Phoxtane

I've been dealing with 15+ years of hideous sorting now that I have a house of my own and a dedicated space to build and organize my collection. I uncovered my old "weird pieces" box where I dumped stuff that I didn't know what to do with. Among many other oddities, this box had a couple handfuls of old 4.5V light bricks, optosensors, and touch sensors (08010dc01, x1161cx1, and x1167cx1, respectively. I received these from a family who had kept ahold of old Lego DACTA stuff from their job as an elementary school principal. Naturally, they were a little filthy and my young self dunked them into a soapy water bath without thinking. Now it's 15 years later and I'd like to test these pieces to make sure they work, repair them if they don't, and hopefully sell them on to somebody who'll appreciate them more than I will (if anyone is interested, DM me!). (No longer available, they've been passed on to a true 4.5V connoisseur.) I think I have a decent idea of what to expect if the parts are working, but what I don't know is how I can open any of them to perform repairs if necessary. (On the other hand, it may not even be economically viable to repair them given how little they go for online vs. the risk of shattering something). Does anybody know of safe methods to pop these open for the purposes of repair and inspection?

The last time I looked into this, I used a hobby servo but set it up such that there was a lot of mechanical slop (see below). Nowadays I'd look into a belt drive; that way you only need a DC motor as opposed to a servo, letting you use plentiful GPIOs over limited analog pins. (You still need two pins to set the direction and turn the motor on/off with most driver boards, but you can do some work with shift registers etc. to expand what a given microcontroller can do for you.)

I went on an ebay binge recently and now have a nice haul of metal axle train wheelsets and some old-school open magnets. Is it safe to wash these in warm soapy water? I'm concerned about the axles rusting or the magnets degrading in some way.

Thanks for the input all! I didn't end up washing any of the axles or magnets - I popped the magnets out of their holders (2920, not the actual plastic cylinders they're bonded into) and set them aside. I also removed the axles from from the wheel holders and set them aside as well. Everything else went into the wash for a good soak and rinse. This lot happened to be a mix of parts from 10183 and 7897 (both incomplete, but I was mainly after the baseplates, wheels, and magnets), so I now have one of the weird proto-PF motors that came with the short-lived "RC" system for trains, along with some 9V wires and one of the old white 1x2 lamp bricks. At some point in the future I'd love to try an LED conversion on the lamp brick, it'd bring some use back to those old light pipe "prism" pieces from the 9V era.

I finally stretched my creative muscles (and pulled something) and came up with a Rock Raiders MOC. I call it the Screw Transport: Before further discussion, I should give credit where it's due - the physical build and wonderful photos were done by R.R. Slugger (aka "Rama") from the Manic Miners Discord server (we'll talk about Manic Miners in a moment). Rama's channel can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrEgeV8lfHGFIaZCevQ7TBQ/videos Without their help this MOC wouldn't be nearly as good looking - they take very good pictures and are probably more handsome than me to boot. The idea for this MOC came from real-life screw-propelled vehicles, mostly the Soviet-era ZiL 29061 (below). I wanted to keep the model's feel in line with the original sets, so I designed with parts and colors available in 1999. That predates just about every wedge plate I could think of which really slowed my roll on getting fun shapes in there. My original model was done in Stud.io and rendered out into the images below (spoilered for length's sake). Apparently the model was so interesting Rama decided to try it in real life! Some very minor tweaks were applied to allow the bucket to rotate fully, as well as reinforcement in critical areas and including the signature chrome grille tiles from the Rock Raiders line. The rendered images don't reflect these changes.

AFAIK the metal tracks on 9V was nickel silver (nickel, zinc, and copper alloy), not stainless steel. I would assume the same about the 12V tracks. I don't know that you wouldn't be able to solder them with normal leaded solder. I'm a fan of Kester solder myself. You could borrow a trick from plumbers and HVAC techs where a wet rag is placed on the pipes/refrigerant lines around the joint to prevent the heat from creeping into places it shouldn't be, but you'd need a higher-power soldering iron with a hefty chisel tip to dump the heat in fast enough. Clean the flux afterwards with ispropyl alcohol! (Test the alcohol somewhere hidden on one of the plastic pieces, I'm not sure if it'll react with the ABS or not.)

If you're running battery powered trains, you could also build the custom length track sections you need out of panel pieces or other clever sideways part usage. An example that comes to mind can be found here: There's also this youtube thumbnail, no idea if the video was any good but it gets the idea I had across pretty well:

Nowadays the fluid that makes the smoke is pretty much vape juice isn't it? Obviously without flavorings or nicotine (there's a way to get kicked out of a convention, getting kids hooked on donut-flavored vapes from the fun toy train...) My granddad's O-gauge trains had a small bottle of anonymous white tablets which produced a similar effect. Though this bottle was old enough that vapes weren't invented yet, so it was probably some unholy blend of asbestos and lead with used engine oil as a binder.

