Blakbird

Yeah, that's intentional. I want to show how it can look with aftermarket tires, but I'll probably take some shots with the standard tires as well when I get around to documenting that set. None of the set pages from 1997 were supposed to be uploaded yet. Fixed. I am using some of Efferman's 3D printed wheel covers. Fixed. As for the colors, that's a big quagmire that really is not a Technic topic so I avoided it.

Update I've just loaded perhaps the largest update to Technicopedia that I've ever done, but it's not 1997. Having read through this whole thread again about a month ago, one of the things I noticed was that many users said their favorite part of the site was the history with the new sets and new parts each year. With that in mind, I've added ALL the years from 1997-2014. That's right, I put up nearly 20 years of stuff. At this point you can't follow any links from those years to detail set information, but you can see all the sets from all the years of all the Technic sets ever. While I was at it, I updated every single category with new images and information on all the newest sets, and I added categories for all kinds of miscellaneous things that weren't there before. I hope you find this to be a big improvement. Let me know what you think. Detail change list: Added history pages for 1997-2014. Replaced all category images with renders. Added categories for Racers, Competition, Slizer, Roboriders, Speed Slammers, Star Wars, Pull-Back Racers, and Micro. Updated all category pages with set comparisons for everything through 2014.

There's a reason for that. A commercial aircraft usually has a low wing and the landing gear has to retract into the body. This means that the pressure vessel below the passenger floor has to have a cutout for the wheel well and for the wing to pass through the body. Purpose built cargo aircraft have a high wing and no wheel well to allow the cargo bay to be full size straight through the fuselage with no interruptions. This means the landing gear has to retract into the wing-to-body fairing and so must be short. They are also often designed to be able to fly from unimproved (gravel) runways. This is another reason for the high wing to get the engines away from debris, and another reason for short, sturdy landing gear.

I've been doing some thinking on the Physics of gearboxes in electric vehicles lately. With an internal combustion engine, the reason you have a gearbox is because the engine can only operate over a limited range of rotational speed, and the power is concentrated at certain rpm. Without more gears, you would hit 6000 rpm and couldn't go any faster even though you have more power, just because the engine can't rotate any faster. Electric motors are usually torque limited, not speed limited. By this I mean that the reason you can't go faster is because you are out of power. From that point of view, adding more gears doesn't help any because you are still out of power. This rationale seems bourne out by R/C cars. Nitro powered cars often have a gearbox, but electric cars never do even though they are just as fast. Having one gear for crawling and one gear for speed makes sense. That was all just a thought exercise. I still love this model and I love gearboxes!

I don't think there were any out of production parts in either of those sets. Keep in mind that there is more production than just the Technic line. For example, the air tank was in continuous production for the Education line.

??? There is no servo motor in 42041. How did it allow you to get a servo for $10?

There is no way for anybody to answer that. A decade ago, re-releases were very common. In some years, the majority of the product line-up was re-release, but this has not been the case for a long time. Why they chose to re-release this one I cannot say, but I think we can be confident that they are not going to re-release anything that uses out of production parts, and they are not going to re-release anything that overlaps their current line-up.

Sure!

Not quite, but it was very easy. Took less than 10 seconds. I opened the picture in GIMP and then opened the "Levels" tool. From there you can select a button which allows you to select the white point from the image. Your image was a little dark so there was technically no pure white in it. I selected a spot on our background with no shadow, and then the tool adjusted the whole image to make that point white. That's it.

A truly beautiful and recognizable model of an iconic car. I've had the pleasure of driving one of these in the real world and your model really brings back memories. It is hard to appreciate what a massive amount of steel is in the car until you are standing next to it. You can captured the unique lines perfectly. If you are interested in some renders when you are working on the instructions, just send me a PM. In the interim, I couldn't help but brighten up one of your pictures to show off this model even better. Before: After:

You are using circular reasoning here. Why do you call those cars Model Team? If the reason you call them Model Team is that they are built with studs, then by your definition there is no such thing as a studded Technic model. Most of those models have lots of Technic functions and could qualify as Technic models, depending on your definition. What this all boils down to is preference. Some people like studded better, some people like studless better. No problem there. The problem comes when one group says something or other is impossible with the other building style. This thread proves conclusively that these statements are not true. Technical building is indeed possible with studded, and aesthetic building is indeed possible with studless. Certain things may be easier with one style verses another, but both are fully useful if care is taken. My personal preference are models which combine both.

No idea what you mean.

Created awesome model. Made full instructions for it. Made full build kits for it. Told us we can't buy it. That's just cruel.

Your only option is to leave negative feedback describing your experience and not buy from him again. Most BL sellers are good, but I have found a few like you describe. They take my money and then don't send me anything for weeks or months. One guy waited 4 months and never sent anything. I had to file charges of fraud before he refunded my money, but I still never got any parts.

When you look at the details of that 3% difference, you can see that there is no difference at all. They are just updated molds of the same parts.

Super cool. How did you store up enough energy to make it jump like that? Some kind of spring trigger?

I did not lubricate anything and my crank turns quite easily. In fact, I was able to use an M-motor to run it with no problem. My biggest source of friction in this module. Right in the middle of the image you can see the black lateral axle on the yellow carriage that slides through the hole on the black beam. The axle was catching in the beam because the beam was moving side to side just a little bit. This small angle made it grab the axle. On either side of the beam are a stack of 1x1 DBG bricks which are there to keep it from moving. I rotated those 1x1 bricks slightly so the corners centered the black beam a bit better and that totally solved the problem. The chains in the first assembly also have some friction because they are quite tight, but it is not very noticeable once you gear it down 5:1 at the input.

If I was going to build it I would want it to thematically match 8480. That means it would need to be mostly Technic parts, so the tank would probably be made of bent liftarms. The sandcrawler tracks might very well work. I have that model so I'll take a look at the scale.

I have it. It is one of my least favorite. Nothing really wrong with it, but nothing good about it either.

Did you have to create this whole file from scratch or were you able to start with my LDraw file? My file should have had all the parts in the right places but no steps or submodels. I was just paging through your file and the amount of work you put into subdividing the model into logical parts is staggering. Thanks!

This is why I think the analogy to renting out your car is not quite accurate. Yes, anyone should be able to rent out their Honda Accord to someone without permission from Honda. But what if they are altering it to look or perform terrible? What if they pull out two of the four spark plug wires and then rent it? At that point it could be argued that they are damaging the Honda brand. Likewise, when Sheepo is trying to sell instructions for his Land Rover and then someone goes and makes a terrible version of it and rents it out, it is damaging Sheepo's future possibility of selling his instructions because they are perpetuating a negative connotation to his brand. For these reasons and others, I don't think renting out other people's creation without their involvement is moral, though I can understand those who disagree.

I would love to see you solve the problems and finish it. Personally, I suspect it is not the hoses that are leaking, but the piston head and/or rod seals in one or more of the actuators. I have plenty of old actuators that leak. If they are in series or parallel with your circuit, nothing else will work. It is like having a wheel off the ground with open differentials.

Legally, perhaps not, but morally yes. But to have even built the models the first place the site owners must be legimate buyers of the instructions.

Doesn't make much sense to me. I wonder if they have the designers' permission to commercialize all those models.

I checked friction and function at each step along the way, so it ran smoothly as soon as I got it finished. I couldn't say exactly how much time I spent getting it in that condition, but I'd estimate that I spend as much time tuning it as I did building it.