Hedgie

And would it still be eligible for production when I've already published the building instructions?

I want to thank you all for the kind compliments. It really means a lot to me that other people are excited about something that I built. Also, thank you Jim for featuring me on the frontpage and the hall of fame. I tried my best to design this model in accordance with the principles of official Lego models. Playability, sturdiness, elegance, features, no illegal connections, those kind of things (although I failed in the low cost and impressive size departments ). It is my dream to once aid in designing official Lego models, and this is only my first real try. So thanks everyone for your enthusiasm and please be patient while I work hard on delivering the building instructions in a few weeks. BTW would this model stand any chance on Cuusoo?

They do look very much alike:

My servo motor (part 99498) recently broke and TLC kindly shipped me a new one. Instead of just throwing the old one away, I thought it would be nice to show you all some pictures of what the inside looks like: As you can see, it took quite some aggression to open this thing. The dark gray part is fixed to the light gray part by only 4 plastic clamps, but they are so tight it's impossible to open it without damaging it. The plastic is also very soft, it's possible to scratch it even with just nails. Here's an overview of the main components: 1) housing, 2) motor and circuit board (bent 90 degrees), 3) gearing, and 4) more housing. Now it becomes clear why the circuit board is bent 90 degrees and how the system actually works. As the output shaft rotates, the two metal pieces slide over the contacts of the circuit board. Thereby the microcontroller knows what the current rotation of the output shaft is, and can stop the motor when it's reached the proper destination. The motor itself turns much faster than the output thanks to this planetary gearing system. Unfortunately, I don't know enough math to calculate the actual gear ratio. Obviously, this particular servo motor will never function again. It's a shame, because I've hardly ever used it and there is nothing that looks out of the ordinary. I suspect the problem was somewhere inside the wire, as I could sometimes make it function by wiggling it. Unless anyone here wants this motor for research purposes, I'm throwing it away

Here's a picture I took during the videoshoot. Please promote it everywhere Currently, the model is in pieces while I'm working on the building instructions.

Yes, I will make building instructions and publish them on my Rebrickable profile. Be patient, please :-)

Creating a compact FWD system with McPherson suspension was how this MOC got started. After I figured it out, there was so much room left in the back :-)

Here is my latest MOC: I tried to cram as many features as possible into a car that's still only 17 studs wide (20 if you count the mirrors). They are: full independent suspension steering (including rotating steering wheel) driving (including fake engine) 2-speed windshield wipers convertible top easily removable batterybox The drivetrain lacks a differential, 2 L-motors are used for drive instead. The servo motor does the steering and 2 M-motors operate the windshield wipers and the roof. I plan to create building instructions in the future as I did for my other MOCs. For now, there is only this video. EDIT: The building instructions are now available from http://rebrickable.c...act-convertible EDIT 2: This MOC is now on Lego Ideas. Please visit the project page and support it!

Thanks. It's very nice of Lego to offer this service. I just went through their online reporting system and it was a very pleasurable experience. They promised they will send a new part to my home address. I own about two dozen Technic models and this is the first time that something failed, but this exceptional customer service makes me even more confident of Lego's quality. Thanks Lego! The only annoyance I had was that the field where I had to "describe the problem in detail" only allowed 80 characters. I had to right click, inspect element and change the "maxlength" attribute to something higher. Also: Dear Internet, please do not abuse Lego's kindness to get free Lego parts

I believe I have a faulty Power Functions Servo Motor. Sometimes it just doesn't work, regerdless which batterybox or IR receiver I connect it to. When I wiggle the cable a little, especially near the connection to the motor, it starts to work again. I think there's a bad connection between the cable and the motor or (invisible) damage inside the cable. What should I do? Do I have a guarantee? I have hardly ever used the motor. Should I contact Lego by letter/email/phonecall? Or should I go back to the store? I don't have the receipt of my 9398 anymore. Thanks for any suggestions.

My MOC is now visible at Rebrickable. Here you can also download the MPD model file.

Unfortunately, I've already taken the model apart. The functions you can't really see in the video are: Steering wheel turns along with the wheels The downgearing of the driving motor (behind the clutch) Reclining seats The link between the trailer and the car The place I've hidden the L-motor that powers the drivetrain (it's located inside the trailer!) But since I'm hoping this car will be built by others, maybe there'll be more videos sometime! BTW here's the direct link to the building instructions.

Happy new year everyone! I've made a new year's present for you all: a car with trailer MOC. The building instructions will be available at http://rebrickable.c...ar-with-trailer as soon as it's approved by the Rebrickable moderators. Here's a video that shows a few of the functions:

Don't be afraid to share your secrets. We're living in the information age. We can share anything of value with the whole world. There might be a little devil on your shoulder saying "keep it to yourself, otherwise someone will steal your ideas" but that's nonsense. Ideas should be free, and brilliant executions on those ideas -- like technicmad did with Rebrickable -- are what counts. That's the reason I'm sharing my building instructions. Please all share them!

