allanp

Like any engineer will tell you, it depends! If you are driving it indoors on carpet then you'll need more torque to ensure you can accelerate quickly and reliably. If you can get access to a much larger surface with low rolling resistance (like a carpark, a nice walking path in a park or even an indoor sports hall) then you can gear for a higher speed. It will also depend on what batteries/power source you are using, if you intend to use lubrication, ambient temp (as that can effect some battery types) and so on. Trial and error is the best way.

Congrats Balage

I found my hoses to be slightly too long so I trimmed them a bit shorter (mainly the blue ones) to make the hoses fit better.

I hesitate to suggest this, use with CAUTION! The best results I've had with cleaning pneumatic cylinder rods was by spinning the whole thing by the rod end using a motor, and then using a small amount of metal polish on a rag to clean the rod. This gets them like brand spanking new if the corrosion isn't really bad. Then lubricate with silicone oil. But you really have to be careful not to allow any metal polish to get at the rubber seals. My method probably wasn't the best but it seems to have worked. I was very careful only to use just enough metal polish to do the job (using a motor to spin the rod really cuts down on the amount of metal polish you need to use), I then used a fresh clean cloth to "buff" the rod so to speak and remove as much residue as possible, and used silicone oil to rinse the area around the seal. And I was also careful to never retract the rod even by a mm until I was happy it was clean.

Ah, my apologies, sometimes it's hard to read when people are being just a little sarcastic. Looking good on display is fine.... ....which isn't necessarily a bad thing as very complex things can be simplified down to a few pieces per step in clear instructions, and be made more accessible with numbered bags to reduce piece pile sizes and some tasteful (not bright red/green/lime/blue etc) colour coding. Yup. And it makes no sense to me why TLG seem to have made a choice to do this. Adults like to play as well ya know! A big Technic set can absolutely look good on display, have a build that's accessible to casuals and still be playable and not filled with colour vomit. And hard not to complain about! In the words of Mr Fury, considering it's a stoopidass decision I've elected to ignore it! Didn't @kbalage or one of the other experienced Technic reviewers miss a BRIGHTLY COLOURED gear out of 42215 when building it? Clearly being brightly coloured didn't help! Don't get me wrong, I built a Technic knockoff set (it was a "gift") that was all black inside and I hated it. I didn't make any mistakes but all black looks boring. TLG however are much too far the other way making everything look like a clown vomited sprinkles everywhere and mistakes are still being made. It's as if a single very important brightly coloured piece of vomit doesn't stand out enough amongst a sea of a thousand other pieces of colour vomit! Using colour more tastefully (ie make the chassis/surrounding structure all dark grey, all axles and pins black and all gears light grey or gun metal grey for more special gears) would not only look much better but would make the gears and mechanisms stand out better from the rest. As I said above, colour coding can be a great thing, but colour vomit not so much. This is a very good point. I think this sentence sums up the 18+ line better than anything. There really doesn't have to be anything wrong with that from a long time fans perspective. 18+ sets can absolutely be accessible to casual builders looking for some quality me time, and I think they should be. I just don't get why TLG thinks that's ALL they can be, forsaking all else. Tasteful colour coding can make a build more accessible than colour vomit. In the case of 42215, pneumatics would have looked much cleaner for a display piece than a bunch of brightly coloured gears and axles in the boom, and would function far better with a good compressor. But now we have all kinds of Lego reviewers (not just Technic specialists) saying it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too slow and the colour vomit is awful. It's not just us people here saying these things, we've just been saying them for years!

It is an excuse. There's no reason it can't be really functional/playable as well as being a display piece. Pneumatics would even look better and more authentic because you wouldn't have a bunch of brightly coloured gears and axles throughout the boom (unless the real one has those and nobody noticed!). Being a display piece doesn't automatically prevent it being good as well. It's like saying "A banana can't be food as well as being yellow!". Of course it can! It can be a display piece and be a good Technic set at the same time. So please, for the love of Technic, no more excuses, unless you're being ironic/sarcastic!

A Technic set that's "meant to be a display piece" is not meant to be a Technic set. No more poor excuses please.

I have 42128. I didn't really play that much with the other manual functions but it's good build. It's one of the few non licenced original proper Technic sets of recent years. Not quiiiiite flagship worthy, but still better than many recent "flagships". Just get it and worry about shelf space later!

