allanp

I can probably be seen in the crowd for the James May lego house build!

Yeah that was kinda stupid. But still I think it was aimed at the right audience, I don't think it should have been aimed soley at AFOL's. I just think that if he had chosen AFOL's to help out more in the design process and in the making of the funiture, the house and the funiture would have been much stronger.

Ah it would be nice to get some confirmation as I only really have one source to confirm his recruitment by lego. I consider it a reliable one but it's still only one. Thankyou. Ooooooooops i've made a mistake! Here is where I got it from and I recalled it wrong. http://technicbricks.blogspot.com/2009/08/...vator-with.html Apparently it's a guy called Anders Gaasedal that has been hired by TLG, Anders has indeed worked with longer pneumatics in his creations, just not the one's in the video I linked to.

Haven't we had one of those very recently? If your talking about a fully motorised one (motor on the end of each LA) and fully remote controlled with a motor for each track and turntable, wouldn't that be very expensive and also kinda boring? I might as well buy this: http://www.otherlandtoys.co.uk/rc-excavator-p-2156.html Now this is only my own opinion and i'm probably in the minority but with all this gearing down already done for you in the motor and then just sticking an LA on the end if it is well, boring. It's all done for you. Sure it works well and it's easy even for any 7 year old that wants technic for christmas, but then technic is not meant to be easy. It's not meant to be done for you you're supposed to build the mechnisms yourself, the more complicated the better (as long as it's not pointlessly complicated) and it's supposed to demonstrate the priciple of how the real thing works making it educational as well as more enjoyable. That's the whole point of technic and what makes it unique. Now I know LA's have their uses and i'm glad they are part of the assortment, but to use them here, in my opinion, would completely undermine what technic is about. A couple of years ago I would have agreed with you, but in recent years TLG really do seem to be listening to the AFOL community, particularly when it comes to technic. And there is at present quite a large demand for pneumatics to be made much longer and I believe Mark Bellis would even like a shorter version (please correct me if i'm wrong Mark ). I also believe (again please correct me if i'm wrong) that TLG recently hired the guy behind these excellent prototype, custom, long pneumatics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kMpVfnE4Rs So you never know

I pretty much agree with all that has been said. It's a shame they didn't realise the bricks full potential and, besides one or two people, he got all the wrong people to help him out. And I reaaly do hate to say it but that interior designer, bless her (she did try very hard) was useless. Shame, this may have been the only chance they'll get at it.

I actually hope it's not true, about the linear actuators. An motorised excavator would be great but not with LA's. In this case pneumatics would be much better in my opinion, especially if they were made much longer.

Have you seen this kind of engine used in trains? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1QSUkFh4Cs...feature=related And some of it's moving parts:

Yeah I was surprised when I went to the cinema recently to see 2012, the kipper advert was shown. I think the best advert was this one When I try to think about what if this was real and what the heck is in the box, my imagination goes ballistic! Still trying to find a technic ad from 1992 or 1993 which had the airtech claw rig in it.

Ditto

It looks very racer-ish but then it does have a differencial and v-8 engine.

Would be nice if it had the same white and blue colour sceme! There are quite alot of features you could have in this set, will be interesting to see what they do with it.

8258 crane truck for me! Have been trying to avoid pictures of it's inner workings as I want them to be a mystery finally revealed Christmas day!

I also had alot of fun with 8891. My brother used to collect the toy figures from the "aliens" movies so I had a lot of fun with the walker. It could grab the alien round the neck and lift it with the pneumatics no problem and then it could walk over to a ledge and drop it. YEY the creature is dead YEEEY! I built the cable car too, it ran up and down the garden on a nice summer day! I've also built the very last model in the book which looked great in the book but in reality was actually kinda boring compared to the walker. The rodeo thing was cool as was the plane simulator.

Actually I think buying a set would be a good option IF you pick a good set to learn from. May I recommend the 8292 cherry picker. It comes with a motor, lots of gears (including worm gears, spur gears, bevel gears, synchromesh gears), axles, beams, wheels and so on. In fact see for yourself at http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/8292-1 quite alot there mechanically for the price. I think this set demonstrates quite well how a motor is used in toys to operate them. It also demonstrates how technic sets are assembled. It's quite different to a regular lego set as you have to think a few steps ahead, building from the inside out, instead of from the bottom up. It makes it a little more challenging and, in turn, a whole lot more rewarding when you get something just right in my opinion.

