allanp

You can imagine a million bugs will be inside the combine after a successful harvest

The only problem I have with this set is the whole control+/pu side of things (needing a smart device, no included physical remote and all that). But for the crane itself I agree with you. Unlike the majority of RC Technic sets, this is one of the very few RC sets that retains any semblance of mechanical realism, which I think is why it still works! The issues with other sets you mentioned come from gearboxes that are far more complex in their basic mechanical layout than their real life counterparts. To make the crane more mechanically authentic would have required hydraulics and hydraulic motors for all of the drives which isn't likely to happen in Lego. This set shows that it's possible to be both RC and authentic (as authenticity is never just about the looks in literally every other context of the word authentic!) I also agree that the build experience was great. In other themes that are not Technic, having such large pieces (like the many 3x19 frames and large truss pieces) would be seen as a negative. But even as a huge lifelong fan of (what) Technic (should be), I've never felt endless beam stacking and placing half a thousand pins to be as satisfying as placing bricks. It's the mechanisms that are fun to build, not so much their surrounding structures and definitely not bodywork (probably why cars aren't so much fun to build). It's easy to imagine having to build all those trusses from regular technic beams, and how tedious that would be. So I think the large amount of what some might call j u n i o r i s e d pieces can actually be a good thing in Technic, so long as it's not the mechanisms that are being j u n i o r i s e d. This crane is a great example of that. Yes, it is expensive, especially for something that doesn't even include a physical remote. But as I said, I think all of the negatives of this set are rooted in the design philosophy of control+/powered up. Had this set came with a large programmable control centre 3 style physical remote then the price would have been easier to understand, even if it was higher. The RRP is not the RRP anymore so getting such a thing at the correctly discounted price would be much more appealing. Personally I think such a thing would have also looked way cooler on the box for the kids than saying you can use it with a smart phone, something that really isn't available to EVERY child and doesn't hold much novelty for the kids that do have them. So yeah, the crane itself is great. I guess time will tell if all those fancy electronics will still be usable without any workarounds in ten or twenty years.

I'm not sure how useful this comment is, but reading this topic reminded me of how air is itself used as a sort of lubricant in some applications. I'm thinking of grinding machine spindles that run on a cussion of air to prevent metal on metal contact. The precision required to use air as a lubricant in this manner is much higher than is possible in Lego. However, doesn't a hovercraft work the same way? With enough air flow and the proper design, the mating surfaces can be as imprecise as a rubber skirt on a grass field. I wonder if a flow of air could be allowed to pass from the high (atmospheric) pressure side of the piston through channels that exit through ports on the side walls of the piston itself, creating a cussion of air between the piston and the bore in which it slides. It could be true that the small bypass air around the piston is already at atmospheric pressure and thus no air flow will come from the jets. However, when air is forced to speed up through a small opening (such as air that is forced to blow by the piston), its pressure actually drops. The smaller the opening, the greater the pressure drops (Bernoulli's principal), and so I imagine the piston gets sucked towards the side walls increasing friction. So (in my head anyway!) maybe allowing a small cussion of air to exist via ports on the sides of the piston would not only act as a lubricant but also help prevent a drop in pressure that can suck the piston against the side walls? All this is purely speculation. I'll leave you the fun of testing it

Big congratulations on your 30th official release. I must admit however, and I hate to be "that guy", but the "correct firing order" comment is puzzling. There are of course no spark plugs and nothing to fire. I believe the correct firing order would be shown as the red blinking dots in this video: So we will assume that it actually refers to the layout of the crank/pistons. However the Lego Rexy appears to have a 180 degree V6 with a flat plane cam/crank. However I believe the real Porsche uses a boxer arrangement (opposite pistons move opposite, 6 pistons on 6 crank journals) with 120 degree offsets like as shown in the above video. I must also admit that the displacement of the older style regular pistons is much closer to a 1:10 (edit: or 1:12) scale than the newer cam style pistons which are too small. Having whined about the engine I want to leave with something nice. The outside of the car definitely looks like the real thing. I appreciate the use of fewer larger panels because building bodywork isn't as fun to me as building working mechanisms, so the larger panels get it done faster and with a cleaner look.

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Hope you all have a great 2026!!!

