Blakbird

Here are a few more photos showing the build. I didn't post them earlier because my renders are much better quality. Here are the parts and a close-up of the massive Power Functions content: Here are a couple of shots next to 8288. As you can see, Han's excavator is much larger and the boom is much more substantial, although the 8288 can match the overall height in B model mode: I had nothing to do with the instructions for this model; the praise all goes to Han. I just did some renders.

Yes, you have said this a lot but I'm not sure what the point is. Are you saying that it is not possible for me to have good building ideas because I don't present MOCs on Eurobricks?

Technic panels are made of flexible plastic to be durable. Transparent parts are brittle. I don't think we'll see transparent panels.

What would you like to see next to it? My LEGO room is so full that I can't stand back far enough to take any pictures in the room, so I will have to bring the model out to a table.

Designer Han is well known for releasing excellent Technic models with full instructions, usually once a year. This year's epic offering is a dragline excavator, a subject I'm not sure I've seen used in a MOC before, and certainly not in one with full instructions. This is a beautiful and enormous model in unusual green and orange color. There are a total of almost 2200 parts and almost 500 pages of instructions. But this is not just a good looking model, there is a whole lot going on inside as you can see in this cutaway render. I'll step through the features one by one. Altogether there are 9 motors, 4 IR receivers, 2 battery packs, and an extension wire comprising the Power Functions components. You can see how compactly the rear 7 motors are installed. They are far behind the turntable which does much to balance the heavy boom. In this case, neither wires nor axles run through the turntable. The entire carrier has a self contained electrical system with its own battery and receiver. The drive system is very simple. An L motor powers each track independently from a separate channel allowing skid steering. Each motor is geared down 40:1. The use of worm gears does produce some friction, but also keeps the model from rolling backward on a slope. The drive system has plenty of power and is very slow, but this seems perfectly scale accurate. The slewing system uses an unusual tandem M motor configuration. The motors are connected to the same channel and operate in parallel to drive a pair of worm gears. Two separate spur gears drive the turntable ring gear with a total reduction of 78:1. The slewing has plenty of power but operates a little bit too fast in my opinion. This causes a bit of wobble in the boom when slewing. This can be reduced by using a speed control remote and accelerating and decelerating gradually. A pair of main winches are driven by powerful XL motors. Each drum has a separate XL motor geared down 3:1. The forward drum powers a cable running nearly horizontally which drags the bucket. The upper drum powers a cable running along the boom which is used to lift the bucket. Both have plenty of power. In practice, they need to be operated together to get the bucket into the proper orientation. In order to actually drop the bucket, Han developed a unique freefall system. This system uses a pair of M motors to drive a gearbox. When the gearbox is engaged to the forward gears, the XL motors are linked to the cable drums. When the gearbox is engaged to the aft gears, the Xl motors are decoupled because the aft gears don't connect to anything. This allows the bucket to freefall, backdriving the gear train (provided it is heavy enough). It works pretty well, although it the cable gets wound too tight or jams then some external force might have to be applied to help it along. I have found that I almost always use both freefall systems together rather than independently, though I am far from an expert operator. The final motorized system is an M motor powering a cable drum which lifts the boom. The boom is very heavy and I was skeptical that an M motor would be adequate for the job, but it not only has ample power but may actually move too fast for scale. The motor drives the drum at a 3:1 ratio, and another 3:1 comes from looping the cable around pulleys 3 times. The upper axle in the picture is not geared to the others. It holds the pulley axle and just follows along with the cable. Han mentions in his description that the model is tricky to operate, and he's not kidding! The controller is not very intuitive and a lot of coordination is required to get the excavator to do what it needs to do. Part of my initial difficulty came from the fact that I was thinking of this more like a crane and there had the boom at a very vertical angle. However, this is actually an excavator and the boom really operates at a nearly horizontal angle. In this orientation it is much easier to control. It is really fun to use once you get the hang of it. A careful study of the way the cables are connected to the bucket reveals some secrets about the level of control you have with only two cables. The upper cable carries the weight of the bucket, but it is not centered over the center of gravity and therefore the bucket would naturally tilt forward and dump if there was no other cable. The way to make it dump is let the drag cable go slack. The drag cable does not just connect to the front but also loops up over a pulley and back down the the front of the bucket. When the bucket is on the ground, the angle is fixed and pulling the drag cable draws the bucket toward the excavator. However, when the bucket is in the air the drag cable adjusts the angle of the bucket. If you want to lift the bucket, you need to first set the angle with the drag cable and then operate both winches together to raise the bucket without changing the relative tension between the cables. Han's instructions are excellent as usual, but perhaps different than what you are used to. He uses an older version on LPub that does not use LDView to draw the images, but POV-Ray to render them. This results in a different visual feel. He adds lots of annotations to explain the wiring, the operation of the model, and lots of other building tips. I didn't run into any difficulties building it. If I have any complaint at all, it would only be that the power switches are difficult to access. To summarize, I highly recommend this unusual and entertaining model. It is not cheap to build and it takes up a lot of space, but the results are well worth it.

