Erik Leppen

I took myself on the quest to create a new supercar, in a new scale. Normally, when I build suprecars I aways use the wheels from 8070, 42039 and the like, which is about a 1:10 scale. This is smaller than many cars by other builders, who use the larger tyres from 42000 or more recently the Porsche. So I set myself the challenge to build a car in the somewhat larger scale of 1:8. Which is, I'll be using these wheels which I'd bought myself as a little present :) It won't be a particular existing model, but I used a plan of a Ford GT to find the measurements relative to the wheels. It will be 27 to 29 wide. This is quite a bit larger than I'm used to, so this will be interesting. I'm relatively good at doing the chassis, so the largest challenge will be the body. It will not be motorized. Here's the front axle. I want to have it all-wheel drive, so the rear axle will be similar, except the steering. The arm for the suspension on the lower wishbone is relatively long, which means the suspension travel is just about one stud. I always try to limit the suspension travel, because then the wheel arch will not need to be so huge. Also, with less travel, the suspension will be stiffer, so that one spring per wheel will still hold the weight. The second unit I started is the gearbox and interior. As usual, I try to do something with color, and I selected green for the interior. I got myself a few extra small panels, which are super useful for finishing touches to almost everything. As you can see, the seats are adjustable; they slide on an axle and the backrest can be inclined (no gearing though). Similar to ye olde 8865 :) The gearbox will be 5+R with 1, 3, 5 forward and 2, 4, R backward, just like in some real cars. The gearing is a known design I used previously, I believe it's not even my design but it's perfect, so I just copy it. It uses the old driving rings, so that explains the 1/2 stud offset. So far, this is sort of the progress/plan. The connection between the two modules is temporary, because the space between them is way too large. The whole seats unit will move forward, but I'm not sure yet how much. The position of the rear wheels is guessed to be approximately there. (Yes, I know the tow truck isn't finished yet. I'll finish it, but my local LUG has a meeting soon and I want to present more than one model, so I will take this one there aswell.)

To be honest, I like how the colored pins and axles clarify instructions. When someone creates instructions for a MOC and it has black 3L pins, I get all confused. Back in the day, when 3L pins were black, Technic sets were simpler (and used more System pieces, so much less pins), so it was possible to easily read instructions even without the colors back then. But right now, if all of today's pins would be black or gray and all normal axles black, it would be very hard to decipher what's going on. I like how much clearer it is now than ever before which pin is used where. And there's a lot of new pins. After all, axle pin 3L, ++o axle pin 3L, +oo pin 3L with pin hole pin 2L with pin hole axle 2L with pin hole All of these are relatively recent. I think it's because of the color coding that designers could create such similar parts, to increase the building options without creating an enormous recognizability problem. So I think you should see the color variety in relation to this - it was either all-black and gray, without the new pins, or it's this. Well, I prefer the current situation, by far. Personally when I create instructions for my MOCs, I even put certain axle lengths in yellow and red nowadays, so you can clearly see the difference between e.g. 9 and 11. I even used yellow 3L axles for the instructions of my [TC7] Enforcer, because that was at the time the Wall-E set came out, which had the first yellow 3Ls, so I thought, well, apparently 3L axles will be yellow now. What I don't like is how the 2L pin with pin hole and the 2L axle with pin hole now start to appear in all kinds of colors. That kinda defeats the purpose, and for what reason? If I had to choose, I know a few larger parts that are in dire need of a few recolors!

And what if you rotate the second worm a quarter-turn? You sure tried that, didn't you?

Not sure if this should be in this topic, but I noticed something interesting about set 41239, which is in the Super Hero Girls theme, called "Eclipso Dark Palace": it has a few Technic pieces in a dark pink colour (probably either Dark Pink or Magenta): the 2x5x7 panels, a #5 angle connector and soft axles (my guess is 12L). The part below the axles could be pin joiners, but that's hard to see. It also has two dark purple 2x3x5 panels, probably the same colour also found in 42069. Not sure how such a set justifies speciallty creating pink Technic pieces, but I find it pretty interesting. https://brickset.com/sets/41239-1/Eclipso-Dark-Palace Edit: probably Magenta. No axle joiners. There are two large pink pillars.

The colors don't really work... I admire your quest to replicate the livery as closely as possible, but I think the scale is too small and the lines are too fine for this to work. Especially because of all the diagonals in the original livery. In Lego form, it just becomes a bit messy, and the end result looks too much like you just used random colors... Don't get me wrong, I think you did great, but I think the problem simply lies in the reference choice. I think next time you can better either design your own colorwork (which has larger surfaces and fewer diagonals), or pick another model, or size up the scale considerably (which you probably don't want to do). The shapes themselves are sculpted pretty nicely, and I do like the original part usage in places, such as the red window piece at the front, and the SNOT in all the various places. Good job on those!

