MadMax1998

First RC MOC I ever built, and premiere of my own BuWizz brick! I was looking to try the BuWizz out with a fast and easy to assemble model that didn't require part sourcing. Ended up with this: Extremely fast in Ludicrous mode, but hard to steer. Never goes really straight due to the loose steering link. Building instructions use exotic parts that could easily be replaced by common ones, such as full-length bushings instead of sleeves. Some instructions are unclear or finicky to build, like the cable routing. Lots of eye-candy that can be left out to save parts. Mainly used parts from 42000, 42039 and 7347, some from 42009 and 42095 (motors, sleeves, black discs). Had to add servo separately. Unfortunately the motors were scratched by the ground. Not a big deal, but the front panels took quite a beating when the kart inevitably crashed into a curb. These parts were all used anyway, but the panels at the front really should be replaced/protected by common parts such as axles. All in all it was a nice little build and driving it was lots of fun, but the next RC model I'll build has to be sturdier and easier to control!

Hey, good suggestion about the half-bushes. Yes, your idea might look better. I've taken the model apart since writing this, so I can't check it out right now. Care to post a photo of how it looks?

8851 Excavator Review and Pneumatic Upgrade Guide I was into Technic mostly during the early to mid 90s and I was a fan of pneumatics, which got me the 8868 Air Tech Claw Rig eventually , but quite a few pneumatic sets and parts before that. In that time, when looking through an old catalog from the 80s, I saw a different pneumatic system. While I didn’t understand the difference, I knew it was an older generation and I was intrigued by it. I got lucky and grabbed probably one of the very last 8851 Excavator sets from the local toy store a bit later (could have been 1994, ten years after its initial release!). I was happy to get such an old model in a new box and for a good price (I could afford it from my pocket money, if I remember correctly), and I could finally get my hands on that old pneumatic system. Needless to say I saw the difference when building the model and I understood the drawbacks the old system had (from a construction point of view), but the excavator itself was so cool for some reason, with its tracks – it’s still the only set I have tracks from – and rugged look, even though the design is clearly 80s-style Technic with a lot of detail missing, and very blocky. But the thing performs like a real machine which makes it all the more interesting considering its relatively small size. It also looks more realistic than the 8837 Pneumatic Excavator that came after it. Because of that, I always kept this old Technic set close to my heart. I have only recently returned to Lego and I’m rebuilding my favorite models, so I knew I had to get that excavator built again the moment I found the old pneumatic parts and the tracks in my collection. But there was one problem: I have all the actuators and the distribution block, but the red pump is missing. Since you can’t use the new pneumatic pump with the old actuators and I didn’t want to order more old pneumatic parts just for this one model, I thought, why not upgrade the pneumatics and get rid of the flaws of the old system? But it would not be so easy with twice the number of hoses to be laid through the model’s bricks, and anyone who has built the 8851 set knows how finicky it is to get the original hoses placed… So it took me quite some time to get it right and involved some deconstruction and correction of mistakes I made with the new pneumatics, especially considering hose length and placement. When taking the model apart, I took lots of photos to document the process in reverse and inventoried all parts needed. Now *you* can build your own pneumatic upgrade for your 8851 Excavator if you follow this building guide. I hope you enjoy it – and do post comments and photos if you find something that could be improved! Required parts Before you begin constructing your excavator, look at this picture and the following list to find out if you have all the required parts for the upgrade. All the pneumatic parts are listed except for the valve switches since these are already included in the set. You will not need the distribution block or any of the old actuators and pump. The other parts are for attaching things related to the upgrade. Note that colors can be varied by you and have only been picked by me because I find them fitting or I didn’t have parts in other colors (the black clamp plates, for example, could be gray). I used old (from the original 8851 set) and newer pneumatic hoses because I did not want to cut anything, so the model looks a little mixed up on the photos. Keep in mind the old hoses are more rigid and less flexible than the newer ones, which is why I used clear hoses for the switches; they seem to be the most flexible. Your mileage may vary. pneumatics: 1x pneumatic hand pump with brick-shaped bottom (1990s) 3x large pneumatic actuators with brick-shaped or round bottom (1990s onward) 2x t-piece (original 8851 set has four, but we only need two) 2x