No, that's just a picture from their web site.

You could use one of these Minutebot base plates:

Technic parts don't work very well in clear for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are a lot of internal details in most Technic parts, so even if the material is transparent there is so much refraction that you really can't see through them. Secondly, transparent parts use a different kind of plastic which is less elastic and therefore harder to install pins. Even modern Technic sets are still full of holes, so I'm not sure how much "glass" would add to the appearance. Model Team sets are another story. For example, I love the glass cabin in M_longer's excavator:

I was going to give a nice technical answer, but it looks like DrJB already nailed it. To summarize, the strength of an axle in torsion is unrelated to length. The critical section in torsional shear is the same whether you are using a 12L axle or 6 2L axles with connectors, so the max torque that the axle can carry is exactly the same. However, the longer unreinforced axle will have more twist than the built up axle. Because of the higher spring rate, the reinforced axle may also perform better because there will be less "bounce" between the motor and the load.

Well, if it was only partly broken before, it's totally broken now. I deleted the app and reinstalled it from the app store, and even rebooted my iPad. Now there are now profiles at all (not even joystick and gamepad) and the profile market is completely empty, nothing in it at all. With no profiles, I can't create a model to do anything.

The Internet is tricky that way. Conveying thoughts and emotions in print can be difficult even with your close friends, but between those of others cultures it can be almost impossible, especially if any idiom or sarcasm is involved.

Well, actually Crowkillers, Sheepo and others do have enough influence on the aftermarket to cause depletion of the world supply of uncommon parts. It has happened repeatedly. However, I am not aware of any such designers intentionally buying up supply and then using rare parts in their MOCs in order to make money. Anyone who has made MOC instructions will know that there isn't any profit in it; it has to be done to serve the community.

Did that. I signed up at social.sbrick and entered my login information in the app. Didn't change anything except to show my avatar in the corner. I also posted all my questions on their forum a couple of days ago but no one has responded. That's why I posted it here. Did that. No change unfortunately. I'll try it again. It's at least good to hear that others have had the same problems and it is not just me.

Thanks for the reply. Sadly, I've already tried everything you mentioned. I'll try to detail my problems a bit according to your instruction steps: No problem here. I can create a MOC and name it (however I can't delete the MOC later if I don't want it any more). I also can't change the default picture. I can get a menu to come up which asks for either a camera or an existing photo, but neither option does anything. I can add a profile here (joystick, pad, etc). However, when I try to download from the Marketplace there is virtually nothing there and I don't have the options that the user guide says I should have. No problem adding the Sbrick to the MOC. When choosing what to map to each port, the only options are acceleration and steering. There are no other options. This is the real problem. When I test it out, there is nothing on the screen. For example, if I select gamepad I still just get a blank screen with no gamepad on it. No matter which profile I choose, nothing shows up on the screen. However, if I download a pre-existing MOC like Fernando's 8043, then everything looks and works fine. Since writing my original post I've learned that you need a totally different piece of software (profile designer) to actually make a profile. I'm not sure how we were supposed to know that but I guess that means the early adopters who did reviews must have had access to software that we don't have.

Very well done. You actually taught me a few things about how garage trucks work.

