There's a remake contest at HispaLUG, the challenge is to rebuild in actual stile a LEGO set released before the year 2000 and of course my entry is a technic set, concretely the 8837 Pneumatic Excavator.
This is the original:
And this is my remake, keeping the pneumatic functions, and the double function of the HOG, for steering and for upper excavator body rotation, like all 90's technic set rebuild the main challenge is to "translate" the proportions of technic bricks (6:5) to liftarm (1:1) another detail you will notice is the colour change, from red to orange in order to give an actual look to the model.
The result is a not very elaborated but very playable excavator ( it took me less than tree hours to build)
It's not usual to see that kind of technic creations that mix full of functions technic core, relatively small scale and a Lego "system" exterior, this is because it's not easy to build with that construction requirements.
SFRIP has done it with honours with this two models seen in the past Catbrick 2012
The images are self-explaining but note the large amount of functions, the scale and the aesthetics that this models have:
After the new Lego Power functions elements review Sariel show how these elements work in (for the moment) the unique set where they come, the LEGO Technic 9398 4x4 Crawler.
In this review we will find the box art, time-lapse build, model functionalities, crawling abilities comparative, how it work with other wheels, and a wild engineer hamster...
All the new Power Functions goodies from the 9398 Crawler nicely reviewed in this video by Sariel, it helps a lot to figure what possibilities these new elements have.
Also there's another interesting review by LasseDeleuran with nice speeds comparative.
The new receiver, the IR V2 is a good new, now it seems that we can ad motors to the receiver without break it like in the first version of it.
The servo is quite interesting, like nxt motors but controlled with both remote controllers (classic PF and trains PF) and with the battery box, nice for steering (of course) and other devices like valves, GBC modules, control pneumatic stuff, technic "sculptures", Victorian machines...
And the "L" motor seems stronger than the "M" but not as destructive as the XL, known as the "pin bender"
Can't wait to have one 9398 crawler set in my hands.
Perfectly recreated loom machine, for sure this will be hard to build and harder to adjust...
From the video description:
"One year of development, weawing machine based on mechanical movement, only one motor ! Displayed at Internationnal lego exhibition Fanabriques 2012 at Rosheim the 29, 30 june of 2012. During 2 days : 30cm lengh of woven material for 70m of raw string !"
I also love the 3 digit-counter and I don't know what exactly the thing near it is..