rigid tube (Flex System), 4 cm (used on sets such as 8868 and 8837) 1x hose, 2.5 cm, clear 1x hose, 4 cm, clear 3x hose, 4 cm, gray hoses 5.5 cm, 16 cm, 18 cm, 19 cm, 21 cm, 24 cm, 28 cm, 39 cm, black other parts: 1x Technic brick 1x8 with holes, red 1x Technic brick 1x2 with hole, old gray 1x brick 2x4, black (optional) 1x Technic axle 10 2x Technic bushing, half-width 4x plate 1x1 with clamp on top, black (or old gray) 4x Technic pin, half-length with stud Construction guide Alright, let’s get started! Open the 8851 building instructions (available here), gather the parts needed for the model, and follow the steps like this… steps 1-3: Build as instructed. step 4: Ignore the instructed attachment of hoses. Do this instead: attach gray 4 cm hose to center lug of switch attach black 19 cm hose to left (bottom) lug of switch attach black 21 cm hose to right (top) lug of switch step 5: Lead the gray hose through the third hole from the right side of the brick (where the left of the two hoses in the instructions is placed). Attach a t-piece and another gray 4 cm hose as instructed to the one hose you have. step 6: Attach a clear 4 cm hose to the top lug of the t-piece, similar to the instructions. step 7: attach clear hose from step 6 to center lug of switch attach black 24 cm hose to left (bottom) lug of switch attach black 28 cm hose to right (top) lug of switch Replace the old actuator from the instructions with a new one and attach it to the axle so the lugs point to the *other* side! This will have the lugs point forward, away from the structure of the model, after the actuator is placed in it. This is very important! step 8: Replace the distribution block by a 2x4 brick of your choice (I used black). This is optional, but will give the structure more strength than leaving it open. Lead the gray hose through the second hole from the right side of the brick. step 9: Attach a t-piece to the gray hose with one of its inline lugs (not the top lug as instructed). Ignore the other hoses from the instructions as we don’t use the distribution block. step 10: Replace the red pump from the instructions with a new yellow hand pump. Then connect the pump directly to the other inline lug of the t-piece with a gray 4 cm hose. Attach a clear 2.5 cm hose to the top lug of the t-piece and connect it to the center lug of the switch. Do not attach any other hoses yet. step 11: Build as instructed. step 12: Replace the red 1x4 Technic brick from the instructions with a red 1x8 Technic brick and put it on the plate starting from the leftmost stud (see photo). Lead the two hoses from the first switch through the rightmost two holes of the new brick and to the actuator, with the left (bottom) switch lug going to the bottom actuator lug. Lead both hoses through the valley on the right side of the structure (see photo). These will be affixed later. step 12.1-13: Build as instructed. step 13.1: Build the excavator arms as instructed, but replace the two old actuators with new ones facing the same direction. Put an old gray 1x2 Technic brick with one hole at the other end of the center arm, so the arm has one brick on each end. Note that it says on step 13.4 to use two half-width bushings with the smooth side facing outward to fix the 4 axle to the actuator. This does not make sense because the teeth of the bushings can’t properly interlock with the plates’ teeth unless they are pushed so far onto the axle that the two other plates attached to the bucket would bend. I recommend leaving the toothed side of the bushings outward for the actuator axle and not pushing them too far on the axle to prevent bending of the plates. step 14: Replace the 8 axle with a 10 axle and make sure to slide it into the structure so that the two hoses of the low actuator are under it. That way the axle keeps the hoses in place. step 15: Lead both hoses from the second switch through the next two holes of the brick, then through the arm as instructed and finally to the actuator, with the left (bottom) switch lug going to the bottom actuator lug. Attach two half-width bushings on the ends of the 10 axle holding the arm in place. The instructions also tell you to place an old gray 2x4 plate seemingly on top of the hoses, while the next step shows the hoses on top of the plate. Because there will be two more hoses near the current ones later, I recommend leaving the plate away as it does not seem to serve a purpose. step 16: Attach a black 39 cm hose to the left (bottom) lug of the third switch. Lead the hose through the next available hole of the brick, below the two hoses of the middle actuator, and up along the right side of the lower arm. Then lead it through the first brick on the center arm, between the two existing hoses, and push it along the arm through the second brick as instructed. Attach this hose to the bottom lug of the bucket actuator. To construct the connection to the actuator’s top lug, you will need two rigid tubes of 4 cm length as well as black hoses of 5.5 cm, 16 cm and 18 cm length. Attaching the rigid tubes is done via four half-length pins with stud as well as four clamp plates. The assembly looks like this: Attach the black 18 cm hose to the right (top) lug of the third