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| Lego Technic
branded
box. |
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| Cork 'rocks'
in the shovel. |
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Hoses on the boom and stick. |
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|
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| Allowing that
it is Lego, excellent detail on top. |
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| Looks good.
The blue light is one of the control hubs. |
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| Red fire
suppression equipment. |
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| Access stair
lowered. |
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| Opening flap
with control hub inside. |
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| Loading a
1:50
scale diecast Liebherr T 264 Mining
Truck. |
|
The Liebherr R 9800 is the largest mining excavator in
the Liebherr range in 2013. It has an operating
weight of around 810 tonnes in shovel
configuration and the bucket capacity is 42m³.
It is designed to work with the largest mining trucks.
This model of it is built in the Lego Technic system,
and it is controlled by using an App on a smart phone.
Scaled from the crawler tracks it is approximately 1:39
scale.
Packaging
The model comes in a large Lego Technic branded
box which encloses another box and numerous bags of
parts.
The review model had
no defects or missing parts.
No information is provided about the real machine.
Two substantial manuals are provided and these guide the
building of the model through 1000 steps. All of
the steps are pictorial, with no writing. The
build is not difficult in terms of the individual steps,
but precision and accuracy is required, as any error may
not manifest itself until later in the build making it
difficult to correct.
There are five distinct stages of construction, and each
stage has the parts contained within bags marked with
the stage number. Frustratingly though there is no
apparent logic to the inclusion of parts in one bag or
another so time is spent hunting the parts for any given
build step. Sticker sheets are provided to apply
the graphics.
The motors and control hub are added during the various
stages. There is little information about
installing the necessary app onto a smart phone but in
practice it is easy enough to obtain the Control+ app
from the Google Play store or elsewhere. 12 AA
batteries are required to power the model and these are
not included in the box.
The app is very good in that it updates the firmware in
the hubs and tests the build stages as it is progressed.
To build the model takes around 15 hours at a reasonable
pace.
Detail
The tracks are plastic and they are mounted on decent
representations of track frames. Lifting eye lugs
are modelled. There are
heavy duty rollers on the top and bottom of the frames,
with there being fewer on the bottom than the real
machine has.
The drive sprockets have Liebherr stickers.
The body has graphics stickers applied, including 'Liebherr' and '9800'
on the counterweight. The
access ladders and handrails are of standard Lego
components so they are over large for the scale but they
are a reasonable representation. Some of the Lego parts
used are coloured in red or blue and they would have
looked better if they were coloured to match the overall
colour scheme of the model.
The operator's cab does not have a windscreen or door
but the interior detail is very good with a seat and
stickers providing console details.
Detail on the roof looks very good with large exhausts
and fire suppression equipment. There is a
representation of mesh at
the front of the roof with fans visible underneath.
The boom and stick are of very heavy construction and
large hoses give a complicated appearance.
The hydraulic rams are suitably massive but the ones on
the boom and stick are reversed to allow the Lego
Technic mechanics to work.
The shovel is huge with the front piece being a single
special Lego moulding. A bag of Lego parts is
included as 'rocks' for the shovel, but these are
unrealistic, and not enough to enable any shovelling.
Features
There are opening side panels on the body.
An opening roof panel provides access to one of the
control hubs.
The rear access stair can be lowered and raised.
The model is controlled by the Control+ app on a smart
phone. Once built the model is calibrated through
the app so that the app knows the model's position and
limits on the rams.
The functionality is excellent. Each track can be
controlled individually, and the model fully rotates in
either direction. All of the movements of the
boom, stick and bucket can be actioned. The
controls are also proportional, so some fine control is
possible. The mechanisms also have slip clutches
to prevent overloading.
With practice the model can dig a lightweight material
and unload it cleanly from the shovel. The track
motors are powerful and can climb the model up a
reasonable slope.
In addition to a standard control screen, an alternative
method is also provided which allows the movements of
the machine to be controlled by dragging a graphic on
screen.
It is also possible to programme the model by recording
actions or building commands in blocks and playing them
as a sequence. This works very well.
The app also has other options such as recording
achievements.
Quality
The Lego parts are of the expected very high
quality and the fit of the parts including the working
mechanics is excellent.
Price
It is good value for a model of over 4000 parts
and with full control functions.
Overall
This Lego Technic model is highly engineered
and with its excellent smart phone control it is an
outstanding model. It is interesting to build, and
although the Lego Technic system can reproduce high
detail, it is a good looking model which is recognisable
as being of the real machine. All it needs is a matching
large mining dump truck.
Footnotes
It was first announced at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in 2019. |
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| Fat manuals,
and sticker sheets. |
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| Profile view. |
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| Liebherr
sticker. |
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| The cab. |
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| Decent track
frames. |
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|
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| Opening panels. |
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| The figure is
1:32 scale. |
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| Compared to the
smaller
1:50
scale diecast model of the R 9800. |
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