What is a Lego gearbox good for anyway? How about an automatic one? Sariel has always great ideas, this video explains everything:
The original entry on Sariel's blog.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
8880 Super Car
Meanwhile I got a 8880 car in my possession too. I was thinking for a long time which one to get from the many super cars. Although I like the others too, the 8880 is special because it is still made of studded bricks and it has many working parts. Finally I have managed to get one.
The car has so many interesting details that I rather do not spend much time on how it was built. As a short summary, Grandma was here and played with the kids so that I can devote my day to it. At the end I succeeded.
How does it work? First, it has double wishbone suspension on front and rear. On the image above the blue items are the front wishbones. All wheels are driven, universal joints carry the rotation between the wheels and the differentials. The car has three of those - above you can see the front one but there is one in the rear and one in the middle too. In contrast to real all-wheel-drive cars there is no self locking feature, wheels can spin easily. But an owner of a Lego car can live with that.
The above picture also shows the gears of the gearbox. It is more sophisticated than
classic Lego gearboxes: there are freely rotating gears on two axes and moving the lever will attach them to the axles through special transmission rings. This set has 4 forward gears and no reverse but it has a fully functional neutral state. The lever can be operated the same way as on real cars. On the picture below shows the lever in fourth gear.
The car sports all-wheel steering as well: rear wheels steer in the opposite direction and less than the front wheels. It requires a good amount of force, there is no power steering :)
At the end of the drive chain there is a V8 engine driven by a real chain. The amount of moving parts can be felt when we try to push the car - it is much harder than with the 8458 racer. Engine brake is also realistic - the selected gear influences it a lot besides the speed of the pistons.
If you are interested in more visit the album too.
The car has so many interesting details that I rather do not spend much time on how it was built. As a short summary, Grandma was here and played with the kids so that I can devote my day to it. At the end I succeeded.
How does it work? First, it has double wishbone suspension on front and rear. On the image above the blue items are the front wishbones. All wheels are driven, universal joints carry the rotation between the wheels and the differentials. The car has three of those - above you can see the front one but there is one in the rear and one in the middle too. In contrast to real all-wheel-drive cars there is no self locking feature, wheels can spin easily. But an owner of a Lego car can live with that.
The above picture also shows the gears of the gearbox. It is more sophisticated than
classic Lego gearboxes: there are freely rotating gears on two axes and moving the lever will attach them to the axles through special transmission rings. This set has 4 forward gears and no reverse but it has a fully functional neutral state. The lever can be operated the same way as on real cars. On the picture below shows the lever in fourth gear.
The car sports all-wheel steering as well: rear wheels steer in the opposite direction and less than the front wheels. It requires a good amount of force, there is no power steering :)
At the end of the drive chain there is a V8 engine driven by a real chain. The amount of moving parts can be felt when we try to push the car - it is much harder than with the 8458 racer. Engine brake is also realistic - the selected gear influences it a lot besides the speed of the pistons.
If you are interested in more visit the album too.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Arvo Porsche
Besides Lego Technic the other thing that gets me excited is realistic and not too big models. Like this from the Arvo brothers:
How much time have they spent to put all the bricks in place? How could they get so many special bricks? And how could they build such a curvy thing from bricks?
And how could I have one too?
Via Brothers Brick.
How much time have they spent to put all the bricks in place? How could they get so many special bricks? And how could they build such a curvy thing from bricks?
And how could I have one too?
Via Brothers Brick.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
SR 3D Builder
If you like to deal with bricks on your computer, you must know LDraw. There is another less known but very interesting builder: SR 3D Builder was covered by TechnicBRICKs this week. It is also free and the result of several years of work of Sergio Reano.
And what is it capable of? The incomplete list:
And what is it capable of? The incomplete list:
- support for popular file formats like .dat, .ldr and .mpd (incomplete)
- it knows about connected bricks, it is possible to select and move them
- it recognizes rotation axles and models the rotation of connected gears
- support for mirror building in the case of symmetric models
Thursday, March 26, 2009
gzurti's LDraw page
I wrote about LDraw a while back. One of my faithful readers sent a link to his creations:
http://gzurti.uw.hu/
It is worth to have a look at what LDraw is capable of in the hands of a pro.
http://gzurti.uw.hu/
It is worth to have a look at what LDraw is capable of in the hands of a pro.
Monday, March 23, 2009
How to get Lego
We already discussed how to buy bricks but not yet how to acquire a whole set. This part is mostly about auction sites on the net. Of course it would be possible to buy directly from Lego but there are many reasons not to do so: 1. it is expensive (unless you live in the States) 2. the set is not sold any more 3. we would like to have a set with real bricks (with studs).
As usual, the net is our friend. If your dream set is still sold then shop.lego.com tells you its current price in different countries. Usually the States has the best prices. So if you happen to live there or go there occasionally then the best thing is to go to a Lego store and grab it. In the case of older sets like 8860 "Auto chassis" Lugnet tells you its original price.
So far so good, we can start searching on the auction sites. There may be many other sites depending on where you live, we only conside EBay here. If EBay does not have a page in your country, don't worry - you can also register on the site in other countries. For example EBay.de has direct 11 hits for "lego 8860". The good thing is that it immediately lists hits from other countries is well. The results are in the range from "a bunch of dusty bricks" to "unopened original from 1980" with appropriate price tags. A good buy needs a lot of time and searching.
