allanp

You could always dump all the parts out at once regardless of if the bags are numbered.

Surely the purpose of a seat is to give the driver somewhere to sit, and not just to be in the cab. You could also ask why bother putting wings on Technic planes if they can't fly?! The reason Technic planes have wings is because real planes have wings. The reason this Technic forest harvester has a big circular blade is because real forest harvesters have them.

You could ask why include a seat when there's no driver I guess. Glad they changed it to grey. The red saw was just colour vomit AND made it look like it just chopped through a herd of cattle!

It's technically possible with one rotary cam shifter as it only takes 60 degrees of rotation to change the state of a drive ring. However you would have to arrange 3 drive rings in a triangle around a central rotary cam shifter. I've not tried this myself as my parts are buried inside a Chiron. Doesn't sound like the easiest of challenges though.

It's a respect/etiquette thing. Besides, imagine you make a movie, would you want people's all important first impressions to be based on grainy, low quality, partial leaks, or a well thought out official presentation? There's also the issue of those cretins in China stealing Lego's ittelectual property, we really don't want to give them any help at all by showing them what parts in what colour and what quantity they need to produce in order to leech off of Lego any sooner than necessary. So as for why they are selling the sets in Legoland already, I have no idea.

As people seem to be buying these from Legoland Billund, and as I happened to be in Legoland Windsor yesterday I made sure to look in the shop. Unfortunately no 2h2018 technic was there. I double and triple checked!

Personally, regarding size and part count, I think we are quite far away from any limits as far as the strength of ABS plastic goes. The Porsche and Bugatti could have excellent steering and suspension, if there were larger steering arms and stronger springs. The Bugatti is solid as a rock with very little bending so I don't think strength of ABS is an issue proving the model it designed well enough. @Jim makes an excellent point about cars and cranes selling well, so we're going to see more of them. And no matter how many we see, or how large they become, I can always be excited for a new set if it has something new to offer. Cranes usually have planetary gear reduction in the wheels. They have a reeeeaaaaalllly long cyclinder to extend the boom. They have multiple pulleys on their hooks to increase lifting capacity. Many cranes have leaf spring suspention. If Lego released a crane with all these new parts would anyone complain that the set was yet another crane? Or what if it was a huge American fire engine with lots of chrome pieces, realistic looking chrome wheels with enough room for the steering pivot inside the wheel, insane exterior detailing, white pneumatics to lift the white triple extending ladder, red pneumatics for the stabilisers, leaf spring suspention and light/sound module for the horn and flashing lights and beacons, would anyone complain that it was 5000 pieces or more? So for me it really doesn't matter if it's a model we've seen many times before as it can always offer something new. Its cool if the piece count goes up and up so long as it's not just for the sake of it.

Think I'll be going to Legoland Windsor on Wednesday will see if there's anything there, but will also respect the embargo date if I do find anything.

@Jim yes we do!

£150?! I don't think it'll be that much, at least I hope not.

@Jim that's true.

Ummmm, not sure about allowing sbrick and similar 3rd party options due to their advantages over official Lego options such as increased power and blue tooth.

@Jim Oooooh, now that sounds interesting!

Whoops! Sorry @Jim . Feel free to steal it back off me . Ide love to do a write up/review but I'll never be able to match your pictures

Finished building the Bugatti. I must say that the front end looks much better in person than it does in pictures. This thing is epic and quite heavy considering there's no battery box or motors. There's a lot to like and well worth the money. But there are some things that need to be improved for UCS technic number 3, aside from the suspension and cheep feeling steering as has already been mentioned. I LOVE the new gearbox pieces but they need more of them for the next model. This gearbox is way too complicated. I understand that there's a 4 speed gearboxcoupled to a 4 position 2 speed gearbox to create a 16 position 8 speed gearbox, and a reversing gearbox, that's 3 gearboxes in one vastly overly complex mess of gears and drive shafts when a real gearbox only has two drive shafts. Combining multiple gearboxes is just as much of a cheat as having multiple crankshafts with all the inauthenticity that comes with it. I built the thing and despite having been building technic for over 25 years I don't know exactly how each gear ratio is achieved. It's too densely packed to see. The overly complex design also leads to more backlash, my tabletop is only just big enough to get the engine moving. However with a limited new parts budget for each new set this is about the best that could be done and I applaud the designer very much so, his work is pretty damn Impressive throughout this whole car, but for the next model this is something that needs more investment in parts. On the plus side, like I say this is one gorgeous and EPIC looking model from all angles, including the front when you see it in real life. The build is very solid and the gearshift mechanism is an improvement on the Porsche. Despite having to switch two gearboxes as opposed to only one in the Porsche, you don't have to move the paddles anywhere near as much and it just feels much better. Overall this car is a very impressive piece of design and a true UCS technic set

