Erik Leppen

Er, @Zerobricks, are you really sure you targeted the right person in the right place? I mean, please check who started this topic :)

If you would do that, you'd just declare the whiner's victory. Please don't do that. I'd much rather have somewhat snarky but honest comments showing actual critiques trying to improve and teach, than "ohhs and ahhs" every time someone shows a work in progress. Critique is what drives a learning community (in my view). I guess I should have jumped in stating "I agree with Sariel" before someone started acting against him... (but I'm not much of a "I agree" person.) It's funny how critiquing a build seems to be a no-go, but going head-first on someone who critiques a build is seemingly perfectly OK (no moderator has stepped in yet, as far as I can see). Anyhow, about the geometry. While I agree that it's not correct, I don't think it's "ruining axles" because the CV joint allows for some leeway because the axle can slide. It's the same way the Bugatti and Sian sets use this sliding effect to move their differential to nonstandard positions. The problem may be that it relies on this sliding motion, meaning the only way the drive axle is kept in place is by the friction of the U-joint part. Similarly, there is nothing stopping the CV joint part from sliding out the differential (which only needs 0.5 stud movement to stop working). How will that hold during play? Second, while the geometry is indeed not correct, with a virtual pivot steering I don't think a "geometrically correct" way even exists. The distance between the two points is variable and cannot be made constant, that's a consequence of having a virtual pivot. So while the problem exists, I don't see it easily solvable using the current setup. Other thing I notice is that there's currently nothing holding the steering connection of the hub in place (the gray 2x2 axle joiner on the drak-tan 5L axle). It's only held by friction, which means it will slide off during play. Not the first time, but a little bit each time. Third, I'm not a fan of how the springs are mounted. The problem is that you're using really-strong but short springs mounted in a specific way to increase the travel. While understandable (and it's a shame Lego does not provide much-longer springs), it creates a big force on the surrounding elements. Using weaker longer springs would reduce forces that would be tearing the parallelogram apart. Also maybe it would be better to mount the springs much closer to the wheels, which again would reduce forces on the whole thing when the suspension will be compressed. I'm just afraid you get an awful lot of bending in this setup, especially torsional when the suspension is compressed and the wheels are steered at the same time. Maybe it would be better to just go with a live axle. I.e. the solution of the 42111 Charger set's rear axle, or the crawlers. Or 42043, the reference set for many things :) That way, the "steering motion" and the "vertical motion" can be "discoupled" (the steering rack will be on the suspended unit) meaning you have more control over each.

Apart from the useless drum parts, this seems to be a decent little set for people starting out with Technic. It seems a bit simple, but it has the necessary elements (steering, and a fake engine), and is a new type of vehicle. So far, I like it. But yeah, I'm increasinly baffled by Lego's willingness to produce such huge single-use parts. I thought that was wat brought their demise 20 years ago. They'll sure know what they're doing, but it doesn't feel Lego-y to do it like this. I thought there were quite a few cone elements already in some themes. Produce matching quarter-cylinder parts and you're good to go. The 1x3 beam at the front of the cabin seems black though, not dark-blue :)

A set like this not having suspension is just 42070 all over again, but with a licence. I'd be astonished if Volvo wouldn't have demanded to have a suspension there. Previous Volvo vehicles seem to be quite functional, so it would be really weird to see this huge set having so few functions that we can say it's just a larger 8264. And that was rather disappointing even at 600 pieces. This is 3 times that and what does it offer besides motorization? Really, if it's really just motorized drive/steer/bed and a turntable, I would say that none of us should buy this.

This set seems to be pretty nice. There seems to be somthign going on with the blade angle of the propellors. If this is really functional, that would be quite a nice addition. There seem to be 4 functions in the gearbox (I think I count 4 changeover catches, 2 on each side). Also, the set doesn't seem to be overly large, it seems somewhat smaller than 42025 which I think is good. Also, I'm glad it's not all dark-gray and has some light-gray parts as well. We'll see how much of a difference PUp makes against PF for "simple motorization" such as this.

All I can think about regarding this topic is the alternative model of 8868 (one of the most innovative models, like, ever), but I don't know if that's what the topic starter meant...

