DLuders

"Slopemodified" posted many pictures on this Brickshelf gallery of the September 11-12, 2010 Western Australia (WA) Scale Model Expo. The Perth Adult Lego Society entered many Technic and Model Team MOCs, of which there are DOZENS of pictures which appear in this and this. Did any of the Eurobricks AFOL Aussies go to this? If so, can you tell us more about the MOCs, like Braith's black Scorcher car below? The PALS website has more pictures of past expos too.

On his Brickshelf gallery, NarangO/ biotower has posted 31 big pictures of his Tatra T815 8x8 truck. He wrote, "Tatra T815 8x8_____ Thanks to Whazzup for the idea of suspention and steering [in front and back]." The pictures are too big to load full-size here, but here are some thumbnails and the .

You can get the 8258 Crane Truck NOW for $149.99 from Shop.Lego.com: http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=8258&cn=57&d=70 .

Well you could build a slowly-turning HUGE turntable with planetary gears running inside of the Hailfire Droid wheel. The driven Hailfire Droid wheel could be sitting on top of another Hailfire Droid wheel (separated by Lego Soccer Ball "ball bearings").

Using BrickFactory's Building Instructions, I selected random Lego Technic sets to compare the "old" vs. "new" styles of instruction pages. From the (random) year 2002's Set 8431 Crane Truck, I looked at (random) Page 20, and compared it with (random) year 2008's 8292 Cherry Picker, (random) page 30: I personally think it's better to see FEWER steps on a page, because folks can BETTER SEE a larger image of the parts involved. It's hard enough to see black-on-black parts without having to squint at smaller pictures. TLG obviously "tested" their instructions in front of Danish kids, so they settled on the current "new", larger, single-step format because that's what the KIDS wanted.

That site looks like a nice reference to allow folks to make some TREMENDOUS Lego Technic trucks!

On the 8258 Building Instructions on BrickFactory, I'm looking at electronic Page 134 below. Is there any ROOM to do rear-axle steering control? Perhaps you could rummage around those Building Instructions and post a picture showing that it could be possible.

Now that the 2 plagiarized entries have been removed, I encourage folks to vote (by September 30th) on one of the 8 remaining (original) youth entries at http://technic.lego.com/en-us/Competition/voting.aspx : "Bucket-wheel Excavator" by theronen -- "This model is a fully working excavator, it has a raiseable/lowerable boom, a driven converyor belt and bucket-wheel, seperately driven tracks, and a rotating excavator platform. Power can be switched between the bucket-wheel and rotating using a transfer case driven by 1 M PF motor": "Moon Tank" by victor288596 -- "This tank can explore the moon for hours, powered by its rechargeable battery. Its two tracks are controlled via a PF Remote. The tank is extremely powerful yet easy to control": "Tracked Man Lift" by TLT803 -- "This is a Tracked Man Lift it can be used for construction or tree work. It has 6 M-motors one each for, left track, right track, main boom, upper boom, slewing, and two for the out riggers. It also has a battery box, 3 receivers, and manual basket adjustment": "Tracked Dumper" by starcatcher27 -- "This tracked Dump Truck is motorized. It can drive forward, backward ,and turn using 2 motors. Using a third motor it can dump things. The truck has working lights and everything is controlled with 2 remote controls": "Off Road rescue vehicle" by filipstarcevic -- "Off road rescue vehicle is built only from lego technic componenents. It has two xxl motors attached to front and back of the vehicle, controlling vehicle moving. This is vehicle for all terrains, and can be used as rescue vehicle": "Telescopic boom excavator" by the-box -- "The boom can be extended to almost double length, as seen on the picture, via an M-motor. The boom itself is raised and lowered using pneumatics hidden inside the upper carrige. The swing motion is also controlled by an M-motor. The tracks are driven by two XL-motors, hidden in the lower carrige": "Last Minute Inspiration" by rushlight -- "This model is a lot of fun to play with. It is fully remote control and can turn 360 degrees. It uses rubber wheels to move the circular tracks and uses the discs to keep the tracks in line. Each track is powered by a motor": "Large Bulldozer" by legoguy3413 -- "this bulldozer is equipped with raisable bucket and ripper and lights with the IR remote":

