[MOC] Lego Pneumatic Steam Locomotive

[Pvdb]

Brilliant MOC. It looks great and has some really nice functions.  I am impressed.

[kolbjha]

Excellent work! This is Technic at its best!

[alfredboyer]

On 5/22/2020 at 9:01 AM, agrof said:

@alfredboyer So, we will get no insights (whistle, pneumatic layout, etc), or?  You are playing cheeky girl, there... 

haha yes  But I will explain more with 3D models, here :

The Free Wheel :

Connected by gears, the free wheel turns 25 times faster than the wheels.

It is also connected (by 8t/24t) to a "HOG", so in case of the locomotive doesn't start or need a little help, you can start the pneumatic engine.

The brakes :

I hope it's clear like that, but the system for the brakes is quite simple, it was just hard to integrate around the wheels since it's quite crowded over there.

And really, thank you everybody for your comments ! 

Edited December 17, 2020 by alfredboyer

[alfredboyer]

19 hours ago, JGW3000 said:

 Certainly qualifies for the Technic forum Hall of Fame. The link to LEGO ideas project page does not seem to work for me, supported!

 

I wish it goes to the Hall of Fame qualification, that's awesome !

I corrected the link, thanks for telling me. Lego Ideas is here.

Edited May 22, 2020 by alfredboyer

[Bricksonwheels]

Great stuff!

[Mentalspagat]

I'm absoltutely no fan of trains, I find them boring. But THIS..This...is ingenious, and it is optically very appealing. May sound ridiculous, but the whistle is even more brilliant than the drive train - I like it very much. Absolutely well done, Sir!

[alfredboyer]

19 hours ago, Mentalspagat said:

I'm absoltutely no fan of trains, I find them boring. But THIS..This...is ingenious, and it is optically very appealing. May sound ridiculous, but the whistle is even more brilliant than the drive train - I like it very much. Absolutely well done, Sir!

Thanks a lot ! Happy that I can give u interest in that ! The whistle is also thanks to some luck, I tried to blow on manyyyy different lego parts to see if they will ring ^^

[agrof]

Mind-blowing whistle! 

[Gray Gear]

Very nice! I showed this to my dad (Huge train enthusiast), and he liked it a lot 

[Mestari]

Supported! I hope it makes it to a set

[Paperinik77pk]

Well, this is a real beauty!!!

It's an amazing creation, plus it's powered in the correct way!!! I cannot imagine how work you put on making all needed pneumatic parts inside this beast - flywheel position is pure genius! And that whistle!!!

A zillion of thumbs up!!!

 

Ciao!

Davide

[RedBrick77]

I love it ! I am normally not a big fan of Technic sets/mocs but here, combined with bricks and all, it's really pretty !

I have a question or two tho :

How do you make it stay in the rails ? Shouln't you use flanged Lego train wheels ?

[Gray Gear]

7 minutes ago, RedBrick77 said:

How do you make it stay in the rails ? Shouln't you use flanged Lego train wheels ?

There is no way this thing can drive corners, right?

And I bet the rails are just for looks, and he used the wheels without flanges so the wheels are still level when driving on the ground.

[pleegwat]

It looks to me like he used motorcycle rims without tires.

If playability was an objective, this would probably need to be redesigned to work on standard lego tracks. I don't think the hand-build track style used could accommodate corners.

That said, it looks awesome.

[nigel1975]

Very original creation, good functionality and looks really good as well. Added my vote! 

[alfredboyer]

On 5/25/2020 at 5:46 PM, Gray Gear said:

There is no way this thing can drive corners, right?

And I bet the rails are just for looks, and he used the wheels without flanges so the wheels are still level when driving on the ground.

Hello, for instance no it cannot drive in corners because I didn't manage to make some railtracks with curves. I am pretty sure it could with some work, but due to the size of the locomotive, the curves would probably have a radius of minimum 2m I would say, which isn't really suitable for most houses. But that wasn't the point, the point was to make something that you can look at, something that you can make go foward and brake. The goal is to show how a steam locomotive works and have fun mostly like that.

 

On 5/25/2020 at 7:49 PM, pleegwat said:

If playability was an objective, this would probably need to be redesigned to work on standard lego tracks. I don't think the hand-build track style used could accommodate corners.

 

Yeah that's really how I designed it : I wanted to make a cool steam locomotive that works pretty much like a real one (air pistons, air brakes, air whistle...) and put the "playability" (meaning here, playing on railtracks) aside. I knew that by choosing to do that, I had to abandon the Lego train tracks, because we need to scale up. Lego Trains are too small to work with compressed air and all. 

On 5/25/2020 at 5:37 PM, RedBrick77 said:

How do you make it stay in the rails ? Shouln't you use flanged Lego train wheels ?

So to answer I'll show how it's made, using the 3D model I made of the Locomotive :

(the 3D might have some differences with the actual locomotive, it's not the final version here)

If we zoom, facing the wheels and railtracks, we can see that I designed the tracks so they fit like this :

In fact the wheels I chose aren't perfectly flat, so they kinda work like flanged wheels so the train stay in the middle of the tracks.

For the wheels of the tender, I can use flanged lego train wheels in black, because they also fit the rail tracks. So the tender is kept in place. For having all the wheels touching the floor when not on railtracks, the tender can move up and down a little, just enough for compensating when it is not on the tracks. (not visible in the video)

I don't know if I made myself clear but to sum up :

- The driving wheels aren't perfectly flat, which allow me to make railtracks really guiding the locomotive.

- The tender had flanged wheels too, and can move up and down to compensate the difference of height when the train isn't on the tracks.

