Tag Archives: Construction

Digging Dirt

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The Elves here at TLCB Towers eat all sorts of things. These include actual meals, awarded to them for finding a blog-worthy creation such as this one, but also glue sticks, dog treats, erasers, and anything else they deem edible.

This means that everyone’s least favourite job is cleaning out the Elves’ cage room, but today this TLCB Writer doesn’t have to get close to the little turds’, um… turds, because he can clean remotely thanks to this spectacular fully motorised Volvo EC300E excavator!

Built by Nura of Eurobricks, this incredible creation blends the best of Technic and third-party suppliers, with three SBricks delivering Bluetooth control to eight Power Functions motors, a suite of Bricktec LED lights, and two custom pneumatic units, with the result being that the 3D-printed bucket can move just like the real thing.

The tracks, rotating superstructure, two-stage boom, bucket, and twin pneumatic compressors are all operable remotely, with the electronics hidden inside a superbly realistic and authentically liveried exterior.

It’s a masterpiece of Lego engineering, and you can see more of Nura’s amazing creation at the Eurobricks forum, and via the video below. Take a look via the links whilst we put this Volvo to work.

Skid Marks

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The Lego Car Blog Elves – being simple creatures – see an orange digger, and they like it. We, The Lego Car Blog Staff, are far more sophisticated; the Elves brought us an orange digger, and we liked it.

Constructed by kralls_workshop, this neat skid-steer loader features a mechanically-operated arm elevation and bucket tilt (via knobs at the rear), opening doors, plus interchangeable attachments. Free building instructions are available (one hundred TLCB Points Krall!) and you can find full details and imagery at both Flickr and Eurobricks.

Diggum with Blues

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We’re diggin’ this vintage looking excavator by Flickr’s Christoph Ellerman. It can really dig too, thanks to a suite of electronics hidden inside, with a three stage arm, slewing superstructure, and skid steer tracks. Click the link above if you’re diggin’ it too.

Microscale Mech Mining

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It’s sometime in the future, where humankind have traversed the vast void of space, colonised  whole new worlds, and yet are still digging big holes in the ground to extract minerals. Sigh.

Interplanetary destruction aside, Duncan Lindbo‘s ‘Gila’ six-legged mobile mining mech does look rather neat though, and it comes to life too, thanks to a motorised bucket-wheel and LED lighting.

There’s more of this microscale mech to see at Duncan’s photostream, and you can lay waste to an alien eco-system via the link above.

Electric Load

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The world is, gradually, going electric. And that means even construction behemoths like this huge wheel loader are now available with battery power.

This is one such BEV, the LiuGong 856HE MAX, with a 21 ton operating weight and a gargantuan 423kWh battery.

Built by previous bloggee Bricksley, this stunning 1:17 recreation of the battery-electric wheel loader is itself battery-powered, with four Control+ motors enabling realistic drive, articulated steering, arm, and bucket movement, plus LED lighting, a back-up alarm, and even a working horn.

A LEGO Mindstorms Robot Inventor Hub enables the model to be operated via an Xbox controller, which we found most useful for terrorising TLCB Elves in the office, and you can check out the full image gallery and build details via Bricksley’s ‘LuiGong 856HE Max’ album, at the Eurobricks discussion forum, and via the video of the model in action below. Click the links above to go electric.

YouTube Video

Need a Lift?

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We love functions-packed creations here at The Lego Car Blog, and few this year have come packed with as many as Wiseman_2’s spectacular three-axle crane.

Making their TLCB debut, Wiseman_2 has constructed the model for a Eurobricks contest, equipping it with working steering on the first and third axles (via both the steering wheel and ‘HOG’), all-wheel suspension, a six-cylinder piston engine connected to a four-speed gearbox driven by the un-steered axle, and working two-stage outriggers that both extend/retract and lower/raise.

