I have a new found obsession with LEGO Technic kits.

In reply to clutchsmoke :

They are out there for $300.  It's a 6 year old kit. Who buys LEGO and doesn't bust open the box and build it? That's why unbuilt kits are crazy expensive. 

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to clutchsmoke :

That's the nature of the limited run special sets. Especially Ferraris. Big resale value. A lot of people buy one to build and one to flip. But where's the fun in that?

More stable than most stocks 

Ugh it did this earlier, all finished. But it's only letting me upload one at time, made me go back and fix it later. I'll add the rest when not on mobile.

The cool thing about the jump seat, you push the rocker panel on the opposite and and the seat pushes the door open and pops out.

Also a little thing on the back you pull, and a panel drops down and mini ghost trap rolls out.

It will probably be awhile before I pull certain pieces back apart to put the lights in.

In reply to Appleseed :

They definitely are...

gearheadE30 said:

I still have all of my Legos from growing up, right in that time when they went from brick-on-brick to lots of custom pieces, the kind of "shell over frame" silhouette constructionfor technic stuff, etc. Always been more of a fan of the brick on brick style since there were more ways to modify/customize things. Those Creator sets look right up my alley...

I recently (finally) dug out the 4 totes worth of bricks from my and later (by 15 years) my brother's sets, sorted the pieces, and used what I remembered along with what few instructions were with them and what unique bricks I found to determine exactly what sets were there and rebuild them (picking up parts to fill in where they had been lost as necessary). Some of oldest sets are quite amusing with how they built things like a police motorcycle from bricks before LEGO made actual molded bicycle/motorcycle parts.

In reply to z31maniac :

If I had more space available I'd probably pick up the new Ecto-1 kit... but I have the original minifig-scale one and have a hard time justifying another one. 

Of course, I also have the original (and one of if not the first) IDEAS minifig-scale BTTF DeLorean Time Machine and will absolutey pick up a larger, more detailed one as has been rumored if it is actually released.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Available space is such a big issue with modern Lego.  I love the more intricate sets, but I just don't have the space to keep them built.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Definitely. I picked up 2 5-shelf plastic shelving units from Lowe's that has all of my old LEGO on it as well as all of my LEGO Mecha. I've got several shelves in my IKEA glass display case with several of the fancier sets (like Central Perk and Bro Thor's Pad) in it and some sets on the of them (like my early-2000's Shuttle and the newer LEM), and a couple of floating shelves around the room with my Saturn V and other sets on them. I'm actually planning on giving a whole bunch of (mainly my brother's :P) older SW sets to the younger members of my extended family for Christmas as all of them are big LEGO fans (and several are also big SW fans, so double-win).

I'm a bit envious of some of the people on the FB groups I'm in who have huge rooms dedicated to their sets... my office is the only place The Dancer doesn't mind my having them out (with the exception of the flower bouquet, which she loves), and it has to serve so many other purposes I'm really restricted in what I can do. But then- like her 4-car limit- it makes good sense as it also keeps me from just buying everything I see that I like (which is a lot).

You don't have to build the big ones :) Speed Champions (which is not Technics, but tends to use the classic brick on brick technique) are a good size for driving around a desk and don't take up too much room unless you get a little out of control. I'm a big fan of the F1 cars in that scale, they're just right to be identifiable.

Also, Speed Champions uses the same goofy little steering wheel that's been around for 30+ years.

My space sets are mounted on the wall with 3D printed mounts. It helps that my home office has 10' ceilings, that gives me bonus space in orbit.

Baby Space Truck (from the ISS set) lives on my desk so it can zoom around during zoom calls. That's why they call it zoom, right?

I just put together the new Speed Champions Bronco R/Ford GT set. Pretty sweet.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I took a similar approach with a few of my (real-life) space sets:

The 3D printed brackets are quite cool though. I have seen some pretty impressive setups mounting the Saturn V vertically as well- at least one with a really cool illuminated 'smoke plume' under it as if it were launching.

I have some LEDs and a microcontroller that looks like a Classic Space minifig, I have considered putting "live" flame in the F1 rocket nozzles for the Saturn V. Wasn't willing to go as far as emulating the full launch plume, though :)

In reply to Keith Tanner :

My LEM has the light kit for it installed- I looked into it for the SatV, but wasn't as impressed with them. If the Roci weren't so massive and relatively unstable I'd considered trying to pick up the bricks to create an appropriate drive plume behind it, but it's already almost too big for the shelf it's on and it would be pain to attach to the already finicky drive cone. I have also considered putting a light kit on the ISS as I thought it would be really cool having it lit up on the ceiling- but would either have wires running up the wall and across the ceiling to it or have to worry about putting a battery pack on it and figuring a way to switch the lights on and off...

Keith Tanner said:

You don't have to build the big ones :) Speed Champions (which is not Technics, but tends to use the classic brick on brick technique) are a good size for driving around a desk and don't take up too much room unless you get a little out of control. I'm a big fan of the F1 cars in that scale, they're just right to be identifiable.

