How Much Weight Can LEGO Lift?

Lifting weight with LEGO Technic!
How much weight can be lifted by LEGO alone? How high can we go?
Various mechanisms are tested including linear actuators, pulley systems with block and tackle, gear racks and large LEGO Technic motors. As part of the build, I utilised a few common types of lift system including a scissor jack and rack system.
00:00 Stage 1 - Single linear actuator
00:33 Will an extra motor help?
01:38 Simple pulley system
03:31 Scissor Jack
05:14 Upgrade - Double rack
Please consider subscribing and liking as I grow my channel! Thanks and enjoy!
Any comments please leave below!

[@carleyshark]

But can it lift my spirits

[@ElliotsLegoCreations]

No.

[@nerfgodbigguy1405]

Now THAT'S the real question😔

[@jacobmcnulty4706]

Unfortunately nothing can lift that

[@Waterdog37]

Sorry bro, no it cant

[@ball_sack6969]

no😢

[@Theretrogamerman]

Can we get a moment of silence for all the gears sacrificed for this video?

[@ZackRToler]

Darn grubs

[@MoonFlux]

That moment when Lego can lift better then you can.

[@Achedb0b1]

*than : )

[@360WakaWaka]

First of all, through simple machines, anything is possible so jot that down

[@fishy2584]

Then that's just sad every adult human should be able to easily lift 35kg

[@Eddiee757]

you cant lift 35kg?

[@EnzoDiscoveryMoonLight23]

35kg is 77lbs for any other American, also yeah you can’t lift 77lbs?

[@moss2309]

3:33 "Upgrade". Men's reaction: "Hell yeah 😎💪"

[@physicsmathstutor5408]

stop stealing chipmunks

[@in1]

Nice tests, didn't expect it to be able to lift so much! With the scissor/parallelogram design you'll also have to consider the starting height: the lever of the mechanism is the vertical distance between actuator/string and joint, which obviously increases the higher it gets. So, the extended form of a scissor can lift up to 5x more than the retrachted one.

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Thanks for the comment! I was aware of the lever but i wanted to see how much it could lift from its fully ‘closed’ state. Balance was difficult on this one - unlike lifting a car with a scissor jack where the car has other points of contact with the ground to keep it stable, the unrestrained weights slid everywhere!

[@alessiomasciandaro1022]

​@@BuilditwithBricksdo you have instructions for the last one shown in the vid?

[@Doodle_BobHasAPencil]

the fact that the majority of the lego community is probably one of the smartest is kinda interesting

[@Zorro9129]

These designs are incredible! You're a real engineer. Seems to me the weak point is always going to be the gears in the end, because the plastic teeth fail very easily under heavy load.

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Thanks for the support! Yes gearing is tricky - I’ve got more than a few damaged gears gathering in my broken parts bin!

[@KneppaH]

You can add more in parallel but after that the axles become the weakest point and it will twist itself apart.

[@Take5JLW]

Always wondered what lego with solid steel parts would equate to after watching these parts break so easily

[@bobthegamingtaco6073]

There's something similar out there called Erector sets (i know, that name is kinda 💀)

[@Take5JLW]

@@bobthegamingtaco6073 Did actually have one at one point. I think it was a bicycle?

[@JordanBeagle]

I love to see how the failure point changes from improvement to improvement

[@user-jm8sy5ox2j]

So one of the best lift tables you can buy for machine shops and whatnot has 4 long verticle threaded shafts in the corners and what is effectively a large nut attached to the moving surface of the table. For low torque applied to the threaded shafts, you can lift massive amounts of weight on the table. You could easily replicate this with a long lego axle and worm gears lined up on it, attach some gear reduction to the bottom of each axle, then chain it all to one motor. With a proper table design, which shouldn't be that difficult, you could have lifted significantly more weight than a normal rack and pinion setup like this video used.

[@Iso-ky9nm]

5:00 this actually turned into a pretty cool looking dystopian city or industry plant type building lol

[@xxhellspawnedxx]

Cool experiment! The best power/holding would probably be with worm gears driving gear racks on the lifting platform, as these have more "teeth" in contact with the weight carrying portion of the device at any one time.

