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Mini V12 engine

Miniature V12 engine with moving pistons, about half the size of regular LEGO V12, with free instructions available. Can be built in different lengths, too.
This simple mechanism has been developed for a tank model still in development, because the regular LEGO V12 was too large to fit in and in wrong scale. It can be connected to any motor, it sounds real good, and it features a number of moving pistons – 12 in this case, but any other number will work, too. Any engine configuration from V2 to V14 should be pretty straightforward to make. The only important note is that the “pistons” are not secured against popping out. It’s therefore crucial not to drive this engine too fast – around 100 RPM worked fine for me, whereas 200 RPM would make some of the pistons get stuck in extended positions sometimes. For the same reason it’s not a good choice for vehicles where you expect a lot of tilting, like extreme off-road crawlers and such. But then, you can always add some structure around the engine which will prevent the pistons from popping out.

Free building instructions for the mechanism are available in the Downloads section.

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  1. Hadidi1999
    March 20th, 2016 at 21:16 | #1

    Personally I have not ever seen a cam used as a cam in the Technic world, and when I saw it in your little v12 I thought how come no one else thought of that; it perfect in many ways.

    I think the Technic world needs more real cams.

  2. Sariel
    March 20th, 2016 at 20:55 | #2

    @Hadidi1999
    I don’t think so.

  3. Hadidi1999
    March 20th, 2016 at 19:22 | #3

    I am curious, is this the first time the cam piece is used as a cam?

  4. EV3fan
    March 10th, 2016 at 16:16 | #4

    I once saw a video (did my best to find it but couldn’t) with an interesting way of generating a diesel engine sound shown in it. A lego technic 2l liftarm was connected to an axle which was being turned by the drive mototr, and repediately pushed against the button of a lego mototrbike sound brick when the vehicle was driving. This created a surprisingly realistic diesel engine sound. If you have one I’d suggest you to try fitting this in there and connecting it to the engine – that would be absolutely epic! (Ofc lego vehicles like your T-34 are noisy while driving so that would probably only be heard when standing, but it would still be epic!)

  5. Hadidi1999
    March 8th, 2016 at 17:07 | #5

    You truly are a genius, when the V12 didn’t fit, I would have never thought of trying to build an even smaller one, extremely looking forward for a demo.

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