CP5670

The plane looks great, a real successor to 8855. I'm not sure about its functionality but might get it just for the unusual concept and color scheme. It's been ages since we had a flagship set that wasn't a construction or off-road vehicle. The construction crew also sounds interesting. The idea of combining several smaller vehicles is common in other Lego themes, but has only been done once before in Technic with 8872.

This is an awesome model. I had a few meals with Ed Diment at the last Brickfair show, where he gave a talk on how this model was built. Apparently they had to limit the speed for safety reasons at public exhibitions, as running it faster actually generates significant airflow.

Awesome Harley. The chrome really makes the engine pop out and look very detailed due to the reflections.

I just use the 9V train speed controller with this motor. This seems to be enough, or at least I haven't encountered the current limit yet (as opposed to the control centers, RCX or v1 receivers, which power down very quickly).

I've got this too. It's a nice model with the same scale as 8858, and has a fair amount of chrome like other sets from that time period.

Some of my favorite concepts are function switching mechanisms. The 8082 forklift and 8094 crane both had different systems like this, which have not been seen in any set since then. 8043 is also a good example. 8868's alternate model and one of the other 8082 models had multiple functions that were connected through control loops and automatically kicked off each other. The flex system mechanisms in 8485's dinosaur are unlike any other set and give it a variety of nonlinear, life-like movements. I think the most original and clever mechanism is the one in 8002. It needs to be built exactly right and thrown in a very specific way to work properly, but is amazing to watch. The entire thing actually uses no gears and is powered by tension from rubber bands. One of the Brickset reviews says "whoever designed this is a genius and should be put to better use for the good of humanity than just designing toys." That idea book had quite a few concepts that were never seen in any actual Technic set. There was a second model based on a similar idea, where the gear racks were on a rotating belt made of tread links and the model would keep looping through whatever functions were encoded on the belt.

I did the same thing. That motor fits nicely there and you can keep the rear rotor with a little work. It's quite impressive to watch it run, especially when the main rotors are in their upright position and can attain full speed.

This is really sweet. I like how the base looks as if it's embedded deep into the rock, not just built on top of it. It might look nice to add more trans-neon green accent bits though. The original M:Tron sets were full of lights all over the place.

Very nice MOC! I especially like the tracks. They look like they provide far better traction than the regular track links.

Thanks for the comments everyone! I just put up the video in the first post. (slightly choppy since Youtube converts it down to 30fps, but it's not too bad) Thanks. It's surprisingly hard to find Lego pieces with the female ball joint connector, which is the key to making that work. That steering arm was the smallest piece I could think of. That was one of my main inspirations here. I love that set but always thought it was lacking at least one degree of freedom. I probably won't have time to make full instructions, but I'm certainly happy to provide more pictures if anyone wants to recreate the model or any of its subsections. Yes, the platform can support a variety of other things. The flex cables can be easily removed to make room for them. I tried out some space models like the Galactic Enforcer on it.

(click for more pictures) A search helicopter on a control platform with four degrees of freedom, inspired by the official Lego sets 8485 and 9396. Each position control on the remote activates only one motor. The pitch motor moves the rear actuator only, the roll motor moves the two side actuators in opposite directions and the elevation motor (the XL) moves all three actuators in the same direction. An adder-subtractor system based on three differential gears ensures that the motors' geartrains do not interfere with each other, and that the actuators all move at the same speed. The fourth motor turns an 8t gear inside the turntable's inner ring to allow the chopper to yaw. The main rotor is built on a swashplate giving it full cyclic and collective pitch control. The rotor blades' pitch levers are connected by flex cables to the platform's base, so the blades automatically adjust to the chopper's position relative to the platform and do what they would do in real life for the chopper to take on that position. At the same time, they are also connected to the flight sticks in the cockpit, which follow the changes in the rotor blades as the helicopter moves on the platform. The helicopter can also be removed from the platform, with the flight sticks used to control the blade pitch directly. A fifth motor inside the helicopter is used to power the rotors and to raise or lower the landing wheels, with a transmission ring switching between the two functions. The rotor geartrain uses a unidirectional ratchet similar to 9396, which ensures that the rotor blade angles always correspond to the right positions. The tail rotor spins at a 25:9 ratio with the main rotor. Some other facts: The collective movement of the swashplate is based on the fact that the white 5.5L axles have weaker clutch power than most other axles, so the grooved ball can slide over it with little friction. The remote has a 4-way stick for the pitch and roll controls, built on top of a steering arm with a ball joint receptacle. The model uses mostly classic Technic parts but several modern 16t gears. Using only the old ABS 16t gears wears down the teeth and a fine powder appears on them after a while, while alternating between the modern and old ones (or using modern ones only) in a geartrain prevents this. Yes, the minifig is supposed to be controlling it. And here is a video:

The old 8094 control center set had a model like this. It worked very nicely and had both functions on the same geartrain. Since more force was needed to lift the arm than to close the claw, the claw would always close first and the arm was then lifted.

