rgbrown

The biggest temporary advantage - mini LAs are almost here :)

Woohoo! Looks: Fantastic (as usual)! Performance/Playability: Fast, fun, and fabulous! Video: Frantic! (Really nicely done, it's the icing on the cake! I especially like the moving shots from the other vehicle.)

Crowkillers/Blakbird have copyright over the instructions. They could/should have been more explicit about what constitutes fair use of the instructions (building a MOC for private use). But as soon as the sellers of the bundle of parts makes reference to the Gallardo instructions, be it by bundling them into a kit, or by providing a link to them, they're commercially exploiting Crowkillers/Blakbird's work without permission and hence, I think, violating copyright.

That is possibly the most insane (mostly) Lego construction I've ever seen

Likewise anybody in New Zealand? I wasn't certain from the wording of my email from LEGO that I'd been added to the list properly

internets FTW. (More English manglage to avoid)

Couldn't agree more. I only had two sets growing up: 8055 and 8074. They gave a really good selection of parts for building a wide range of interesting models, and having books with many ideas was really helpful. 8074 had some fantastically functional models for their size, and 8055 used some pretty educational techniques (like the gear box with the spinning arms) Where do we find models like that these days? The new small studless models (apart from the cute bulldozer which is awesome) have a lot of building to get the reward of only one worm-gear driven function. Here's an idea: It would be neat if a selection of current parts was chosen to make a new unofficial universal set, maybe centred around an m-motor, and a competition held to create the best four models to put into it. Perhaps the Technic Designers would be interested in seeing the results of such a challenge. Of course, Grohl would win

I wonder if you got the second edition ... what are the numbers on the LAs? (edit) Now I just have to see how long the service pack takes to get to New Zealand ...

Love it! Great technique, and nice implementation.

Yes, the power functions webpage has made me jump out of my skin before. While trying to browse surreptitiously when I was supposed to be working Well, I don't think that would make much difference ... cloners can still easily build the model from a lousy pdf, and there are plenty of CAD libraries of LEGO parts. I reckon it's purely a file size decision.

Eurobricks should implement a "Like" button, like facebook. I would "Like" this post

OK, weighing in at 27.5MB, that is possibly the reason why they changed mode. But that reason is becoming less relevant these days. (only took me 30 seconds to download). And on my low-powered laptop, there are no rendering speed issues Edit: nice new avatar, by the way

Yeah, this is really frustrating. Surely that is not the reason though ... I hadn't realised they used to do vector pdfs. Do you have pdf instructions of that sort for a big model? I would guess that for something like 8258, a vector pdf might start being a little slow to render in a pdf viewer, and might start being pretty big. Even with raster images though, I'm sure they could do better than they currently do ... Another minor IT-related pet peeve (but which I find unreasonably irritating). Why do they only produce wallpapers in 4:3 aspect ratio? And why doesn't the designer blog have an RSS feed? OK, I'll stop now

The instructions should be easy enough that the youngest person who is capable of building the model can follow the instructions. What's the point in making the instructions so hard that someone who was otherwise capable of building the model, was defeated by them? And if you make a mistake in a studless model, they are REALLY hard to undo. Sure, the ideal instructions for AFOLs/TFOLs would be much more abbreviated, but that's not who the instructions are pitched at. I mean, AFOLs just need a couple of pictures of the final product, right? I think PDF (or similar) instructions are OK - laptops are getting more portable, and I can imagine building from a pdf on an iPad for example would be pretty enjoyable. I have a tablet which folds flat, and building B-models from that is absolutely fine. I think the pdfs have a few quality issues, but that's a solvable technical problem. Fast forward a few years and I think this problem becomes a non-issue. Right now though, when a number of people don't have laptops, it's different. Building from a desktop PC would be nasty. Perhaps it should be possible to order hard copies of B-model instructions if desired. I would happily purchase the 8043 B-model instructions, for example. Interactive 3D instructions! I shudder at the thought.

To my amazement my 4 year old built this set today unassisted while I was at work!

Not that it is the most impressive, or particularly large or exceptionally complex but for * Very well-implemented functions * Complexity for its size * Selection of parts * Value and playability for money My overall favourite of recent times is 8292: Cherry Picker.

Good grief. I applaud the author's "faith in the Lego engineers" that they won't blow anything up by short-circuiting things. Also impressed with his willingness to drive cars through ponds. Other than that, Mortymore said everything I was going to say ... except that there is a way to destroy your M-motors a bit faster if you want to, by hooking up parallel battery boxes together with your parallel receivers before you near-stall the motor on your 8043. Hey, if you're really lucky you might even get something to melt!! Let me guess, next up will be series battery boxes?

I thought it was for your nephew ...

I disagree. These threads have generated some pretty interesting discussions.

If we're going to have a place for MOC instructions they should be a category in the sticky "Technic Index" thread

I guess I'm imagining something like this (I don't know how much gear reduction would be required after the clutch) The torque from the twisting axle will still recenter the valve. (EDIT: actually, not it wouldn't, because it would be trying to backdrive the worm gear. You'd need to use regular gearing down, not a worm gear) Excuse the crappy picture, I'm supposed to be working

Well we know that the stiff LAs on the 8043 cause M-motors to burn out (many documented cases here), and that's not even a complete stall ... I presume the reason you're not using a clutch gear or similar to prevent the motor from stalling is a lack of space?

Yes ... who has an 8295 (telehandler?) I was very surprised at the effort required to raise the boom on that given how geared down it was. Didn't feel very "technic" to me

Possibly ... I'd also be quite interested in this result. Seems the some of the anecdotal evidence here suggests that this is the case, while some suggests it isn't. My opinion is that it is the LAs fault, but only because there is simply too much friction at high load and the M-motors can't cope with the power dissipation required to move them, i.e. the LAs are at fault, but it is the motors that are dying. This could also just be considered a design flaw.

There's something strangely appealing about watching this move!