Jurgen Krooshoop

After building the 8043 twice, I thought some things could be improved. 1. Bucket First of all the bucket had to be changed. The original bucket is way too large and it's working range quite bad making it very hard to dig something. I replaced the bucket with the smaller one from the 8294 and changed the setup. It´s almost the same as on my DEC-24 Remote controlled Pneumatic excavator, It has a larger operating-range, thr rotations-point of the bucket is in a better place and it looks better. The smaller bucket makes it a much more efficient digging-machine. For the LA to move well, the panels of the dipper had to be modified: 2. Switching driving-rings The first time I built the 8043, it had some trouble switching the driving rings. Most of the time, the motor had to run twice to completely flip the switch. So I geared down the motor by replacing the 2 16-tooth gears with a 12-20-bevel-gear setup. I also replaced the blue axle-pin with friction (step 35, book 1) with a tan axle-pin without friction. 3. Rubber belts to help the boom To get some weight from the boom, I added rubber-bands. They reduce the friction the LA's which is caused by the weight of the boom. I didn't think of this myself but read it in this eurobricks-thread. 4. Dipper I changed the point where the second LA connects to the top of the dipper. TLG didn't do this because when the dipper is fully down, the universal joint makes a very big angle. It still works however, but it is propably not too good for the U-joint. 5. 8878 Rechargeable battery The back of the superstructure was slightly changed to attach the 8878. There is enough place to connect the transformer. Although the battery gives only 7,4 V instead of 9V, my model operates nicely with it. And the lower weight of the 8878 gives the superstructure a better balance. 6. PF lights on cabin & boom Using the 8878 instead of the regular batterybox gave some extra space to connect PF-lights. I put them on the top of the cabin and on the boom. Looks really nice (and now I can dig in the dark ). Finally... One of the reasons for me to make this topic and video is to show that this model, when constructed correctly & precisely, operates quite well. Although one M-motor clearly doesn't have enough power to lift the boom well (due to the friction in the LA's) it only means it is a bit slower. But it still works acceptably. As far as I can see, there are no design-mistakes. In fact I love my 8043, it's a really wonderfull model and I'm very happy & proud to be the owner of one.

I'm using it with the 8878 Rechargeable battery and it works fine. And I love this model. OK, the raising and lowering the entire boom is a bit slow, but this is mainly due to the fact that 1 M-Motor is just not powerfull enough. So for me buying this was worth it. I actually love this model, and enjoyed digging Lego-pins for a long time.

I finally received my 8043 this morning and started building directly. Now it's finished I can say that although the M-motors need to work a bit, the model functions completely. I checked the alignment of the 2 LA's and lifting the boom works well. One other thing I noticed is that the switching-motor sometimes needs to run twice before it has completely moved all the 3 driving-rings. I like the model very much exept for the buchet-attachment. The bucket is way too big, the angle of movement is not big enough and the point of rotation is misplaced. I will replace the big bucket with the smaller one and extend the movement-range of the bucket. I'll post pictures as soon as it's done.

I'd definately be very happy with more/better pneumatics too. I really really hope TLG would do that for us.

My red & yellow racecar may be just a little bigger than this one I think, but there won't be much difference. If you'd sacrifice the chairs in this model, you just might have enough space to fit in the PF-parts. A 8878 rechargeable battery would be convenient (but expensive), cause it's much smaller than the regular batterybox. An M-motor would propably do for propulsion.

Very nice. It's a wonderful en elegant mechanism.

That's the beaty of Lego, you can create almost everything, With M**B** you can't. And there aren't any technic parts in these models either. The "Atom-cube" which is used in the tank is totally ridiculous. It's nothing more than a brick with built-in bevel-gears. Man, do these people underestimate children in thinking that they can't assemble a gearing-system. Lego Technic proves they (and we) can.

And those bevel-gears could easily be replaces by knob-wheels to make it stronger. To have the same power, you'd have to an an additional gear-reductions stage in the drivetrain, which would propably make the model more co,plex. I agree with Anio & Nico71 that building an optimized vehicule is more preferable than making it as strong as possible. If the XL-motor stalls if all the wheels are blocked (and it does), than the drivetrain is stron enoug IMO.

I even spotted one for € 139 in a normal toy-store.

If you take a look at the video, it seems pretty powerful:

Good to see you here Brickonwheels. As you know, I think your creatins are TOTALLY AWESOME, but it doesn't hurt to say it again I think this black Peterbilt is one of my favorites from you. The oragne chassis, engine and crhrome parts are sooooo cool.

And for a lot of good info about gears and gearing, you can check Sariel's Gear Tutorial. It'll propably answer all your questions about bigger and smaller gears.

Nice job, and thank you for crediting. You mean you used this remote controller ? I think it feels comfortable and logical.

That's one nice truck you built there. I like the colours.

I enjoyed looking at some of these video´s but at the same time it gives a creepy feeling, seeing Lego-models being beat-up. These people are not afraid of getting their parts damaged.

Brick-on-wheels has made a lot of very, very nice trucks, the latest one being a black Peterbilt 379 with dumper: (More info here) Only very recently, he also made a truly fantastic Harley Davidson motorbike: (Info can be found here)

Call me weird, but I'm definately not one of them.

Fantastic magazine. I enjoyed reading the interview with Blakbird and the LDraw-tutorial is very usefull. Thanx !!

Just ordered my 8043 at Bickshop Holland for € 136 + € 7 shipping-cost. They have a discount-action for people who order & pay before 31 of July. Now I have to wait for about 2 more weeks for it to arrive ...

Thanx for the extra info & pictures. Now I can clearly see that it's 100 % Lego I'm truly fascinated by this creations as it demonstrates that proper electronic instruments can be created with Lego. Since I mostly deal with electronic instruments, this is really interesting. I currently don't have any Mindstorms-parts, but this would be a good reason to get some. I know I'd be able to make my own instrument. (But let's get the new 8043 Excavator first).

I just saw the video, and it made me laugh big-time. A swimming and crawling astronaut is so hilarious !! That makes the model even cooler than it already was !

LS**.dat files are LSynth-files used for generating flexibvle axles & electric wires. Installing LSynth should solve missing LS-parts-problem. I don't know what exactly is wrong with your MLCad. I also use MLCad, LPub & LDView and they don't seem to have any problems with my files. I can send you missing part-files if you like, you can mail me at jurgenstechniccorner@hotmail.com. I did use some files, which weren't in the official & unofficial library, they were downloaded from the partstracker at www.ldraw.org. And I manually added a lot of parts to the parts.lst-file, which is in the LDraw-directory. I can send you my parts.lst file if you like. It may solve some problems.

This builders clearly knows a lot about clocks. The mechanisms are amazing. Now all it needs it a nice case around it.

Although it's an "older" MOC (I've seen this some time ago on MOC-Pages) it's still an amazing car. The extensive functionality is quite impressive. This pne made me add Marvin to my favorite builders.

Very nice MOC !! In fact, I like the fact that it's not motorised, good to see a good old "acoustic" model . And the choice of not motorising is wise IMO one if you don't want broken gears and twisted axles.