All good points. The track sections are too large and unwieldy to just place anywhere. For my space layout, I started with the monorail layout and then built other models that would fit into it. As much as I love the monorail system, it had a number of limitations (especially with the monorail cars) and I don't plan to expand my layout any further. The custom track systems that Masao Hidaka and others are designing look very promising. I got a couple copies of the space monorails about 10 years ago but never got 6399 either, which was way too expensive even back then and wouldn't have fit in with the rest of my space-oriented monorail layout.

This is a fantastic model. The black and chrome colors go together beautifully. As others said, more pictures of the mechanisms would be good to see.

There have always been slight variations in the dimensions of bricks and the exact locations of the studs on pieces, despite what TLG says about their tolerances. It's not ideal, but is normal. I can't tell in the picture if this is any worse than usual.

I think the reseller frenzy with this set is caused by the limited production run, and the fact that TLG announced it to be such before the set came out. I don't blame the resellers and scalpers. If TLG wanted to fix this, there is nothing stopping them from manufacturing more sets to compensate for the high demand. Frankly, I don't think this is such a great set in the first place, and I have no plans to get one even as a long time Technic fan. The original 9398 it's based on is not that sophisticated and has simpler mechanisms than other recent flagship Technic sets. The dark blue color looks very good but the red in the chassis is incongruous with it, and since you can't easily buy more dark blue pieces, the color is of little use in MOCs. Between this and 42009 for example, I would take the latter any day

Yes, I remember those prices as well. All the electric Lego elements over the years have been overpriced to varying degrees. The PF motors are some of the few parts that are relatively reasonable. Although the L motor's price does seem out of place compared to the other two.

Great review of this legendary set. The set has a very "complete" feel to it, going beyond the other classic space bases in size and scope, and I like how the whole structure is elevated off the ground. The corridor is my favorite part too, but it always seemed half finished to me in the original model. I made various modifications to my set which extend it: Some of the alternate models on the box were also pretty good, especially the giant Alienator. It was rare to see good box alternates back then.

Some of the Technic Star Wars sets (especially 8012, 8000 and 8007) had several unique panels, liftarms and other pieces due to the unusual colors they came in. The same went for some Mindstorms sets like 9732 and 9735, which had teal and purple wheels. A small handful of sets over the years had unique printed pieces. The three Rally sets (8830, 8840 and 8850) each had different number panels, 8660 had Arctic logo panels, 8422 had printed headlights, and 8458, 8459 and 8461 had printed tires. Sets with special functionality had some obvious unique pieces: the code pilot and card in 8479, and the second-edition control center in 8485 (the 8094 version also came in service pack). The Mindstorms set 9748 came with the R2-D2 panels and a thin blue turntable, which has never been used anywhere else. If you count Lego Education sets, the pneumatic pack has a whole lot of unique pieces as well.

Looking forward to the new site. I think even if they just fix this problem, the buying experience would be dramatically improved. Yeah, I don't think there is any simple solution to this. At least "used" doesn't imply anything about the condition, and you understand that you take a risk with such pieces. One approach is to buy a small, trial order of used pieces from a seller before placing a much larger order, to get a sense of what the seller considers to be used. I have run into many situations in the past where the seller's idea of things like "great condition" was very different from mine. Some used pieces or sets were indistinguishable to me from new ones, and in other cases the bricks were essentially unusuable. It can go either way, but I almost always buy new pieces only today. Even in that case, I have encountered sellers who mark a lot of used stuff as new. They sometimes claim that "new is not mint," but the type of scratches on new pieces are very different from used pieces. I've generally gotten refunds in these cases after complaining though.

I've heard that a rule of thumb for consulting work in general is to charge at least double what you actually want as your take-home wage. You take on a variety of overhead costs for such work that you don't have when working a regular job.

A flagship garbage truck with a loader would be very nice, and is something I have had in mind for a MOC for a long time since TLG has never made one (except for maybe 8479, which was more of a dump truck with a garbage truck-like loader). It appears that cars and construction vehicles are what sell, but that was the great thing about the old universal sets. They allowed TLG to include all sorts of unusual models that may not have sold well as standalone sets, many of which we haven't seen anything like again.

I was planning to get this but am not so sure now. The LA should have been a pneumatic piston considering that the set appears to be pneumatic-focused in other ways, and the model seems quite small considering its $120 price. On the plus side, I like the compressor and anything green is good.

That would explain the change, but it's still annoying. They could have rounded off the corners enough to blunt the edges but without making it so visually apparent. It's especially odd since there are much sharper pieces than these, like some of the spike and sword pieces.

I'll be there, this is the 7th time for me. I'm bringing some Technic models for a change, as opposed to the Space stuff I did for the last several years. Just finished my latest MOC yesterday. Hopefully we will get a decent Technic turnout. Past events have been hit-or-miss in this respect.