switch. Lead the hose through the next available hole of the brick, below the three existing hoses, and up along the right side of the lower arm. Put two half-length pins on the arm’s beam brick and another two on the center arm, as indicated by the photos. Clamp the two rigid tubes to two clamp plates each so they fit with the studs on the pins, and put the clamp plates with the tubes on the studs, attaching the tubes to the arms. Then attach the 18 cm hose you laid down earlier to the lower tube, connect the two tubes using the black 5.5 cm hose, and finally connect the upper tube to the top lug of the bucket actuator with the black 16 cm hose. step 17: Ignore the red 4x6 plate as it cannot be attached. step 18: Build as instructed. You are done! And this should be the result: It might be possible to lay the hoses a little cleaner, but this is the way that involves the least customization (such as with rigid tubes) and still looks good. It also works perfectly! The model really packs some punch with the new actuators and also looks more modern. Constructing it is still very much a pain after attaching the arm to the structure (who came up with the idea of putting rubber bands on it in a place as inconvenient as this?) and leading four hoses on top of each other is quirky, but it’s worth the final product. The only design choice I could criticize is the strange skeleton of a cockpit. It doesn’t even sit on top of the structure, but is attached in line with it – that just looks weird from any angle other than left! And it doesn’t even have a floor. Still, building this piece of Technic history was a nice challenge once again and the outcome even better than expected. Thanks for reading.

I wonder what it would take to get the website in line with the bandwidth usage that seems to bring it down regularly. I run a paid webspace with unlimited traffic and it's never been going down for excessive bandwidth usage (I mean, that *is* what unlimited traffic is about, right?), and it's really very affordable at 60 Euros a year. If he pays for his website, then how much do we have to donate for him to be able to move to a better service that provides no bandwidth caps? Also, making Technicopedia a contributor project where other well-versed collectors can add their models and descriptions would keep the website moving even when Blakbird can't find time.

Alright, thought I would complete this thread with my experience finishing the build... The total build time, from looking at the wall clock when starting and finishing each stint, was eight hours. That is by far the longest I ever had; not even the 8868 Claw Rig when I was a kid took that long (well, maybe it did... but considering I'm 28 now, I'd do it in half that time!) - of course the first hour was spent getting acquainted with the new pieces and building style, which was more frustrating than enjoyable. The complex chassis with the moving beams was difficult to understand while building and once the instructions got to the exterior and finally the gears and rotor, I was beginning to enjoy it a lot more. I was also getting faster and putting together the parts much quicker. Sorting them out from the bags was also faster as I had memorized which bag held what. I did the build in four nights (one week in total) while my girl was asleep. I just finished the model tonight, so let's recap how it went... after the second night, building for 90 minutes, this was the result. I was much more confident at this point that studless construction had something going for it. Then on the third night I spent another two hours on the meat and potatoes of the helicopter with the transmission and main rotor. I can't remember any studded Technic models from the 90s having gearboxes to drive several functions from one axle (except the Space Shuttle, which I still want). It became apparent that with the compact build design a construction like this rotor would never have been possible 20 years ago. And tonight, while I completed the machine, I even spotted an instruction error on step 131...! I'm really glad this model includes such a detailed gearbox because I'm usually more interested in vehicles (cars) and building transmissions is a very interesting prospect to me. I always wanted to know how they really work without just looking at pictures on Wikipedia, and I think the new Technic sets can give me that. Of course I noticed pretty quickly that there was no way to drive the rotors *and* any of the other functions together, which is the only serious lack of this otherwise beautifully engineered helicopter! And another two and a half hours later... done. It's the biggest Lego model I've ever built. After this, I've become more confident about studless construction and I like some new parts a lot, especially the gears which seem to move a lot smoother than the old ones. I can only imagine what a great model I could construct by combining my old studded parts and the new stuff. The helicopter gives me a lot of nice new parts to start with. However, my next build will be the 8460 Crane Truck I shot off eBay for a good price, so it's back to the good old days of Technic for now. I wonder which studless model to get next...

