Lipko

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

I'm a mechanical engineer (machine constructor) and when I had been building my first big MOC project (showed here) I was constantly thinking that it would almost be easier to design the whole thing in real than using LEGO. Obviously it wouldn't be easier, but using LEGO (or other modeling systems) ties your hands in many ways. That means to solve problems, you have to think outside of the box. There are stuff that doesn't exist in the LEGO world, and that is a common thing in engineering (tube-axle for example). To deal with these, you have to thinker the shit out of LEGO, and this (according to my very limited experience with LEGO) renders my degree almost useless. (and renders LEGO a very exciting hobby)

Why can't you use rubber rings? Something like this:

Yeah, that's what I meant, thanks. I really should look into suspensions before reinventing the wheel or throwing away solutions because "they don't look real enough"...

This:

Well, Zblj is my idol, and it's good to see that he uses simple pins for mounting the springs and not ball-end (or whatever it's called) pins. I was worried about this solution, but I guess I'm trying to be too pedant about the stuff... The solution for mounting the center of the axles (for lateral positioning) is really cool and simple, is it used in real vehicles? I've only seen Panhard rods or nothing for lateral positioning.

Of course the axles are cheap, I was talking more about the correctness of the statements made in the thread. I wouldn't worry about it myself, if the vehicle is not too heavy. But it's a bit strange that some are worried about "illegal methods" such as a 3L friction pin plugged through 1/2 - 1 - 1/2 width beams. What's the difference then? Why is it more legal to use a part for something it's not intended for? I'm still new to this stuff, I may be too pedant, but I'm learning.

Isn't ABS subject to creep or relaxation? (sorry, English is not my first language. I'm talking about the phenomena when for example a piece of wood deforms over time under load that's way smaller than the elastic limit) Most plastics are subjects to it, even with low loads. So even if it seems that the axle returns to its original shape, a few months later it will be deformed permanently. Metals are different, they don't (at least steel) suffer from this kind of deformation. Is ABS similar? (well, I have seen deformed axles and they were just sitting inside a bag of Legos for a few years.)

How about using rubber-rings? You could twist a few of them and mount them somehow (I know that "somehow" is the hard part...) Or you could avoid the need of torsion rods and just use a simple axle as a fake and rubber-ring(s) placed somewhere it's not disturbing. There's no need of much movement after all.

8880. 8 hours of continuous building at Christmas when I was nine.

Thanks for the kind words. Well, I wasn't a total beginner, I built some stuff when I was a kid 10 years ago, but never completed stuff and never a technic MOC. Motorizing comes later, I only have only one M motor, no remote control stuff etc. Too expensive yet. Bu all stuff could go into the back of the vehicle. Yeah, it reminds me of that B model too...

Hi all! This is my first own creation for a very long time and my first meeting with the "new" studless building system. It took 4 days to build. I only had two kits: 8052 and 8265 (and one older one, but I used only a few parts, like pins and a differential, from it). At first, I didn't take the "project" seriously, it was just for killing some time. Due to these factors and the complexity/counter-intuitiveness-for-me of the studless system, the machine is quite hacky at some places, rebuilding the stuff would be a nightmare. If I had double amount of pieces, I could rebuild the whole thing using the older iteration as a reference. Maybe I'll do something about it like making instructions and modifying while at it, or maybe it's time to move on to another project/experiment (experimenting with different suspensions for example). It uses some illegal techniques, but all LEGO at least. About the car: It is an off-road vehicle with four wheel drive. It is not motorized (yet), but it has a 2 speed gearbox, differentials with a central differential and differential lock (which I'll replace with a better, bypassing one), working V6 piston engine and live axle suspension. The suspension uses Panhard rods and trailing arms. Building LEGO machines requires very much thinking in advance. Well, I couldn't do that, so the steering is not complete. It can be steered with a knob at the top of the vehicle, but the steering wheel doesn't work. I managed to build (hack) the drive-train to it, but it has so many gears that the internal friction makes the whole thing jammed. So I took out the final yellow knob-gear, so the steering wheel is only decoration. I don't have enough pieces to reinforce the body, so it has a small torsion under stress. I'm satisfied with the model, I think it's pretty good for a first project with no experience and not too big piece inventory to work with. Gallery Thanks for any feedback in advance!