DLuders

It's time to VOTE for your favorite Lego Technic Challenge finalist! "This is the LEGO® Technic Challenge FINALS! Since March, all of you talented Technic builders have submitted hundreds of wonderful creations for the monthly competitions, and YOU have selected the monthly winners. It's time now to pick the best of the best from our 2011 Technic Challenge Competition! The winner will receive the full 2011 LEGO Technic product assortment. Voting All the winning entries from March through September are in the final voting round. You can vote NOW until the end of the month! - Hurry up and go! Next month: Adult Fan Finalists! November is Adult Fan of LEGO voting month. Return in November to vote for the year's best AFOL entries!" Here are the monthly winners and finalists in the 2011 Lego Technic Challenge (in no particular order). VOTE for your favorite! "Grand Prize: >> The Complete 2011 LEGO® Technic Novelty Assortment << This is all models from the LEGO Technic line that are new and have been launched in 2011." Rail Mounted Harbor Crane by TLT803 -- "This is my model of a rail mounted harbor crane. It has three RC functions: drive, lateral travel of the trolley, and raising and lowering of the container clamp. It can lift a maximum of 9.0lbs": The Big Rig by jayko543 -- "Roaring down the road, it's the worlds largest Technic 18-Wheeler! Features: 114 Technic panels (should that be a record too?), suspension on trailer, working landing legs, RC Truck with 2 sets of powered dually wheels, pinion steering with auto return, working headlights, and opening hood with V6!" Dune Buggy by anteater1997 -- "This dune buggy features independent suspension, stearing controlled by the stearing wheel,rear wheel drive, rear-mounted V-8 engine with exhaust system. A gear shift for engaging the wheels from the engine is stationed between the seats. The buggy also has a bumper and spoiler": Excavation Crane HD by Legomaniac5661 - "In the front there is a mechanical arm with three linear actuators, one to raise the boom and two for the function of the excavation. It can be used for excavation,to carry items, for both or the formation of wells. 4 stabilizer arms enable-lifting from the ground about 5 cm": Unimog U500 SWB by victor288596 -- "This Truck-Trial worthy U500 is built for repairing telephone poles and other work where a robot arm is needed. RC functions include drive, steering, 2-speed gearbox, compressor, front and rear PTO's, and front and rear PPTO's. Other functions include 2 bed PTO's, 2 bed PPTO's, pendular suspension": Hornet Delta 6 by malyMech -- "This type of helicopter involved in extreme races in 2015. It is very slim and fast. One M motor rotates propellers and two M motors provide tilting propellers. The propellers, which are above the other rotates in the opposite direction": Off-Road Super Car by savrem -- "This is an off-road super car. It has RWD, wing doors, a rear-mounted piston engine, independent suspension, a functional steering wheel, and an opening hood. It uses the big 94.8X44R tires. Please vote!"

On this Lego Technic Challenge webpage, the winner of the September 2011 "Build Your Own M-B Unimog" is victor288596 ! I had the privilege of meeting Victor and his dad at last weekend's Brickcon 2011 in Seattle. His Unimog (pictured below) was there for 10,300 visitors to admire! Congrats, Victor! "This Truck-Trial worthy U500 is built for repairing telephone poles and other work where a robot arm is needed. RC functions include drive, steering, 2-speed gearbox, compressor, front and rear PTO's, and front and rear PPTO's. Other functions include 2 bed PTO's, 2 bed PPTO's, pendular suspension." Prize:

Very well, did rubbereend see this portion of the post above? Here is a Microsoft Windows webpage that helps "Getting Lego Mindstorms NXT 1.1 to Load on Windows 7" (in English and Dutch).

Your rock crawler is very capable! Thanks for making the Lego Digital Designer .lxf building instructions file! I want to build one this weekend so (using LDD Manager) I prepared a complete Parts List (including the four 57515 "Technic, Steering Arm 5.5 x 2 with Towball Socket Rounded, Chamfered" parts that are not in LDD). The 2-page, 9-kB PDF Parts List can be downloaded via MegaUpload SkyDrive here.

Your truck looks a bit like the Penske trucks in the USA!

@ rubbereend: Welcome to Eurobricks by the way. Does your Windows 7 have a 32-bit operating system (OS), or a 64-bit OS? To find out, left-click on the Windows "Start" icon at the lower-left corner of your screen, right-click on "Computer", and left-click on "Properties" to see the "System type." If you have a 64-bit OS, you could follow the instructions on this webpage. I used Yahoo! Babelfish to translate that webpage from English to Dutch. Here is a Microsoft Windows webpage that helps "Getting Lego Mindstorms NXT 1.1 to Load on Windows 7" (in English and Dutch).

You are talking about treads, not "tracks" (which trains run on). You can get some design ideas from this "giant tracked vehicle" discussed on this Eurobricks post:

The 4548 "Transformer and Speed Regulator" produces a 9V output. That set consists of the 2868b "Electric, Train Speed Regulator 9V" and an electrical transformer to match your country (all seen on this Bricklink webpage). To run Power Functions (PF) motors, you will need a 58118 "Electric, Power Functions Extension Wire with one Light Bluish Gray End (length 50cm)" -- one end clips onto the Train Speed Regulator and the other end clips onto the PF motor.

