When you ’re a kid , building a Lego fortress that can hold up attacks from G.I. Joe and Transformers is a real accomplishment . As an grownup , you need a bigger challenge , and that ’s what Lego’s3,929 - small-arm Technic Bucket Wheel Excavatorset provides . It ’s the most work I ’ve ever put into building a miniature , but the resulting edifice makes you feel like you merit a task at Legoland .
Lego ’s Technic sets have grown larger and more ambitious over clip , packing an incredible amount of detail into replicas of substantial - life vehicles . ThePorsche 911 GT3 RSmodel even featured a working gear wheel box . However , whereas the Lego Porsche is powered by you simply labour it around , the Lego Bucket Wheel Excavator is motorise , with multiple moving characteristic that drastically increase the construction challenge .
But the word ‘ challenge ’ does n’t quite convey exactly what you ’re in for when it comes to building the Lego Excavator . At 3,929 - pieces it ’s formally the biggest Lego Technic set to escort . The loge it comes in is massive , but the real scope of what you ’re take in charge only becomes clear when you pull out the bent ’s 551 - Thomas Nelson Page instruction manual . I ’m not even indisputable I ’ve ever read a Koran that was this bounteous .
All images: Andrew Liszewski/Gizmodo
All - in - all I drop roughly 20 time of day turning the myriad bags of semi - organized Lego pieces into the power shovel model pictured on the box . Lego ’s instruction manuals have always been unclouded and easy to espouse , but that ’s not to say that some footfall were n’t challenge .
At times the excavator build can be sluttish , mundane , and even monotonic , with just a few pieces being added in each stride . But other multiplication you ’ll find yourself spending 10 second hunt down pieces ( a barrage fire of plastic food storage bins are a must for screen out opus ) and then figuring out where every last one postulate to go .
Somewhere around halfway through the build I was altogether gruesome of Lego , and my thumbs were natural from pushing plastic pegs into tiny Technic holes . But I carried on , and by the time I had reached the last pages of the manual , I was amazingly proud of what I had carry out .
All of your gruelling oeuvre , aching thumbs , and bloodshot eyes leave you with an impressive miniature reproduction of the monumental strip minelaying machines that jab away at the earth .
The Bucket Wheel Excavator rumbles along on a set of workings armored combat vehicle treads that help spread out the Excavator ’s weight . The real - aliveness version is all but hooked on monolithic tread like this so that it does n’t just sink into the world , but Lego ’s rendering is also surprisingly goodish give the 3,929 charge card piece that decease into its construction .
On the front you ’ll regain the excavating rack itself , one of the good example ’s many motorize features , which spins to snarf Lego rocks up onto the excavator ’s moving conveyor belted ammunition . The arm endure the spinning bicycle can also be raised and lowered , using a manually - operated telephone dial that extends a set of hydraulic arms .
A pair of motorized conveyor belts then take those random bits of Lego take up up by the excavating rack and move them through the digger . One of the belts can also be partly rotated from side to side so that the Lego debris can be finally dumped into a diminutive waste-yard truck simulation that ’s included with the set .
What ’s most telling about Lego ’s Bucket Wheel Excavator is n’t just that it ’s motorized : It ’s that all of the moving features , including its power to force forwards and backwards , are power by a unmarried galvanising motor .
You ’d take on there was at least a twelve motor powering all of the Excavator ’s trend , but in realness there ’s just one , selectively operating various functions using a complicated transmission and various gear boxes . It reduces the number of batteries you need to power the model , but the downside of being dependent on a single motor is that all that gearing event in motorized functions that operate very , very easy .
See this overhead shooting of the Lego Bucket Wheel Excavator driving through the frame in about three seconds ? That footage has been sped up immensely . In reality it took the fashion model just over four minutes to roam across that short distance . It ’s agonizingly slow , but that also helps deal the miniature scale of this Bucket Wheel Excavator since the existent - life version move even slower .
It ’s far from being a deal breakers , though . Half the fun of play with Lego is the build itself , and the Bucket Wheel Excavator is , without a dubiousness , the most complicated Lego hardening you could buy today . You ’ll hate yourself for even thinking about attempting it once you find yourself midway through the build and compelled to finish it . But by the time you ’re done there ’s a howling feeling of accomplishment that you were capable to tackle the biggest challenge from Lego ’s designers .
README
Without a doubt , the most ambitious Lego circle you have ever built .
Expect to lose many , many time of day of your life while putting it all together , including croak back to pay off your misunderstanding .
Your quarter round will be raw and sore by the meter you attach the last piece , but it ’s a fulfil discomfort .
At $ 280 , it ’s not a gaudy set .
Powered by a single electric motor which reduces the number of batteries you ’ll need .
The complex gearing that allows it to run off a single galvanising motor also mean it runs very , very slow .
Ca n’t be used for literal strip - minelaying purposes .
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