DrJB

Now I know why the set was so heavy (close to 4 kg) ... it's the %$#@&^ book! Would the book PDF be available for download from the Lego site? I'd prefer to have a 'preview' before committing.

Exactly my thought.

Looks like Akiyuki got an EV3 set. Does this mean his GBCs are becoming 'intelligent' ?

I was mot aware of the 'report' button, yet it was there all along, staring at me. The reason I labeled it 'spam' is because that link takes you to a shady webpage about printing coupons, that got nothing to do with Lego nor Technic. Furthermore, it was the first post by that individual so I thought (hope I was right) that it was no legit.

Stumbled upon this real nice red racer, did a eurobricks search, but can't find any info except the photos on the eBay listing. Any idea who the author is and what else he's come up with? He's selling instructions on eBay and I hope he does not mind me sharing my find. Yes, it does come with custom stickers. http://www.ebay.com/...2AAAOSwiLdV8bH1

This is SPAM, and it is NOT welcome here.

Since we're at it, I was able to re-create the 16-bucket version. With only 4 spokes, it's a bit flimsier than its smaller sibling, and that is why I added thin 5L liftarms to prevent the connectors from coming apart, around the circumference. The wheel is a bit offset, but one can make the spokes/rim similar to the 8-bucket version. And, yes, it's perfectly feasible without stressing any of the parts.

Hehe ... Yup, when the time comes of course :) Now, I was able to fit an 'exact' octagon around 2× large gears (z40) and 4× 5L liftarms. I was also able to do a 16-bucket wheel in LDD, but can't find the file now. Note: If it works in LDD, it means the parts are not stressed in real-life. What I learned is that those large circles are easy to build with the connectors, however, often the 'challenge' is to find a hub that fits 'perfectly'. In fact, there is no special pythgoras version that works here. If you remove just one spoke, the construction is not stable and the gears can rotate relative to the outer rim (I'm talking here about the 16-bucket version. For the smaller one below, the 5L liftarm is held by 2× 3L blue pins, and as such it is already fixed). With three spokes, the contraption is a 'mechanism' i.e., parts can move relative to one another. The fourth spoke eliminates the extra/remaining degree-of-freedom, and voila! The only catch with such design/attachment approach is that you can't do more than 4 spokes (there are no lego technic parts with 8 equally spaced pin holes around the circumference. One possibly could extend to 6 spokes, but in such case, the connectors making the outer rim need to have 150 or 165 degrees. In the above picture, the buckets are not available in LDD, so I made up my own 'contraption. Those buckets came in only one set (in white): The Mars Mission Crystal Reaper. They did come also in various bionicle sets but in Trans-Blue.

Very nice. I bought 60+ of those buckets and wanted to do a GBC with them. Project still sitting on back burner though. Depending on which connectors you use, you can do either 8 or 16 buckets.

Nice ... The only problem is such cranes are usually painted yellow or some other bright color, so they stand against the 'neutral' background. This is done for safety reasons, of course.

Not sure such logic holds with us grown ups. My little girl goes always by the age advertised on the box, as a justification for me to buy her that friends set .. "Look dad, it says this is for kids my age". Seriously, I guess if you're younger than 16, you may not appreciate how valuable such set is, but also the set might not be within your budget (still living with your parents and want to burn $300+ on pieces of plastic? ... Think again kiddo, we need to trim down your allowance). On the other hand, this might be used by parents trying to dissuade their young that the set is for older people (I like this one!) ...

I've seen many lego add-on ideas, be it electrical or educational and, not to sound 'negative', but one gets numb after a while. What is amazing is they gathered $388,733.00 in pledges, compared to a target of $50,000.00. That's 8 times what they need. If anything at all, this says one of two things: Lego enthusiasts are in dire need of an upgrade to PF (BT or else) or, that the people who are supporting this have no clue about other available options. In any event good luck to both innovators and those supporting them.

At time-stamp 4:50, there are four gear racks placed vertically, near the front/rear suspensions. Any guess what those are for? Does the car have adjustable height, or some suspension damping mechanism (wild guess, as movie is not 'complete'), or some anti-sway bar?

