allanp

Dang it!

For me, all reasons not to buy it stem from the chassis, which I have already spoke at length about. In summary, it's not lifelike at all, it drives forwards/backwards and steers and has suspention, and that's it. It is engineered well but there is very little complexity to be engineered in the first place, it's focus is on being an RC toy rather than being a technic model (due to sacrificing lifelike/awesome mechanics in favour of being driven like a toy) and for the money, there are far better perfoming toys for people of all ages on the market. The only innovations and the only thing that makes the base crawler desireable to me is the v2 reciever and servo motor. However, the bodywork on the new version is great in dark blue and the rare colour (for MOCing) isn't really an issue for me because when TBs asked us what colour it should come in, dark blue was the winner. TLG knows we love the colour and so i'm sure we'll get more sets in this colour in the future, and so having these parts already in dark blue will be great. My recommendation would be, if you have the original crawler, and can sell it for a good price, and you really want the new one but don't have the money, sell the old one to get the new one, or perhaps consider skipping 42009 to save some cash. Whilst 42009 is way more complex, not a single mechanism, apart from maybe the winch and cable driven boom extention, works remotely like the real thing (so the lifelike mechanisms are the ones made from string?!!!!) and are mainly a motor driving several functions through 16t clutch gears and drive rings, do you really need to pay it's huge price tag for 1000 more pins and the same old mechanisms we've had time and time again?

Fantastic work so far!

He can't be bargained with, he can't be reasoned with, and he absolutely will not stop.......until you have to change the batteries

I'de love a big American style, red, white and chrome fire truck with lifting, rotating, telescopic ladder and of course lots of lovely new parts, like pneumatics in red, leaf springs for making the suspention that most trucks have, chrome checker plate textured tile pieces and so on.

the unimog comes with the most goodies, you get lots of gears as with the other sets but you also get more pneumatics than 42008, the suspension and portal axle parts from the crawler and some transmission parts like 42009, tho not as much as 42009. The only thing you don't waste any money on get is a remote control and LAs......PERFECT!

:wub:

I think such a dump truck would be very dull, unless they gave us longer pneumatics to tip the bed obviously .

1:6.485 if i'm not mistaken.

For a specific example you need to look at the crawler. On the output tan axles you have a 12t double bevel gear, with an axle connector block holding it in place so that the tan axle cannot slide out. Probably wasn't needed anywhere else although a round shaft acts as a better bearing than a + shaped shaft.

It's original purpose was to prevent the axle from sliding out of something, particularly out of a diff, where it's held in place by only a thin bevel gear, right on the end of the shaft. Even with the new axle it's still a bit ropey due to the rounded end of the axle. I think in most cases where it's used after that it's just a case of "well we have this part now, might as well use it!"

Very efficient design, well done. Do you have a second servo motor to steer the rear wheels? Using two separate motors you would have the power needed and also have the two remaining steering modes (4 wheel steer and crab steer).

Now it's like the red f1 car from 1995 (indy racer?) whose alternate model was also a hot rod!

I don't think this is a customer service issue, it seems higher up. Customer services can only give information and sell products that they themselves have been given, so I feel sorry for them being caught in the middle. TLG don't seem to have a problem supplying these parts for their sets, so why the delay? It feels to me like the new pf parts are pretty much the main reason to actually buy the crawler, without these parts the set itself is rather dull and uninteresting, at least to me anyway, so what do you do? Only make those parts available in the set. Someone in a previous post said that they are going to buy a crawler just because the pf parts were not available yet. Remember TLG is a business folks! They need our money to survive. The release of the boss crawler probably won't affect it as much, that is only a limited run and the design and parts in the awesome colour of the body gives more justification to buy the set and so its sales won't be so reliant on the pf elements, but still it shares the same uninspiring chassis so who knows?!

8880 is a great example. Imagine a new supercar, in white or dark metallic grey, without the cluttered patchwork of panels (and NO COLOUR VOMIT!)but clearly defined, smooth lines making up a more bear bones but detailed, very low down and sleek/fast looking bodywork (with side vents, wing mirrors, etc), new 6 speed gearbox with lots of different sized synchros and a gearlinkage that manages to change 6 gears as nice and smooth and easy as 8880, new low profile, glossy black wheels and tyres (that actually look like real world supercar wheels and tyres) same diameter as the unimog but wider and very deep hubs (like 8448) so that the steering pivot can be mounted right inside the wheel, disk brakes visable through the spokes of the wheels, highly detailed engine with a really long, curvy chain on the front to look like the long cam belts on real engines and so on and so on, new diffs (see below) plus all the usual like suspention/steering. Bringing this post back on topic, if they came out with such a supercar, a true and worthy modern day 8880 (ie a huge leap forward in functionality, new parts and styling) then I really would not care what the piece count is, 1000, 3000, don't care just take my money!

