Lego Technic "Control+" reveal, and PF L Motor revelation?

Last year AFOLs were informed by the Lego Community Team that Power Functions would be phased out.  Many discussions took place between the AFOL community and Lego, and you can read more about it in the post from last year HERE.

Control+ (The new bluetooth system for Lego Technic)

Yesterday Lego revealed what would be replacing Power Functions.  It is not called Powered Up like we were told.  Instead it is a new brand of Bluetooth controlled components called CONTROL+

The first set to include CONTROL+ will be a massive Liebherr Bucket Excavator based on this real world machine.

The set is said to have over 4000 parts, 2 Control+ Hubs (which each have 4 outputs) and 7 motors.  As well the model will be able to send telemetry back to the mobile device controlling it.

The new Control+ Hubs are said to use 6xAA sized batteries each, and battery life has yet to be reported on.

This new set will be available August 1st, 2019, and is reported to be priced close to $500USD.

PF L Revelation

Community chat member Brian B brought up a very interesting item that all of the recent Technic sets from 2018+ that did include motors, were motors of the "L Size".

2018

42080 - Forest Harvester

42082 - Rough Terrain Crane

2019

42095 - Remote Controlled Stunt Racer

I'll speculate here and say that by doing this, it allowed them to scale down production of both the M and XL motors, and focus on having L motors produced to be used in the final sets that include Power Functions.  In fact 42095 might be the last set that has any Power Functions motors included!

It is quite possible that M, L and XL motor production has stopped completely, and what is being sold now is remaining inventory.

If you are planning on GBC'ing in the future you should definitely grab a few extra motors sooner, rather then later.

GBC Observer 👁 Week 5, 2019

Welcome to the Observer for Week 5, 2019.

Something that I'm often asked for is instructions for my reservoir stepper.  In this video, Laurie shows you his modified versions of Stuart's BrickFair workshop stepper.  Instructions for Stuart's original can be found HERE.




Ryk pulled this beauty out of mothballs after we were discussing Star Wars builds in the community chat.  Another well themed module, and fun edit for the video.



And lastly here is a basket shooter that is super clean, and appears to work well.  I remember seeing it on Lego Ideas a few years ago when I was first looking into GBC.  It's re-surfaced under some new branding from a builder who has a finalist MOC in the BrickLink Stud.io contest that is currently happening.  I would love to build this shooter or something similar.



Have a great week everyone!

9v Train Speed Regulator Drought

We had a nice conversation on the Community Discord today about the state of the 9v Train Speed Regulators.  It looks like worldwide supply is running low.  Here are the stats as of 15:30 PST today.

BrickLink

BrickOwl

Ebay 
10 of them ranging from $25USD to $70USD (usually including a power adapter)

What does this mean?  I would order them today if you plan on building some GBC.  Prices are only going to climb as GBC continues to grow in popularity!

Join the Lego GBC Community chat by clicking HERE.

GBC Observer 👁 Week 4, 2019

Builders like Doug72 and Berthil van Beek seem to be obsessed with improving and adding to Akiyuki's Train System V2.  Here Berthil has created yet another Train loader, this time a bit more conservative with a simple conveyor.  Interestingly he uses the old treads to lift the balls up into the train car.



Here is a walkaround the Brickvention 2019 GBC circuit from Rohan. There is a lot of well themed modules in this layout!



And we will end this observer on a friendly note.  Here Ryk Field is back with a new set of modules based on the newly released friends heart shaped boxes.


Have a great week!

GBC Observer 👁 Week 3, 2019

Week 3, 2019 brings us some interesting new modules.

4 people eating soup?  It took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at. 🍜 The input bin is a bit high, but that could be fixed by adding a small conveyor, or ball pump.



DILL.I.AM (One of our lego gbc community chat members) has created a nice small module with 2 different mechanisms.  First a pair of steps, followed by liftarms that push the balls ahead.



And now lets take a look at Kevin Mitcham's updated train loader module.  Kevin's train is powered by Arduino, and I believe the programming was done by Alex Popiel the runner-up in last years the Great Ball Pit Challenge.


Have a great week everyone!

New YouTube channel trailer for 2019

I've created a new YouTube channel trailer which highlights the type of stuff I will continue to work on over the next year as I try and reach my goal of 1000 subscribers.  Thank you to everyone for your continued viewership and support!

There will be a small giveaway and I will build a special GBC module to celebrate 1000 subs, stay tuned for that!

GBC Observer 👁 Week 2, 2019

Ahh Tuesday, I think the Observer posts will now be posted on Tuesdays in 2019!

Welcome to week 2, 2019

While I try to feature modules that are complete and would work at a collaborative event, I found this cute little soccer ball kicker mechanism quite enjoyable. I do feel bad for the poor mini-figs, and were surprised that their hair didn't get tossed!



Seasoned builder Lawrie shows off his new gateway crane.  It looks great and appears to function as designed!



And here is a recent small layout from a builder in Belgium.



Have a great week everyone!

New Lego GBC Module - Separation Anxiety

New for 2019, Separation Anxiety is a sideways conveyor module that uses 25 of the brick separator tools to carry balls from input to output.  It was built with the separators in mind in order to use some of them up! (I had quite a few of them on my desk.)  It was built over 3 days, and runs off a PF M Motor at around speed 3/6 on a speed regulator.

Some people have said it looks like an angry insect, or creature, what do you think?

This module can handle a fast throughput of input as long as the batches are smaller.  It would fail the 30 batch requirement of the GBC standard.

I look forward to showing this module alongside Tri-Sep.

GBC Observer 👁 Week 1, 2019

Welcome to 2019!  A new year and lots of new Lego to create GBC with.

Let's take a look at what's appeared over the last week on YouTube.

Animatronica shows us several of his non-standard modules in a nice layout.




REF05 by Ryk Field shows us another way to use up some of your banana gears.  It's a Batman themed module, and he has provided free instructions as well!




And here is a new look at a small layout I showed previously.  Even though this doesn't meet the GBC standard I like the combination of different mechanisms here.