Blakbird

I've finished the rest of the pictures. This shows the completed model in all its glory. If you look closely, you might spot one part substitution I made due to not having what I needed. This shows the bodywork and chassis which can be separated in seconds by pulling 4 pins. This shows one of the few things which I did not like about the model. This is the motor which controls the switching between 2WD and 4WD. It is cantilevered a long way forward with no side support, so when the linkage rotates in pushes itself outward and bends the attachments alarmingly. It has not actually come off though. I can't find a good way to do anything about it. The area is far too dense with other structure to add much of anything. The chassis can be quickly separated into receivers, front and rear axle assemblies, frame, and gearbox/drivetrain. Here is the biggest marvel of the whole model: the gearbox. It would take a whole new topic with dozens of photos to explain how this thing works. So I'll ask myself the same question allanp asked: Did it work right away? Yes! And no...... It actually worked fine when I was testing it with just the chassis, but then it stopped working when I attached the bodywork. I spent many, many hours troubleshooting. I made the same change as allanp adding a 3rd red rubber band to the slider. That made it more reliable. I also added the guide to the clutch linkage like he did which holds things in place a bit better. Still worked as a chassis but not with the body. Eventually I discovered that the receiver wires were fouling the shift linkage when the body pressed them down. It is important to route the wires on the passenger side as much as possible as shown in the picture below. The wiring diagram in the instructions shows you how to connect the wires, but is not very accurate in terms of routing because the lengths are not accurate. I think there is also some variation. For example, it was impossible to connect my steering motor per the instructions because the wire was not long enough. I had swap the channels of the left and right receivers and then I got everything to fit. Even after my wiring fixes, it still wouldn't shift reliably with the body on though. The issue in particular is when shifting down which is when the shift linkage moves aft. You can hear the motor straining and there is no satisfying sound of the slider clicking into place. It appears that the blue linkage return springs do not have enough force to return the linkage to neutral. If I add another band it has more return force but now the motor can't reliably move the linkage. So I finally gave up and I'll just drive it without the body. It is not very surprising that a model of this complexity has some fiddly adjustments to make to get it to work right. Whether it is ever perfect or not, you still learn a lot by the process of assembly and testing. Nope, that's not it. At first I was going to give you a hint but then I saw who wrote that comment. I bet you can guess accurately.....

I finished building mine at 1 a.m. last night. I spent several hours staring at everything as I built it, figuring everything out. It is truly a marvel and there is no doubt that it introduces concepts and mechanisms that have never been done in LEGO before. Here are some of my own photos with some brief observations. This first photo shows a box of parts I bought. These are for the Land Rover and one other model. Anyone care to guess what the other is? This shows the collected pile of parts, partially sorted into electric, special, liftarms, gears, thin liftarms, and other. The pile is not even quite complete because another order of liftarms had not arrived yet when I took the photo. Liftarms. It is a matter of some uncertainty within the LEGO community just how many gears it takes to make a Technic model awesome. I think we can all agree though, that whatever that minimum number is, this is over it. Massive pile of pins, axles, and connectors. Remember, there are 3500 parts! Thin liftarms. These parts tend to be relatively rare, so this is certainly by far the largest number of them I have used in one model. Wheels and electrics.

Here you go. It is somewhat smaller than the Silver Champion.

The first time I read this review the images did not load so all I saw was the captions. Reading above, what was this review about again?

And "differencial" (sic). I was going to write my own review and have taken numerous photos towards that end, but it now seems like there is little point since allanp did such an excellent job of documenting the build and features. Thanks for all the hard work! I am building mine out of order. I did the bodywork first and then moved on to the axle assemblies and chassis. All I have left now is the gearbox, so it is interesting to see the pile of parts that will be used exclusively for the gearbox. This pile alone is larger than many medium Technic sets.

Glad to see this get 10,000 votes and it is good timing since I am building it right now. Having now seen it first hand, I am sure it would have to change quite a bit to become and official LEGO product. The first issue of course is the sheer part count. I think a lot of reduction could be made in the bodywork since that alone is 1600 parts and could probably be brought down to 100-200 if it looked more "hollow" like a regular Technic model. Then there is the complexity of the chassis. In my opinion, the gearbox is the most important part of this model that I would not want to see disappear. Therefore the minimum motorized requirements would be drive, gearbox, and steering. The brakes, transfer case, and 4WD selector could probably be made manual which would save a receiver and a few motors. Unlike the 9398 though, I would guess that with 2XL drive motors this thing is perfectly capable of destroying gears which would be an impediment to being a real model. They'll have to work that somehow. And this is all assuming they can get past the Land Rover licensing issue. Good luck! I would love to have a simplified official version of this to compare with the original on my shelf. This is the first Technic model to get through Cuusoo so I will be interested to see what happens.

I am in the process of building mine as well. I actually started with the body because I was still waiting on a few parts for the chassis. The bodywork alone is 1600 parts! Here are a couple of new pictures to keep everyone thinking about this wonderful model.

I'm afraid it has been years since I put it together and all the wires are now buried deep inside so I'm not sure. I cut all the pneumatic hoses to length on installation from a large roll of aftermarket tubing, and I would strongly suggest the same. You will need a lot of it.

Grazi's original design actually did not use the cylinder brackets or the 1x6 liftarms. I made the conversion when I did the instructions because, at the time, the old square base pneumatics were hard to get and the brackets were not that rare. Because the brackets make the double length actuators a different total length than back to back square actuators, I moved the mounting point on the frame. You could certainly build it the old way.