[@derrickmiles5240]

What's funny is that he used the scissor jack design, when that's usually paired with a bolt tightening mechanism, not dissimilar in principle to a worm gear.

[@_XRMissie]

Worm gears would have horrendous friction and would need grease. Pulleys or planetary gearboxes are probably the way to go imho

[@cmdrratzass7305]

Arrrrghh… this is torture. Torturing the bricks and the engineer within me. Repeatedly fixing the symptoms, but never treating the underlying problems that caused them in first place. And those poor gears! They did not deserve this! 😭 Very cool video, but it kinda grinds my gears. Pun intended.

[@lucaslugao]

Exactly! Such poor engineering!

[@kyucumbear]

Oh no. Damaged parts in a stress test. How could this happen?

[@micnoozm78]

For the Americans, that's 78.2 lbs. wow!

[@terrancekalina332]

What is

[@TWITCH307]

For the Brits. That 2 whole buckets of tooth plaque.

[@JordanBeagle]

It would be cool if you compared the mass of the lifts themselves versus how much they can lift

[@angeltensey]

Quick answer: as much as you want as long as you have proper gear ratio. And we are not even touching hydraulics yet.

[@devoncampbell3607]

Up until the plastic breaks

[@FrostmoonPlayz]

almost 80 pounds!?!? Madman! This is awesome! XD fr tho just imagine you're one of the little lego dudes and you have to work on that thing if it breaks down.

[@lordraven1991]

I don't know if you will see this, or if it will be relevant or not, but a few years ago I watched a guy lift a concrete road barrier using only Lego by building one hell of a block and tackle crane set up. It needed a few metal axels and by the end most of the supports that the axels spun in were destroyed, but he did manage to lift it an inch or so off the ground.

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Hey thanks for the comment! I’ve made a video on pulling a car with block and tackle - no metal axles though! That video you mention sounds interesting! What people can achieve with LEGO is amazing!

[@robster7787]

You need to do a part 2 because as someone that has done this before, you can lift much heavier than what you did AND with less parts. Utilize more gear racks and gear Turntables in your build. Multiple Turntables handles distribution load much better than single axels.

[@screentimer]

do it then

[@jackradzelovage6961]

good video. just had to say tho, as someone who spends a lot of time figuring out how to optimize the strength of drivetrains and suspension systems for the insane forces they can see during extreme operation, some of these connections and joints hurt my whole brain

[@GadgetTherapy]

The time and effort that goes into these Builds, and the engineering knowledge is brilliant.

[@BuilditwithBricks]

I appreciate the kind comment! Thanks!

[@micke3035]

It's also a question of how much lift height you want, a lever system could of course lift a huge amount without putting stress on gears and stuff but only travel a short distance in height.

[@mackpackable]

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

[@lonelyboat2291]

Amazing video, i can see you put time and effort into making these marvellous machines 👏 subscribed!

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Thanks very much! I appreciate the support!

[@omegaandromeda6368]

Nice i like Those Upgrade steps you Show in this Video

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Ah thanks! Glad you enjoyed!

[@JBBrickman]

When I saw the thumbnail, I thought it was gonna be able to lift a car for some reason, honestly I’m surprised it doesn’t Legos are pretty strong

[@malangqu]

Lego man: There! There he is! The one torturing innocent Lego bricks! 😱😱😱

[@collinwarrick1785]

This was really helpful! Do you share your designs/parts lists?

[@TACTICALOCTOPUS]

I'm a grown man and I appreciate this content

[@Mattthetatt]

That is a cool scissor lift :)

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Thanks!

[@Teh_o_peng]

This damn lego probably stronger than me

[@donatotedesco2134]

Im really impressed i didn't thought lego could lift so much. Awesome engineering and design 👍 could you do a maybe a yt short where you try the last Design just doubled? So 4 motors and 4 sets of gears and a higher gear ratio. If the fragile plastic is the problem then the solution might be distribute the weight on even more gears? I got really curious and was already anticipating a bit that you would push the limits even more after i was surprised that often :D you might remember as well another youtuber (i forgot the name) who used gears and axles made of some kind of metal that would help a lot but it wont be legos but im sure it could also lift even up to 50kg with your clever engineering

[@zhade8338]

3:32 That indeed is an upgrade.