Is it a little understandable ? ^^"

Edited May 27, 2020 by alfredboyer

[allanp]

Would it be possible to wrap the wheels with rubber bands to give them grip? I'm thinking that by making them grip the floor, the models own inertia might have the same effect as the flywheel to smoothen out the forward motion even more. Because it's quite big a heavy, it will resist changes in velocity (like a flywheel) but it won't have that effect if the wheels are slipping even slightly.

[alfredboyer]

On 5/27/2020 at 9:34 PM, allanp said:

Would it be possible to wrap the wheels with rubber bands to give them grip? I'm thinking that by making them grip the floor, the models own inertia might have the same effect as the flywheel to smoothen out the forward motion even more. Because it's quite big a heavy, it will resist changes in velocity (like a flywheel) but it won't have that effect if the wheels are slipping even slightly.

Definitely a good idea but, I don't think it's enough tho, the fly wheels makes a pretty good job. But it could worth a try, like if Lego makes rubber band big enough for covering the big wheels tho ? 

[alfredboyer]

 

Hello everybody, I bring this up for some update and to ask some advices for the compressor ?

First, thank you for everybody who supported the project on Lego Ideas so far, we reached 4000 supports, that’s clearly insane ! You can continue to support here of course : https://ideas.lego.com/projects/dc67d247-ee40-423b-8864-d468fa701e14

So I wanted to update this little locomotive for some reasons, here are the problems I noticed with the first version and the corrections I made :

-          Some important parts carrying the pneumatic piston are not fixed enough, so the piston can move and we lose some efficiency (as suggested by some of you here, I improved that, thanks).

-          Some decorations are made of regular lego plates, studfull, and that’s a problem in some areas because the assembly is less solid than if it was studless. Here is an example of correction :

-          The “ears” or steam protector at the front of the locomotive are not well fixed, it frequently falls from the train if it is touched or moved too much. So is it now fixed on some news points.

-          The cabin is too shaky, we need to make it solid and well fixed. Thanks so the decorations being studless now, we will have more fixations for the cabin.

-          The brakes are too fragile too and in studfull plates, it isn’t really a problem because it’s rare to have to touch them for any reason, but still, I want to improve the global design by fixing well everything.

-          The colors of the inside are always the same : gray, black… I want to change the colors inside so the building experience gets better and the view of the inside becomes pleasant. This have been done with red, white and black instead of just black and gray.

-          Other shaky parts are the circular core sections that are used to separate the different system and to carry the hull/cover of the boiler. Morevover, it’s made of studfull lego bricks, which takes place and isn’t ideal for technic builds.

 

I am waiting for some parts I ordered to actually build this in real, I also fixed minor problems and I am considering building a compressor to fuel the pneumatic engine. I wonder what is the best compressor configuration, since putting 2 motors on one battery box seem to not pump more than 1 with the same number of pumps. I have some progress to make here : which lego motor is the best for that, what is the optimal number of pumps and speed of rotation… If you can help me with your knowledge, don’t hesitate to comment bellow ! ^^

This second version will be much more satisfying for me, since I needed to make this train a little more reliable and efficient.

[Mr Jos]

Very nice build! For a goodcompact compressor I like the design from this video;

Power distribution is done nicely making a constant flow of air coming out, and very sturdy design with the 5x7 panels.

[syphoon]

Fantastic, I never thought this would be possible. 

[Nazgarot]

I've been wanting to build something like this for years, but THIS?! This is way beyond what I would have been able to come up with!

Incredible model, and one of few mocs I would be willing to pay for the instructions for! I would love to have this as a display piece on a shelf in my workshop.

Thanks for sharing!

_ED_

NB: Supported on ideas!

[alfredboyer]

It's done!  :D 

So in the end no compressor . Thanks for the proposition to do it with 2 XL motors, the one showed by Mr Jos looks really great. Of course it's still possible to add a compressor because there's room to put one in the tender, but personally I don't like it much, it's noisy, when the pressure rises too much the engines panic a bit, it vibrates a lot... And then you can't hear the whistle and the noise of the pistons that exhaust the air under pressure.

On these pictures, we don't see many changes. Maybe you will have noticed that the whole thing is "cleaner". Straighter lines, the front of the locomotive covered with flat plates for a more "finished" look and some details to make the whole thing more solid. 
The cab has also changed a little bit, so that we can access the controls more easily and that the assembly is also more solid.

The tender hides a set of three pumps and an air tank:

The pump is an adaptation of the one made by Nico71, adapted to make it smaller, without air tank and with only 3 pumps :

Where there is a lot of change is on the inside:

It's much more structured and clear. We can see better the 4 pistons and the free wheel. 

The gain in efficiency is also visible: by better fixing the internal pistons, I prevent their movement and thus a loss of output. I also have the impression that the engine runs at a lower pressure than before (<0.5 bar). 

The whole assembly is more modular: the external pistons decoration can be removed very easily, the front "ears" can be removed too (without breaking into a thousand pieces), the sand tanks and the exhaust column can be removed easily, the cabin can be removed in one piece too...

The system to lift the locomotive works very well, although due to the heavy weight of the locomotive the axles that rest on the rails tend to bend a little (we remain well below the elastic limit of the part however).

I'll give you more details soon, as I think I'll make a new video, more beautiful and more detailed ;) 

I really think it's the ultimate version of my model, well that's what we often say, then we end up changing some things but we are close to a completely finished product for sure.

 

[RedBrick77]

Awesome job, this is really my favorite MOC ever   I support it as much as I can !

I am sad though because I know that the new switches of Lego don't allow us to make simple pneumatics engine, did you try to make it work with the new switches ? I am talking about these ones : 

It's like lego wants to forbid pneumatic engines to exist....... when it could be an awesome thing to develop, I don't get them.

 

 

[Glaysche]

This MOC is just stunningly good.  This is one of my favorite things I have ever seen in Lego.