allanp

For me, the way it achieves a function is often more exciting than what the function actually is. This has all the same functions as the old crawler which for me is one on the most boring sets ever! However there's a lot of hoping that this set introduces planetary gear reduction in the wheels, which is a first for an official set, but it also does it in a way that's far better than what we've been able to do in the past using the old turn tables as it's bound to be stronger and compact enough to get the steering pivot inside the wheel, while also using new CV joints allowing for more torque, smooth rotation at high steering angles and higher steering angles. These changes that amount to greater mechanical realism and new mechanical possibilities make a lot of difference, enough to elevate it from being potentially one of the worst to one of the most anticipated in a long time in my opinion.

Looking at the pictures of the motors (focusing on the line between light and dark bley) it appears as if it's the L motor that's in the axle. It also appears that the L motor is placed 1 stud higher than where you have it in your axle, so that would allow room for the axle to pass under it.

I very much hope you are right. Again, not getting hopes too high but it will be the deciding factor for me. I don't see any gearing before the half shafts, as there was with the old crawler. I wouldn't really trust regular plastic axles and universal joints to drive those big wheels with no reduction afterwards and the current differentials can handle as much torque as a wet tissue. There surely must be some gear reduction in the hub unless everything else has been massively upgraded.

Looks better than the prelim. Appears to have pendular axles that are also suspended to have increased travel which is...... interesting! But I'm here for the new hubs, which I don't see yet, but I can't imagine they would put all that power through our current tiny CV joints so that tells me the rumours are true, however the steering pivot appears to be just inside the wheel, which is great, but how is there room left for a planetary gear reduction?

I've been working on a skip truck with a very similar cab design. It has a tilting cab and working steering wheel. Although it has hoG and a tilting cabin it is possible to steer the vehicle just fine using the steering wheel in the cab. Maybe a similar solution is being used? Bear in mind that this truck is only a work in progress! The 24t gear goes to a drop link that controls the steering, due to the front axle being a suspended live axle so it is a little more complicated than the standard fare that'll likely appear in the set.

And only via PM

Personally I don't think the converter cable needs to be smart enough to power the PF servo motor. So if it can't control the PF servo I'de be OK with that. The biggest thing for me is that I can power the old buggy motor, the 5x4 9v ungeared motor (as seen in 8480) and the red micro motor (also as seen in 8480) because I don't see PU having any good equivalents for those motors, and because of all the motors ever released by Lego the Buggy motor has the most raw power, the old 5x4 9v ungeared motor is the fastest (and I miss those old belt drives which aren't really suitable for internally geared down motors) and the micro motor is the smallest so it would be good to be able to still use those motors with PU. Of course even better would be to see new equivalents of those 3 motors (so one with the same speed and torque as the buggy motor, one that's ungeared and very fast and one tiny micro motor) but sadly I don't think that's going to happen. So I guess what I really want (if we can't get new PU equivalents for the 3 motors) is an inexpensive "dumb" adaptor cable that goes from PU to a plug that is the old 9V system on the bottom and PF on the top that just has the power going to it. I can live without any data feedback, position sensing type stuff. The old 9V stuff wouldn't make any use of that anyway. And most of my PF stuff is M, L, and XL motors so to be able to use those would also be great. In terms of the PF servo, while it was good, I'm sure they could do better and more compact. So I'd rather see a proper RC grade more compact servo motor with more steps and possibly metal internal gears from PU than an expensive "smart" converter cable that allows me to use the old "could be better" servo.

Yeah, micro usb is way too fragile. The connectors Lego have chosen don't look that much stronger TBH but I haven't tried them yet so I hope they are more robust than they look. When you say current design do you mean PF or PU?

And so begin hoards of Eurobrick readers frantically scouring the internet trying to find where pics might be, haha. I'm off to join them!

Really?!!!! Man I hope this is true. I love that song and I'm a huge Justin Hayward/ Moody Blues fan. Edit: yes it's true, that's awesome! +1 for Forever Autumn.

For sure the angle is barely noticeable. Small enough that the looseness of the non friction pins used to connect the A pillars, and also the looseness of the axle that goes through the 2x8 plate with holes in the roof is enough to avoid stressing any elements, so I would say it's perfectly legal.

I think it might be IMHO. The extra cool factor of programmable flashing lights to the target audience, combined with it's versatility might be enough to make the investment worth while.