[@BuilderBasti]

So, theoretically, Lego (or any Technic system) could lift insane amounts of weight, if the mechanism is durable and geared down enough, in practice it'll take way more patience than anyone would ever have to build such a thing

[@sylnz97]

some strong ass lego

[@AAK672]

Cool scissor lift

[@pjbeatzz6147]

bro got creative with the weights at the end xD

[@JordanBeagle]

3:30 Now this one's a beast!

[@legendarylegodude11]

You know to give up when LEGO can lift more than you can bench

[@FrankDaBank25]

You should do the weights in different units of measurement so it's easier for some of us to have an idea of the actual weight.

[@walterbryan1798]

Whoa! That’s a lot of weight!

[@bennett454]

This is the best Lego technic lift ever 🎉😂❤!!!!!!!

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Thanks for the comment and support!

[@bennett454]

@@BuilditwithBricks OMG OMG 😱 IS THIS REALITY HAPPENING THE PERSON THAT STARTED THIS SHOW IS REPLYING TO MY COMMENT?

[@bennett454]

@@BuilditwithBricks 😱😱😱

[@shadowcobragaming5364]

You should take all of your broken gears, and melt them down into either other new Lego parts or sell them as some kind of merch (Lego-engineering themed trinkets and such)!

[@-.-l8838]

makes me happy during shroom trip so it works

[@timrussell3327]

This is awesome! Best yet!

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Thanks!

[@inanismailov]

When i see little machines like this struggle to lift weight that is cake for nearly any human over the age of 7, i am immediately more impressed with our anatomy and how a similar sized body part (arm) can lift 10x the weight

[@earlgrey2130]

Yeah try lifting 35kgs at 7.. good luck with that

[@bonovoxel7527]

I'm no engineer of sort but I've seen some major flaws in the pulley system, ofc it failed splitting the gears which is what I didn't notice at first. That thing is bending, and the torque needed to start the pull is higher than from 50% on. It all spreads trough the structure, and imo it gonna crack it after splitting the gearbox at 2:00 and before consuming the wire against brick's corners. You apparently need a stronger chassis, its kinda disappointing that the main point of failure there are bricks connection and not power or simply the ABS the material itself. I enjoy all these experiments video tho! :)

[@--RL--]

Now think of how much it could lift if you rigged up four of the final version into one thing.

[@unpaidintern5331]

what about trying the last design with worm gears instead of gears?

[@user-sm2gu6en7j]

If you just gear it down low enough, you can lift any amount of weight you want it just takes more time to do so

[@kingofherdaz7860]

Unless the materials break. Newton's laws-action reaction. If the force required to lift the load (greater than the mass times gravity) is greater than the yield strength of the material (ABS in the case of LEGO) then the material (axles and/or gears) will deform rather than lift the load.

[@amyshaw893]

It would be easier to get a better grasp on its maximum capacity if you put it on a scale, and above it you have something really heavy that it definitely cant move. Then crank it until it wont go any further and subtract the starting number on the scale, thats it's maximum capacity

[@pencilgrinder2710]

The lego every month before gains: “Can you spot me?”

[@olivervanschayk4007]

I wish this video just kept going

[@user-ff9ep3fh1h]

whats the weight in freedom

[@ericbillingsley7885]

"it is just a small upgrade" *the upgrade:*

[@aaronnewton7024]

Now I'm wondering if gearing down + worm gear and rack would reduce some of the gear slippage 🤔 need to go buy me a load of technic to find out 😂

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Hi, thanks for the comment! Yep, Lego gears down really easily but the extra torque puts a lot of pressure on the plastic components...

[@aaronnewton7024]

@BuilditwithBricks yeah I can imagine! I lost many a gear tooth when I was younger trying to make lego do things it was never designed for 🤣

[@Agirman]

Bro had to go to the outside weights!

[@Philyshark7]

What about worm gears to lift the heavy weight?

