Lipko

The pictures are too small. Anyway, this MOC would be awesome. I'd build a non-powered "supercar-ish" version with full suspension, gearbox and all the other supercar features. And a motorized version next to it. I always missed the supercar-ish truck Technic sets

The Unimog's prize is more than the half of my current salary...

Um, maybe: "Technic creations are standalone models of which the main and most important feature is mechanics. Other features (such as looks, scale, scale compatibility with other Technic models) are secondary. These mechanical functions and the overall model is built with the most appropriate and newest (if possible) LEGO parts, and uses efficient, simplest and most relevant-to-the-function building techniques." Or something like that... That's seems something okay, because we can all agree on the mechanic part, and we can agree that these functions can be build most efficiently using "Technic" parts.

I saw some Korean or Chinese Techic clones, they were small sets with awkward colors, I can't recall the name.

Curse my goldfish memory! One things seems to separate Technic and Model Team from the others I think, it's the scale and that sets aren't part of a bigger theme. By this I mean you can't really put together all the models to make a city, space station whatever, as the sets of Technic and MT doesn't have a consistent scales. Usually you don't play with system sets separately from each other, but usually you do play with Technic and MT sety separately from each other. My English sucks...

Geez, that technic piece doesn't even fit with itself directly! (they don't click) Or this "system part" So what? What is the point of this "some pieces don't fit" argument apart from nitpicking? That is the worst argument on what's Technic and what is not so far in this thread. Never mind, maybe I misunderstood the intent of this argument...

I guess it's possible to choose two "technic" parts that cannot be fit directly, or two "non-technic" parts too. Hmmmm, it would be a fun challenge. Whoever finds the most pairs wins an Unimog (rzzzz, maybe the word "fit" should also be defined....)

How expensive is the power functions compared to wheels? According to my limited experience, sets without wheels seem cheaper than sets without power functions (compared to wheeled and powered sets respectively and with about the same number of parts). Maybe I'm wrong here... Anyway, I prefer sets without power functions, because I buy sets for the parts mostly. I prefer powerless sets for aesthetic and functional reasons too. Powering arbitrary (and not main) functions and having other manual functions at the same time is a bit awkward to me. Fully powered stuff for playing, or fully manual stuff for looking at and adding to my collection.

Looks great so far! I hope you'll make that giant fan work with the engine

I can't think of any analogy how philosophical and meaningless this question really is... Does it really matter what is called Technic while it's Lego? If I build Flash Gordon stuff, would I really care which sub-group it is? Is it Lego City? Is it Space theme? What if I build furnitures in big scales? Do I care what theme it fits? It's Lego, that matters. IMHO

I wouldn't be surprised at all, if 3D printed Lego pieces would be much more expensive than buying those pieces (even without the shipping prize). Lego pieces are produced in high precision, I don't know when 3D printing will get to that point. If so, it would maybe take a day to produce a Lego piece... I don't know if it's at all possible to 3D print smooth surfaces without additional manufacturing procedures (arbitrary angled and curved surfaces). I'm not sure about the strength and other physical properties of the pieces either (I guess 3D printing produces anisotropic pieces). Die-casting is too different from 3D printing technologies. I think (based only on assumptions and some old and incomplete knowledge I had of the matter in the university) that 3D printing is only really usable (and will be for long) for rapid prototyping and some hobby applications (modelling) As for printing anything: well, not for some centuries. And even if we will have the technology to print anything, it will be waaaaay too expensive and time-consuming than waiting for any ships coming from anywhere. Materials have very specific any very important micro-structures. The same pieces with the same chemical properties can be totally different. There is a whole field of science only for heat treating steel to produce the desired properties. So no, "bzzzz bzzzzz, Enjoy your donut!" isn't going to happen for a very long time EDIT: and even then, it won't worth it for sure.

Still not clear for me... Do you need functions to go through the axle of the whole panel? If not: what Efferman said but with two pairs of universal joints (maybe he has a pair of them too). Maybe you should post some Paint drawings on what you want to achieve.