Merry Christmas my friend! Hope you and yours have a great Christmas and a wonderful 2026

@Plumber looks great. And yes the P1S is great.

Thanks Paul. It's going to take some time to print all the boxes. But it'll be so much better when it comes to finding and sorting pieces. Opening a single drawer will let me see so many different bins at once.

On the other hand, if our opinions are aligned with the wider public then it still may be very useful for them to hear us out because when don't just say our opinions, we also explain at great length why we have those opinions. The Volvo excavator is currently rated at 2 starts on Legos website. The wider public might just think it doesn't appeal to them without fully understanding the reasons why. They might not be able able to know or tell TLG what they want until they see it in front of them. Why would they? They're not fanatics like us. They're not going to know the full potential of Technic like we do. We might be a small group but our knowledge and understanding of what the Technic theme is truly capable of may still be greater than a vastly larger group of people. We know exactly what we want and can describe in great detail how to achieve it, even going so far as to design and 3D print our own custom pieces, which I still believe directly led to the newer gearbox pieces, which is fantastic! As for the much desired flagship JCB model, I'm kind of glad they haven't released it in the past few years because their recent design philosophy of replacing authentic mechanisms that work well with over priced and inauthentic app control with lackluster performance and linear actuators simply isn't good enough for the mighty JCB. I have heard a well known Technic designer state directly that they want to do a JCB, and they loved my suggestion that it should have lots of pneumatics. But any sort of backhoe doesn't come round very often. They must not f**k it up. I'd rather they waited until the design philosophy allows for it to be the Arocs killer it absolutely can be. Ideally that is something they would work up to, like maybe start with something simpler like an RC pneumatic forklift truck or front end loader.

You have to remember that TLG is not one person. The Technic team alone is made up of many people. I'm sure some do read this forum and even sympathise with us. You also have to remember that a big corporation isn't going to be as quick to react to criticisms as one guy with a 3d printer. If they are addressing the shortfalls of C+, I wouldn't expect the results of that much sooner that next year.

Lots of comments here I agree with. Absolutely bring back universal sets, and make them studded (parts are still in production) and it would serve as a bridge between Regular Lego and studless Technic. And yes, where are the front wheel drive cars? They make up most of what we see on the roads and are what probably most drivers have experienced. A front wheel drive car with sideways mounted inline 4 engine, compact 4 speed gearbox with a linkage/flex cables to a manual 8880 style stick shift and McPherson strut suspension would be one of the most innovative Technic sets since the Airbus helicopter, I'd say more so, and it's a car so it's win win!

That's certainly true for this Technic fanatic! I don't need 20 sets per year. If there's still a good selection of other great models then it's all good. And if the endless cars are helping to make the Technic theme even more popular among the casuals then great. I do wonder, would there be so many complaints about the number of cars if the non car sets were better, because I really don't think there would be.

They show number of sets owned but that is limited to people who even know of brickset. I also look at retail sites (like Argos in the UK) that show you a snapshot of how things are selling.

On the surface it might appear that the wider public prefer good looking cars over more functional type machines. But is it because they seem to have got better at cars and worse at functional machines? If so, can we really blame the public for wanting a good example of a McLaren P1 over a p**s poor example of a Volvo excavator? But the Arocs did sell far more from what I can see on brick set. It's frustrating because they really can have the best of both worlds. A gearbox with two shafts and all gun metal grey clutch gears (perhaps with a different coloured coded inner ring?) would look great as well as be functionally better. A backhoe, or pretty much every hydraulic machine would look better and more authentic with pneumatics rather than with LAs and a bunch of multicoloured gears and axles running everywhere. It'll look better because it IS better! Beauty is more than just fancy bodywork. It's hard to blame the public for this when it seems to me it's TLG that's doing functional Technic sets a disservice by forgetting how to make good examples of them. There are exceptions but they seem to be getting smaller and less frequent year by year.

Yes absolutely. The truss parts from the huge technic liebherr crane in white could make for a great swinging pirate ship, one that is counterweighted and goes all the way round would help slow down the swinging otherwise it would swing back and forth way too fast. The same parts could be used for a massive ferris wheel, or for something similar to a ferris wheel but faster and more exiting an enterprise ride...