There are a few things going on here. Firstly, the height of the hood (and conversely the lower mounting point for the A pillars (the 1x8 technic bricks that make up the wind shield)) are higher by 2 plate thicknesses relative to the chassis than what you would normally expect, when thinking of the classic beam, plate, plate, beam approach of stacking Technic bricks. But also, the cab is lowered by 1 plate thickness relative to the chassis. This results in an offset of 1 plate thickness in height than what is the norm, and also a kinda weird but totally legal construction of the chassis. This must have taken the designer a while to figure out and it's quite hard to get your head round but it seems the only reason they did that was to get the proportions of the big beefy looking truck just right. Secondly, there is the use of grey pin connectors and axles to connect the top and bottom of the A pillars. The use of a grey (non friction) connector peg here is quite telling as it has some slop in it, meaning it will allow for a little bit of misalignment. This is really the only reason I can think of for using that part as opposed to the black friction connector peg. Thirdly, there is also the fact that the roof isn't fixed to the horizontal, 90 degrees to the rear upright supports, which means the top mounting point of the A pillars can be moved up or down slightly to fit the A pillars. Yes, there is an axle going through the roof for the hoG steering, however there is some slop in the axle through the black 2x8 plate with holes which will allow for a small angular discrepancy without causing damage to pieces, or making it too difficult to assemble or disassemble, making it legal.

Ooooh that could be fantastic. Not only would that help to mitigate the fact that you can't stack ports, but you could also program various different light effects. Say you had a module with 8 LEDs, you could program them to light in sequence and in pairs. Then you place them into a pair of trans yellow 2x2 round bricks and you have a pair of fairly convincing beacons like you see on a lot of construction equipment. You could also program fairly elaborate flashing displays for use on emergency vehicles, or could could also have 2 head lights, 2 tail lights and 4 blinking indicators for regular car lighting, all from one port. I don't know if that's possible but I do love ideas like this that spark some imagination

What about a context that's easily quantifiable. For example, using a defined motor(s) the model that can pull the most weight wins, or a shredder that can shred a full size piece of A4 printer paper into the most number of tiny pieces wins.

The bulky motor appears to be the new XL motor, but with that form factor I can't see it having the same internal motor, or the same internal gearing. Hopefully we'll get a higher output speed but with not so much torque. Whilst I'd love it to have buggy motor performance in terms of speed and torque, it'll probably not be like that. But honestly the XL motor was just too slow with too much torque. As this new form factor suggests a different internal motor and different internal gearing, maybe it'll be halfway between the XL motor and the buggy motor. In the pictures, as well as the 4 port "smart" control+ hub I can also see a regular "dumb" battery box. I haven't seen that before for the PU system but I'm glad to see it. Also looks big enough to take AA batteries and possibly it has more than one output? I also see in the slides there is mention of support for those that want to free build. So I guessed that means there will be some way to create our own control environments or skins or whatever you want to call them, by being able to select from various buttons, sliders, joysticks and so on, and being able to drag and drop them into your custom environment/skin/template, after which you could then assign different parameters like port, channel (1 - 5) and maybe a few others such as maximum (if a servo is connected it sets it's maximum travel, if a motor is connected it sets it's maximum speed and so on). But in another slide it said this was one of the things they were only considering. So, not sure what they mean by catering to free builders, unless they mean just supplying a "dumb" battery box so MOCers can bypass the whole smart thing altogether. From reading the slides (and not hearing the presentation) it's hard to make out what they are saying about the connector cable. I think they are saying they would like to do it but it would be difficult to make it for a reasonable price, as it couldn't be just a cable with the two different plugs on each end. It would have to have it's own possessing capability to link up. Is that correct? Maybe they are spelling out the problem to encourage a third party solution, or maybe they really are working to bring one out. Also, to anyone who has any of the new trains or the RC batmobile, how does the new plugs feel? The PF and 9v plugs were very sturdy but these new plugs look flimsy, like a phone charging plug you have to treat with kid gloves. It's nice to finally get to see some of the new control+ parts. I kinda feel like I have more questions now than answers . Does anyone know if the summer Technic sets themselves have been displayed?

It appears that the web hosting company for vonados website is GoDaddy. Their chat service is busy at the moment though.

That's one small step for Lego, one giant leap for Technic theme!