Something like this maybe? (Sorry for the Paint art)

Well, it's not that advanced in real life either. I don't know about this particular model, but many tractors simply have more gear-sticks. Basically, the "hi-low" range selector in many 4x4 vehicles is the same as this, but the secondary gearbox is only two-speed. Maybe I misunderstood and I'm telling the obvious... sorry in that case.

Thanks for the comments! To be honest, I expected a little more attention, as these Technic cars always interest many builders (including me), and I thought this model is more interesting than my first one. Anyway, I'll make some more photos and maybe a video this weekend, for some reason I make pretty boring photos... I prefer not filling the body to show the functions internal mechanisms better. In my opinion, too much filling places these models somewhere between Model Team and Technic but without that truth Model Team look. Maybe the spacey look makes models more boring because you don't really want to open the hatches? I don't know, if I'll have more pieces, the next car will have much more filled body. Or maybe current filling is enough but I'll have to define the shapes better next time.

I like it! Do you think you could make the steering-wheel work? That would be awesome (and that's something I miss in many technic sets).

Here is my second MOC, a cabriolet. I was building it for about a month. It's a bit hacky as my first MOC and I still don't have too much experience and pieces to work with, but I'm getting better. Some parts came together very good, like the cabin of the car. The body is very simple and spacey by design, but I still don't have enough pieces and panels to make a clean design. Just take a look at the rear of the car. And that's why it's a cabriolet... Anyway, my girlfriend helped me a lot with the body with her opinions (but that's not the reason why the car is a bit "girly" and not an aggressive beast...). Features: 5 speed synchronized gearbox with reverse rear wheel drive rear/middle V-12 engine independent suspension on all wheels flip-up headlights opening hatches butterfly doors operated by knobs Hand of God steering and working steering wheel About the gearbox: Since I don't have any of those "extender" pieces (which are around since 1999?) for the clutch gears, I had to come up with a somewhat hacky solution for the reverse speed. The 5th and R are placed in an awkward position. This, and some other "optimizations", like placing a differential hub into the gearbox for reducing the number of gears, make the structure of it quite weak. In fact, the gearbox is the weakest part of the chassis, which makes the car quite flexible, since it doesn't have a roof either. This hack also makes the gear-rations a bit unrealistic especially for the 5th speed. Gear-ratios: 1st: 0.5 2nd: 0.625 3rd: 0.833 4th: 1.042 5th: 1.736 R: 1.111 I'm happy with the result and I'm glad that I can actually finish projects with good results. Some pictures, and you can check my gallery too (sorry for the poor quality). Thanks for any feedback in advance!

I can't be sure if I only see 6 pictures of the whole assembly in 800×600.

How do you check if an entry was made of only real LEGO pieces? EDIT: can one use water?

No one suggests 9394? Quite a lot of red panels and beams, enough to make the body of a supercar. No wheels so quite cheap. I've bought it anyway, I hope it was worth it...

Holy f.. sh.. Can I get married to Blackbird?

Um... If you have the instructions for the A models then I don't see the need to keep track of the pieces or any other organization. Just build the sets if you want them to be built or it doesn't really matter if the sets are mixed. They are yours, use them whatever way you like... Lego is about the possibility of mixing sets, that "feature" is the most important one

Here's a bit modified version of Allanp's 2WD/4WD drive (I came up with it independently, after that I saw that his version is pretty similar). This version lets you use a single selector arm. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/97/p1330440.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/51/p1330439.jpg/ For some reason, "I'm not allowed to use that image extension"...

I think the gear-shifting mechanism is more interesting than the gear system. I would love to see some designs for that! Designs for sequential shifting, or regular (H pattern) shifting but with non-common gearbox orientations/positions. Tight packing of all the stuff is an interesting topic too. BTW, I'm using the synchronized gear system for the 4 speed gearbox posted by Allanp.

Typical architect