Subject:
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8094 UCC model upgrades
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.technic
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Date:
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Mon, 18 Nov 2002 20:00:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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827 times
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I decided to take a break from my main Technic project yesterday and messed
around a bit with the models from the 8094 Control Center. I only have one
8094 set but it seems that most of the specialized pieces are used by only
one or two models, and I happened to have all the parts to build both the
pen plotting machine and mobile crane models at the same time, except for
the control center which I have to switch between them. No real changes made
to the pen plotter; I added on a micromotor to move the pen up and down, but
that's it. The major addition I had in mind was for the crane: the addition
of a third motor and geartrain to power the wheels and make the crane move
without changing around the basic chassis design much. There is no steering
system or differentials (definitely no room left for them, as things are
already in a very tight fit), but I was able to get power to all four wheels.
Here is the setup I used:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=28531
(sorry my camera sucks; I brightened up the images to make some things
easier to see)
Aside from a weight brick in the back, the top part (above the turntable) is
exactly the same as the old one and all of the modifications were made to
the lower section. (if you are not familiar with this model, go here for
more information: http://cp5670.250x.com/TC/reviews/8094.htm)
The new chassis is two studs longer than the original, a change I had to
make to fit everything in, but there was a good amount of empty space in the
original design and this extension, coupled with repositioning the turntable
mechanism to one side, allowed enough room for another motor in there. The
path from the motor to the wheels is geared down 1:243 using several
8-tooth/24-tooth gear connections in series, which makes the model move
somewhat slow (about the same speed as the Barcode Multi-Set truck), but the
torque offered is surprisingly better than I had expected and the crane runs
pretty well on a carpet even while carrying something. The geartrain is
somewhat messy and runs through itself in a few places (note the use of the
dark gray 16-tooth gears) but hey, it works. :)
I had to change the height of the wheels so that they are on the lowest
layer of beams, which meant that the original stabilizer design did not
extend far down enough, but this was easily fixed by replacing the existing
"control arms" with ones a stud longer. The old design also used extra bits
attached to the inside of the sliding parts to restrict the motion of the
stabilizers, but this was just taking up an extra stud of width inside, so I
instead had some 3-length friction pegs outcrop from the sliding units that
collide with the support beams on the side, thus preventing the stabilizers
from falling out of place. The main problem with this setup is that I could
not get the stabilizers to retract as much as they were able to with the old
version.
Overall, I am fairly satisfied with this, although it may be worthwhile to
try increasing the space inside a bit more and adding in differentials. I
might also try replacing the old motor used for the drive with a newer gear
motor; the reason I did not do so already was that I don't have any unused
ones left at the moment.
On a side note, has anyone noticed that the status LEDs on the old (8094)
control center are much brighter than those on the new (8485) one?
Just thought I would share this little addon. :) Anyway, back to my main
truck project for now...
-Gaurav
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