For sure.  I've got several of the Speed Champions, and the smaller Technics scattered around my desk area (my first post in this thread shows most of them grouped up.)  Its just that the Technics are so much fun.

I did just finish the best pizza delivery car out there.

I was going to build my own because it's fun! Basically, just put some color-cycling LEDs inside some modified nozzles. Agreed on the power wire, that's uncool.

I like what you all are doing! I need to get my lazy a$$ on this Range Rover kit. 

But like many of you have mentioned, I have no idea where to put it when finished.

Going to be starting in on this shortly- I'm really looking forward to it since it appears to be the first time they've tried to do a full-blown dynamic system on a Technic helicopter with both pitch and collective. Plus, it just looks like an awesome build- and if I'm lucky I'll be able to rebuild it into something closer to one of our helos (S-92 is probably going to be the closest, though this has a 5-blade rotorhead vs. the 92's 4-blade... though they really should had put 5 blades on the '92 IMO...).

Only downside is that I am having to totally clear off a shelf to have room for it (and space out the helos on the other shelves a bit better), so it means that my really old-school Castle set will be relocated to share the table with my Modulars/City sets.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Hang it from the ceiling.

Appleseed said:

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Hang it from the ceiling.

I'm a bit wary of hanging something as large as this from the ceiling. Granted, if I were to hang any larger sets from the ceiling the Technic ones would be the ones I'd be most confident would not fall apart, but I'd likely hang one of the other Technic helos I've got before this one for the simple reason that this one came with the motor to spin the dynamic system and it would be better down where it's accessible.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Wonder if you could get away with a wall mount?

Appleseed said:

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Wonder if you could get away with a wall mount?

Possibly. But honestly, it's not a huge problem to rearrange things to put it on the shelf. I really need to get around to really organizing things in my office and doing things like putting in the extra shelves in my display case to be able to put more stuff in them (I'm going to need that in a month when The Office set arrives- it's likely going to be too big of a footprint to fit into the display case itself, but I can put other things in there to have room for it) and get another Minifigure display case so I don't have so many of them sitting on shelves too. I've finally gotten things figured out to print the riser plates I need to get my old roadplates and the Modular baseplates to play well with the new-style road plates, so I can set up the Modular/City/soon-to-be-Castle table properly, so that will help.

Finished. 

It's the same general scale (unsurpising I suppose since they largely use the same blades...) as my other Technic helos.

It's an interesting (and given the full dynamic system, unsurprisingly quite techincal) build. I always love creative use of parts in LEGO sets, and my favorite of this was the use of Minifig chairs as part of the exhaust deflector fairings:

The big draw of this was the fully functional helicopter dynamic system... for those who don't either work with/on helos or aren't helicopter buffs, think of it as the helicopter equivalent of a LEGO car with a working, shifting transmission. Overall, it's impressive- it largely works as it should, with both the cyclic and collective shifting the rotor head largely as they should... but it could use some improvement. Lateral movement of the cyclic doesn't do nearly as much as it should- I need to pull it apart a bit and see if something's not as tight as it should be- as especially when the motor is on and the system is spinning things just don't move much at all. Pushing forward on the cyclic works quite well- but pulling back doesn't seem to do nearly as much... when the 'stick' is pulled back all the way, the rotor head is largely neutral (think of it as a transmission essentially not having a reverse gear...). Also slightly annoying is that (unlike for the collective) there isn't a way to manipulate the cyclic without reaching into the 'cockpit' through one of the (necessarily open) doors. The collective works pretty much perfectly, which is understandable since it's a lot simpler- the helo on the shelf above the (for now... more on that in a bit) Airbus has functioning collective as well, and unlike the cyclic there's a way to manipulate the collective from outside the cockpit. When I look into rebuilding it I'll see if there's any improvements I can make- though I'm not the best at technic design/construction nor are dynamic systems what I actually work on.

I do really like it though- and I'm looking forward down the line to trying to rebuild it into one of the helicopters that I work on (an S-76 would likely be the easiest- it's largely the same shape, though it's not as tall). This is why (if you're paying close attention) you'll see that I left off all of the stickers that identified the specific helicopter (the 'Airbus' and 'H175' stickers) off of the set. Now I need to shuffle around the rest of the helos so things are more even on the shelves...

That's awesome! I completed the Range Rover kit and installed the lights. Have completed the red VW can and Porsche 911 GTE car (I can't remember the exact designation). 

I'm in the middle of the BMW 1000RR build at the moment. I bought a bunch back in May to beat the announced Aug 1 price hike. 

After the BMW motorcycle is built I have:

Ferrari 488 GTE
Bugatti Chiron
Lamborghini Sian
Ferrari Daytona SP3

It takes a while for me to build these as the only logical place is our large dining room table. So I have the loose parts in little disposable paper bowls. So I have to get everything out and arranged, work for a few hours, then put everything back up. 

Having a cat means not being able to leave anything out or I'd wake up with everything on the floor and missing pieces.