@ ghyde: If you want some design ideas, I would recommend looking at the Lego DesignByMe Gallery on http://designbyme.lego.com/en-US/Gallery/default.aspx . If you click on the Gallery's dropdown menu for "Vehicles", wait 30 seconds for the Lego Digital Designer (LDD) files to load up, you can find lots of 8-wide trucks. Narrow down your search by typing in "truck", "camion", "trailer", "bus", etc. Note that this gallery rotates its offerings regularly, and it has a limit on how many MOCs appear in one category. The LDD .lxf files can be opened in Lego Digital Designer. It is easy to use, and by looking at the "Building Guide" mode, one can see how it's put together. LDD Manager gives you a Parts List. Lots of folks do their design using LDD's "Lego Universe Mode", then buy the necessary bricks from Bricklink.

@ Yoraish: The door panel stickers and the "BMW Power" tiles are from a very rare 8461 set: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=44072&st=0&p=773929&hl=williams&fromsearch=1entry773929 . The sticker set is pictured on Peeron and on Bricklink: One could possibly use two Power Functions Medium motors as the "superchargers", like this.

On his YouTube Channel, "kikeshepard" (Enrique/Henry Shepard) shows off one of the most emblematic Hot Wheels, the "Twin Mill" of 1969. His MOCpages post shows 17 pictures and the video below. The replica has "frontal independent suspension. The rear suspention has a simple integrated reduction driveshaft for the big tires. Two [synchronized] motors are working with one gearbox. The steering wheel works too." @ Blakbird: Note the rare Lego Racers BMW Williams F1 FW25 Team Racer parts on this MOC! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z-Up-qmZ90

Here's YouTube video by Mrob143, who is "Using the LEGO Hailfire Droid Wheel to make 2 nested planetary gear mechanisms" : YouTube guest Nonskids noted that, with Planetary Gears, "Efficiency is actually a bit less because of friction, but planetary gears have a huge advantage over regular gear sets in that gear ratios can be changed without stopping or physically changing gears, by alternately holding and driving different elements, (sun, planet or annulus gear) - combining several planetary gears sets together allows almost any gear ratio to be achieved including reverse, and it can be done without stopping the driving gear ,, that's how a automatic transmission works....Yeah, that's how the gear shift on my handheld power dril works, too." This is illustrated in KRiMAGH's LEGO CAD Planetary Gear video: Flippetyhop posted a video of his Lego Automatic Gearbox Transmission: "This is a prototype for a lego automatic transmission using planetary gear arrangements. In theory it has 4 speeds, but in practice it seems to have 3. Haven't tried it out on a proper model yet. I don't think anyone else has tried one like this? Let me know what you think": .

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@ Dryw Filtiarn: Wow, this is getting more intricate and refined all the time! Keep those updates coming! You'll have to keep a big supply of batteries around for the BrickWorld 2010 event in Zwolle, NL, since kids will be wanting to see it running all day long! Just out of curiosity, do you work in a factory? Some of the machinery that you've made is quite similar to what could be found in modern industrial processes....

A lot of folks never get around to building the 8053 alternates. It looks like it can lift a lot of weight. Thanks for sharing!

All right, that's the spirit! If you look on Bricklink's catalog of "Large Figure Parts" , you can get an additional shields to outfit your entire family! Instead of putting one on your car or truck, you could put one on your child's bicycle, on your office nameplate at work, or on your hardhat!

I am CONSIDERING replacing my mass-produced, boring vehicle emblem badge with this rare 'Castle Large Figure Shield with Serpent Relief and Four Studs on Black Background and DkStone Frame Pattern' (54183px1) part that I'm holding in my hand. It comes from the 8706 Knights Kingdom II set from 2006. On Bricklink, it's listed as "Copper Large Figure Shield, 2 x 2 Brick Relief, Snake with Black and Sand Blue Pattern" Part 54183pb01 . It measures 7.1 cm wide x 8.6 cm long x 1.9 cm thick (2-3/4" wide x 3-7/16" long x 5/8" thick, and looks COOL! It has a 2x2 brick in the back for mounting. What do you think?

