Blakbird

Something else Philo's pages show is that battery voltage is not always what you'd expect. Yes, the nominal voltage of a set of alkaline batteries is 9V versus 7.2V for NimH batteries, but in practice this difference does not exist. The alkalines' voltage falls off very quickly as they discharge and as you draw higher current. Therefore the actual amount of motor power you get from each kind of battery is actually about the same. This is all to say that you don't really need to use 8 cells to match alkaline performance; you only need 8 cells to exceed alkaline performance. You'll run into the current limit though.

It will probably work, but at only 7.6V the rechargeable battery box is a bit too low to be useful for this application. I use a 12V transformer for my Control Centers.

Models for which I have a second copy to display the B model: 8480 8862 8051 8485 8275 8288 8880 At one time I also had these B models displayed: 8458 8285 8094

Great model, but I kept getting distracted singing along to "Wasted Years".

I did everything you mentioned with Brickstore. I started with the Grove parts list, then I subtracted the parts for 42009 to see what was left. It knows the parts for all official sets, s you can subtract whatever you like. Personally, I started with 42009 and then bought the rest of the parts on Bricklink. PF parts from Lego Education.

For this model, no set has a large percentage of the massive number of parts. A couple of copies of 42029 would be a good start for all the red panels and suspension parts.

Please keep in mind that 99.5% of Lego users will never have heard of Wedo, and of the 0.5% who have heard of it, most of them have never seen it. Wedo is a very obscure topic, even in a Lego forum. You probably aren't going to get any response asking these types of questions in these types of topics. Best to use a custom Wedo topic so those who actually know something will find it. You can probably use a single topic for all your Wedo questions. I have every Technic set ever made and I've never seen a Wedo part.

Yes these have been on EB before, but it has been a few years.

Merged with the original topic.

I can't believe you did this with only pictures! That's amazing work. It is odd to see a picture of my table sitting on a screen on your table.

LOTS of people have made motorized autovalves. Check Sariel's website for some examples.

Since everyone seems to like the cutaway renders so much, I decided to do a bunch more of them. Besides all those I did for the book, I've now gone back and done cutaway renders for 34 more excellent Technic MOCs. Like before, you can find them all in my Bricksafe gallery. There are now 86 in total, so see if you can find them all! Here are a few of my favorites from among the new images, including one or more I'm sure Erik Leppen will be happy to see! Erik Leppen's Zonda: CP5670's Annihilator: Nico71's Roadster: Grazi's Tow Truck: (amazing how complex it is even without any of the wires or hoses shown) Madoca's Tatra:

Looks like the majority, and perhaps all, of those blue parts come from 8461.

Right, I acknowledged that gears came in other colors, however in the vast majority of cases those were not in Technic sets but in "other sets" which used some Technic parts. Also, if you do some research on those colored gears, you'll find that most of them existed in that same 2004 time frame only. These days, Technic parts in unusual colors seem to only exist in high volume themes. It would appear that not enough Technic sets are sold to justify a white gear, but a Star Wars set on the other hand seems to be allocated many more new color options. I'd be willing to bet that Technic designers are allowed to use strange colors from other themes if those parts have already been introduced and are therefore in the current catalog, but are not allowed to introduce new part colors themselves. I'm sure there are people whose sole job is to run the business case numbers for such trades.

I had never noticed that change. Thanks for pointing it out.

I hope there is a good way to share profiles. For example, I can imagine a future SBrick enabled MOC for which instructions are available. It would be really cool if those instructions could include a really well thought out control profile for the model everyone could use. My first SBrick is in the mail so I haven't had a chance to test anything yet. I don't own a smartphone so I'll be using my iPad. I know very little about programming so it will be interesting to see if I can get it to do what I want it to do.

This is not one of the exceptions Jim listed. He didn't say any constantly running motor was OK, just one for a compressor and then only if the other motorized functions were autovalves. Based on the posted rules I would say a motorized fake engine is not allowed. Why not just connect it to the drive motors? This is a tough one. I think if it is really "reinvented from the ground up" then it is a new model, not a mod, and would be allowed. Probably best not to say that it is a rebuilt old set, but inspired by an old set.

As long as you buy LEDs that are rated for 9V you should be able to use the LEGO battery box. Just make sure not to short any wires when making your connections.

I suppose it all depends on your perspective. The original poster was asking about saving money by creating his own motor. From that point of view, I think PF motors are cheap because I don't think you could build one with the same functionality any cheaper. You are talking about a totally different question: are PF motors expensive compared with their production costs? I don't really think that is a fair question because pricing is not based primarily on production costs. I agree that the Chinese company that makes an L motor probably only gets a dollar for it and then TLG sells it for $17.99. But this is true of all their products. A 2x4 brick straight from the mold probably only costs 1/100 of a penny and sells for orders of magnitude more than that. However all of the company's overhead: legal, design, marketing, research, packaging, shipping, retail markup, and every other cost gets amortized into the final price. And don't discount liability. Tamiya can sell a loose electric motor for a dollar because in general only adults will buy it and only experienced hobbyists will be able to use it for anything. A PF motor needs to be fool proof so little kids can drop it in the sink or lick the connectors or stall the output in their hand and not get hurt. Wouldn't surprise me if the lawyers and insurance ate up 25% of that final cost. So in summary, I'll say "LEGO PF motors provide a similar value for their cost as any other LEGO part".

It has already been stated that a motorized gearbox is OK.

The selection of specialty Technic parts is much wider now that at any point in history. In the beginning they just put holes in regular bricks and added plates and axles and that was about it. Now we seem to have parts for almost everything. If you are still not satisfied with the selection I think you will continue to be disappointed. I don't see any reason you need specialized control arms to make independent suspension. The first independent suspension was made from bricks. Seems perfectly possible to scale this idea to small models. Fundamentally the system is still based on the unit of the stud, so there is only so small you can go without a totally different system. I've also updated the topic title to be a little more descriptive so people will have a better idea if they want to read the topic.

Well, yes and no. It is true that you can buy R/C motors very cheap (a couple of dollars for this size), but those motors are not comparable. To compare it to a PF motor you would have to press on a pinion gear, buy some planetary gearing, create a mounting system, solder on some connectors and wire, and then get a fuse and/or current controller. I don't think you could do all of that for any cheaper than a LEGO PF motor unless you bought everything in very high quantity. Considering what you get, I think PF motors are really cheap. I do lots of real R/C modelling, and I know very well how much work it is to get a custom motor setup working.

This idea certainly exists in the Creator line. It even includes a non-trivial number of Technic parts.

The PF motors are pretty cheap. I don't see much of any chance of making your own version any cheaper.

I'm not sure I understand the question. Gearing down 3:1 only requires a single stage with a 24 tooth and 8 tooth gear. How could it get any more compact than that? Why are you saying you cannot do it in a small space? For example, just use the portal hub. Or look at some of the older portal hubs like in Sariel's Jeep Rubicon where he gears down 3:1 at each wheel.