New year, new set: 8853 Excavator

And 2011 begun, so Happy New Year. But let's go on to something interesting: today we take a look at an excavator from 1988, more specifically a front loader. I have to admit that even though I was a big Technic fan around that time, I could easily walk past this set. If I deep dive into my memories, I cannot really find anything even though Technicopedia thinks that this set has really existed..

But now I had a chance to learn it much better. I was in a second hand toy fair when I found it for a bit more than 10 USD. I have quickly realized that it has most important parts and all of them are in a good shape, despite coming from the most fragile era of Technic history with toothed connectors and toothed Technic plates. So I decided to grab it.

Datasheet:

• Number: 8853
• Theme: Technic, construction
• Year introduced: 1988
• Parts: 332 (Peeron)
• Price: from 30 USD (Bricklink)

Let's take a look at the set. There are no pistons and there is no engine. (Maybe this is why I did not really pay attention around that time). But there is lots of mechanics that can be operated in various ways. The light on the top can steer the rear wheels, like on any normal excavator.

But the really big thing is the bucket operation mechanism that can be moved using the two large steering wheels on the rear. The rearmost wheel lifts the whole bucket mechanism and the bucket while the other one dumps the content of the bucket. It operates with a fairly complicated mechanism with gears and all sorts of arms. The interesting thing is that the two wheels move the bucket independently: the bucket will stay at the same angle unless we operate the dumping wheel.

You have to as really careful with the operation though. The mechanism contains many fragile parts and it clearly feels that if there is any tension in will break very easily (like my own similar aged other sets).

All in all, I think it is a fairly good set. It contains interesting functions and can be played well. For this amount of money I certainly think it was a good buy.

More images in the gallery as usual. If you would like to understand how the mechanisms work the Technicopedia article is very detailed.

Technic motorized excavator

By now a lot of details are available about the new sets for the second half of the year. We will have a new motorbike (8051), a container truck (8052), a new crane (8053), but the biggest thing of the year will be certainly the motorized excavator (8043) ígérkezik.

Recently the French site setechnic.com published a detailed review (Google Translate is our friend). But even without any French knowledge one can figure out what Lés photos" and "La video" means.

There are four motors, all of them in the superstructure.

The motors drive the functions through a gearbox-like transmission in six different ways: the whole excavator can move forward and backward, steer left or right, the superstructure can be rotated and the arm can be moved in three different ways.

It is interesting how the motors located in the superstructure can drive the threads. Like this:

The gear at the bottom is familiar from 8880 - it rotates around the axle.

You should certainly look at the photos ("Les photos"), they even have a couple of shots showing the list of all parts.

Finally, a video: