DLuders

@ Stephen P.: Your Lowbed Trailer looks good! It looks like you have used many parts from the 8052 Container Truck set. Have you seen Han's "Truck 8x4 with Detachable Lowloader" and other trailers on his website?

I built Aeh5040's Automatic Synchro Drive gizmo over the weekend, and it works great. I converted the HTML file and associated images into one, 1.8-MB here file (via MegaUpload SkyDrive). His Brickshelf gallery has an LDraw file and photos.

@ Stephen P.: Since it may be several days before your Brickshelf gallery is made public, here is how to "Deeplink" your pictures directly: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5448&st=0 . Only you can access (and see) your gallery now, but "Deeplinking" allows others to see your various pictures now.

TheTechnicKiwi/ Mecho123451 posted this of his "Lego turret featuring 360o rotation and a little under 50o elevation. Full description at http://TheTechnicKiwi.blogspot.com/ . Pictures at Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68441279@N07/sets/72157628009092318/detail/ ." "It can fire all 11 rounds up to a meter, in under a second. It has unlimited rotations and little under 50 degrees of elevation. Datasheet: Completion date: 30/10/11 Weight: 602g (21oz) Dimensions (with turret in lowest position): 32x18x28 studs Power: Electric (Power Functions) Motors: 2x XL Motor 1x M Motor "The mechanism: The wheel constantly pulls the spring back then releases it. The spring's convex shape made it easy to build. The ammo clip only has a 1x1 hole to fall down so the clip stops when there is a new projectile ready. due to the fact that gravity only falls down, when the barrel is in the highest position it mostly only fires one projectile. the mech is based on the one Sariel used in his tripod gun (actually the whole thing is very heavily based on that!) If I had another working M-Motor (I have one dead one), I would use it for rotation, but an XL was needed to lift the barrel due to its easy-to-use shape and the extra power."

@ TheDesuComplex: Thanks for catching that; I edited the original post. The PDF file containing Grohl's 30 Alternates had the correct "Monster Truck".

[bUMP] On MOCpages, Nick Barrett posted this Lego model of the "Ecurie Ecosse Race Transporter" pictured above. He was inspired by Ape Flight's Ferrari transporter. Barrett wrote, "This big hunk of blueness was based on a 1959 Commer chassis and there is only one in the world - designed to take the Ecurie Ecosse team Jaguars (there were other makes in the team but this is usually seen with C- and D-types)....Yes, I did do the lettering on both sides, a mind-bending mixture of SNOT [studs Not on Top] and, er, SOT [studs On Top]. "This model is 24 studs wide, 96 long and weighs 100 tons... it features working steering (by HOG or in-cab), electrically operated ramps and a special engine - more of which later. For now, check out all the angles on the front, the trickiest part of the build. "Lots of openings... the middle one houses the battery box for the ramp's motor: "Now, that engine. This is a three cylinder, six piston two stroke diesel boxer engine. Let me explain. The crank sits under the block and actuates all six pistons via rockers and secondary conrods - the pistons are timed to work symmetrically. i.e. 'punch' toward each other in the exhaust phase and retreat together during the combustion phase.... "...like this. This idea produced a lot of power and torque for the engine's size - it displaced only 3.5 litres, but produced comparable figures to contemporary ordinary engines of twice the size with far fewer moving parts (no valves, just holes in the block at strategic points). It's the Commer T3 engine which was widely admired at the time and very reliable, although, being a two stroke, I guess the exhaust emissions were, ahem, somewhat toxic.... "The engine lives behind the (easily removable) battery box under the interior floor: "The tailgate drops as it should, complete with ladder attached to the inside. Details, details.... "The drive-on ramps were simple lengths of metal that clipped to the tailgate, as here, and slung in the back when not in use. Oddly, the Corgi toy of this had fold down ramps like a more modern transporter, but this is more accurate. They should be grey, by the way, but I'm not made of big grey plates, you know! "The electrically powered main ramps in the down position... they will work with a car on them, as long as it's fairly light.... "There's lots of doors on the other side, too...." On MOCpages, there are additional details too numerous to list here, including the folding sofa bed:

[bUMP] sofo13th posted this of several Lego Technic Puzzles that you can easily build with your spare Technic Connectors:

Are you talking about the driveline axles on the underside of the LYNX?

The Bricx Command Center 3.3 webpage states that "Bricx Command Center (BricxCC) is a Windows (95, 98, ME, NT, W2K, XP, Vista) program commonly known as an integrated development environment (IDE) for programming the RCX (all versions), Scout, Cybermaster, and Spybot programmable bricks using Dave Baum's Not Quite C (NQC) language." However, "Check the Utilities page for a link to the new Mac OS X and Linux NeXT Tools application and other NXT utilities." What Lego device are the students trying to control?