Of course a mobile crane needs a boom and winch too, and Wiseman_2’s is superbly served in that department, with a three-stage boom that extends to over a hundred studs in length, raising and extending via mechanics on the right hand side of the rotating superstructure.

It’s a fantastic feat of Technic engineering and one of the finest models of this type we’ve featured yet. There’s plenty more to see – including work-in-progress and photos showing the crane’s mechanics – at both the Eurobricks discussion forum and Wiseman_2’s ‘Three-Axle Crane’ Flickr album. Click the links above for a very good lift indeed.

Double-Bs

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Today’s we have not one but two alternate builds. And they’re the same.

This brilliant John Deere High-Speed Dozer is the work of previous bloggee M_longer, and has been constructed from two of LEGO’s excellent 42163 Heavy-Duty Bulldozer Technic starter sets.

Using every single one of the combined 390 pieces available, M-longer’s 42163 (x2) B-Model features articulated steering, working blade elevation, and looks remarkably like the unusual real-world vehicle it emulates.

The full gallery is available via Bricksafe, and full details, a video, and link to building instructions can all be found on Eurobricks. Click the links above to take a look.

Half-a-B

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What’s half a B? A D? Whatever it is, that’s what we have here today, in the shape of the excellent Technic bulldozer by Flickr’s Dyens Creations, who has constructed it only from the parts found within LEGO Technic 42175 Volvo FMX Truck & EC230 Electric Excavator set, specifically the pieces used to build the EC230 excavator.

An array of working functions feature, and the bulldozer can still fit onto the Volvo FMX’s trailer, for which the pieces – and those of the truck pulling it – remain unused. There’s lots more of Dyen’s half-a-B-Model to see at his ‘LEGO 42175 – Heavy Duty Excavator’ album, and you can swap your digging for dozing via the link in the text above.

Top Grades

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After extolling the virtues of creations that don’t need a suite of electronics earlier today, here’s one with a suite of electronics. Because shut up, that why.

It is astonishing though, coming again from Flickr’s Beat Felber who is on something of a mass upload. This one is a Champion 100-T motor-grader, a Canadian design from the 1970s, and the world’s largest.

Powered by one LEGO Power Functions L Motor and eight third-party CaDa micromotors, Beat’s grader can drive, steer, lean its front wheels, pivot the cab articulation, plus raise, lower, angle, pitch, and side-shift the blade, all remotely operable via bluetooth thanks to three SBrick controllers. Which would make it an unmatched Elf-squishing device if it wasn’t so slow.

Still, whilst the TLCB Elf that found Beat’s Champion grader may be disappointed, we certainly aren’t, and there’s more to see of this astonishing creation at his ‘Champion 100-T’ album. Click the link above to receive top grades.

Skid Marks

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We love B-models here at The Lego Car Blog. Taking a suite of parts designed to create one thing and repurposing them to create another thing entirely is the very essence of LEGO.

Cue previous bloggee (and something of a B-model specialist) Dyens Creations, who has redeployed the pieces from the 42122 Technic Jeep Wrangler Rubicon set to create something very different indeed.

Short of a bouncy castle or an F/A-18 fighter jet, a skid-steer loader as about as far removed from the Wrangler source material as it’s possible to get. Unless you’re a non-Jeep person, in which case an ugly agricultural lump of poor-handling machinery is perhaps not that far removed at all.

Whatever your persuasion, Dyen’s 42122 alternate is an excellent one, with a working loader arm and tilting bucket, an opening engine cover, and even enough pieces left over to add a construction barrier and warning sign.

There’s more of the model to see at Dyen’s ‘LEGO 42122 – SKID STEER LOADER’ album and you can make the jump from the trail to the construction site via the link above.

My Other Piece of Construction Equipment…

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LEGO’s brand new 60420 Construction Excavator set is undoubtedly their best City-themed excavator to date. Launched today and aimed at ages 8+, the set features over 600 pieces, with a huge posable boom arm, 360° slowing superstructure, and a pair of brick-built Technic tracks. It also wears Technic price-tag though, costing a very un-City-like $55 / £50.