I frequently use the axle-hole so I can move the actual lever to a nearby place in the model (even if only 1 or 2 studs stud sideways). You would lose that functionality if the hole was round (or it would take more space to build a structure around it to lock the axle to it.) Stated differently, the current part with 2 axleholes has 2 "input options" (one rotational and one pull-push) which are both useful. Also, someone else suggested to make the straight part with the inline axlehole longer, so the body is 2 studs long instead of 1.8something like it is now. But that would mean the part wouldn't "fit" within 2 studs when rotating. So that would also be a slight loss of functionality for no real benefit. That said, the current change to a "non-bar-fitting axhole" doesn't seem to have any use, except as a "code" for the fact that the axlehole is non-friction (similar to the red 8t gear and the long worm gear, which have the same axlehole shapes). I don't really care though. I never used a bar in that piece anyways. You can use a 2L axle or an axle pin if you want multiple side-by-side moving independently.

The renders are looking awesome. Agreed it would have been way cool in metallic green (or olive green). But I still love the lime just as much. Only thing I can notice is the lime flex axles that forms the sides of the windscreen and the sides of the roof. In the render there's a quite sharp angle between windscreen and roof, while in reality they are probably more "curved". But that's not really an error, and I know what a pain it can be to use flex stuff in MLCAD..., so yeah. (I leave them out if possible...)

As I said in the 42108 thread, this is a great model. This should have been the A-model, with the mobile crane as a B. I do notice one slight issue though. The center of the main boom isn't secured from the top, so can very easily separate between the two large yellow panels. If you have 4 pins and 2 beams (at least 5 long) remaining, you can fix that easily.

I'm glad to see some activity on Technicopedia. I always considered it a great historical resource on Technic. I especially like all the writeups and of those, especially the thoughs on each year and how the Technic theme evolved over time with new parts and such. So I hope that even without owning the sets, you can still shed your light on the "events" each year. Such as the emerging sub-line of 1:8 supercars, the increased focus on licencing, the decline of B models, etc., and the new pieces each year. It's understandable you can't forever keep up with each and every individual set. Especially as sets tend to get larger and larger. But for individual sets, there are other sides doing really good reviews nowadays. So I hope you can still find your "niche". Maybe Technicopedia shouldn't be a "set review site" but an "encyclopedia" that offers more of the broader story. In my opinion, that's what sets your site apart from others. So, maybe you could offer links to existing reviews by others you consider to be good. Such as on Eurobricks, on Techlug.fr, or Sariel or other's youtube videos, etc. Then, your site can focus more on the theme of Technic, rather than on each individual set by itself. The "year overview" images above help a great deal with that. There's definitely something with the colors though. Most obviously, dark azure is way too bright and looks as if it's medium azure. Also, dark blue and medium blue (42066) are off. Especially the Chiron 42083 looks weird, but 42070 and 42066 also look discolored. I don't know if your rendering program allows to adjust the RGB values of colors though. In any case, keep up the good work :D

This is probably your mind playing tricks with you. Having seen a lot of lime Sian photos the last few days, you got used to the color. The recolored images are "new", and the brain reacts to that. Also, the very fact that a yellow, black etc. Lambo is not for sale, means it gains "exclusivity" which by itself raises the percieved value.

Also, the "intro image" of bag 5 is the same as that of bag 4. (book 2, page 192, between steps 857 and 858). I mean, where's literally the whole front of the car? :P They seem to have fixed the bug in step 921 with the black 1x2 beam though.

The problem with PU is that solutions are in "software" (programming) rather than in "hardware" (gears and axles and beams). This means we can't "see" the solution work, and, therefore, can't learn from it. PF is superior because with PF the hidden parts are "dumb" and all the "intelligence" is in the build itself, which can be touched, handled, seen in motion, modified, ... Said otherwise, PU removes part of the educational aspect of Technic.

Also keep in mind how Technic was one of the very few themes to have (had) B-models to begin with.

Here's a very quick imperfect edit trying to improve the proportions of the photo.