I think that at the end of the day, no idea is truly original, everything is based on something. Real life cranes are based on previous cranes, Avatar is based on Fern Gully and Technic is based on pre-existing mechanical devices such as gears and linkages. So calls of hypocrisy made directly or implied are unfounded I think. What matters is that Jeroen has put lots of time and effort into creating his design so it's only human to feel like that effort and months of work has been stolen when other people come along and reproduce his exact work. And yes, Lego is a hobby and a fun one at that, but to create something like Jeroens crane, that takes work as well as play.

I think this is kinda inevitable, and actually a good thing. Sets like the UCS millennium falcon and the Bugatti Chiron were also very expensive, and they sold incredibly well and made lots of money for Lego. I remember not being able to imagine such a large and AFOL aimed exclusive premium set such as the UCS millennium falcon being on regular toy store shelves. It seemed almost too special for that. So seeing 6 of em on the shelf at my local Smyths was surreal. And they are selling like hot cakes. So of course we are going to see more expensive sets. And yes, I personally think this is a good thing for a few reasons. It is a sign that TLG are doing well and that there are many many people out there willing to spend lots of money on the brand which fuels our hobby. Lego benefits greatly from this obviously as it makes them more money, but we benefit from it as well as we get lots more new sets and parts to choose from and will continue to do so. Compare our situation as Lego fans to someone who is a knex or mechano fan and I think it's easy to see how much better we have it, how lucky we are that Lego is doing so well that we are pretty well assured of many years of lots of new sets to choose from, and that they can afford to look at the ideas and suggestions of AFOLs (whether it be sets from Lego ideas or ideas for new parts) and take a chance and put them into production for us to enjoy. I'm not trying to brag or anything as this is TLGs success after all. We are just the lucky beneficiaries. It's also worth noting that even though there are more expensive sets appearing, this doesn't mean we no longer have cheaper alternatives to choose from. And when inflation is taken into account price by unit of weight isn't increasing, we are getting additional more expensive but also larger and more impressive options to choose from, while still also having more affordable options. So really I don't see any logical reasons to complain (not saying you have complained but I've certainly seen lots of complaints about these larger sets), except perhaps if you're a collector who really wants to own a copy of every set from a particular theme. In that case, your wallet has my sympathy! That's not to say I like this particular Liebherr set, but that fact that it exists as an option for me to freely choose to buy or not to buy doesn't bother me. In fact I'm glad that TLG is doing well enough to offer such a gigantic, expensive thing. Whether I like the set or not is irrelevant in that regard. I do have my concerns as to where Technic is going, but that's more to do with the lack of mechanical authenticity, colour barf (and how vastly inferior it is to having more numbered bags) and to some extent the ratio of building time spent on mechanisms compared to less interesting non mechanisms. The increasing size, price, part count isn't a concern I think.

Oh wow, didn't realise the difference was that big for the RTC.

Well, it's estimated to be about 450 euro. Some sets in the states are more expensive (42070), others are less (42083), so id'e expect it to be about $450, give or take $30.

I think that it's kinda like taxes. It's a bummer but a necessary evil due to Lego's strength of all pieces being compatible with all other pieces, so if you can see it you can build it. So as others have said, if you can fight it then fight it dispassionately, but if you can't fight it, seek satisfaction in the knowledge that there are other more honest people out there that are willing to pay for your designs, and also that there are people that love your design so much that they are willing go put the time and money into recreating it. As far as fighting them goes, I thought of all kinds of things, like encrypting your instructions in a way that can only be decrypted by a dedicated instruction viewer app that somehow disables the print screen function of the computer while open (by pushing print screen, the function works but it shows a different image on screen, like a special message saying "stop being a thieving dick!" and that is what gets print screened) and can also detect camera flashes via the computers webcam and shuts down. Or perhaps we could create a hall of shame topic, which anyone can use to add sellers who sell copied instructions or counterfeit Lego, so anyone can use that as a reference (like rebrickable or brickset) to check before buying from anyone, even if the thief is selling real Lego sets as well, I wouldn't buy from (support) them if they are also selling fake or stolen goods. This wouldn't need to be it's own website, just a post here on Eurobricks which everyone can add to, and everyone would be made aware of it in other forums. Maybe this would dissuade future thieves? I don't know if any of that is feasible!

Ah, well at least you found it