Whoa, I feel like I'm meeting a celebrity. I love your work! Your site looks great, is easy to use and has many great features. What I'm particularly curious about is how it works so fast. It seems that for every "rebricking"-request, you'll first have to search the database for all the parts a user has, and then search through ALL the parts lists of ALL sets in the database to find matching sets. If there was a desktop program with a "rebrick" feature, I wouldn't be suprised if I'd have to wait a few minutes for this process to complete. Yet, you're doing it in milliseconds for hundreds of users concurrently. How is that possible?! BTW, the pickup truck is now visible on http://rebrickable.c...ic-pickup-truck

You're right, I really was surprised by the ease-of-use of Rebrickable. The user interface was quite amazing, automatically finding the parts and easy to review them. Some programmer has quite a bit of work invested in that! Where could I find some more information about how it works behind the scenes? Yeah I know.The reason is that the 5.5 axle 'locks' in place so it can't be removed by pulling it. Also, the 5.5 axle gives the wheels much less "flex" because there are two bricks holding it in place. What I really need is an axle 3.5 with stop...

I created the model in MLCad and the instructions in LPub. The image on the frontpage was rendered with POV-Ray after exporting from LDview. I installed all these tools with the LDraw All-in-one installer. Thanks for the suggestion! I have submitted the model to Rebrickable and I am currently awaiting moderation... Meanwhile, here's a video of the pickup truck in action. Sorry for the low quality, I only have a phone to record videos.

Hi all, I have created building instructions for a remotely controlled car and my girlfriend tested them. She says they're really good Although I primarily created the instructions so I could rebuild the model later, I figured it would do no harm to share them here as well. You can download both the LDraw model file and the PDF building instructions. If you have any questions I'll be glad to answer.

Great question! I tried it and the answer is it happens only on the network drive. And I found something else too: I can only reproduce the problem by placing test.mpd in a subfolder on the network drive. If I put it on a USB stick or even the root of the network drive (E:\test.mpd) LPub renders it correctly. By the way, since I'm using VirtualBox, Windows sees the network drive as having the filesystem type "VBoxSharedFolderFS".

I found it! After reinstalling countless times and opening several models from different locations, a pattern emerged. Everytime I downloaded a model from the internet and opened it from the My Documents\Downloads folder, LPub worked flawlessly. But everytime I opened a model from my own collection, LPub produced instructions without a main assembly. All my Lego-related stuff lives on a network drive that's accessible as E:\ There's probably an assumption somewhere in LPub that the parts directories are on the same drive as the model file. I should report this as a bug to the author of LPub, but I wouldn't know where to find him/her. I'll just put this conclusion here clearly for future readers stumbling upon this thread: LPub correctly renders files on local drives, but incorrectly renders files in subfolders of network drives. (This conclusion was refined after Calabar placed his comment below. At first I thought it happened on any drive that's not C:\) Alasdair, thank you very much for taking your time to help me. It must be hard explaining stuff to noobs like me Even though your solution didn't work, I learned a lot about LDraw thanks to your help. As a token of my appreciation, here's the final PDF version of the pickup-truck I was having trouble with: (Click on the image to download the PDF. Warning: it's a large download of about 40 megabytes. If you get a 404, I've probably taken it offline again to save bandwith. Act fast!)

Whoa! You mean I should actually copy pickup.mpd to each of the parts directories? That's... weird. So I placed pickup.mpd in all four of the parts directories, then scanned for new parts with MLCad. However, it still says: "There are no new or changed parts!" After this, I cleared the LPub cache and retried to open pickup.mpd in LPub, and I still see this: Why can't I see my pick-up?

To be honest, I have no idea what you mean by "add the two types of file to all four dictionaries" By dictionary, do you mean this thing? Probably not So can you open my model? What's wrong with it?