A truly beautiful MOC, which is not easy to do with a forklift! Looks like a win in both appearance and function.

Thanks for the review and all the great pictures and observations. I think the fact that this set draws such strong opinions from many at least proves it is interesting, if nothing else. From a purely engineering and technical standpoint, I'd tend to agree that many of the functions don't work all that well. On the other hand, it is not clear what objective this set was trying to achieve. I think Anio meant this negatively, but I actually think this could be good advice and could be seen as a positive. This set was released in a time when pneumatics were rare or had been absent for a decade. It managed to give us Power Functions, pneumatics, and mechanical functions all in the same set, and with a rare color at the same time. If you consider that the purpose of the set is to introduce a broad range of topics in a single model, I think it achieves that admirably. From that point of view, I'd actually recommend this set very highly to a new user. I'd recommend it as a parts pack for the same reason. As a study in optimally acheived intricate mechanisms, not so much. I like 8109 for that! 8285 was much the same. Mechanically it was quite simple, but you get a really BIG model with pneumatics and dampers for what was then a reasonable price. It was a good way to get lots of different things in just one model.

I don't remember if there is a clutch gear in that gear train, but if there is it could be slipping. This is usually caused by high friction somewhere in the gear train.

I addressed this in my review. It can never be taken apart again. I think you could throw the completed model across the room and nothing would break off except for the turntable. I did at one point disassemble the model to the point that I could remove the rechargeable batteries, and it was about a 3 hour project.

iPad (my only iOS device).

I was one of the original Kickstarter backers and received my two Sbricks some weeks ago, but only yesterday finally tried to use them. It was then that I realized I am apparently too stupid to use Sbrick. I was able to connect to them, update the firmware, and get the port tester to drive motors, but beyond that I have no idea what I am supposed to do with the tool. When I try to create a new model lots of things don't work: I can't change the default picture. If I select "camera" or "photo" nothing happens. The only profiles available are the default few (joystick, gamepad). If I select gamepad and then run the program, nothing shows up on the screen. I get an empty background of LEGO bricks with no controller on it. I can actually control the Sbrick by touching the screen in random locations, but there is nothing on the screen. I can't find any way to create or edit profiles. Where did those cool profiles that Conchas or Sariel used come from? There doesn't seem to be any way to create them. When I go to the marketplace, there are only 5 or so possible things to download (Fernando's 8043 and 8275 are two of them). I have signed up for the forum and entered my login into the software. The online USer Guide says I should see three options - ALL, STARRED, and MY PROFILES, but there aren't any options. How do I delete things? I have a whole list of models I created trying to get things to work, but I don't actually want to keep any of them, they were just tests. I can't see any way to get rid of them. How do I get different "functions"? Acceleration and steering are the only options. How I know what version of the software I have or how do I update to a newer version? I know the Android version is Beta but I'm using the iOS version. At the moment I'm pretty discouraged because I basically can't do anything at all with my SBricks.

Are you sure about that? My copy of this set does not have a figure. The figure in the original post is not from this set.

That's been done at conventions. Very entertaining.

From a pressure perspective it would certainly work, but I think the low temperatures would make the seals brittle and perhaps cause them to crack. I wouldn't do it.

Those videos are a very good illustration of u-joint non-linearity. Thanks for doing them! The Corvette or the Mustang could be considered iconic American vehicles, or if you go back a lot further the Duesenberg. The pickup truck is a uniquely American concept (they don't exist in Europe) and we have 42029. But there are more kinds of vehicles than just cars. Certainly the American style longnose truck has been done in official Lego trucks (8285) as you mentioned. For construction vehicles or tractors, Caterpillar and John Deere are ubiquitous. Most of the unbranded construction equipment could be CAT, we just can't tell. Not sure if they've done anything in John Deere green. I could imagine a Kenworth or John Deere license, but Technic is probably not popular enough in the USA to justify it. So I guess I'm agreeing that an American Technic license is very unlikely. The 10177 Boeing 787 is an American license!! I don't think the 8480 Space Shuttle was licensed, but is certainly an American product. There were licensed NASA products.