I can't tell if these 1x1 cheese slopes are real Lego or not. They don't have Lego molded into the underside, but I think all cheese slopes are like that - too small for it I guess. I can't really check because I'm packing the apartment up for a move. The tell-tale here that made me suspicious is the texture - I'm not aware of any cheese slopes that have the slightly rough texture you'd see (for example) on a 2x2x1 45 degree slope! It's tough to get a shot of this texture and my best result is below:

Neither part has LEGO written on it anywhere, but I do know that smaller parts don’t have a part number. Though, these parts are much bigger than the typical unmarked LEGO piece. I agree that they’re almost certainly not LEGO!

Found this in my cousin's collection that he didn't want anymore after going off to college. Is it actually a Lego part? Plastic feels a bit "softer" than Lego, but is still quite hard. Color is close to a pale yellow with a hint of green, not lime green like the pictures suggest. EDIT: Here's another weird one - found this in the "yellow" bag: It's a pretty solid match for the Lego yellow, but I haven't been able to find anything that looks like that in a quick search on Rebrickable and Bricklink.

One of my Lego traditions is that I save the instructions from every set I get (if I get multiples, I keep one copy). I've been keeping them in a large red plastic tub from the old set #5482 Ultimate House Building Set. Unfortunately, that tub is very full and very heavy. I spend little to no time what amounts to the opposite end of the Lego product spectrum from modular buildings and such, so if I want to get my hands on another similarly-sized plastic tub, what set should I buy? Thanks for the help.

My reasoning for not doing this - at least not immediately - is that I don’t have a PU L-motor. I did take delivery of the green PU cargo train last week though, so I do have the hub. Also, it seems you’ve already built some of the functionality I had planned for a project of my own that keeps getting pushed back - a sensor package built into a LEGO train to do, among other interesting things, exactly that (except using accelerometer data).

Mine finally arrived today! I love the look and the size, it feels just right. I’m thinking that it would be awesome to build one in dark green, or even dark blue or dark red if the parts availability exists. I’m probably going to end up doing the gap-closing mods as well as converting it to Power Functions.

My Crocodile locomotive showed up today, I'm so excited to have it built and on display! I took advantage of a seller briefly dropping the price on a copy of 60198 to dip my toes into the water of Powered Up. I'm planning on stocking up on Power Functions equipment because I'm not convinced that PU is a full replacement for PF yet (and the prices just get more ridiculous...), but I've got some interesting ideas about what I can do with custom circuit boards and Bluetooth. I figure I stand a better chance at making something usable than the last time I looked at custom electronics and Lego three years ago. The Crocodile locomotive was designed with PU in mind, so it'll be a good testbed for playing with PU.

If there were more details they've been lost to time. I've graduated and gotten a job since this post was made. You're looking for 9-gram servos - for this job, literally any cheap servos will do, since all they have to do is move a little bit and not fight against the airflow on a model airplane wing (their original intended application). In addition to the color improvements I (apparently) suggested in the original post, it may be possible to dye the insulation black on the servo cable so as to get rid of the yellow-red-brown colors. If you're going to use an Arduino, I would recommend getting some sort of servo breakout board with a separate power supply. Anything more than a few LEDs being powered directly by the microcontroller is likely to cause brownouts and resets, both of which mean your project won't work as intended. I didn't bring this project any further along because I didn't (and still don't) have a space for a permanent layout. Check back in another three years, I might own my own place with a dedicated Lego room by then. Were I to do it again today, I'd build up my own custom control board dedicated to controlling the servos and allow for serial communications to the outside world for integration with any other automation I would want to add. I'm not immediately sure how I'd handle the overall architecture, but it'd probably have to be a (relatively) low gauge wire running in a power bus around the layout with each servo tapping power from the bus, while the PWM signals travel to and from the controller directly. This prevents any issue with a high-current device (servo) trying to draw too much power through a tiny wire and yanking the voltage too low by accident.