@ ATonOfBricks: Welcome to Eurobricks! You may have to turn of LDD's Advanced Graphics feature -- read about it on this Eurobricks LDD Troubleshooting Guide. I can assure you that LDD can handle models of 15,000-30,000 bricks in size -- read about Alienwar9's huge LDD cityscapes here. You need a powerful computer, though. He has this on his 3-year old computer: Windows Vista 32-bit Intel Core 2 extreme QX6700 2.66Ghz (clocked to 3.2Ghz, quad core) 4Gb DDR2 6400 RAM (800 MHz) Nvidia EVGA GTX 460 1024mb (overclocked, new part. My old one fried because of LDD actually ) 150GB 10,000 rpm hard-drive 2TB total extra hard-drive space

On his Brickshelf gallery, dokludi posted 10 pictures and links to two YouTube videos of his "Lego 8110 Unimog RC + AIRRIDE SUSPENSION -- 4 valves (controlled with 2 motors by SYD), 4 cylinders, 1 Airtank, 1 Infrared [Receiver]."

[bUMP] Zblj's LYNX Trial Truck has been added to Rebrickable.com I have built this in real bricks, and I can attest that it's well-designed! Thanks to Zblj and technicmad for teaming up to add this to the Rebrickable MOC gallery (dominated by lots of fine Technic creations).

The pics on Sariel's webpage are very macabre! .

[bUMP] sewgway recently posted this detailed, 13-minute on a "Simple Step-by-Step Guide on How To Motorize the Lego Technic 8070 Supercar." sewgway wrote, "The standard 8070 is a remarkable set, has lots of interesting functions and realistic features. This video is aimed at those who are tired of the standard model and want some extra features. "You will need: * The standard 8070 Supercar set * 1 [Lego Power Functions] XL motor * 1 IR [infrared] Receiver * Some Technic beams Liftarms and axles * A pair of scissors "Here is the plan: We will work on two separate parts of the car: * Front, where we will work on the engine and steering * Back, where we will enhance the rigidity of the transmission and remove the former steering system." The video Building Instructions goes through each step with lots of subtitle explanations and closeup views.

Perhaps it's not worth worrying about damaging CHEAP Lego Technic Axles. If they are permanently deformed, replace them for a few coins!

@ SNIPE: You could consider getting some of the x928cx1 "Technic, Axle Connector Rectangular Triple Spring-Loaded" parts. They are sometimes used for "Return-to-Center Steering" setups.

@ SNIPE: Yoraish was pointing out that Sariel's latest T-72 tank uses Torsion Bar suspension, which Sariel described this way: "This was my second tank to use torsion bars suspension – the previous one [i.e., his Leopard 2A4 Tank] was almost 3.5 kg heavy, with nearly 0.25 kg load per road wheel, and its suspension worked perfectly. Here the suspension was very similar, except that the axles used as the torsion bars were kept at fixed angle by the toothed half-bushes and toothed connector joints." Here is the detail from Sariel's Lego Technic Leopard 2A4 Tank webpage:

@ peddi0027: Welcome to Eurobricks! Do you know about Bricklink.com ("The Unofficial Lego Marketplace")? By using its "Catalog" function, one can rummage through the various Technic part categories to obtain the "spare parts" you need, without having to buy entire sets. Rebrickable.com is also a useful tool for determining what you can make from various Lego sets.

@ Burf2000: Have you seen the Mindsensors.com Multiplexer for NXT Motors? "With this multiplexer, you can connect two additional motors to your NXT. It also has a pass-through Digital Sensor Port to connect more sensors/multiplexers. (On this sensor port, you can daisy-chain more multiplexers to connect additional motors.) •Compact, Easy to Integrate Design •Easy to Program •Use with NXT and/or Arduino •Supported in NXT-G, NXC, RobotC, LabVIEW •Uses external power supply/battery for motors"

In the previous post, one can see that the picture WIDTHS of the 16 finalists are all the same, but the top-down LENGTHS are different. The pictures that are in a vertical, "Portrait" format seem to be larger than the horizontal, "Landscape"-format ones. The Technic Challenge webmaster is probably using a fixed webpage "template" to jam the various pictures into a certain width. SO, to have the largest-possible image for the voters to see, recommend submitting your Challenge entries in a photo collage made in a vertical "Portrait" format (like the red car below, and not the yellow truck which is hard to see):

The Technic theme category is most definitely still on the Shop.Lego.com website -- http://shop.lego.com/en-US/TECHNIC-ByTheme . You can change the "Change Region" at the top-right corner to best match your native country & language. With the publication of new Lego Technic books (like Isogawa's below, and Sariel's book to be published in Spring 2012), perhaps Technic building will become less intimidating.

Robin has not yet added it to his Korean website. I used Yahoo!Babelfish to translate it from Korean to English. Maybe he will add details in the near future....

[bUMP] The number of Grohl's alternate builds for the Lego 8271 set is now up to 30 -- download a single PDF file with all of the pictures here via MegaUpload SkyDrive. They are sorted by the various creations' names. It would be fun to build all 30 of them on Grohl's Brickshelf gallery!

I think The Lego Group is trying to increase sales of their Technic sets. See this (posted by Waxcomms1) about the Lego "Technic Challenge". No, it's not about the monthly contest hosted on the official Technic website; it's about 12 onsite shows throughout the UK where people can BUILD their Technic creations!