[@Niaktru]

Everyday we get closer to legos phasing out other technology

[@mikesprigg5495]

Bre make some direct drive worm gear thing.. geared tf down

[@bvoyelr]

What's that, like 6 AA batteries and less than a kilo of Legos lifting a 9 year old? That's actually mind bending to think a kid could stand on that last one and it would support his weight at all without collapsing, much less be able proactively lift him up.

[@BuilditwithBricks]

I was surprised at the lift/weight ratio too. I think there is probably room for improvement with a greater lift possible. Stay tuned for part 2 at some future point! Thanks for watching!

[@k_the_v]

Needs XL motors and at least 4x gears per stage to spread the load, not 2x.

[@luisitto777]

Why did I imagine you creating a Bench pressing robot xd

[@christiankaiser7747]

Next: building a lego press an crushing different things

[@rollsterw]

Do you have instructions? i would really love to build all

[@fythers6273]

you should do like a 1:1000 gear ratio

[@BuilditwithBricks]

I do feel like there is a part two to come at some stage..

[@Dave-McRae]

Maybe one day we will see lego lifting car. 😛

[@frombrum]

us - no way lego - hold my beer

[@eryczakpl2337]

When you run out of weights and start adding random stuff 😆

[@batkata001]

45 minutes later... Toyota Corolla enters the chat... 😂

[@insid3493]

78lbs, that's nuts

[@chrishoedt]

You people build amazing things but sometimes engineering is still a challenge.

[@twillems2285]

have you considered using worm gears in combination with linear tracks?

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Yes - great suggestion! I had always planned to do a follow-up video for this at some point in the future, testing new ideas - keep an eye out!

[@lucca5840]

I feel like the tests done with the scissor jack are not completely accurate since you were putting force on it with your hand. For a clean controlled data it would have to be unchanged by external factors.

[@ShOxCooking]

Don’t the large motors have more torque than the medium ones?

[@blastermaster0199]

quality content there is only 1 dislike

[@gustavogago3259]

all u needed was more triangles, u had the gear reductions already

[@Jan_Boris]

I somehow expected it to lift 40kg judging from the thumbnail 😅

[@laawedreteip]

My record was 65 kg but it can be much higher dont slow down your motors do everything with the cable

[@MrDrakePrice]

The block and tackle was flawed, most of the energy was being lost right at the pulleys where the cable was being drun against the grey pieces

[@shadowlord0162]

still waiting for the car jack out of lego

[@maynarddrivesfast804]

Just a question from a person who stumbled across your channel: are you a mechanical engineer by trade?

[@SilentRoses]

It could almost lift me, if it could do another 10kg that is lol

[@bucketslash11]

that's quite some engineering, are you an engineer by trade or is this just learned from experimenting with builds?

[@3RST-GAMING]

Can it blend?

[@krobi94]

Not the point of the video but, can someone tell me the name of that dumbell? Brand or whatever.

[@matjazwalland903]

If you create a (+) shape, you might have more power and more stability. Even 45 kg could be lifted.

[@harynian]

The maximum lifting weight depends only on your budget and engineering skills.

[@fdsfdsjghk]

Scissor lifts are not the most efficient at lifting high loads to begin with, especially when starting out flat

[@MeCroc]

try it with metal gears

[@mplewp]

When gears are cracking its not a pass 😜

[@JordanBeagle]

4:05 Looks like you need a counter weight on that other side

[@TantalumPolytope]

More like some gears in the base that keep it balanced. That'd be more stable.

[@Eddy002]

How much weight is this in freedom units? 🇺🇸

[@asorahandgoldenknight]

Can it lift caseoh?

[@T-ki3dp]

If you need to hold it, it's not a pass IMO

[@MRdeLaat]

make something with all metal made lego

[@davidmartensson273]

Not really possible since metal would not work with the attachments the lego uses, you would need to connect things in some other way and then you have changed the dynamics to much.

[@uwezopp6168]

what about snake gear lift??

[@whiteblade2824]

so it comes down to the strenght of the parts and not the power essentialy... =)

[@michaeloxlong]

But will it blend?

[@ATLTraveler]

lol ran out of weight, must find heavy objects!

[@user-zx5gz1rd1q]

Next is mjolnir

[@BuilditwithBricks]

Only if you're worthy!

[@pelly06gaming7]

I would have geared them all down alot more