Power is torque (in this case digging force) x rpm (speed). Out of the 3 flagship excavators, 42100 definitely has the most torque but it's noticeably too slow for scale speed. The thing is, many gears on axles that don't have bearings and the screw drives of the linear actuators create a bunch of friction. This friction increases dramatically when it meets resistance when trying to do any kind of work which is where the majority of the motors power is being wasted. Most of the motors output power isn't making it to the bucket.......(deleted long winded post about how pneumatics are far more efficient at getting the motors power to where it's needed when doing actual work) You know what, I really just need to shut up and build something. I just don't have much Lego time right now.

I want to. I should get (force) some time to play in the coming months.

Sure, why not? You don't need sub millimeter precision. We're not trying to replicate a CNC machine. Pneumatics are plenty precise enough for play. I mean, if a child can take a couple of nice big scoops and dump them exactly where he wants in the time it takes for 42215 to make a single movement.....

Well we've had 8043, 42100 and now this. Between them we've had gearbox, no gear box, single motor, 4 motors, 7 motors, RC, no RC, physical remote, phone app dependency, no remote at all and a range of prices and piece counts ranging from not that high for a flag ship to highest part count ever for a Technic set. They have tried different ways and mods and the performance has ALWAYS been too slow and/or too weak and they have not been mechanically authentic. For me there's only one mod to make: 1) Ditch linear actuators. I didn't mind variety but after so many times I honestly never want to see them in a flagship again. 2) Use a buggy motor to drive a monster compressor made of multiple motor pumps, make it good enough to fill one air tank to a good working pressure as fast as possible (otherwise, don't use an air tank as it will make it sluggish). 3) Buy something like these: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pneumatic-piston-rod-cylinders/2737685?gb=s and paint them to look a bit like Lego! 4) Stuff that lot onto the bare bones that's left of 42215 after removing the gearbox and LAs. 5) Marvel at the realistic scale speed, the power to dig and level of control you never thought possible! 6) Add motorisation to tracks/slewing functions and RC capability to taste.

Well, they're all not bad, I think I'd eliminate the lunar rover first from the list as it doesn't have as much interesting stuff in it as the other 3, as much as I do like the gold wheel arches and the new 90 degree tie rod piece, they can't compare to the control center, the pneumatics of 42128 or the code pilot. So for shelf 2 I'd go with 8094. Now, a tricky one. 8479 would fit in nicer with your other studded classics. The code pilot is also (I think) the last of the programmable bricks that didn't require any third party computer/phone/tablet to program or play with, and 8479 is the only set to come with one. The way they integrated the touch sensors to activate the next part of the program is also quite ingenious and fun to build and watch it work. Plus it's a universal set, so if you do get board of the A model you can build and display few other models from the set. 8479 also has a much much nicer box compared to modern day cereal boxes. 42128 is also a fantastic build. Of course it has pneumatics which is awesome, but it also has a good deal of geared mechanisms. This really isn't an easy choice tbh, but on balance and due to it's uniqueness and how well it would fit with your other studded sets I'd probably go with 8479. But still get 42128 as well anyway! You don't need to display every set you own.

I hope not. Going to brickset and looking at all Technic sets and ranking them by number of sets owned, sure the top 3 are BIG cars with complex drive trains, (not smaller scale cars that we seem to be getting so many of) but in 4th place is the Arocs, followed by a mix of construction machinery and cars. The only control+ set in the top 50 is 42100, in 38th place (although it should probably be 37th as weirdly, brickset has a tribute to the Lego house set above it?).

Thanks Jim

I'd feature this on the front page if I could, but I can only front page the first post of a topic. Very impressive B model.

Easy maybe. Ideal? No. Linear actuators will never work well in a flagship sized model, too inefficient and too far from reality. Previous flagship excavators have all been too slow and mostly too weak. 42100 needed 7 motors just to not be too weak but it was still far too slow. Gear the movements up to match that of a real excavator and it too would have been too weak. Lets imagine this, one new motor with the same internal motor as the buggy motor driving 8 pneumatic pumps providing air to one small air tank (not too big as you want it to refill to a higher pressure quickly for maximum responsiveness to the controls) which then goes to something this size or similar: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/pneumatic-piston-rod-cylinders/3043533, and now we have POWAH! Now we're building for real. Would it be expensive? Yes, but it'd be worth it. The value would be there. PS, regarding the child safety screws on the battery box, do we really need them on a battery box that holds AA batteries? Coin cells and maybe AAA batteries okay, but double AA? IMHO it would be better for us and cheaper for Lego if we have a battery lid that hooks in one end and clips into the other like before. Then if needed add a single retaining screw or 2 to the end that clips in. We as the customer could then just leave them out.

