Jeroen Ottens

Wow, very smooth looking & well moving

The boom is too heavy to lift it with the brickbuilt actuators. So I had to compromise and I decided it is way cooler to have a remote controlled raise function than to have a model which looks like the real thing, but isn't able to lift it's own boom. The Y-arrangements do have small winches in their ends. I have published the preliminary partslist on Rebrickable. But be aware, this partslist is not the final one. I know for sure already that there are a couple of pins and connectors in the wrong quantities. But on the total of 7737 parts it will be hardly noticeable .

I have contemplated once to make an aircraft carrier to accompany my Tomcat, but even though I am not afraid of big projects, that one got skipped the moment I calculated the size of it . It is difficult to build in these small scales in Technic, there are just not enough small textures in the bricks available like there are in system. So you end up with bulky looking approximations. I consider my Technic X-wing a better suited scale for these kind of vehicles, but that just makes buildings too big too try I think... And to answer your main question: I am in the process of reviewing the building instructions (all 1200 pages...)

Thanks. I agree with the overhang being a bit too big. It is smaller than the UCS, it is actually the same size as the 75105. I saw that model and I thought it was great indeed. I have been thinking about pneumatic landinggears etc., but my customer kept his wishlist short in terms of functionality. And with all the projects I have currently ongoing I didn't want to invest a lot of time in updating this design. It would be perfectly possible though. There is ample space inside the structure I think for all kind of pneumatics. You are not the only one with that preference , but don't worry, more cars are coming...

Great model, you really achieved Technic style on this one. I guess the controls are used to switch between forward and backward per function? Have you considered covering the grey rims, they are a bit out of colourscheme? BTW: You might want to change your topic title

Hi, A quick post on a commissioned model I did recently: The iconic Millennium Falcon. It is relatively light on features, with only a working top gun turret and a landing ramp. The gun turret is fully articulated (ie it can rotate freely to aim at anything above the spaceship). I also made a small video showing the functions: Finally, since this commission was non-exclusive I also made instructions (or actually @Ivan_M did that for me). They are available on my website (with small redesigns to replace the rarest parts and simplify the build). Comments & questions are appreciated as always. Leg godt, Jeroen Ottens

The 42077 is probably a good, widely available, start. It is a bit underwhelming functionwise though. Form over function so to say. The 42039 is bigger, has more functions, but has been out of production for quite some time now. The 42029 is the most recent pickup in the Technic line, but to be honest I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone, but for a partspack. I found it a very, very non-elegant build. But it of course also depends on your budget. These are all 1:10 scale cars and that comes at a price.

Wow, that is impressive. There are a lot of clever tricks in that build (rotating the pegs, using staggered pegs, the way to turn the pneumatic switches, the mechanism to lower the grabber, etc.). Did you invent them all yourself or did you have some inspiration from other mechanical solvers? Also, have you considered using a pneumatic sequencer? I think it would not be as reliable as your solution with the rotating liftarms, but I was just wondering. Whatever the answers, this is an amazing feat of engineering

No it really was the drive-against-the-wall-test. It was actually quite a hit in the office for a week or so. There is something strangely atractive about grinding gears to powder

I know that we had to redesign the Power puller after the test department came back and showed we could churn gears by running it into a wall (that's the reason there is a gear on a lever in the drivetrain that will disengage when the model is topped while the motors are still running). So yes, I would think they will still redesign the model if they find that parts get broken when running models into obstacles.

That is one cool looking car! Very dense chassis, reminds me of Madoca style chassis. And very nice lines for this scale Did you build it in real life as well? Did you experiment with flexaxles in the wheelarches? And welcome to Eurobricks!

Good to hear that you are back at the table! I like the Waffle too, so no need to warn or apologize. I remember that routing the wires on this on was tricky, with little room to put them all in and with some wires just long enough to reach the receivers. As for the photos, I don't mind the quick shots that aren't perfectly lighted for a WIP. You should spend your time on building, not on perfecting photos when you are building. To me that is just setting the right priorities. And when the model is finished, no one can beat @Jim's quality of photos, so no point in trying to beat that . Seeing the build progress it is funny to realize just how many parts have been added in the past 11 years to the Technic palette. No smooth axle connectors, no frames, no pin-with-pinholes (which should make you happy ) or any of their siblings, no LA's, no big turntables (I think?), no smooth panels and only a limited selection of crossblocks. And his model introducing the new tracks, sprockets and PF system.

Congratulations with finally reaching the finish line. I sincerely hope that the dozer will not be interupted by any physical mishaps, it is another classic you are aiming here for and a bit of a trip down memorylane for me as well. So I very much look forward to your progressupdates.