This looks preey nice! I like it if people do those kinds of trucks, and this scale works really well - not too big but enough room for some neat functions. Curious as to how you will fit all the functions. I see you went for 15 studs wide, where I would go for 13 wide for these wheels, but the two extra studs give you a lot of extra room, and it doesn't seem to hurt the looks so far.

Thanks for the kind reactions! Yes, if people are interested, I may do instructions. I keep a digital file anyway, and it's not a huge model. Also it's a nice addition to my "portfolio" of models, I usually don't do tow trucks. Edit: also, yes, I looove this new scale and wheels. In fact, I hardly use the larger 64x20 wheels nowadays :D

Sorry for the long pause, but I often build with pauses. To be honest I'm losing a bit of interest (this can go rather quick with me), so I hope to finish it soon. I'm almost done though, all that remains is the car lift at the end, and figure out some way to add rear lights. Here's the progress right now. I changed the gearing from the M motor from 20:16 to 12:24 which reduces the speed greatly. Some functions are still too fast though, while lifting is a bit slow. It's hard to change that, there's not much room anywhere. I understand that black is not the best color on pictures, so I hope you can see what's going on. This will probably be the last update before finishing. The white Bionicle tooth controls one of the two switchers. It is connected via some liftarms to the switcher. The reason for this is that this way, the roof is free of switches and can therefore use a large panel, viging it a cleaner look. By the way, there's a tiny red "bed"-like thing in the sleeper cabin, and its doors can open too. The winches are connected to each other and to a ratchet mechanism using the rubber 2L beam. It is not driven by the gearbox. One little problem with the winches is that they only run in parallel if the strings are rolled the same way (and have the same length). By the way @steph77, the steering is not my own invention. I used it in my [TC7] Enforcer (Valuable Transport) where I borrowed it from @D3K and reinforced it (which introduced the 1/2 vertical offset). This tow truck has a huuuuge turning circle though. Not surprising given its length, but the steering angle is a bit limited and it has only one steered axle.

After aseeing @agrof's lovely color variations of set 42070, I am starting to understand hwy they went for that otherworldly blue. It's the same with this spring's jet 42066: they want to do a certain type of military model, but they don't want their target audience to lay the link between the model and military activity. So they do it in a color that's as far away from being miliary as possible. A military truck could be black, gray, greenish, brownish, tan, even white, but certainly not light blue.

I don't even think we'd need that much. I have thought about it a bit, and I think for a color to be useable for many different MOCs, what I personally would minimally need is one long beam (11, 13, 15) one medium beam (5, 7, 9) one small beam (2, 3) one right-angled beam (2x4, 3x5) one short thin beam (2x0.5, 3x0.5, 4x0.5, 3x3x0.5) one pair of small panels (1x2x5, 2x3x5) one pair of medium panels (2x3x7, 2x5x7, 2x3x11) at least a few (perpendicular) connectors (angle connectors, cross blocks 1x2 and 1x3, axle joiner, pin joiner, offset cross blocks) at least one length soft axle What's essential is that there are enough small parts, and a small number of large parts. Bright green has a few of these, but not all, and has mainly large panels, which are harder to place. And I notice that I can build in this color, but it's hard. Regular green is more complete (missing medium panels), which makes it easier to build with it. (And yes, I love the half-width beams - they are what makes it possible to use a unit of 1x1x0.5 rather than 1x1x1, which doubles the number of units in a certain volume, so they enable you to build really compact sometimes. I think it's a pity that we see so little of this in sets).

Time for some speculation... I have thought about this for a bit, and I came up with the following options. First of all, it's something Jim knows, and apparently, Jim can give hints to the community about this. So it's something the designers want the community to know a glimpse about, otherwise Jim wouldn't have been told anything. Apparently, the speculation is part of what the designers want. OK, so apparently, there will be something with the anniversary (i.e. this year), and this 067 has something to do with it, but it's not a set. It's either something we can buy, or something we can't buy. If it's something we can buy, I can think of the following options: supplemental packs containing special parts. Remember, we had this in the past. Maybe a pack of parts of a certain color to rebuild a certain set in another color. A pack to build a yellow Porsche, for example. idea book. Not sure how much this would add with the many AFOL-created books and the internet, but it's an idea that would surely celebrate Technic. It may also be something that we can't buy, so then it must be something we can download, or some kind of a free gift. Things I can come up with, are competition. We have seen how this went with the crawler. Maybe there will be a similar competition with the chassis of 42069? Or a design-the-future-set as is done with the Mercedes-Benz? a combination model that uses the summer sets, similar to the auto chassis using the 1H sets Instructions for C-models for some of the 2017 sets A poll with options for future models that we can vote on, similar to how it has been done once for Architecture free downloadable PDF, for example an idea book, or a series of photos of preliminary images of certain old sets? Maybe set 42070 will contain some unique gift that's different for each box. Similar to the numbered tile in 41999, but more substantial. For example, a small car that can be towed, where multiple boxes will have a different car. I'm betting on the last option, because it best matches the "TOW 067" that has been spotted. If true, this would be a really nice move, depending on how substantial the cars are. But it can also be something completely different.

