Mr Hobbles

Eurobricks Knights
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About Mr Hobbles

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    Winter Village Fire Station

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  1. Mr Hobbles

    LEGO #21344 - Orient Express

    I agree that the locomotive isn't great, but by and large I love this set. Also, the Crocodile wouldn't look bad hauling the Orient Express. ;)
  2. Mr Hobbles

    New Hogwarts Express

    It's very nice looking, but far too far off minifigure scale for my liking. Also non-standard track gauge and non-motorisability = hard pass. The Harry Potter crowd is sure to love it though.
  3. Mr Hobbles

    BrickLink Designer Program Ongoing Discussion Thread

    I ordered the 1950's Diner and the Modular Construction Site at 10:00am on the dot. They were the two I really wanted. Ordered the Chalet later because...why not. I wish Studgate wasn't so ugly, I'd really like to support a train station...
  4. Man, I'm on the fence whether to get this or not. On one hand, I want to support more trains, and I really like the small train that comes with it. On the other hand, I really dislike the station itself. It doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. Decisions decisions.
  5. Mr Hobbles

    LEGO Trains 2022

    To me the front looks like the Japanese N700 series Shinkansen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N700_Series_Shinkansen
  6. Mr Hobbles

    LEGO Trains 2022

    Speculation on my part, but is it possible the passenger train contains the rumored new Powered Up train headlights? Look at the front - the headlights are a 1x2 slope, with the light coming in from the side. Unless I’m mistaken, the only feasible way for this to work is if it was coming from a new 1x2 light-emitting brick placed alongside it. The existing Powered Up lights wouldn’t allow this angle. The box says lights included. Am I reading too much into it?
  7. Mr Hobbles

    9v motors slowing to a stop after 60 seconds

    I tried something based on something you said @Toastie - hooked up my 9v power regulator to a PF IR receiver (via the empty battery box trick) and tried controlling the broken motors via an IR remote. Guess what - no issues! They run beautifully (maybe 5% slower than the others?). I wonder why - is PWM a little kinder to these motors than the old-school 9v output directly from the regulator? I'm assuming the PF IR receiver is outputting PWM in this setup...? Picture of setup - https://imgur.com/a/v1Xwxry (Control Lab 9v Output -> Empty PF Battery Box -> PF IR Receiver -> 9v Track)
  8. Mr Hobbles

    9v motors slowing to a stop after 60 seconds

    Thanks for the replies! Yeah, I mean the track isn't super clean, but out of the 12 or so motors I have only 2 are experiencing the behaviour. The other 10 are clearly offspring of the Energizer bunny. Not super heavy, no. Metroliner + club car (but with Powered Up battery boxes inside for another purpose). But as I mentioned they also have this problem even when it's just the motor running on its own, with no train. Thanks, so is the solution to remove the thermal fuse? I'm guessing there's no way to do that without cutting the tabs and cracking the motor open? :p
  9. Howdy! So I have a dozen or so 9v motors I use on an infrequent basis. I gave them a good run this evening, and a couple of them are behaving weirdly. They run fine for about 30 seconds or so, but slowly they come to a crawl then eventually stop moving before 60 seconds is up. If I leave them for a couple of minutes, they start running as normal again, but then they slow down again over the minute again. This happens whether or not they're running as motor-only or with a train behind them. Secondly, if I hook up a 9v wire directly to the top of the motor and let it run in the air (ie. not on the track), this doesn't happen. They can go on and on at all types of speeds. Any thoughts what might be wrong with them? Thanks
  10. Mr Hobbles

    Jurassic World 2022 - Rumors & Discussion

    I have no interest in anything Jurassic World, and I didn't buy the D2C Jurassic Park gate because it had no Ford Explorer. But this will be the first Jurassic Park set that I buy. And I'm buying two so I can build both cars completely. :D Day 1 instabuy, I've literally been wishing for this for years! (Now I have to hope that one day they release the Jeep!)
  11. Mr Hobbles

    Raspberry Pi hat

    Hi @BrickTronic, I was referring to the serial protocol for talking Pi<->HAT. I think for the LFP2 UART protocol you need to look elsewhere, such as the Pybricks repo you posted.
  12. Mr Hobbles

    Raspberry Pi hat

    @Toastie That’s correct! It’s a board that plugs on top of the Raspberry Pi via the GPIO pins and provides 4x LPF2 sockets. The Raspberry Pi foundation worked with LEGO to develop it, and they’ve also released a special LEGO Technic plate that allows the Pi to be easily mounted to other elements. They’ve published a Python library to use with it, as well as full documentation for the serial protocol - which also leaks the existence of an upcoming train switch motor, as well as two more types of lights! (Not necessarily train related…)
  13. Mr Hobbles

    Raspberry Pi hat

    I checked this out this morning and saw this too, it's very exciting. Not just for the HAT for the Pi (so cool that this is an official partnership with Lego!), but the news about the train switch motor. Wonder what it'll look like and how much space it'll take up. Perhaps the perfect excuse to come out with a LPF2 extension cable? :)
  14. Mr Hobbles

    LEGO Trains 2021

    What's that picture from? Is that a Hidden Side set that didn't make it into production, or did I miss it entirely? Yeah, I think in terms of age range, and hitting the North American market, it fits the niche pretty well, but as you say, I think it ultimately comes down to do they want to make another train so soon. The Crocodile came out last year, and they'll have some data on how well that sold. Saying that, it primarily appealed to the European market, so perhaps there's still an untapped NA audience to hit. Still, 57 projects in total... :crosses fingers:
  15. Mr Hobbles

    LEGO Trains 2021

    I really had my hopes up for the Canadian Train, but when I saw there'd be 57 entries in this selection they were muted a bit. TLG only really usually picks one or two...and there's a lot of competition. Still, my fingers are crossed...