I finally have good pictures of the demonstrator model for my take on a cheap no-modification-required switch track motor. Have a look! The key that makes this work is that the servo acts on a slider, which pushes on the little spring-loaded switch point piece, rather than forcing the lever mechanism back and forth. As such, it takes very little force to change the switch from open to closed and vice versa. I'm using two of the 1x1x1 corner panels to trap the servo horn so that it pushes the slider back and forth, while a 2x2 corner tile pushes the point piece backwards and forwards. The actual switch lever needs to be in the 'open' position to allow the point piece to move back and forth properly; otherwise, the switch will stay closed even when the servo releases the point piece. I'm using an Arduino Uno, but you could use any Arduino or compatible clone as long as you get the pins hooked up right. It's a lucky coincidence that the servo is the size it is; two of the 1x2x3 panels form a nice enclosure that keeps it from moving about too much. It's important to get the older style that don't have the reinforcing ridges on the edges, as otherwise it won't fit. I used a small piece of paper folded on itself a couple of times to keep the servo wedged in tightly. I imagine you could use some of those 1x2 bricks with the vertical groove in them to help hide the servo cabling, but I didn't bother since this is only a demonstrator. Here's a better view of the setup without the track in the way. My servos came with a pack of three differently-shaped horns to put on them - I'm using the shortest one available to me (mine was 19.5mm long with six small holes in it and was the only one with one 'arm' on it). I also have not permanently attached it with the screws that also came in the package, mainly for the purposes of testing. Lastly, here's a picture of the support structure I built up to keep everything in place. I also made an LDD file of the structure as well as the slider mechanism and servo holder so that you can build your own! http://bricksafe.com/files/Phoxtane/digital-model-files/servoswitchtrack.lxf The hard part of this built is not the mechanism, but setting up the servo as well as the Arduino controller. If anyone is interested, I can do a more in-depth post on how these servos work and how to use them, but the basics go something like this: Attach the servo to the Arduino using the diagram on this page: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Sweep Test your servo to make sure it's working using the example code on that page (the servo should slowly move back and forth between its endpoints) Center the servo at 90 degrees - http://www.allbot.eu/build/allbot-arduino/centering-a-servo/ - this puts the servo at a known position for use in our mechanism Place the small one-arm servo horn onto the servo spline so that it's pointing across the servo body, not away from it. This allows the servo to reach the little pocket we've built and actuate the slider. This is the tricky part; you have to play around with the Arduino code to calibrate your servo for its switch track. These servos are mass-produced as cheaply as possible, so the actual physical position of the horn at the 0 and 180 degree endpoints will vary somewhat from unit to unit. For my servo, the two positions the servo should move to for a closed and an open switch are about 83 degrees and 113 degrees, respectively. The corner tile should barely touch the point piece when open, and should keep the point piece tight against the outside track piece without the servo struggling or forcing itself out of position. I made some minor improvements to this code for my demonstrator - the servo doesn't sweep between positions, but jumps between them, so it's faster to actuate. I also have the Arduino disconnecting the servo in between movements so it doesn't 'hum' while waiting to move to the next position. General improvements to this model would include building the mechanism out of DBG and black for the servo holder, as well as tidying up the wiring to the servo. The servo horns stand out quite a bit color-wise, but since they're nylon, they could easily be dyed black to match the servo housing, and the silver-colored screws that come with the servo horns could be touched up with some paint or nail polish to turn them black as well. The only downside to this mechanism is that you can't run a train backwards through the straight part of the switch when it's closed, since the point piece can't move out of the way. Since this is already being controlled by a microcontroller, it wouldn't be difficult at all to add some sort of sensor that would open the switch when a train is approaching it from the wrong side. As for overall cost, beyond the price for the pieces needed to build this barebones mechanism (I had all of the pieces in my collection): I bought a ten-pack of these servos for $2 apiece, and if you don't already have one, a small Arduino starter kit can be found online for $25. The Arduino Uno has six analog pins, so it can potentially control up to six servos at once. If you're starting out from scratch, the total cost for six motorized switches would end up being around $37 - which is much cheaper than the ~$125 it would take to build this out of genuine Lego parts (one battery box, six M-motors, three IR receivers, three IR remotes), and it doesn't take any PF channels.

Mine is also on the 60-day backorder. It'll be a nice treat in August when I've forgotten about it. One down, four to go!

Is it known what, if any, unique parts there are to this set? I guess we could argue that the sticker sheet (if there's more than just the one for the display plaque) could be considered "a part". Also, we have printed parts unique to that set... I guess what I mean is: aside from parts with printed designs on them, and stickers, are there new parts, or parts in new colors? I'm curious about how feasible it would be to build one of these out of an existing collection or through Bricklink (again, ignoring stickers and printed pieces).

Oof. I don't know that I would have the space to store all those. I'd like a new locomotive every other year, with rail car packs released on the off years. It's entirely possible to end up with too many locomotives and nothing to pull with them.

How do you tell your dogs apart?

A source I like for ball bearings in the US is Fast Eddy Bearings (unaffiliated). $.99 per piece but they're sold by a "real" company, not off Ebay. The site is aimed at RC hobbyists but they'll happily sell bearings to anybody with a valid credit card. https://www.fasteddybearings.com/2x5x2-5-bearings/

Somebody else mentioned earlier in the thread that sets can begin life up to three years before going on sale. If we're only a handful of months out from this set going on sale, they'll have already committed to getting boxes and manuals printed, marketing materials made up, etc. - they'd have to rework all of that, which costs $$$!

I want two. Actually, I want four: two to run, one for display, and one to sell at exorbitant prices on the second-hand market in ten year's time. (I kid, it won't be exorbitant, just scandalous.)

I believe you're talking about resin casting/molding. Like many of the attempts we've seen before, I'll believe it when I see it. I would strongly advise against crowdfunding - ME Models poisoned the well there so I'm not keen on the idea of people putting cash towards another attempt to make third party tracks.