Thanks for the helpful advice about colors and I'm also glad to see that I'm not alone with my troubles. I hope I can get the hang of building like this given time because it seems really intriguing mechanically. Still, I'm also looking forward to building more old, studded models the way I fondly remember.

I believe I was 14 or 15 the last time I really messed around with Lego Technic (and Lego in general). I was experienced enough with the various Technic sets I had back in the 90s to attempt a few creations of my own that actually had some function, so I would consider myself a proficient Technic builder at least at that age. Years later my best friend and I rebuilt the 8868 set out of curiosity if we could do it after all this time, and it was pretty possible. Now, again quite a few years later, I'm back into Lego and I'm collecting all the parts for the Technic sets I remember most, rebuilding them with my girlfriend. I still feel very familiar with the old studded building scheme and the common Technic parts used in the 90s. The studless models of today have some kind of appeal (mostly decoratively) over the sometimes odd-looking old models, but I feel it's very far from what Lego used to be. I can't imagine studless parts being as versatile and reusable as the studded bricks and plates, and I was very skeptical when I saw the new Technic line for the first time in ages. But there's no better way to form an opinion than to try studless building, and so the first Technic set I purchased since getting back to Lego was the 9396 helicopter. I had the box around for two weeks now while sorting out and building some old Technic models, and tonight I finally started. To sum up my first two hours of studless building: it's back to school. Like I never touched Technic in my life! Sure, there are still pins and connectors, links, axles and joints. But even after getting a good overview of today's Technic from Sariel's new book (great resource), I feel like I'm building a Technic model for the first time. I know this new building style requires new parts to make it work, but there are SO MANY of them! It seems Lego has invented a part for any function that could and would have been constructed from existing parts a few years ago. The 9396 set has what, 10 plastic bags of parts? And the first four pages of the instructions require me to open all of them! I had trouble figuring out where to put all the parts as my computer desk is not that deep, but I settled for leaving the opened bags on the desk with the parts inside (at least Lego made the bags big enough to pick parts out of them separately). After a while I started remembering which bag that 5-stud axle was in, at which point I also realized there is a system to these bags and I could actually keep some of them that were often used near me while shuffling others off the table. Still, one bag for the first few pages followed by another would have been way less messy. I don't think the old Technic sets were organized like that. That's what it looked like after the first hour of building. I was so slow selecting parts and coming to terms with how the parts new to me had to be fit in, I really only came this far in 60 minutes... One thing I find irritating from the instructions is the way colors are represented. I'm not color-blind and I worked with good lighting, but I regularly mistook dark grey for black and sometimes even light gray for dark gray when looking at the computer layouts. I don't remember having so much trouble with color-picking using old instructions! However, the fact that there are two tones of gray for liftarms/beams and several shades of gray, tan and brown for pins and axles really makes it more difficult. I wonder why they did it; will it really make the final model look better? Another problem with color is the apparent inconsistency with color-coding the parts. Previously it was: gray = no friction, black = friction. Now we have black and gray standard pins here, but the axle pins are blue for friction and tan for no friction. Alright, that should mean every tan piece is frictionless and every blue piece has friction? But the double-length pins with bushings are gray and they have massive friction! It's not a problem for me when building to instructions, but I can only imagine picking the wrong pieces when trying to make a MOC with these parts. And from some resources I've seen that there are/were even more colors available for many of the parts? So does Lego change them up every year or what? Alright, one hour later I'm exhausted (it's the middle of the night, though) and I'm wrapping it up for now. I got a bit faster and came this far: I now begin to get a clue of what all those losely attached beams and links might be doing later on. The only complete assembly is the front wheel, but two other assemblies have been