From the Power Functions Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) webpage, it says: "2. How many Power Functions Motors can I drive from one Power Functions Battery Box? "As a rule of thumb, you can drive 2 Power Functions XL-Motors, 3 Power Functions Train Motors or 4 Power Functions M-Motors at the same time from one Power Functions Battery Box. If you wish to run a combination of motors, you can e.g. have 1 XL and 2 M running together. The XL-Motor requires about twice as much power as the M-Motor. The Battery Boxes and the IR Receiver have overload protection, so attempting to drive too many motors will not damage anything. The power a motor consumes depends on what function the motor is performing. Motors will operate best when driving a small load." So, it is the Power Functions (PF) Receiver that is limiting the current output. If you don't use a receiver (and connect the motors directly to the PF Battery Box), you can run more than two PF XL motors but you run the risk of damaging them from overcurrent overheating. Most of the Lego Battery Boxes can produce up to 9V. If you want to run additional motors, you'll need additional battery boxes but their additional weight will strain the robot's motors more. It's a vicious cycle. If you use the 8878"]8878[/url] Power Functions Rechargeable Battery Box (pictured below), it's light weight (but lower output voltage of 7.4V) may be worth the high cost.

The motor that you buy from The Lego Group is the "raw", unadulterated motor (just like you see in the two pictures I posted above). No additional gearing, no modifications -- just straight out of the retail bag. You could always do your own testing if you don't believe us....

Philo bench-tested the physical (raw) motors without any external gearing. He compared "apples with apples", running the motors at the same voltage. If one were to run with different batteries (alkaline vs. rechargeables), the results will be different. Philo has numerous charts and graphs to determine your specific situation.

Yes, we agree -- Gekke Ted found the same site on August 19th and there is already extensive discussion about it on this Eurobricks topic.

I agree with Sariel -- the NXT Motor is the "most powerful". To compare "apples with apples", let's look at the data 1/3 of the way down Philo's Lego 9V Technic Motors Compared Characteristics webpage. At 9V, the NXT Motor stalls at 50 Newton-centimeters while the Power Functions (PF) XL Motor stalls at 40 N.cm. For torque, the NXT motor at 9V produces 16.7 N.cm while the PF XL Motor produces 14.5 N.cm.

I just swapped-out Pages 1 & 3 of VMLN8R's Sublime Building Instructions, and reloaded the PDF file available on MegaUpload SkyDrive here. I also modified my post above to match the new file (2.9MB, 51 pages).

Here is that of the flying Lego Mindstorms Airship (Zeppelin): "A unique view of LEGOWORLD Copenhagen 2011, Video made for the LEGO® Mindstorms® Group presenting the C5, a flying NXT blimp project from the BrickIt.dk team. - MORE TECH DETAILS AVAILABLE HERE: http://www.brickit.dk/index.php?page=projects&id=8&step=2 . - Filmed in Denmark at LEGOWORLD Copenhagen, on Feb 17th to 19th 2011. - Video edited in Montreal, Canada."

@ Jurgen Krooshoop: On your Instructions webpage, were you going to add a "Parts List (Brickstore XML-file)" for the Sunbeam? There is no active hyperlink provided (yet)....

Yes, I can assure you that a Lego Rocket really can fly. Read all about them on MOCpages and get the Lego Digital Designer (LDD) .lxf files for two of them from my Brickshelf gallery. They were on display at Brickcon 2011 in the "Space" theme area.

Well, yes I could, but I just looked at your Flickr photoset and don't see any obvious differences between the PDF pages 1 & 3 and your Flickr images 1 & 3. Could you elaborate on what you meant?

@ VMLN8R: Thanks for sharing your Building Instructions! I compiled all 51 of your pictures onto a single 2.9-MB PDF file available for download here via MegaUpload SkyDrive.

@ Jurgen Krooshoop: I attended Brickcon 2011 in Seattle this past weekend, and saw your wonderful Sunbeam! It really has the appearance and "lines" of a Chevrolet Corvette. I want to build one just like Blakbird did for the AFOL convention! The public enjoyed seeing it among the Supercars display. Thanks for sharing your Building Instructions! @ VMLN8R: To download the Sunbeam's PDF Building Instructions, I just right-clicked on the direct link that Jurgen Krooshoop posted above and did "Save Target As" the desired folder on my hard drive.

Blakbird and I attended BrickCon 2011 in Seattle, Washington USA this past weekend, and there were many nice Technic MOCs. This huge Lego Technic JCB 3CX Backhoe by Daniel Martz (member of the North Carolina LUG) won the "Best Technic" Award. He described it thus: "This Lego Technic creation by Daniel Martz is based on a JCB 3CX Backhoe. There are 9 total Lego Power Functions motors (3 ea. XL and 6 Medium) powering 12 functions. Part count is somewhere around 5,000-6,000." It is 140 studs long X 25 studs wide. I posted 7 pictures of it on this Flickr photoset.

Yes, these videos are quite good! P.S. To imbed videos on a Eurobricks forum, here are the steps: 1. Copy the URLs into your web browser. 2. Once the video appears on your browser, copy the new URL into your Eurobricks post. 3. Chop off (delete) any text that starts with &feature=youtu.be (in this case). 4. Cut and paste the URL into the "Insert Media" button at the top center of your post menu.

@ Burf2000: Your really shows Georgev2's capabilities!

As reported on this TechnicBRICKS article, Nico71 (Nicolas Lespour) has completed his Lego Technic 3-Wheeler Morgan and posted this :

@ RoscoPC: Kudos to you for getting such high visibility with your MOC! Maybe TLG will someday produce a set that is as good as yours....