To answer the original question, I think that if they can make a huge set (5000+ pieces) out of regular lego hold together then I see no reason why a technic set can't be made bigger than, say, 7500 pieces. As to weather or not I personally would like bigger sets, I don't really care about the piece count, in fact the larger the piece count, the better the set has to be to keep such a large build interesting, and to justify it's higher price, which btw is not achived by just being bigger. I like building technic as much as anyone but there comes a point where it feels like i'm just putting pins in beams and liftarms over and over again, especially when it comes to building overly filled in body work like 8070. I have had this feeling when building sets that are bearly over 1000 pieces, and yet never had that feeling with the unimog at twice the piece count. In my opinion I would much rather have more of the cost of a set be put into new parts that enable us to have bigger/better/stronger/more authentic/more lifelike/more reliable/more efficient functionality rather than a vast pile of pins, beams, 16t gears and drive rings, which is what most of the current sets seem to break down into

5 studs long? It would have to be smaller that that to be worth while I think.

Something the same speed and torque of the micro motor would be cool in a pf form and way more reliable, or at least easy to open so you can un-jam the gears, I never really liked dropping mine onto a tiled floor to get it working again.

Very easy, the instructions tell you to place one or two parts at a time in most places. And yes, this is off topic.

That would reduce the stress on the gearbox but is very wasteful on power. First you have the internal motor inside the xl motor, then you have it's own internal gearing down, then you would add your own gearing up, then you would add a transmission gearbox (the currents parts are very inefficient already), then you would have another stage of gearing down to the wheels. After turning all that you would hardley have any power left at the wheels. Ideally you could use buggy motors. They have less torque than an xl motor but they spin much much faster giving almost twice the power of an xl motor overall whilst putting less strain on the gearbox. Alternatively you could use L motors. Although they don't have the power of an xl motor, by not having so many gears to turn before the transmission you prevent alot of power wastage and so might give you about the same amount of power at the wheels whilst also making it simpler and more compact.

Well, this has been asked many times before, there is a search function you can use to browse previous topics. But anyway, my favorites....again In no particular order: Unimog U400, 8455 back hoe, Air tech claw rig, Daytona VX4 supercar (8880), Space shuttle, Control center 1 and 2, Test car, Dakota wrecker 8858, Pneumatic front end loader 8439 (I feel for the guy who sold it to buy the new LA version!), Flat bed truck 8109, most of the universal sets tho I think 8064 in my favorite, Mobile crane 8460 and Helicopter 8856, 9396 is also good just not as fun to build and not as innovative as 8856 was for it's time.

Nice. How reliable is it? I saw the indexing mechanism on technicbricks a while back, very nice

My feelings on the chassis aside the new body looks fantastic and I love the colour. It's good to see TLG have kept the winch and lights, it must be an amazing feeling to have your own model "on the selves" and TLG have also done a very good job, this has happened very quick and even the box is great. Now all they need to do is have a vacuum formed yellow tray for all the parts, a flip top lid with a clear underside and a small special bits tray . Congratulations :thumbup:. Just one question tho, are you allowed to review your own model?

I'm not too bothered by an over use of PF, in fact I like it, what I don't like is an over reliance on PF. What I mean by that is, when they rely too much on a model having PF to be a major selling point, like the crawler, the excavator and the bulldozer. With those three models the biggest selling point was that they had lots of PF. As much as I am not at all excited by 42009 they at least used PF to enhance the model rather than using it to be it's only selling point. Then there are sets like the front end loader and the telehandler. Both of these sets are boring as hell the play with without PF, so you have to use them despite an earlier front end loader from 1997 being much more fun to build and play with without the need of a motor. However you can add a motor, doing so motorises the wheels which is great, as opposed to relying on adding a motor to make it tolerable to play with.

The two colours are not an age thing, my vision is fine and I sometimes have trouble telling which is which. Some sets have the black parts black with grey outlines in the instructions, i've always found that to be much better.