Nice, well polished car I really like the paneling, it gives the body a good flow. Especially the little one at the C-pillar, which gives that characteristic slope of an American muscle car. And having crammed in two motors, a batterybox an IR receiver and suspension, is just icing on the cake. I suppose there was no room in the back for the batterybox? And maybe the front could have done with a thinner grey line and headlights, but other than that I think it is perfect.

It could, but then the pin-with-pinholes could rotate slightly adding friction to the drivetrain and making assembling the whole assy's maybe slightly more difficult. This way all holes are fixated and friction in the drivetrain is minimized. Furthermore the middle hole in the top of the 5x7 frame would be blocked, whereas it is used to attached the lower bananagears to it. I am not a big fan of this model, because I think a smaller model could have offered the same functions in a more interesting build. But I don't think this model is overly complicated just for the sake of complication. It is just big because of the choice to use the big bananagears to build a turntable with. That determines the scale and the partcount followed from that I think. And with the size comes the need for sound structural design and especially smooth working geartrains. In that sense this model is really a step up from the 42009 and it is these seemingly overcomplicated solutions that are helping.

Bodywork - not finished, but hindered by lack of time (and missing complete framework, but mostly lack of time)

This just gets worse and worse doesn't it

Oops, I reacted a bit too soon, I thought this was about 8457 (the expansion set for Cybermaster). The cybermaster set was already designed when we got the assignment to design a set next to it in the same colourscheme and with a certain assortment of elements (which by the way mostly ended up in the cockpit attachments). I actually don't know who designed the cybermasterset (I wasn't even sure at the time whether it was designed by the LEGO Technic team or by somebody else).

Nice to meet a fan! I am one of the original designers of this set (together with Uwe Wabra), so it is great to hear for me that this set still has an appeal even 18 years later.

Every now and then we had a ' housecleaning day'. Which meant that almost all assembled models (which were a lot) were thrown in big bins to be recycled (as in molten and converted into big plastic boxes). It was strictly forbidden to take parts home. Some unofficial (coloured) pieces on bricklink come from employees that sneaked some out I guess. Oops, sorry, my bad

I'd say it is an amazing feat of engineering and a proof that creativity still wins from the bean counters at TLC. @Erik Leppen@Lucio Switch: I understand that it can look like a waste. But you can also look at this as a way to explore the limits of what is possible with LEGO Technic. The fact that the whole body is put together without glue is for me the biggest achievement. Of course the internal frame is steel and the whole car part is non-LEGO except for the motors. Think about how this must have started: Somebody sat in the LEGO office, thinking, what is the craziest thing I can do with LEGO Technic to promote the Chiron. And then he/she/they came up with ' let's make a real functional lifesize version of the Chiron made out of Technic'. And all the managers said: ' yeah that sounds cool, let's do that' . It is a testament to the creativity and guts of the people behind it. As long as this spirit is kept alive great models are bound to come. As for the actual waste: tons of bricks are thrown away each year during the design process. Recolouring is pretty cheap if you don't have to meet all the quality standards for consumers and 1500 hours is just shy of a manyear (allthough I would be amazed if they really only spend a manyear on this), which for a 10000+ company is <0.01% of their workforce. 13500 manhours is ~8 manyears, that is starting to sound more realistic, but is still <0.1% of the total workforce.

That is amazing! It looks like it works very well, even though the whole rules mechanism looks tricky and a bit fragile. I guess that increasing the number of cells will result in more friction, so there will be a mechanical limit somewhere. I'd love to see a floater moving across a (much) bigger matrix

OMG!!! After seeing your avatar picture I was really curious what your version of the P1 would look like, but this has surpassed my wildest imagination. What a beautiful car! Incredible. The only points of critique I can think of: - those manual functions are really too slow (but I love the way those doors open and the location of the operating gears) - No gearbox in the manual version (but I do love how close the seats are together and how low the center console is, so I guess that is the compromise you made) - the orange tiles in the door maybe? The things I love: - The modular chassis - The lines - Those doors How is the longitudal stiffness? It looks like you had very little height nor width to work with between the seats. Do the vertical 3x11 panels at the side help a lot?

I vote for the liftarm solution. Those knobwheels do not work well when there are three in a row. You can avoid that problem by using normal gears, but than the automatic alignment is not there anymore.

I assume you already tested both switches on the IR, right? (There is a blue channel and a red channel on both the IR receiver and the remote) If you connect the cable of the motor directly to the batterybox and switch the batterybox on, does the motor turn then?