Legos!

[DHC6twinotter]

So, some of you know I'm a big Lego fan, or more specifically, a big Lego Technic fan. If you don't know what Lego Technic is, it is the branch of Lego that offers a more technical side of building. They have parts such as remote controls, motors, linear actuators, pneumatics, as well as a large assortment of gears and axles.

Anyways, even thought this is a Toyota forum, I thought I'd post up a project I've been working on for a while. It is a tractor based on the Case Steiger 335. The tractor is remote controlled and includes a pneumatic 3-point hitch and auxiliary pneumatic outputs for attachments.

[img width=800 height=444]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/case_steiger.jpg[/img]

Specs:

Drive--One large motor at each axle, with differentials.
Steer--One medium motor driving two linear actuators.
PTO--One medium motor.
Air Compressor--One medium motor.
Pneumatic Valves--Three medium motors, one per valve.
Roughly 2000 pieces (just a guess).
18 inches long, or 36 inches with disk attachment.
Fake I6 engine with moving pistons and fan.

Front left view:
[img width=800 height=596]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture3.jpg[/img]

Rear view with pneumatic hitch. The yellow thing under the cab is a small pneumatic cylinder rigged up as a pressure regulator. This makes the motor driving the air compressor turn on/off as needed.
[img width=800 height=599]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture10.jpg[/img]

Rear 3-point hitch and aux air outputs:
[img width=800 height=599]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture8.jpg[/img]

The chassis with body removed:
[img width=800 height=599]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture17.jpg[/img]

Under hood view of the I6 motor and air compressor (yellow cylinder in front of the motor):
[img width=800 height=599]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture4.jpg[/img]

I built the tractor in modules. This module has the 3 pneumatic valves and corresponding motors. The white gears are "clutch gears" that allow gear slippage once a certain torque is met. This keeps the motors from stalling once the pneumatic valves hit their limits:
[img width=800 height=570]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture25.jpg[/img]

The steering mechanism. The two linear actuators can be seen in the background. The motor would be connected to the grey shaft sticking out in the foreground. The tan gear in the middle is part of the gear reduction for the drive axle.
[img width=800 height=599]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture29.jpg[/img]

The disk:
[img width=800 height=599]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture32.jpg[/img]

The mower:
[img width=800 height=599]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/dhc6twinotter/Tractor/picture9.jpg[/img]

And finally, a really horrible video I made. I'm not overly fond of Window's Movie Maker.
Lego Technic Case Steiger

More pictures:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=474751

Anyways, so that's a look at my nerdy hobby.

[some_odd_girl]

Pretty cool! It's awesome what can be done with Legos. I like the pics, what'd you use for the background? (Photo nerd here! Haha)

[DHC6twinotter]

The first picture used my driveway as the background, but everything else was a roll of some thin foam that I picked up from the local arts/crafts store. I just used one piece for the bottom and back, and the back is close-pinned to some chairs on top of our deck table. The sun did the lighting. I did bump up the contrast a bit too. Camera was just my old Canon SD450 that I've had since '06.

[Seanz0rz]

woah! this is the first im seeing pictures of the legos youve done. WOW!

those are very awesome! i lack patience for lego. it takes too much time and fiddling to get everything to fit, i just like to cut and weld stuff together, make it do what i want to do!

those are amazing! im in awe...

[Obi..]

Nice..I stick to basics more and rarely have the time to do designs anymore.

Current builds are..

Sopwith


R2-D2


Then there's some other little things like my racer and all gold Bionicle.

How much have you spent ordering the bit's you needed, or did you use the forum for trades?

I sold off Optimus and BigFoot last year for school $$. R2's up for bids next since I have a spare one N.I.B.

[DHC6twinotter]

Thanks Sean!

Shane, I remember when that Sopwith Camel set came out. Very cool set with some unusual brown pieces.

I'm not really sure how much I've spent on the tractor. Most of the pieces were from sets I've accumulated over the years, but I did have to order a few. I ordered a few of the electronic pieces, and about $60 worth of other parts for this build. If I were to rebuild this and order all the parts, It would probably be $4-500 for parts. But again, most of this is stuff I've accumulated for years.

Cool thing about Legos is that the parts can be used for other builds. I'll probably take the tractor apart sometime this week and use some of the parts for a few other projects I'm working on. Currently working on a JCB 3CX backhoe (almost finished), a Bobcat loader with dual steer modes, and a small scale 16 cylinder radial engine with a variable pitch prop (nothing fancy--just uses the same cylinders that I have in the tractor).

[4x4mike]

Wow, good looking Daniel. I was a total lego kid but never at the level you are. Your project looks like a lot of fun and totally cool. I love that engine, compressor and PTO.

[Robinhood4x4]

Very Cool. I think my legos helped steer me toward being an engineer, but when I was growing up I could never find the technic kits in the store and the internet didn't exist.

Fun fact: Did you know that the Lego company is the largest manufacturer of tires (by number of tires) in the world?

[DHC6twinotter]

Thanks Mike!

Very Cool. I think my legos helped steer me toward being an engineer, but when I was growing up I could never find the technic kits in the store and the internet didn't exist.

Fun fact: Did you know that the Lego company is the largest manufacturer of tires (by number of tires) in the world?

I was really interested in engineering as well, and that's what my major was when I started school. I'm horrible at math, so I ended up switching my major to GIS. And lately, I've been tossing around the idea of going back to school and getting a 2nd degree in Meteorology, but that means more math courses.

I did know that about the tires too. Pretty cool!

[arjan]

I don't have much time or room nowadays, but I collected most of the 70's technic lego sets I could find on ebay.
Had some to start with from when I was a kid, and slowly collected the rest. Some of them are still in bags, I never even got around to assembling them.

Beside that I have tons of legoland & space lego from the late 70's/early 80's. I really played a lot with that stuff when I was a kid.

Below is my technic collection to date. I have a couple of doubles also (bulldozer, crane, & helicopter)