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.