Thank you very much for helping out, Alasdair! I followed your suggestions and when I scan parts in MLCad it says: I also searched for duplicate files and found the following files: (warning: long list ahead) 1-16cyli.dat 1-16edge.dat 1-16ri19.dat 1-4chrd.dat 1-4con0s.dat 1-4con11.dat 1-4con12.dat 1-4con13.dat 1-4con14.dat 1-4con15.dat 1-4con19.dat 1-4con1.dat 1-4con23.dat 1-4con24.dat 1-4con28.dat 1-4con2.dat 1-4con3.dat 1-4con4.dat 1-4con5.dat 1-4con6.dat 1-4con8.dat 1-4con9.dat 1-4cyli2.dat 1-4cyli.dat 1-4cyls2.dat 1-4cyls.dat 1-4disc.dat 1-4edge.dat 1-4ndis.dat 1-4rin10.dat 1-4rin11.dat 1-4rin12.dat 1-4rin13.dat 1-4rin14.dat 1-4rin15.dat 1-4rin16.dat 1-4rin17.dat 1-4rin18.dat 1-4rin19.dat 1-4rin20.dat 1-4rin23.dat 1-4rin24.dat 1-4rin29.dat 1-4rin34.dat 1-4rin38.dat 1-4rin39.dat 1-4rin48.dat 1-4ring1.dat 1-4ring2.dat 1-4ring3.dat 1-4ring4.dat 1-4ring5.dat 1-4ring6.dat 1-4ring7.dat 1-4ring8.dat 1-4ring9.dat 1-8chrd.dat 1-8cyli.dat 1-8disc.dat 1-8edge.dat 1-8ndis.dat 1-8rin10.dat 1-8rin16.dat 1-8rin19.dat 1-8rin39.dat 1-8ring1.dat 1-8ring2.dat 1-8ring3.dat 1-8ring4.dat 1-8ring5.dat 1-8ring6.dat 1-8ring7.dat 1-8ring8.dat 1-8ring9.dat 1-8sphe.dat 2421a.dat 2-4cyli2.dat 2-4cyli.dat 2-4cylo.dat 2-4disc.dat 2-4edge.dat 2-4ndis.dat 2-4rin11.dat 2-4rin12.dat 2-4rin16.dat 2-4rin17.dat 2-4rin31.dat 2-4ring1.dat 2-4ring2.dat 2-4ring3.dat 2-4ring4.dat 2-4ring5.dat 2-4ring6.dat 2-4ring9.dat 25931-12.dat 25931-8h.dat 2-8sphe.dat 3-16chrd.dat 3-16cyli.dat 3-16disc.dat 3-16edge.dat 3-16ndis.dat 3-16rin7.dat 3-4cyli.dat 3-4edge.dat 3-4rin14.dat 3-4ring7.dat 3-8chrd.dat 3-8cyli.dat 3-8edge.dat 4-4con0.dat 4-4con10.dat 4-4con11.dat 4-4con12.dat 4-4con13.dat 4-4con15.dat 4-4con16.dat 4-4con17.dat 4-4con18.dat 4-4con19.dat 4-4con1.dat 4-4con20.dat 4-4con21.dat 4-4con22.dat 4-4con24.dat 4-4con25.dat 4-4con2.dat 4-4con30.dat 4-4con31.dat 4-4con35.dat 4-4con36.dat 4-4con3.dat 4-4con41.dat 4-4con4.dat 4-4con5.dat 4-4con7.dat 4-4con8.dat 4-4con9.dat 4-4cylc2.dat 4-4cylc.dat 4-4cyli2.dat 4-4cyli.dat 4-4cylo.dat 4-4disc.dat 4-4edge.dat 4-4ndis.dat 4-4rin10.dat 4-4rin11.dat 4-4rin12.dat 4-4rin13.dat 4-4rin14.dat 4-4rin15.dat 4-4rin16.dat 4-4rin17.dat 4-4rin18.dat 4-4rin19.dat 4-4rin20.dat 4-4rin21.dat 4-4rin22.dat 4-4rin24.dat 4-4rin25.dat 4-4rin26.dat 4-4rin29.dat 4-4rin30.dat 4-4rin33.dat 4-4rin34.dat 4-4rin36.dat 4-4rin37.dat 4-4rin39.dat 4-4rin43.dat 4-4rin44.dat 4-4rin47.dat 4-4rin49.dat 4-4rin50.dat 4-4rin52.dat 4-4rin77.dat 4-4rin97.dat 4-4ring1.dat 4-4ring2.dat 4-4ring3.dat 4-4ring4.dat 4-4ring5.dat 4-4ring6.dat 4-4ring7.dat 4-4ring8.dat 4-4ring9.dat 4-8sphe.dat 5-16edge.dat 5-8cyli.dat 5-8edge.dat 6637a.dat 6637b.dat 6637c.dat 6637d.dat 7-16cyli.dat 7-16edge.dat 7-16rin3.dat 7-8cyli.dat 8-8sphe.dat t04o2000.dat t04q4444.dat t08q4444.dat So many duplicate files! Should I be worried? Should I delete them all? HELP!

Great! That means the problem is not in the files I'm trying to open, but rather in my LDraw installation. I removed all the parts and reinstalled using the LDraw All-in-one installer. Now the test file renders correctly! Unfortunately, I still can't open this model. It's almost done, I only need to add one callout and save it as PDF A little more background information: I modelled this model in MLCad running in Wine under Linux. Since LPub doesn't work with Wine, I installed Windows XP into a virtual machine to use LPub. When I couldn't find some parts, I unzipped the unofficial parts library to C:\Program Files\LDraw I never experienced any problems and successfully layed out all the instruction steps with LPub. Suddenly, after making a trivial change to the model with MLCad (removed duplicate Technic Pin) LPub wouldn't render the main assemblies anymore. By "dictionary", do you mean the Parts.lst file? I've regenerated that using mklist.exe. How can I "check all dictionary's for both parts"?

Hi everyone, I'm encountering a weird issue with LPub 4.0.0.11. When rendering MPD models, LPub correctly shows the steps of each submodel, but the "main" model remains invisible. This happens with every MPD model I've tried. Clearing the LPub cache (in LPub\assem\*) so it re-renders the images doesn't work. The image containing the main assembly is simple empty. I've created a very simple model to reproduce the problem. Here's how my LPub renders this file: The empty place where the arrow points should show the completed assembly. I've tried reinstalling LPub but that doesn't work. What is causing this and how can I fix this?