I must warn you against using actual steam. I have washed some bricks in the past using water that was too hot and the heat deformed them soo badley that I has to sling em in the bin. Real smoke may not be so unrealistic as it may represent the smoke coming from the fire. I'm not sure how it is done in model trains but as long as it doesn't create very extreme temperatures then you should be fine, I think, but i'm not sure. Have you looked into how it is done in some of the old model trains. You may find you can buy a little smoke pellet or something.

That's awsome! For a huge MOC excavator I have used one PF XL motor and 8 pumps which I recently purchased from bricklink to power the pneumatics and the power was simply epic! The SPEED and CONTROL and RESPONSIVENESS and SHEER BRUTE POWER of the thing was just so increadably life-like and ultra cool! Your compressor has TWO XL motors so I bet that's really powerful . All I have to do is build the compressor into a much smaller and compact unit which will enable me to fit it into the model around the 3 gearboxes. After I finish that I can start working on the closed loop pneumatic power steering concept.

Personally I don't think it has that much to do with target demographics and hardley anything to do with minifigures. I think it's just one of those things really. It's not sexist to say boys and girls are different and like different things. Whilst i'm sure Lego could do more to create sets that appeal to females I guess any amount of time and money spent doing so would create better results for Lego if they were to spend the same amount on males as they are generally more likely to find pleasure in building something (yes I know there are exceptions and that is a generalisation but it's true isn't it?). It is also true that males and females on average have differing levels of spacial awareness and many other things which also has a huge role to play in enjoying Lego products just for the fact that they are construction toys. There are some amazing FFOLs out there but it's hardley surprising that there isn't really enough.

Yes it is an old discussion but that won't stop me from saying PNEUMATICS ARE BEST FOR A KAGILLION REASONS over and over again

Yes i've built a few of those. I like to build them so they stop just before the tubes start to pop off! Have you tried building any pneumatic power steering systems before? It's easy enough if you have a mechnical link between the two halves of the circuit to give you feedback on the position of the second half of the circuit in much the same way as the recent design by Mark Bellis. But I wan't to build one that has no mechanical linkage, only pneumatic tubes, similar to the kind of steering system you get in heavy machinery. It's proving tricky because I want the steering angle of the wheel to stop relative only to the position of the steering wheel regaurdless of what mechanical forces there might be acting to prevent the wheels reaching it's desired steering angle. It's also gotta be small and compact enough to prevent it spoiling the overall look the MOC's I intent to implement this system into. Haven't really given much thought to the solution yet but I understand the problem and I think it's a cool challenge for my next project.

Your video was very useful as it demonstraits that the RTC spring is powerful enough to move both motor and valve back to the centre, thankyou. Looking at bricklink it seems anybody that is selling them either only has one (I would like at least four) or is charging a high price. Haven't looked on e-bay yet tho. Still got a few other projects to finish before I try this but i'm deffinately gonna try it sooner rather than later, can't wait.

Aw wow thankyou for the video It's off to bricklink I go, It's off to bricklink I go, To buy some return to centre thingy's found in the hockey sets for use in my pneumatic creations that you have demonstrated so well in your video, It's off to bricklink I go!

Was your dragonfly black and blue by any chance? If so I think I remember it. It was a great model. Yes I remember that family, think it was the Ozyerky family or something like that. I remember there was a big, yellow helicopter, a 3 axle crane using the 8880 wheels and a landrover discovery type vehicle which also used the 8880 wheels. I also much prefered this mag to the regular one. It did indeed have less hype and more technical stuff in it. I think iv'e still got a calculator from it somewhere. I did have a few t-shirts I think, well at least one anyway.

I don't lubricate parts any more. But when I was a kid I found that household furniture polish worked quite well. I used to just spray it on the gears and where ever there was friction whilst the model was running. The noise of the fast spinning gears dropped enormousely and the whole thing speed up quite noticeably within a second. I'm sure there are far better lubricants than furniture polish but at least it wont stain the carpet and your bound to have some.

Oh no sorry. I know how to build the gearbox and have designed better ones. It is the actual magazine(s) or scans of them that I am trying to find. There was alot of interesting stuff in there. Thanks for the fast reply tho Ah well at least I didn't dream it then

Anyone remember the lego technic club? I was a member for a while when I was younger. I know I was a member in 1996 because I remember a club magazine which showcased the (new) 8480 space shuttle. It was a great article which included a QnA section with the designer of the shuttle. Here he mentioned that he had worked (or was working on) a 5/6 speed gearbox which I assume was the one in the 8448 of 1999. Does anybody remember this club? Does anybody know where I can find copies/scans of the magazines?