Rather than aiming for more force, more size, more weight (and therefore, more cost and more chances of damaging stuff), you also gain speed by scaling down: a smaller, lighter build will move faster than a larger build with the same power. In the end, I think, it's about power-to-weight ratio. More motors mean more weight, more weight mean the motors have to do more work, so in the end, the power-to-weight ratio may be a little bit better, but I expect the actual improvement to improve only slightly, compared to the increased size and cost

The problem is not the colors, The problem is that every color has only few parts. I love my bright green, but with only 5, 7 and 11 beams, 2 connectors and a few panels, it's hard to do much with it. I really don't get why 42070 would be in dark azure, rather than medium azure used in 42050 and 42059. That would be equally cool for kids, but expanded that nice new color's parts range into usable quantity and variety. Now we're put up with two half-assed palettes. Why do designers do this? I'm sure they know that the range of parts in a color has to be varied enough to build anything at all. To give a good example: for me, the white cargo plane 42025 was the set for white. Before that, white was rare. After that, white was widely available, mostly due to that set. Get that one set, and you can build thousands of things in white. It has many beams, connectors and panels in white. The Porsche (together with two smaller orange sets) seem to do the same thing for orange, but unfortunately the Porsche's licence made it too expensive to buy as a parts pack. To give a bad example: the ocean explorer is a dark blue set of 1000 parts. As much as 24 are dark blue: 19 panels and 5 beams. How would one build anything else than a ship from those panels? The only dark blue set that had actually interesting parts in that color, was the limited edition crawler 41999, which costs a fortune nowadays so it doesn't count. And that's what I don't understand: if you look at the actual amount of colored parts in that set, it's as if they add as few as possible of the color on purpose. The ocean explorer 42064 has 24 dark blue out of 1300+, which is 2%. The funny car 42050 has 18 medum azure out of 600+, which is 3%. The go kart 42048 has 10 orange pieces and 4 purple, out of 350 parts, which is about 4%. The stunt truck 42059 has 12 medium azure out of 200, which is 6%. The jet 42066 has 54 medium blue out of 1100+ which is about 5%. The motorcycle 42063 has 27 blue out of 600, which is 3,5%. By comparison, the mine loader 42049 has 79 yellow out of about 600, which is 12%. Also, the ocean explorer has 93 red pieces (7%) and 128 white (10%). Apparently, when the color is ubiquitous they don't mind, but for a color that is rare, they seem to rather keep it that way. That's what I can't stand, even though I really love all those cool colors. It seems deliberate.

Thanks for the nice reply, Ivan, and great to see my own model built by someone else. The blue with white and black works really nicely, good choice! I also like the little changes and additions you made. The counterweight helps a bit but doesn't balance the load completely. It can be missed, it's a feature I added as one of the last. Also, it's good to see that the instructions "work". 'Cause I haven't test-built them myself. Yeah, you're right I should put more of my stuff on Rebrickable. I keep forgetting that site. I will add my "instructioned" models there.

One for each steering axle = 2 One for each outrigger = 4 One for the final crane section = 1 Total 7

In the beginning I wasn't convinced it would work out (due to the strange seat position), but it turns out pretty good, really. It's a bit short, but I like it.

The backlash is the smallest when the gear is very large. So, have you tried using the new 11x11 yellow quarter gear racks from the BWE 42055? Or the (old) Hailfire droid wheels? If you drive one of those using a 8t or so, there's so much reduction that the amount of play is almost zero. Also, maybe you could play with friction. Play may be less of an issue if the drum has more friction. It will take more force to turn, but it will turn very slowly anyway, and with more friction, other parts of the instrument will also have less chance to push the drum a certain way. Adding fritoin could be done by rolling the drum against one or more small tires on blue axle pins. Another way is using exactly such tires to drive the drum (works best if the cylinder is exactly circular). Then you don't need gear teeth at all, but you use friction as a way to drive the cylinder. Use springs to push motor-driven tires against the outside of the drum. Use multiple for more torque/force.

