Blakbird

Lucky I noticed this because I am on vacation until next week.

Some sets say "Technic" on the box, but really aren't. To me, things like Roboriders and Throwbots fall into this category, as does early Bionicle (which said Technic). On the other hand, the Discovery Rover didn't say Technic, but is (made of entirely Technic parts, and chock full of functions. Sorry nychase, the Hailfire Droid doesn't count for me because it doesn't do anything. I still own it though. MOCs can get real tricky, but I know it when I see it. This is a sensitive topic for me because of a specific incident. <obscure reference> Remember when Jethro Tull won the first Grammy (music award) for "Best Heavy Metal Artist", despite not being a heavy metal band and beating AC-DC and Metallica? It was a travesty. </obscure reference> Likewise, once at BrickCon the winner of "Best Technic" was a Watchmen logo mosaic just because it happened to be made using gears for the grey bits. Now, while it was a cool MOC, there was nothing Technic about it. For it to win an award and beat the real Technic MOCs there was a travesty. This is why it is important to me to be able to define Technic.

Yes, it does roll up in a ball like the movie. That's what makes it so great. It rolls up in a ball and when you roll in on the ground it pops open and stands up all by itself! Yes, it is a promotional set. I have it, and I can confirm that it is underwhelming. It does have some very rare white parts though, including the worlds only white 3L friction pin.

I own all of those Star Wars Technic sets, and I would generally agree that they don't match the spirit of Technic. The exception, though, is the Destroyer Droid. The rolling mechanism of that cool little thing puts it easily on the list of genuine Technic sets in my book, and it has the extra advantage of being totally unique.

There is only one way to know for certain whether or not any given set or MOC can be considered Technic: ask me.

Voith Schneider propellers (cycloidal drive) work much like helicopter cyclics turned on edge, and are some of the coolest mechanisms in the world. Well done!

Good questions. For example, there are a bunch of Racers models which may or may not be considered Technic depending on who you ask. Roboriders, Throwbots, and early Bionicle even fall into this category. How about Mindstorms? I had to wrestle with these questions when deciding what to include in Technicopedia. I would generally consider the Racers built from Technic parts to be Technic as long as they have at least some function. Additionally, models like Grazi's tow truck are Technic even though they have more System parts than Technic parts. The V-8 is Technic in every way. 95% of the parts are Technic and the model is completely and accurately functional. It is as close to a pure Technic model as I can think of. No form, only function of a purely mechanical item!

There are a whole lot of 9397 threads, so it was hard to decide where to put this. I've made some upgrades to my logging truck and thought I would share them. All are pretty obvious. In this image you can see the conversion to dual wheel rear axles, the addition of a differential on the 3rd axle, and the addition of enclosed fender wells. This image shows a more subtle change. The M-motor is hanging (cantilevered) from a beam at the front of the motor. This beam is not attached to anything; it is just hanging from some of the drive axles in the gearbox. This means that the weight of the M-motor is twisting that beam which puts friction on the drive axles. Luckily, this is very easily addressed. I just added a single 2x2 plate with pin hole and a friction pin. This supports the back of the motor completely. I'm kind of surprised they did not already do this since this part already exists elsewhere in the set. Here is an image of the truck with the changes.

If you get tired, I could kick you for a while.

The definition of an acceptable building and playing experience is different for adults than it is for kids. Use the Ultimate Collectors Millenium Falcon as an example. Unlike other Star Wars sets, it has virtually no play value but a lot of display and collectors value. A UCS Technic would be different because Technic has to function by definition, but I think it would be fundamentally different than a current set which is why it could be thousands of parts. Thousands of parts does not merely imply that it is bigger, so I don't think any limit of the strength of gears needs to be exceeded. It may simply have a vastly larger set of functions or much more complicated functions. Some of the MOC mobile cranes and Barman's harbor crane show just how large Technic models can be and still work. Grazi's tow truck is almost 5000 parts. I bet dikkie klijn's, M-longer's, and Sariel's are too. 2LEGOornot2LEGO and BricksonWheels have trucks that are truly massive and beautiful. Sheepo's cars also have extreme part counts. Functional Technic models of this scale are possible. I think combining Model Team looks and Technic function is one way to get the part count up and appeal to adults. By the way, I have no expectation that such a set would have any motors at all, so the strength of them need not be an issue. I'd rather spend my money on functions than motors. As long as there was a provision to add motors if necessary, I'd be happy. Plenty of the examples above are motorized though. I think Barman's big V-8 is an excellent example of an unusual type of model that can be built from Technic and would appeal to adults but not so much to kids. 3000 parts, easily driven with only 1 M-motor.

There are a couple things LEGO could do to placate the adult Technic collector. They have already done some of it by increasing the average size and complexity of sets over the last few years and in some cases offering sets that we've clearly begged for (like the supercar). As I mentioned earlier, the untapped market is the "ultimate collector" (10000 series) aimed at AFOLs. In my mind, not only would such a set be very large (4000-5000 parts), but also very complicated. It would not just be an even bigger version of a regular set, it would use methods and mechanisms that would not make it through the normal testing process of sets designed for kids. This would make it clear that it was aimed at an adult audience. Additionally, it would not have the needlessly simplistic instructions with 2-5 parts per step. It would be a proper technical building project. I'm drooling just thinking about it! We should be careful what we wish for though. If TLG ever does release such a thing, it will be very expensive and therefore they won't sell many. I can easily imagine why there is no business case for doing so. But I can dream.