If we decide and did not register with EBay yet, then this is the first thing to do. The best is to register in your own country or in one closeby to avoid customs fees. (This is actually more complicated than that, if you are not sure, ask someone who knows more.) It requires a valid postal address. EBay checks this address by sending a code in a mail. You should do this well before participating in an auction, it does not cost any money. It is also worth having a PayPal account (see previous post).
When everything is set, it is time to start bidding! The recommended strategy is the following: when seeing your dream set, you should first decide how much we are willing to pay for it. (It is advised to learn about shipping costs and other details in advance.) Then you should set an alarm for 5 or 10 minutes before the auction ends and be prepared to be online at that time. When the alarm goes off and the price is still below your treshold, it is time to start bidding. It is still possible that someone else is doing the same, but at least you did not increase the price ahead of time. If you win, the only thing left is to pay and wait for the result.
Really good sets are expensive but there are many bargains, especially if you are willing to make some sacrifice. Remember that Lego bricks are good quality and do not get old quickly. It may happen that you need to clean them, and if there are a couple of missing or broken bricks, they are easy to replace.
Happy bidding!
As usual, the net is our friend. If your dream set is still sold then shop.lego.com tells you its current price in different countries. Usually the States has the best prices. So if you happen to live there or go there occasionally then the best thing is to go to a Lego store and grab it. In the case of older sets like 8860 "Auto chassis" Lugnet tells you its original price.
So far so good, we can start searching on the auction sites. There may be many other sites depending on where you live, we only conside EBay here. If EBay does not have a page in your country, don't worry - you can also register on the site in other countries. For example EBay.de has direct 11 hits for "lego 8860". The good thing is that it immediately lists hits from other countries is well. The results are in the range from "a bunch of dusty bricks" to "unopened original from 1980" with appropriate price tags. A good buy needs a lot of time and searching.
If we decide and did not register with EBay yet, then this is the first thing to do. The best is to register in your own country or in one closeby to avoid customs fees. (This is actually more complicated than that, if you are not sure, ask someone who knows more.) It requires a valid postal address. EBay checks this address by sending a code in a mail. You should do this well before participating in an auction, it does not cost any money. It is also worth having a PayPal account (see previous post).
When everything is set, it is time to start bidding! The recommended strategy is the following: when seeing your dream set, you should first decide how much we are willing to pay for it. (It is advised to learn about shipping costs and other details in advance.) Then you should set an alarm for 5 or 10 minutes before the auction ends and be prepared to be online at that time. When the alarm goes off and the price is still below your treshold, it is time to start bidding. It is still possible that someone else is doing the same, but at least you did not increase the price ahead of time. If you win, the only thing left is to pay and wait for the result.
Really good sets are expensive but there are many bargains, especially if you are willing to make some sacrifice. Remember that Lego bricks are good quality and do not get old quickly. It may happen that you need to clean them, and if there are a couple of missing or broken bricks, they are easy to replace.
Happy bidding!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Lego aircraft
Brothers-brick is full of aircraft again, it is worth to take a look. The galleries of the four best creators:
- Klaus Dobisch: (gallery)
- Mike Psiaki (mpsiaki)
- HIEN (HIEN)
- Ralph Savelsberg (Mad Physicist)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Five things you may not know about LDraw
As a kid my dream was to have so many bricks that I never run out of them during building. As time has passed I have realized that this is never going to happen. But there is a small hope - you always have enough when building from virtual bricks.
This post promotes LDraw. This is a free program that can be used just like some serious piece of 3D CAD software - to build models from Lego bricks. For example like that:
Matt Wagner, a famous Lego builder had a guest editorial on the Brothers Brick blog titled Five things you may not know about LDraw . It is worth reading, I think it is a great intro to LDraw.
Besides LDView you can also learn how to make raytraced images using Koyan's tutorial on how to render LDraw images with POV-Ray.
Now, if you happen to browse Brickshelf and find some .LDR files - you should know what it is!
(As a sidenote, Lego has their own official building program: Lego Digital Designer. I'll write about it another time.)
This post promotes LDraw. This is a free program that can be used just like some serious piece of 3D CAD software - to build models from Lego bricks. For example like that:
Matt Wagner, a famous Lego builder had a guest editorial on the Brothers Brick blog titled Five things you may not know about LDraw . It is worth reading, I think it is a great intro to LDraw.
Besides LDView you can also learn how to make raytraced images using Koyan's tutorial on how to render LDraw images with POV-Ray.
Now, if you happen to browse Brickshelf and find some .LDR files - you should know what it is!
(As a sidenote, Lego has their own official building program: Lego Digital Designer. I'll write about it another time.)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Polish Golden Stud 2008 Awards
The winners of the Golden Stud 2008 Awards have been announced in Poland on Saturday. There are winners in numerous categories including diorama, small model and microscale model. As a Technic fan, these are the ones that have impressed me most:
The Kamaz track is so realistic that only when zoomed in I have realized that it is made of bricks. Clicking on the image brings you to the galery. This Star truck is very impressive too:
The Kamaz track is so realistic that only when zoomed in I have realized that it is made of bricks. Clicking on the image brings you to the galery. This Star truck is very impressive too:
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