!

Hmm, how do you see that 200 pieces are missing? And yup, the grouping was missing, I usually do that. There are differences between the WIP and the final model, the most important part (the middle section at the cockpit) is very different. The final model (the current thread) should be the same as the LDD. Maybe there are some additional pictures here: https://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=577009 And don't hesitate to ask specific things, because the model is assembled so I can have a look.

Uploaded. https://brickshelf.com/gallery/szecs/aircraft/final/repcsi_001.lxf

Hi, thanks for the interest! I have a nearlyfinished LDD, I'll try to upload it on my brickshelf today or tomorrow. I didn't bother finishing it, because I thought the model is a bit flimsy (especially the tail) to my standards, but after seeing the new official heli model reviews, I think my model isn't any flimsier that that. If you like (and I would be very thankful!), you could finish the LDD from the photos (so we could add it to bricklink EDIT: rebrickable). I'll be back as soon as I can, though I have very little time for anything nowadays. BTW as far as I can remember, the propeller isn't geared up anywhere. The speed is due to the fact that it's operated by a 2L connector which you can "nipple" :) no habla englis

Yes, but this error makes this part pretty much impossible to use in linkage mechanisms.

We have Metod kitchen for 1.5 years now and the drawers work smoothly even if significant weight is put inside them. I guess kitchen stuff is heavier than a bulk of Lego parts, so they should be fine for Lego too.

I agree with this. And I also admit is that my comments are partly driven by jealousy. I was the guy who spent the 3 months on refining the build, the instructions etc. and who didn't lower his personal standards (for example the model should be sturdy enough to be playable without carefullness). The looks of my models were okay but not that spectacular. And than the big boom came in the MOC community with all the awesome looking flashy models I just couldn't compete with. Because I couldn't lower my standards. Partly because I couldn't afford to actually try those builds so I thought those MOCs were really magic I will never be able to design anything close to it. And party because of simple stubbornness. The very one-sided hype about those models didn't help that delusion I had. Then I realized that in most cases those hyped models were actually lacking the quality I strived for (and yup, official sets too) and often their "selling points" were actually achieved by cutting corners (not literally), but it was too late, life intervened. And because of that delusion, I never got pass the medicore desinger level (I still don't get that pro tag at my avatar) and never got to know what I would really be capable of. So that way my story.

I'm looking only at the models which are made of the same standard parts with simple processes that doesn't require any special tools (there is free and good quality software for hobbyists too) or skills to design and assemble. So multi-billionairity doesn't have much effect on this. Team of designers? Sure, more eyes see more stuff. Free time? I think only the time part (actual work hours) is relevant, because it's spent on the same thing. So at the end, I don't see a huge advantage for official designers apart from introducing new parts every now and then. The quality issues are usually not related to new parts. Also I'm looking at forums and review videos. The quantity of selled sets/instruction doesn't have much effect. What I wanted to say that the double standard is this: we complain that official sets value looks much more than function and quality, yet we don't complain about it in case of MOCs. And I admit, it's much-much easier to afford having official sets than MOCs, so that explains why there are so few MOC reviews and too small number of samples will mean imprecise results.

Hmm, interesting to see. In case of and official model, we would whine a lot about these issues. Double standard.

I think the problem with that setup is that the T beam is not fully constrained, so it's possible that it can be inserted with slight misalignment or can go off during play. That's why I usually try to avoid such situations. But there's a much worse thing going on in that mock-up: the L beam. Only fixed by one friction pin (so not fully constrained by the structure, but constrained by the rotating axles). Also the piece behind the shorter arm of the L beam will try to separate from the other parts (only friction axle and two frictionless pins will hold the piece). So the L beam and that part will try to shear the rotating axles on the left. Depending on space constrains, I would have put the L beam one stud to the left and fix that connector part from the left side with two hole-pin parts. Edit: should be tested To sum it up: if you have a rotating axle, avoid having holes that are too close to each other on parts that are not fully fixed (fully fixed: friction pin or form-locking solutions) together.

I'm not sold on the overall shape and style at all, but all those new parts, especially the panels!

Wow I didn't even know about these new gears...

Parts-wise I think the direction is good, it's almost like they are actually listening to AFOLs. Sets-wise, I don't know. I haven't bought sets since years, but from reviews I see some not very good tendencies. Like faulty/non-working out-of-the-box solutions, some dirty solutions (it's like they don't care about part-count optimizing any more and settle at okay-ish solutions, like beam stacking for example). But the quality is still very high, just not as high as it's used to be. Comparing with MOCs, it's pretty hard to judge since I cannot afford to build many NMOCs, and reviews tend to be very biased and "cautious". The one MOC I built and the others I looked deeper into were somewhat disappointing. The building quality (structure, playability, reliability and building experience) is only at the level of TLG set quality in case of only a few MOCs (okay, I'm not very active in the last few years).