All of the parts for 8455 are still available. It would probably be cheaper to just buy all the parts individually from Bricklink and print your own instructions rather than try to acquire a legitimate copy of 8455. According to Brickstore, it would cost about $230 to get the ~700 parts to build 8455, and even less if you were willing to change to new gray. 2/3 of that cost is the pneumatic components which you can get more cheaply directly from LEGO now. Compare that with the average set price of $250-$300 on Bricklink.

Simple, non-proportional control with a cell phone or tablet makes sense to me and would be fun. However, proportional control is kind of hard to do without mechanical feedback. I'd rather have a real physical controller which was capable of doing proportional control.

At least in the USA, Technic is almost non-existent at conventions. I'd say less than 1% of displays are Technic, so therefore I would say 99% of USA AFOLs are more interested in System. Listening to comments and gauging interest level at conventions, I would say the vast majority don't care about Technic at all. I think the situation is much different in Europe. Pictures I see from conventions over there have much larger Technic representation. Even within this very forum (Eurobricks), you can see how much less interest there is in Technic compared with most other themes. Look at the traffic in Star Wars, for example. I think Technic is intimidating to a lot of people who may not know much about mechanics or engineering. I think what they are missing is that you don't need to know anything. Technic is actually an excellent teaching tool for learning about these things, so as long as you can follow instructions, you can build a working gearbox, differential, etc.

The official release date was always March 1, but the instructions were not available then either. I can understand why TLG cannot be expected to anticipate that TRU would offer the set early and therefore the instructions were not ready. However, TLG's own release date was March 1 and I even bought my copy at LEGO Retail on that date, but the instructions were still not available until a week later. They certainly should have planned to have the instructions available on the release date because it is an advertised feature of the product on the shelf (it says "2-in-1" on the box and says you can download the B-model instructions).

I believe that I started the comparison in another thread. They are certainly not equivalent, but I brought up the comparison because of you were to list the complete set of features of each, it is almost the same. So from a functional standpoint it is useful to compare the way the same functions are implemented. It is also interesting to note that a mid-year set is almost as complicated as a flagship was a couple of years ago. Makes you wonder what might be coming up for even more complex flagships in the future.

Sets like 8880 use unique parts (wheels, hubs, shift lever) which either don't exist in any other set or very few. Most of those parts have been out of circulation for decades. I don't see any chance of TLG resurrecting the molds for those parts, even assuming they still exist. Even some of the sets which actually were reissued like the pneumatic crane were slightly different the second time around. For example, the toothed half bushings were replaced with modern smooth bushings. Any re-release at this point would have to be buildable with current parts. 8880 is not. However, a couple of people have done studless versions of classic sets including 8868 and they are really well done. I think SeTechnic even had a contest along those lines. I think a "modernized" classic is a much more likely request to be granted. Personally, the top of my wish list is still an "ultimate collectors" Technic set with ~4000-5000 parts.

I think I am not the only one who was waiting to build it in black. I ordered lots of extra new black panels when I got mine and then listed them on Bricklink. They all sold within 30 minutes in pairs of 2, so I think lots of people around the world are waiting to build the Vampire! By the way, mine is not quite perfect yet. I didn't use any blue pins. For the 3L pins I used all black and for the axle pins I used light gray. However, light gray axle pins do not have friction. Black friction pins do exist, but they are very rare. I used 8 of them in the places that need friction, but you can still see light gray poking out here and there. Ideally, I will eventually replace all of these with black.

I'm not sure how the quality could get much better. Not only is it plated, but there is also a clear coat over the top of that so it is very well protected. This results in a fairly thick layer so sometimes you have to clean out the holes a bit to get pins to fit smoothly again. I haven't seen any peeling or flaking.

Yes, they are chromed on both sides, so you could use them on 8070 or any other model which shows the reverse. I'm pretty sure you could request them to be chromed or masked wherever you want since it is custom work.

Step 1: Make friends with Paul Boratko Step 2: Send him money

At long last, I finally got the new black panels to complete my Vampire. With those and the red chromed wheels, it really looks fantastic.

Not only that, but apparently the file was split into two parts with some unregistered shareware because there is an annoying warning link on the cover page to go buy the software. This is not really acceptable for a file published by a multinational company. Kvisoft PDF Splitter DEMO : Purchase from www.kvisoft.com to remove the watermark

The mini linear actuator is about at its limit lifting the existing log, so you wouldn't want to use anything much heavier. You could probably add a wheel or two to the length. The grapple will barely close on one log "sometimes it falls out", so two logs at once are out of the question. Balsa wood does indeed have a very low density, but it is also very expensive in anything other than thin sheet.

For those interested, here is how the size of 9397 compares with other recent large Technic trucks.