Could you post some closeup pictures of both Jeeps on your Brickshelf Gallery http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=yoraish ? We can't see enough detail to diagnose what the problem is.

Here's an answer to an e-mail I sent to Lego Customer Service on September 8th, after I had pointed out THIS Eurobricks thread: "Dear David, Thanks for getting in touch with us. Thank you so much for letting us know and we would be more than happy to get this information forwarded on for you. We certainly don't want plagiarism to happen and I will make sure this is brought to someone’s attention right away. Please get in touch if you need anything else. It's free to call our experts at 1-800-835-4386(Monday through Friday, 8am to 10pm and Saturday & Sunday 10am to 6pm EST) or you could go to www.LEGOshop.com. Happy building! [First Name of TLG Employee] LEGO Direct Consumer Services." Yet, when you go to the Lego Technic Challenge voting page http://technic.lego.com/en-us/Competition/voting.aspx , the two plagiarised entries are still appearing there.

The Eurobricks Lego TECHNIC Index has a bunch of "TECHNIC Set Reviews" to help you make your gift choice; scroll 1/2 way down the list to see them.

Here's a simple, fun Lego Technic Dune Buggy made by Coney/ Contech7. He wrote that it is a "Simple Dune Buggy with suspension. Powered by one 8878 battery box and 1 PF XL Motor." His Brickshelf Gallery has 12 photos of it. They are BIG, so I'm posting just some of the thumbnails below. You may have enough spare parts on hand to make one yourself.

On YouTube, bazmarc has posted some details about his Work In Progress (WIP) -- a big Lego NXT Wall-E being built for LegoWorld 2010 in Zwolle, The Netherlands (October 22-27, 2010). If you attend, look for it! The Disney-Pixar animated movie "Wall-E" . Bazmarc wrote, "For this occasion i have rebuilt my Wall-E3 and decided as a challenge to use only Mindstorms components... This resulted in a wonderful robot containing 3 NXT, 8 NXT servo motors, and a selection of sensors. Zwall-E4 is born! "my Picasaweb album of the Work In Progress http://picasaweb.google.com/bazmati/ZwallE4uWIP# . my Wall-E NXTfied blog: http://bazmarc.blogspot.com/ . "I started building him (it) on Sept 3rd... 7 days later I'm pretty satisfied with the result ... now comes the hard part... program a decent NXT-G using 3 NXT via Bluetooth..."

Atr has more details about his 2009 MOC on BrickTruckTrial.com . Of note is the additional YouTube video that explains his suspension. He wrote, "The front suspension needed shock absorbers that would have higher stiffness than gray ones but lower than yellow ones. So I came up with idea of increasing stiffness of Lego shock absorbers, you can see the details on the video below:" Scale (wheels used) 81.6 x 38 R Width 24 studs Transmission 4x4x2 Motorization 1 motor(s) - PFS-XL (none) working fake motor Steering PFS-M motor without steering wheel Onboard Battery Box PFS unit Total Weight 1200 grams I'm keeping an eye on his Willys Jeep Brickshelf folder for possible JPG images of his step-by-step instructions.

In his Brickshelf gallery, Vlad439 posted 7 pictures and a link to a YouTube video on his capable Lego Technic Unimog U5000 truck. He wrote that it is a "4x4 with differentials, 2 XL motors for driving, 1 M motor for steering, pendular suspensions, cab design by Nico71". The pictures are HUGE, so only some of the small thumbnails are posted below. The video shows its capabilities well. ]

I like the "Hand of God" (HOG) knob on top, and the articulated joint: @ Zblj: From Blakbird's Technicopedia, you can see the small 8453 (ARTICULATED) Front End Loader from 2003 that you were thinking about: