There are lots of new images from the new 2H2012 Technic sets, being posted on the German "Doktor Brick Community" forum by someone who managed to buy the sets, while he is building them (9396 thread, 9398 thread).
Below some detailed photos of the PF-Servo motor. Interestingly on the first one we can see a couple of dot marks at the orange front output and servo head to check whether the "zero" is offset or not (it seems not exactly in this one and another I've also seen). As we can't see any adjustment screw or similar, I wonder if this is prone to drift over time and use, hopping we won't need to permanently steering to keep the crawler or any other vehicle to drive straight...
I remember the servo on the PF 'RC Steering and Receiver Unit' (bb396c01) used on former Creator sets 8183 and 8184 had such adjustment screw to align the steering. On the other way the natural backlash from Technic gears may turn this factor absolutely irrelevant.
One thing is for sure, we are not here dealing with expensive hobby RC cars, neither high cost and quality servos, whose offsets can be compensated through horn displacement and trim adjustments at the RC remotes.
Motor overall size is 5x3x7 modules.
The PF L-motor below offers quite a large variety of options to attach it to the models' structure, which is probably one of the big wins from this motor - Besides its power which is still unknown.
The motor head has a complex design of slits, which is the way to design a "simple" mold suitable to produce such elements in one single piece and capable to admit Technic pins from several directions without breaking TLG design rules (I mean the pins could not remain in tension after being snapped in the counterpart holes).
The motor has a relative unusual form factor in terms of boxing envelope. It has 3x3 head and rear mounts with a 3x4 body, which makes it something like (3+0,5+0,5)x3x7 modules - It protrudes half module in each direction of one single transverse axis.
Design from the rear side where the 4-wire cable comes out is also very well thought, so that cable can be easily routed out of the module with interfering with the connections.
From a first look to the overall motor form factor and prior to any further tests it looks it has the same planetary gear reduction stage as used in the PF M-motor. The electrical motor inside should have also a very similar electrical motor in terms of form factor, but larger. In a first analysis it could mean similar rotation speed and quite larger torque. It rests to see when I get to open one and measure its characteristics.
Quite a brilliant piece of engineering and design, as it looks so far.
As previously anticipated [
1] here we have also the same new 90 degrees connector, as released with the new Monster Fighter sets.
Below we can also see two cases where the 4L tan axle [
2] is being used (large steering ball joints and differential). Apparently it will help to avoid axle sliding and to keep gears in place at very specific use cases.
In the meantime you can also check the new 9398
4x4 Crawler parts list.
Also available for the 9396
Helicopter in the respective forum thread.
arranged and interview with Gaute Munch (Senior Manager for Technology Platforms at LEGO) about the LEGO Power Functions (LPF) and LEGO MINDSTORMS (LMS) development and novelties.
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