Lets just take a look at these instead: A beast maybe worthy of flagship after refinement?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW-Gw9zCQWg Smaller but still way better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCRINCCdczQ&t=19s Both of the above can still be refined, maybe with stronger compressors also. I'm not saying they are flawlessly perfect but they still perform far better, are more playable and are both more authentic. You'd have thought they would have tried to go forwards in terms of performance, playability and authenticity from previous flagship excavators but 42215 is no better. Oh, but the target audience, it's got to be easy to build and....and.......... Oh come guys. It's (apparently) 18+. Even so, maybe a child could design a more efficient gearbox from the same bricks, or maybe they could get far more playable and authentic results like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSImXPycrrM (That's one proud daddy!) I really don't care what the discount is in future, the price is irrelevant, I'm never buying this. Still hoping for something going on behind the scenes, maybe there's some excuse for this we don't know about yet, maybe something next year they're much more focused on. Not knowing anything about that, this isn't looking good, there's no other excuses.

Wow! I can certainly attest to how......lets say fun......it is to work with carbon fiber. Doing small parts to a high level of dimensional accuracy like this is really not easy. It might even be harder doing it with carbon fiber sheets like this. Maybe you could try a pre stabilized cloth with a finer weave, maybe like this: https://www.easycomposites.co.uk/90g-profinish-plain-weave-1k-carbon-fibre-cloth They also sell it in a sleeve that can expand/contract to a range of different diameters: https://www.easycomposites.co.uk/40mm-carbon-fibre-braided-sleeve

I bought a reel of the stuff recommended by @BatteryPoweredBricks and it's an excellent replacement, think this is it now, though I can't see if it's available on amazon Italy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BNTECHGO-Silicone-Ribbon-Flexible-Parallel/dp/B07PPSKVNN?pd_rd_w=2fFvY&content-id=amzn1.sym.53c023fa-aa03-47a3-91b1-e91ac4bf7bd6&pf_rd_p=53c023fa-aa03-47a3-91b1-e91ac4bf7bd6&pf_rd_r=YX8FAXDZQZZ2JST91VME&pd_rd_wg=FmDeh&pd_rd_r=9bd981b6-3f84-4c52-8fa7-02670c1f9a07&ref_=pd_bap_d_grid_rp_csi_pd_ys_c_rfy_rp_crs_0_t&th=1 Buying this 6 stranded cable means that I can split off 3 pairs of twin cables, two of the pairs won't have any white strip on them so they look closer to the original as well. The one you linked to looks pretty much the same, silicone coated cable so should be nice and flexible like the original cable, though I haven't tried that exact one. Note that an original cable fits perfectly in the gap between 2 studs, and from memory this is used in 8480. The gap between 2 studs is 3.2mm, so each core should be 1.6mm. The one you linked appears to advertise having that exact size.

PU hubs can't provide enough power. They barely provide enough power for the current PU motors as even these can cause it to say it's overloaded. You're kinda stuck with their puny power output. Using a more powerful motor won't give you any advantage. One other solution might be to use a pu motor plugged into the pu hub to instead switch a different battery box (or a couple of battery boxes!) which in turn powers the more powerful motors. This way you could have as many battery boxes and motors driven from a single PU port as you like, provided the PU motor has the power to switch the battery boxs! I'm not sure what the current limitations are of other battery boxes, perhaps another member can say, but the Technic set 8421 mobile crane uses one of the old 9v battery boxes to power a buggy motor. The battery box from 8287 is also used to power a buggy motor though they might be harder to get.

Honestly I'm still hopeful for the future. Something tells me this is not the future of Technic but a (maybe necessary and temporary) setback.

We've already had that....twice.....and it's been too slow both times. Is anyone really surprised that using the same LAs and a gearbox and the same power motors would lead to something slow and weak? Cos I'm not. It's only surprising that Volvo would allow such a slow and weak model to represent their real life machines built for productivity!

