allanp

That's ingeneous, love it!

Remember this is only a first half set, although it's price would probably lead others to think otherwise. They should have just not called it a supercar, because it just isn't a supercar. I think a proper flagship supercar would, or should raise the bar, just like 8880 raised the bar from 8865. That's what I wanna see from a supercar. A whole new gear box system that can take enought torque to easily drive the car with 5 or 6 gears plus reverse without wasting any power from the motor overcomeing the friction of the gearbox itself and a more realistic gear shift mechanism. you know, real innovative stuff like that which allows us to do things we always wanted to but was ugly or difficult in practice, just like 8880 did. THAT'S A SUPER CAR.

Mark Bellis demonstrates you can also make a rollercoaster if you have as much track as blakbird!

I have used this piece (black with no printing) as a differencial cover plate on a monster truck.

Oh God no, 8880 in PINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT HAS STAINED MY EYEBALLS! I always thought 8880 would look good white with a black stripe, the original black with yellow stripe is still awesome. There were a number of sets with that same colour shceme. I like the blue one too.

I vote for dark blue. This car is actually growing on me a little, it's certainly better than 8063 but that's not saying much. Not sure it's quite worth the price just yet.

Wow, that looks professional and the way it manouvers is great. Nice one

Just to let you guys know, i'm not all about critisizing everything I see, I hate doing that. When ever something I like turns up i'll happily say it's great, so when something I actually like comes along i'll let you know

That is a possibilty. Whilst it is possible that these are working LAs, any plastic threads of this size would surely deteriorate very quickly even under manual operation, there use hear on the raising of the front bucket possibly being the limits of their use. Cast metal parts would be a good idea if financialy feasable. I guess only time will tell.

There is no movement arrow to suggest it can swivel.

I would say they are functional, with the extending part that you see having a threaded hole up the middle of it, inside that, a threaded rod powered by a bevel gear at the back, sort of like an inverse version of the bigger ones. I would think the extending part is plastic due to it's shape at the end requiring many machining operations to produce in steel in a financially feasable way. As the inner, rotating shaft has to connect to a bevel gear, could it be that this is plastic too, or possibly metal with a plastic moulding on the end. I think it woud be very difficult to incorporate a safety clutch at this size but who knows. The two sets hear look ok but I can see a world of trouble with those mini LAs, and since i'm no fan of the current, larger LAs, it might be good for my wallet to avoid sets whose prices are inflated by including mini LAs I don't want. In short, it looks good, but its not for me.

You probably know all this but just in case....It does perform quite well and with a good range. The drive has semi proportional control with 3 forward and reverse "speeds" and the steering, provided by a built in motor, has return to centre semi proportional control. There is also a third auxilary output operated via two paddels on the bottom of the transmitter, ideal for sequential gear changing and such. It's only problem is it's quite large but then it does contain the batteries, reciever and steering motor so it's actually quite compact.

It's not nostalgia, I personally try to leave that well out of it when discussing a set. 8258 is indeed fairly close to perfection, not as close as some loke 8868, 8880 and 8480 but it is still ONE of the best ever. If, however, 8043 was close to perfection then surely it would bloody work! Besides even if it did work properly, thanks to the LAs it's movements are weak and so slow even for the real thing it's just mind numbingly boring to play with for me anyway. It's mechanisms for the digging arm could have been done more authentically and also in a way that makes it faster (more like the real thing) and stronger and all kinds of things. True it is complicated as a technic set should be, and excavators are an awesome subject matter for a technic set to be based on. I guess that's why what we got was such a dissapointment for me, it could have been soooooo much better and for the price, one of the most expensive sets ever, it really should have been IMHO.

Erm, that's how it's supposed to work

All sounds quite interesting. I do hope the JCB is pneumatic but a fully functional mid scale gear driven back hoe would be quite interesting, but ONLY because it's mid scale. The supercar also sounds cool but remember, these are only the sets for the first half of the year. The really interesting stuff comes after these.