Fortunately however, previous bloggee Marek Markiewicz (aka M_longer) has doubled 60420’s value-for-money by turning it into a 2-in-1 set, having somehow designed and published a superb bulldozer alternate complete with building instructions on the day of the set’s release.

There’s a working blade and rear ripper, plus a removable cab, and you can find all the images as well as the link the building instructions for Marek’s brilliant bulldozer B-Model via both Flickr and Bricksafe. Take a look via the links above to double your 60420’s potential.

LEGO Technic 42175 Volvo FMX Truck & EC230 Electric Excavator | Set Preview

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Following our preview earlier this month of the brand new H2 2024 LEGO Technic sets you may have been wondering where the promised fourth real-world vehicle was. Well today can we reveal all, starting – as the more eagle-eyed reader will have spotted – with the new 42175 Volvo FMX Truck & EC230 Electric Excavator not being one real-world vehicle at all, but two.

Following a long tradition of truck-with-trailer-and-vehicular-load Technic sets, 42175 ushers Volvo’s off-road FMX truck and electric EC230 tracked excavator into the Technic line-up, bringing pneumatics back in the process.

Aimed at ages 10+ and constructed from 2,274 pieces, 42175 features working steering, a tilting cab, and a six-cylinder engine on the truck, fold-down ramps on the trailer, and a 360° slewing superstructure and a two-stage pneumatically-operated bucket arm on the excavator.

There’s also a ‘charging station’ that can be lifted off the trailer by the excavator for when it needs some more electricity, which we can only assume in real-life would be a giant battery or – more ironically – a diesel generator. Either way it looks a bit pointless within the set, doing precisely nothing whatsoever.

The three other components (truck, trailer, excavator) look sufficiently playable however, if a little under-endowed aesthetically for the £170 / $200 asking price. This is particularly true for the excavator’s bucket arm, which uses two small buckets to create one of the correct size. If this approach isn’t to support a B-Model, it’s a bit of a corner cut.

Still, 42175 could be a worthwhile addition to the 2024 Technic line up, and you’ll be able to get your hands on it when it reaches stores in August of this year.

Forking on the Desk

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We’ve all wanted to do it. Build a desk-toy forklift that is. Well Flickr’s Nathan Hake did anyway, and has done so, with this neat and brilliantly-engineered desk-appropriate creation.

A knob at the back raises the forks, enabling the movement of a variety of pallet-based items, one of which is itself smaller forklift. If that one was lifting an even smaller forklift it’d be some kind of forklift inception…

We’ll move on before our brain melts, but you can check out more of Nathan’s desk-toy forklift in action at his photostream. Click the link above to climb onto his desk.

Extra! Extra!

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This is a Dressta 530R Extra wheel loader, and seeing as we know less about wheel loaders than The Brothers Brick do about talking to girls, we have absolutely no idea what the ‘Extra’ bit means. Or the ‘530R’ bit…

Anyway, our incompetence aside, the model is rather good, coming from Bricksley of Flickr, featuring pendular suspension, a posable arm and bucket, and an articulated frame. There’s more to see at Bricksley’s ‘Dressta 530R Extra’ album and you can head there via the link above if you’re wheelie diggin’ it*.

*No we don’t know how to talk to girls either.

Big Tip

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Discovered by one of our Elves on Eurobricks, this fantastic model is an Iveco T-Way, a heavy-duty 8×4 truck outfitted – in this case – as a huge tipper.

Built by previous bloggee mpj, the truck includes remote control drive on the rear two axles, steering on the front two, all-axle suspension, and – of course – a massive tipping body driven by a motorised linear actuator.

LEGO’s Powered-Up components allow the truck to be operated via bluetooth, and you can see more (and find a link to building instructions) at the Eurobricks forum. Click the link above for a big tip.