There's an interview here from one of the people that worked on 8480 https://archive.org/details/LEGOTechnicClub-September1996-Miniland/mode/1up

Best subjectively (including nostalgia, childhood excitement and consideration of what came before it) or objectively (trying to ignore nostalgia, innovation and all that)? For example, I would subjectively rank the Bugatti Chiron higher that the Sian because the Bugatti had much more innovation, and personally I value innovation very highly. The Sian was kind of just a refinement of the Bugatti. However, objectively I'd rank the Sian higher than the Bugatti. While the Sian didn't represent the same leap forward in innovation, it was more refined and so objectively better. Subjectively: 1) 8880 (considering that the auto chassis before it was the test car which I loved, 8880 was a huuuuuuuuuuge, nearly incomprehensible leap forward at the time) 2) AROCS!!!! 3) 8868 4) 8480 space shuttle 5) Control center 2 Almost made the list 8455 Objectively: 1) AROCS!!! It really is objectively the best so far. Not content with having awesome pneumatics, it also had a host of other goodies such as two suspended and driven rear axles with dually tyres, two suspended and steered live axles at the front and a proper (not cam style) inline 6 engine at the front. There's still plenty of opportunities to make something better but as of 2025, the Arocs is still the king. 42100 would have been here or even the new Volvo demolition excavator if they was RC pneumatic with physical remote and not dependent on third party smart devices. 2) 8455. 7 powerful and authentic pneumatic functions all controlled from the cab (no twiddling knobs right next to the function here), steering and working engine. More functionality and authenticity than the vast majority of sets with a part count way under 1000 pieces. Who said studless sets necessarily need to have more pieces than studded sets? It's pure concentrated goodness! 3) This one is hard, 8880 or the McLaren P1. Really? Yes! The P1 is arguably the latest and most advanced supercar yet with 7 real speeds (as in not 4 speeds multiplied by another 4 speeds giving 16 speeds but 8 are the same as another 8 so it's like an 8 speed gearbox but not really by going through 2 gearboxes like the Bugatti/Sian/Ferrari) and the most sizes of clutch gear to date using new gearbox parts and all that good stuff. However the steering is still poor and the steering wheel still points straight forward instead of angling up towards the driver and despite being handed all these lovely new gearbox parts, the designer still made the gearbox still way more overly complicated and incomprehensible. A real gearbox usually only has two main shafts, get it right! 8880 on the other hand had much better feeling steering with it's steering arms having Ackermann geometry and better leverage as they are longer. Also, it's 4 position H shifter is still by far the best gear change mechanism, as opposed to the modern paddle shifters that feel like they're going to break and doesn't let you know what gear you're in. However, 8880 does only have 4 speeds, and only 1 size of clutch gear, and unrealistically it uses 2 shocks per wheel, and the wheel hubs have a ton of friction, and the old 14t bevel gears used to break. So, as this is the purely objective list (where I have chosen to ignore personal feelings of nostalgia, innovation compared to past sets and so on), I'm actually going to choose the P1 over 8880! But just like with the Arocs, there's still many ways to make something even better by quite a ways yet. 4) Another tricky one so again I'm going to cheat by picking 2 similarly themed sets. Control centre 2 and the barcode truck. Not every Technic set has to be mechanically authentic. They can also be programmable and all that good stuff. Both control center 2 and the barcode truck represents this done right! No need for any dependency on smart devices and all the negative aspects that come with them (such as kids spending too much time looking at screens, smart devices becoming obsolete long before any Lego set that depends on them should become obsolete and a billion other things). Both of these sets can also be considered universal sets, with each set having instructions for multiple models. 5) 8064 universal set. All previous picks have been flagships, but 8064 is the very essence of what a smaller Technic set should be. Being a small set, you don't expect too much authenticity. What you do get is a simple ungeared motor and battery box, a bunch of different gears and belt drives, a bunch of studded Technic parts that's easier than studless to MOC with and instructions to build 4 different models showcasing a nice variety of gear/belt driven mechanisms. With no internal gearing in the motor, nothing is done for you. You get to build every last mechanism and every last bit of gear reduction yourself. As a small, inexpensive and studded universal set, I can think of no better first Technic set.