I have found the old 9v electric cables, like those included in 8480, become unreliable overtime due to corrosion on the metal contacts. It sounds to me like this is the most likely cause of your problems. The polarity switches also tend to suffer from the same problem of corrosion over time. Try connecting the ungeared motor to the battery box directly. If this works move onto placing a wire between the two. If this does not work you might want to try twisting the plug on top of the battery box and below the motor as if it were mounted on a turn table. If it works after that then you must clean the contacts. If this still doesn't work then you might want to try the usual trick of wiggling the wire as it comes out the contact block. If this works then you will have to cut the wire and re connect it inside the block, but be careful, the shuttle requires the lengths of it's cables to be pretty much exactly as long as they are so you might want to just replace them. The micro motors are notoriously unreliable, if this still doesn't work when connected directly to the battery box, try applying some force to manually turn the axle, but not too much. If this doesn't work, as a last resort try dropping it from a meter high or so onto a tiled floor. If still no luck then you must either take it apart or replace it. I wish you luck in solving this problem, 8480 is a truely awesome set. I bought one MISB about a year or so ago, built it, and everything works effortlessly. My old 8480 I had for christmas 1996 was showing the same problems as yours, but it all works fine now after only some cleaning of contacts.

What about a tug of war contest, contestants build a vehicle in advance and compete in a tournament style event. Some MOCs can pull some very heavy weights, 40-50 kg and upwards. Could be a bit short tho! What about a robot wars/battle bots style event where the only rule is that you can't have anything, such as a hugh spinning disk, that could potentially damage individual parts, especially rechargable PF batteries, that would be sweet.

WOWWEEE these are some great renders. I especially like the one of just the mechanisms with the rest stripped away

For me it's the overall experience, but if I have to choose then I would say realism and authentisity (adding to my dislike of linear actators ). As for playability and functionality, one is kinda wasted without the other, you need both in order for it to be fun and challenging. Take away any of these ingredients and it just doesn't feel like technic.

Well, at least it proves what we already knew, his design was brilliant and worth stealing

Or just make your own tethered pneumatic version, like Jennifer Clarks seen here: http://www.jenniferclarkbass.com/lego/jcb.htm Or this one by "swissbagger" Now these are awesome!

I have found having a motor doesn't always make it playable (8043?), but maybe i'm being too harsh, the mechanisms needed to drive them are pretty cool even if they don't always work Maybe TLG haven't found their proper use. Afterall, with a little skill a pneumatic digging arm has all the precision of movement you could ever need (personally that game of skill also kinda enhances the playing expierience). I can't think of any set that includes an LA which requires that kind of absolute precision, especially at the cost of the authenticity, strength, control and potential speed given by pneumatics. So maybe there is nothing particarly wrong with LAs, they just haven't found a good use for them yet. BTW as i'm writing this there are two sets I can see that can be voted on in the poll, both of which include LAs. That's probably just coincidence tho!

That thing handles well, love the wheelies and the tight, return the centre steering. Not quite sure about the colour scheme but it looks alot of fun to play with.

8457 kinda suffers from the same problem as the RC bulldozer, awsome new parts (in this case those wheels) without which the set would be pretty much pointless.

8043 excavator! (ducks from flying comments!) If it wasn't for the new PF parts and tracks, 8275 motorised bulldozer would deffinately be one of the worst, it's soooooo simple mechanically. BOOOOORRRRIIIINNNNNGGGGG! 8872 forklift transport is also fairly boring, as is 8458 silver champion, 8063 tractor with trailer (and it's other tractor variant) 8436 truck and 8264 hauler which all suffer from a distinct lack of functionality/complexity considering their size/piece count. 8294 excavator had the potential to be a great set but is so badly let down by too much cranking without a motor and unreliable if not slow performance with the motor, problems also suffered by 8265 front end loader which also had a poor steering mechanism, problems also suffered by the 8295 telescopic handler (minus the unreliable performance with a motor issue, still can't lift much weight tho!) which looks great but has even worse steering. So I guess the inclusion of LAs has ruined several potentially awesome and all time favorite sets, just as it has with the 8043. In short, if the LA was a set, THAT WOULD BE MY MOST HATED SET OF ALL TIME!!!!!