Good to see some more panels in dark gray, but I'm not sure about a Lego set of a dark gray airplane (it looks boring to me), so I'm really happy with the orange bits. Also, what can we expect in terms of functions? There's the obligatory landing gear, there's of course the engines/rotors that can be moved up or down. Maybe the wings can fold upwards? I hope there's a few things I'm missing, such as control surfaces of some kind.

Nice and simple truck. Wondre what the functions will be, besides steering and a rotating drum. Also, how are the headlighs connected? Could it be https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=42003#T=C (perpendicular connector 3 long with 2 holes and 1 axlehole) in blue? If so, that's a recolor, right?

How does it compare to 42025? I can remember the wings being 7 panels long, which is 77 studs. Also, 42025 was also about 1300 parts according to Bricklink (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=42025-1#T=I). So I'm expecting something of the same size and level of "openness" as that.

Thanks for the great review. Will be watching the speedbuild in a minute. What's interesting is to compare the ratings you gave this set, to those of the Porsche and Bugatti. It definitely seems ratings are going up, which is a good sign. One question: what about the steering arms that are too long (9L where they should have been 6L)? Does it impact the steering in any way, and have you seen any reason why it's like this?

So, seeing the video, if I get the unboxing experience correct, the way the middle black boxes are designed with this overlapping lip at the top, you "can't" take the boxes out in the correct building order (3, 4, 5, 6), but need to pick out 6 before you can reach 5? That seems really weird. @Sariel: I hope that for your review, you aren't going to use this weird super-wide font... It's very hard to read...

Wow, it seems I missed a few pages. I'm afraid I want it. Badly. It seems very complex, and seems to make the Porsche look "simplistic" in comparison. And compared to the Chiron, it's much sleeker. I like that. But I wanted the Chiron when it came out, and I bought one in the end, and I had lots of fun redesigning it. I'll probably do the same here, it's a fun challenge. I'm rather bad at bodywork modelling, so I like the idea of starting with an existing bodywork and trying to create my own "skeleton" for it. It seems more interesting to mod than the Chiron and I absolutely adore the lime color. Also, the fact it's 1 color instead of 2, and a color that's already relatively available, makes it much easier to swap parts around and modify. I already have a good collection of lime parts, so this would be a very useful addition to the parts collection as well, both in quantity and variety of lime parts. Gearbox-wise, it would have been cool to see "some" kind of evolution, but that looks to be still the same mess of the Chiron, but that gives me an opportunity for some optimization. Same goes for the whole chassis. Those 11 x 15 frames are great as parts, but seeing three of them stacked like they are, looks like a real eyesore design-wise. At least the doors and wing are actual functions now. Let's hope they're connected sturdier than the Chiron doors... Let's hope the suspension works like it should. Not so sure about the way the springs are mounted, but we'll see. But the too-long steering arms are such a dumb mistake that it almost looks like a deliberate action for some purpose we don't see yet. It looks like the chassis isn't being compromised to form some weird and rather pointless "marriage" phase such as the Chiron, so I'm looking forward to building it. Main bridge to cross is how to convince the wallet...

Wow, nice tow truck. I really like the clean design, especially of the front half (hood, cabin, sleeper). Also, the mobile crane seems an OK B model of it ;)