I think, and I hope I speak for many, the main 'annoying' reason is not the topics themselves. But so far I counted 4-5 such topics and they tend to push the more 'serious' threads down. No objection about content and not here to 'police' what others are posting. Again, just a single thread consolidating all these would be 'better' ... imho, naturally.

where's the ketchup?

I have not done a compressor in a while but there are many options out there. Now, one feat need (IMHO) is an air tank, so that when you actuate any of the cylinders, the pressure does not drop too much, and you do not need to wait for the compressors to 'recover'. I've seen some that are connected in parallel and, from experience, you got to be careful so that while one is pulling air, it is not taking it from the one charging. Maybe a setup with one-way valves could be used, and here they sell those for air-pumps for aquariums.

I think the solution is easy : All such threads need to be combined into a single one. Yes, I agree fully with you that the original thread (yours) was fun, but all others were ... well ... 'annoying'. How many times can u tell the same joke and have people laugh at it?

Other issues (reported above) aside, I think it's a good initiative to have grouped all such great !MOCs under one roof, so to speak. Of course, proper credit needs to be given to original authors as well as relevant links. Now, few comments about the site: I do not speak/read german so, like most of us, I go to these websites for the pictures. As such, I found the pictures rather small and very difficult to peruse. Yes, the pages are very dense and it seems the author wanted to 'cram' as much info as possible. But, having to click on every picture to see a slightly bigger version is more distraction/annoyance than it is worth (my opinion only, of course). I think we should aim for large pictures, such as those on pinterest, so that the site visitor can get an idea of the content without getting fingers sore from multiple clicks (has not happened yet but ... ). All in all, in this modern day and age, redundancy (same info available from multiple sites) is a good thing assuming again, proper credit is given. We also need to keep in mind that some web servers shut down, others slowly disappear .. so redundancy is a good idea. That's what akamai (an MIT startup) was based on. All the best with the site.

Fantastic site of course, prior comments were not too serious. Any thought about consolidating all of BlakBird's contributions into a single website? There is Technicopedia of course, but there is also a huge number of renders he has done for many MOCs out there, Akiyuki's GBCs, and so on. Am I looking for a one-stop-shop for everything SR71? ... hummm ... yeah! I understand the larger the site the more expensive to maintain, but maybe some hot-links to other repositories such as those available on the many picture-sharing sites out there.

I always found statistics to be 'misleading'. Some people look at the average trend (mean/average), others look at the outliers. It's all a matter of subjective interpretation. Now, while your metrics for catching up definitely show a positive trend, it seems now TLG is more aggressive with the numbers of models they're releasing and how complicated they've become. That in itself might suggest TLG is actively working on increasing their lead ... ... but with active AFOLs willing to help, I'm sure the site is up to the task and will always be a valuable resource/reference for many of us. Thus, I raise my to another 10 years.

When I went there it said the site used some cookies ... most 'naturally' they're tracking the number of hits, and if the site gets visited often, that might give them the incentive to update often ... unless they're under the same management as that Technicopedia site ...

Very nice find. Thank you for sharing. But ... what are Mobil elements?

Thank you, that's exactly the point behind this thread (at least, what I intended). I did not want this discussion to become: panels vs. no panels, classic vs. studless, LA's vs pneumatics. There are so many of those threads already. I am more interested in how the community perceived the change from skeletal to panelized (?) designs, or possibly what drove such 'evolution'. But again, this is a dynamic discussion forum, and sometimes these discussions tend to evolve beyond the OP's intention. The reason my original title included supercars is, historically, most MOCs out there are about cars. Only recently we've started seeing trucks and other vehicles. *peace*

Thinking of the physics, the heavier the model, the more support it will need. In the end, if you want the springs to support the vehicle, the springs need to be very stiff, otherwise they will compress completely. Now, how do you make springs stiff? You have two options: 1. Use springs in parallel, as was done on the 8880 (2 shocks for each tire/corner) 2. Use some lever arm ratio to scale up/down the spring force.

Agree fully. That set is one of my favorites, yet I've always felt it was way under-rated. Not sure if the picture on the box has anything to do with it, but to me that's such an iconic truck, that fits perfectly well next to the Arocs and the 42009.