sticking/hanging around for half an hour without me being able to tell what they might do. Looking at the construct on my table, I see a jumbled mess of beams and junctions, but it's hard to tell them apart from each other at first glance. Studless building really is more complex and with that inside-outward approach (building the seats into the chassis O.o) I understand why it's required to think ahead when building your own models this way. Studless building, day 1: - I've never been so slow building any Lego set. - So many different parts and colors! How will I manage? - It's hard to see through the complexity the bigger the model gets. Much harder than in the past with studded models. - The instructions only fill 3 volumes because every step includes just a tiny number of parts. That doesn't help make the building simpler, though. - Some pieces require a lot of physical effort (brown axle with stud); I can't imagine a child building this model alone... - Even for me as an adult with lots of Technic experience from the past, this building style is challenging. Very! Now I don't know whether you simply adapt through practice or if it's a genuine learning curve to master, but I'm looking forward to continuing... somehow. I'm also daunting it. Bring on the challenge.

Hello everyone, I'm Max, 28 years old hailing from Berlin. Two passions of mine in my childhood were pinball machines and Lego; especially the Technic line when I turned 9 (or 10?) and received the 8034 Universal Building Set to get started. I built my way through to the 8068 Claw Rig in two to three years and also constructed some models of my own, mostly using parts I got from Lego's mail-order catalog. I have a few parts here that have been featured in models I never had (such as the micromotor). I guess you could say I was making MOCs even before I turned away from Lego at the age of 14 or 15. I never forgot what Lego was about, but eventually I gave my big box of mashed-up Lego pieces away to my best friend (I was in my early twenties and we had just rebuilt the 8868 set for kicks, but we were both pretty much done with Lego). Luckily he kept the box unopened in his basement all these years and now I got it back because none other than my girlfriend asked me for it. She never had a lot of Lego in her life and was curious to see what I had, and to build stuff with me (she's 19). I was pretty unimpressed when I got the box back, but roughly a month later here I am. As with pinball, I rediscovered something I used to be passionate about and never thought of again in a long time. I never thought even the "Lego for Men" ads would win me over when I saw them - Lego was just not interesting enough for me as an adult. Well, I was wrong. I started sorting the pieces with my GF and began an inventory of parts with Peeron's help for all the great Lego System sets I had in the early 90s. While some parts have inexplicably vanished, most of them are there and we've built a few cool small and medium models mostly from the Lego City line. It's fun to see your girl come to grips with scanned instructions on an iPad, grabbing parts and trying them on as if she had never done it before. The sorting and preparation of further sets to build with her led me to shopping online for missing parts and that in turn led me to the new lineup of today's Lego which is far from what I remember! After looking around toy stores and webshops plus this forum, I think I've made up my mind about my Lego journey from here on out: Technic is just too cool for words and while I like the System stuff, Technic is simply more interesting with all its functioning parts. I think I will specialize in that - there are a few old sets to sort out and rebuild, some sets to shoot off eBay that I never had in the past, and of course the new stuff from the studless era. Boy, studless Technic models are so weird - I don't know what to make of them. The first time my GF and I were in a store and walked by the sets, I said something like, "that's not Lego! Not how I know it!" I've since been too curious to hold back and have purchased the 9396 set to try out studless building. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do if I want to build more Lego from now on. Like I said before, I'm also a pinball enthusiast. Started collecting a few machines in 2004 and made that childhood dream come true, but then I had to sell most of the games for financial reasons. I now have one pretty fresh machine in our bedroom and an old electromechanical unit in the living room corner, but the glass is currently chock-full of bags with sorted Lego pieces. I guess priorities have switched a bit ;) I'm looking forward to reading everyone's stories, reviews and discussion here, and I will start with one of my own about my studless building experience so far... see the Technic forum. - Max