Wow. ...I guess. Now this is something different. For one, this is one of those models where "color vomit" would have definitely helped. The problem I think is this: when you (the builder) take a picture, you know what part of the car your camera is viewing. But when I, as a viewer, see a detail photo, I have no clue what part of the car I am looking at. It's all looking the same. And most of what you're showing, are details. You can show a gearbox, or a pump, etc., but I have no idea where in the car that sits. There's a LOT going on, that's for sure, and there seem to be many things I can't even imagine putting in a Technic car, but to me as an unfamiliar onlooker, it looks like a jumbled mess of functions. It's all gray, and I can't focus on one part because everything seems to "blend" into one another - I don't know what parts belong together and which parts belong to different functions. As an example, I happen to have a supercar chassis in the works too, and without wanting to hijack the topic, please allow me to show 1 underside picture: Now, color-wise, this may be the other extreme (sorry) and I have no idea what will change in the process or if I'll even finish it, and I don't want to say my model is good or whatever, and it has far less going on than yours, I know. But you'll immediately notice one axle has lime accents and the other orange. So if I show a close-up of an axle, and you see lime accents, you know it's the front, so you can "mentally" put it somewhere and relate it to other photos that have the lime parts. Also you'll immediately notice the dark-gray bricks which can only be one thing - the main chassis - which also provides some sort of visual "landmark" where other sections are positioned relative to. (Also, the colors could help talking about the model. I could say "this green beam controls the ___"). You can't do that if everything looks similar. What's interesting, is that in my opinion, the model, the video and the post are all having the same 2 flaws: It's too much It lacks structure The model is huge, the video is almost half an hour and the post is probably more than 100 photos. Just as the model looks like a jumbled mess of Technic-ness (to the untrained eye - I'm sure it all makes sense to you as the builder, but remember, you can see it, hold it, touch it, control things, see it move, etc.), the post looks like a jumbled mess of (mostly too dark or blurred) photos, which buries the (quite informative!) textual explanations, which is a shame, and the video doesn't seem to have subtitles or "sections" (not sure if your video editing program could do that). One very obvious thing that I seem to be missing is a simple and concise list of functions. Why haven't you started your writing with just a bullet-list such as Front suspension: steering + drive + camber + ___ (whatever more) Rear suspension: ___ Gearbox: ___ gears + RNDP selector Steering, driven by ___ motor(s), connected to gearbox and headlights Pneumatic small pump(s), driven by ___ motor [in the middle of the car] Pneumatic functions: ___ ___ ___ This would tremendously help viewers/readers in appreciating the complexity of the model. And seeing your model, your list would be huge and invite people to read along and find out more. Also notice how in my post (which is quite long), the list provides a structure to the writing. So, I think you have made a rather unique and potentially super interesting model, that could inspire some long-time builders. but if I were to give one advice, I'd say: try to bring some structure to it all.

Seeing the voting topic, it seems I have totally forgotten about this whole thing. I thought the deadline was next week or so. No idea how I came to that. But apparently I missed it. Had other things on my mind. (Seeing my boyfriend IRL for the first time since the lockdown, for example.) I guess wanting to do too many things for my head to process has caught me again. It's kind of a bummer, but oh well. What's done cannot be undone. and I had fun building. The motivation to finish it has diminished somewhat though. (a door mechanism is all I need.) Not that I'd win anything, but it's fun "taking part" in the whole thing, and I would have liked how my entry would have "ranked". I'll be sure to cast a vote (if I get the time and energy to do so...) and hope that #19 will be to my liking (I skipped #16 and #17)...

I have to side with @vectormatic here. I'm not so sure what the idea is behind doing a review of a Technic set as someone not used to Technic building (whoever made the decision to let you do it). I mean, what's the purpose of the review? I'd say a review should inform our buying decisions. Personally, I'd say a good Technic review covers a comparison of the set to reasonable expectations and similar previous sets how the functions work, how well the functions perform, how complex they are, or how easy or hard it would have been to add a working steering wheel how strong or soft or bouncy the suspension is, how the suspension is set up (live axle? independent?), how the rear axle unit is connected and whether that's good whether the wheeliebar is an interesting function, why it's sticking out the bottom so much, and whether that's a problem the play value for the target audience, including durability of the model interesting sections of the build from a technic perspective possible original part usage any novelties from a technic perspective, parts-wise or technique-wise quality of the part inventory We get relatively little of that here, so I'm afraid that the text doesn't help me decide whether it's a good set worth buying. Instead, we get a story about how interesting the piston elements are that are designed, apparently, in 1990. Yes, we know those parts as Technic builders (in fact, I have never owned the parts that came before it). (Now, I won't buy the set anyway, but I would have liked to know whether it's a good Technic set). So yeah. I'll probably be accused of ranting on goodwilling writers now :), but I'm not really sure what people calling this a "perfect review" actually want/expect from a review. But whatever. The experience of building a Technic set as a non-Technichead is surely interesting to read, but I wouldn't call it a review per se. In any case, thanks for the good read, a nicely written outsider's perspective, and of course the great photos (which are really very good!), and of course the photo of the parts inventory in the instruction book. :)