I once sold a lot of stuff a few years back. What I did was the following: Divide everything in relatively small categories. Panels, wheels, thick beams, thin beams, bricks, plates, gears, electronics, rare parts, whole sets, that stuff. (A lot of this you already did). Then, make a large spreadsheet where for every category, you try to estimate number of pieces (you can estimate this by picking a section, say 1/4 or 1/2 of the lot, count that, and multiply your count accordingly to get an approximate total) reasonable average price per piece (youi can esimate this by looking up used sales prices on Bricklink) Then, multiply the two to get the category's price. Multiply with a factor less than 1 for used, old, might-not-work (old pneumatics, old electronics) to get a final price for that category. Then, add all category prices to get the total. Also, take good pictures of every category. This you will need to communicate to potential buyers. The better the pictures, the better they can see what they think it's worth. And, of course, as goes without saying, disassemble everything that's not a complete set. That's concerning the question "what price?". The other question is of course "should I sell at all?". What I did was only sell pieces I didn't use for years. I wouldn't sell things you still use. You might regret it. Buying it all back will (almost surely) be (a lot) more expensive. Instead of selling, consider just not buying anything and see if you lose interest at all. You might discover that you don't want to miss it, or you might discover that indeed you're not using it anymore. When you know that, you can make a better informed decision to sell all, to keep all, or to sell some and keep some.

That may be true, Digger, but IMHO, boxy designs are also a bit boring. Just compare the Mini with the Beetle. They're both nice sets, but the Beetle has more interesting building techniques. That's what I like in a Creator Expert model. "Expert" doesn't just mean "larger".

I'd love to see detailed creator models of modern supercars (like those seen in video games), in a scale similar to the F40 or the Lamborghini 8169 set (16 stud wide), e.g. McLaren, Pagani, Koenigsegg, Saleen S7, Bugatti Veyron. And a Lamborghini Countach and a LMP car in that scale. But, knowing myself, I'm not sure if I'd buy even that...

In my opinion, the differences between small sets are not that large. Anything goes. But start small, because then you can surprise him multiple times with incremetnially bigger sets. If you go big now, you've basically spoilt it in one go. Also, why not just go to a toy shop and let him choose for hi self sithin a specified budget (thaf you give him in cash)? That way he learns to make his own choices and their consequences (if his chosen set disappoints), and learn to work with money - what he doesn't spend he can save for another time.

I love how you guys just made the instructions available for free. It looks like a model I'd like to try to build. I'm curious to cheking out the solidity of everything in real life. I like the extensive use of Pythagoras 3-4-5 angles. Problem: I'm missing a few essential parts. Eight, at least (four tyres and four rims). Do there happen to be other rims/tyres that fit as well? Or do I really need the porsche rims (which I don't have)? For examle, would the tyres from the funny car 42050 fit? Or do you use all the space inside the deep rims of the Porsche?

Thing is, I like symmetry. So if i have any choice, I prefer to let things go through the middle, rather than the sides. But there's only so much middle in a model, of course. So I doubt I'd be able to design something like that, @steph77... Anyhow, there's progress! I built my virtual design in real: I left a few things out (rear wheel arches, boom) because they haven't changed. I changed the shape of the chimneys so they are less wide (they now partially fall in the slit between the battery box's connectors. The BB fits perfectly, although it just sits there loose (not connected to anything). I had to make a few changes though. The gears from the motor are now 12:24, meaning the front grille can't be fixed there anymore, so the connection to the grille is kinda weak. Some functions are still too fast, I don't know how I can change those. Boom lift is fine. Outriggers are too fast. Car lift is a bit fast as well. Fourth function isn't implemented yet. The bright moment I had was when I found that there was room between the outrigger drive axles to drive the outrigger system right through the center. The axle to drive the car lift had to move up one stud, so it has 4 U-joints now... By the way, I'm glad the axle 11 exists, because I needed it in a few places :) Sleeper cabin is now filled with gearing, but I keep the openable doors, I like them. I might add something in red right above the gearbox to represent some kind of bed.

I think the problem with the frame right now is that the cool-looking side panels actually do nothing to add strength. They only have three connection points each (front, middle, rear), so all they can do is keep those three points in the same relative plane or line. For this to work, the center part with the 5x11 frames shouldn't be able to move vertically relative to the sides. So you need a center joint that is vertically rigid. You don't have that if you use rubber connectors. This means that the middle frame can just bend without the side frames doing anything to prevent that. So yeah, it looks cool, but I don't expect it to be very strong... But I may be proven wrong, I don't have 4 of those pieces to test it out. I'm just theorizing :)

I don't have LDD, so I don't know the exact offset, but the solution by @Didumos69 gave me an idea: I tried to look for a solution that gave an unusual horizontal offset, with the vertical offset still in system. This solution looks simple and strong, so I hope you can do something with it. I didn't work out the connectivity further, the essence is that triangle. If the offset is not correct, maybe you can lengthen the yellow beams from 3L to 4L to change the offset, or even to 2.5L by using cams on bars.