I assume you mean with the 2M axle connectors (both with and without ridges) combined with the 2M drive rings? Unfortunately the wave selector is buried inside a half built Chiron so won't be able to test that until I dismantle it.

So I finally picked up a Chiron today and played with the new selector piece a bit before building the model and can confirm a couple things. 1) We know that when used with a 90 degree stepper it works fine. But it WILL also work with a 60 degree stepper. So the steps are engaged>disengaged>disengaged>engaged>disengaged>disengaged. I tested this just using a pulley wheel and rotating the shaft with the pulley wheel one hole at a time and it works. YAY! However there is a caveat which I'll mention in point 3. 2) The drive rings MUST be mounted on the newer style of 3M axle connector released with the Porsche. The older type that makes the drive rings click into place are not suitable as the wave selector piece struggles A LOT to engage/disengage gears when using it. I felt like I might damage something. 3) When everything is setup as they are in the Chiron with the 90 degree stepper being used and two drive rings controlled by the same wave selector one gear engages at about the same moment as another disengages. So in a perfect world there's no possibility of 2 gears ever being selected at once at any given time. However in our imperfect world where slop has to be taken into account there is that small possibility of 2 gears being selected at once during one brief and tiny moment during shifts, but not before or after shifting. This will most likely only be an issue for motorised models that shift gears while under power. This issue may be more prevalent when using 60 degree steppers but again, this is only during that brief moment during a shift and only while under power.

So I went to the new Lego shop in Birmingham (UK) located in the Barclay card arena and picked up a Chiron, and as it only opened this weekend I got it for 10% off. Deal ends today if anyone else is interested.

Moody Blues album long distance voyager "he's the veteran cosmic rocker!"

If you like the porsche but not the colour maybe look at the Bugatti 42083?

I've never lost a set (just most of the expensive to replace parts ) or have I? I had a 9v universal set as a kid, and bought a second copy as an adult, which is complete in its box with instructions. Yet when I looked through my box of instruction books (which weighs more than a small moon!) I found 3 copies of the instructions for that set. So, did I have 4 copies in total, lost them and forgot I ever had them or what?! The extra instructions are a complete mystery to me.

Would like to see the elementary school and power station as they are landmarks in the Simpsons and AFAIK there are no schools or power stations in the city theme, so these sets could fill that hole.

That's also true, they always say "bet you'll have fun with that, that looks really detailed doesn't it!" and stuff like that, I'm not fooling anyone, they know it's for me, guess they have a lot of AFOLs! Have I gone off topic btw? I guess the shopping experience all plays a part in one's own opinion of the brand as a whole I guess.

Yeah the prices in Smyth's seems to change weekly, so glad we have that in the UK now Toys R Us is gone. Smyth's selection by me in the Midlands could almost compete with the Lego store, the one by me has two UCS millennium falcons on the shelf along with all the creator expert stuff except the rollercoaster. Still no Bugatti, I expect that'll be there in August which is its wide release date.

All axles in all colours would be great, failing that then all black, but if that's also not feasible then have all even lengths, including 2M in black and all odd lengths in preferably the main colour of the model, so in 42082 they're red, in 42080 they would be.....God only knows . In that case might just be best to avoid odd lengths. However as odd lengths are now far more prevalent than even lengths, probably best to make the odd lengths black and the even lengths in the colour of the model. This would also solve the pesky 2m axle colour issue. Whatever they do, can we NOT have bright red and bright yellow axles together in the same model as this really does look like vomit (as much as I try not to use that word now, I don't think the designers like it much!) or even worse than vomit.....KNEX!!!!