The only successful model of a bucket wheel excavator that I know of is this one by Holger Matthes. http://www.holgermatthes.de/bricks/en/bucket-wheel-excavator.php

I built this model by starting with 2 copies of the Black Cat and then supplementing with additional parts by selling the rare parts of the second 5571. Worked pretty well. Needing 12 of those wheels and tires is a real killer. One of the best models ever though.

I used to have full instructions for this on my Brickshelf including a parts list, but Brickshelf got rid of all the PDF files so it is not there any more. I still have the files though.....

That model is not from Crowkillers, it is from Sheepo. Also, you should probably post this in the Defender 110 thread instead of the Unimog thread. I agree that it is a worthy project though!

Yes, Paul and I are working on this project together. I have only just started so it will be a while before the instructions are available.

You should get in touch with the guys who do the truck trials in Europe. They have broken pretty much every type of gear and axle during their competitions. As far as I remember, the 12 tooth bevels inside the diffs are the most common point of failure. If you search for truck trials on this forum, you'll find a lot of information. Of course, for true off-roading you don't really want any differentials, but I think it is unrealistic to assume your Enforcer will be used in that way. It is not a trial truck. Indoors in common use the diffs are not a problem because traction is not a problem.

I think the gears that are likely to be the weak point in this setup are the 3 12 tooth bevels in the center differential. They have to carry the full torque of the XL motor with no reduction.

One thing these photos make me remember about 8421 is that there are a couple of half pins which limit the three part telescoping boom length to much less than the boom is capable of. You can see that 8053 has almost the same height even though it has only two parts. If you remove the pins, you can get another several cm of extension. It will be interesting to see if 42009 does the same thing. I understand the reason for the stops. If you extend too far, the extension can fall out of its support.

No, I have never built this one. I would like to and it is on my list but I have too many other projects open right now.

Amazingly thorough presentation of a marvelous model. I hope that I am able to build one whether it makes it through the Cuusoo process or not. Question: have you actually built it or is it just an LDD model at this point? It looks amazing in CAD, but there is nothing like a field test to prove the design.

A lithium battery will always come partially charged because you can never drop the cells below 3.2V or they will be destroyed. However, you don't have to worry about this because the battery pack has protection to shut itself off before this happens. You can just use and charge the battery whenever you like; it will not be damaged.

Lithium AAA batteries will be worse in every way. Lower voltage, lower current output, and less storage capacity than the standard battery pack. Only advantage is being rechargeable. These batteries are not suitable for heavily loaded applications like an excavator.

How much I would pay for an instruction depends completely on how badly I want to build the model. In general, if I want to build a Technic model I'll assume it is at least 1000 parts and the author has probably put at least 100 hours into the creation of the instructions, so I would usually be happy to pay $10-$15. I may pay more for something really special. On the other hand, if I don't want to build the model I will probably not buy the instructions for any price. Exception would be a very low price (like $2). Then I might buy it just to have it in my library. These are both really good models and a lot of effort would be needed to create instructions. Good luck!

You don't have to worry about that. The battery contains a protection circuit to prevent you from over-discharging the cells. You can just keep using it until it stops working and then charge it. Lithium cells don't have a charge memory so you can pretty much charge it whenever you like and not worry about anything. The primary advantage of the 8878 is the high output current capacity compared with other cells. If a model is properly designed for it (like Jurgen's Zorex excavator), you will be amazed by the performance. If you try to convert a model which uses the regular battery box, you will be disappointed because the drop in voltage from 9V to 7.2V is a big deal. You really need to change the gearing to use it properly.

Better! I also recommend stiffening the rear suspension. Wen I built mine I found that it sagged in the back. I changed two of the rear shocks to the stiff variety and now it works much better.

Firstly, thanks to everyone for supporting my site and saying so many nice things. On the one hand it humbles me, but on the other hand I feel very guilty for leaving the site stagnant for so long. DLuders summed up the situation pretty well. As some of you know, a few years ago I was forced to move and I had to disassemble my entire collection and then build it all again. The process took nearly 1.5 years. In the interim, there was a time when I did not have a place to live and all my sets were in storage, so that is when I started getting into the CAD side of things because I only needed my computer. I made lots of renders and starting making many models in LDraw including MOCs. I soon also got started on making instructions which introduced me to the idea of replicating my favorite MOCs. This came at a very good time because I was done collecting official Technic sets and needed more to build. To put this in perspective, the entire history of Technic models comprises about 115,000 parts. Since I started building MOCs, I have added about 75,000 parts' worth of models. Collecting the parts, building the models, and making the instructions has kept me extraordinarily busy. So it is not that I am too busy for my LEGO hobby, it is that I have been spending my efforts elsewhere lately. At this very moment, I have projects in the works involving about 10,000 more parts, some of which will be revealed soon! I leave it to the community to decide whether all this other effort is worthwhile and also useful to everyone, or if people just want me to forget about instructions and go back to Technicopedia. In answer to the original question, yes I do still consider it an active project. When I look at updating it lately, I am starting to find it very dated. When I launched the project, the concept of hosting videos was out of the question except for companies with massive bandwidth, so I went with animated GIFs. They are fun to make and allow me to show motion without any human interference. However, now that Youtube is available I really could have videos of everything which I think would be much better. But I don't want to switch over to video in the middle, I would want to go back to beginning and make video for my existing pages. The concept is daunting. Even if I were stick with stop motion, it really takes a massive amount of time. On top of that, creation of the CAD files is also very time consuming. Doing the actual writing goes very quickly. Sorry for the stream of consciousness. The unexpected reawakening of this thread has got me thinking about things I haven't in a while, and I'm not entirely sure how to move forward.