Bartosz

Well, first of all, if you plan to use motor how do you know when to stop it? After all, controlling motor is just setting the PWM (for speed) and it just gives you on/off capability.

That's for me is the most painful thing. I get that they're reluctant to introduce something new - something which wouldn't have big sales. But why not keep selling some old stuff... :(

And it also decreases the amount of current that can be provided. I once learnt it when I tried to boost 2.6V to 5V (which was enough to power the IR receiver). It was able to power up the receiver, but as soon as motor started to draw the current (and it draws a lot when starting), the voltage dropped to a level that was not enough and receiver shut down :( So, to make your claim more specific - it's nearly constant 9V as long as you don't draw more than it can handle (most likely it should be able to handle quite a lot, as going from 7.2 to 9 is not as drastic as going from 2.6 to 5 :S )

Great, been looking for an inspiration how to build simple (meaning cheap ;) ) EAOS in 6 studs. Thanks for posting those!

Off-topic, so don't shoot, but I like the rolling stock. Any close-up photos? :)

Hello, I've recently started bricklinking 10016 tanker wagon. It's quite "bulky", and in the meantime, I've discovered that there was a nice, smaller one in the 7939 set. Even better than 10016 in my opinion, and a perfect to have couple of those! But... As usually, some parts are awfully rare. This time it's mostly about `Cylinder Half 3 x 6 x 6 with 1 x 2 Cutout` and `Dish 6 x 6 Inverted (Radar) - Hollow Studs` (87926 and 44375a respectively). Are any of you aware of some similar parts that could be used instead?

Yeah...I sort of dismissed it because of the yellow loco (which I didn't like) and never looked at its rolling stock. But now I'm also trying to use its container (the big one) design to build a cheap boxcar. We shall see. Many thanks for photos!

You made whole tank gray or just the cylinders?

Ahh, forgot about solid/hollow variants. Also - what 5 parts? I thought about replacing with 4 30414 bricks. Anyway, ordered parts for two of those, I can't believe I've missed such lovely wagons - the parts/price to effect ratio is pretty damn good :)

That's getting interesting. How's this handled under the hood? Maybe the API should have the non-async and async variants for such methods so that it's clear what's happening?

Is PU the same as PF in this regard? From the PF protocol I recall there were two messages to stop the motor: one was 'brake', the other was 'float'. If I understand you correctly, the behaviour you describe would be more like 'float'..maybe there is some equivalent of 'brake' in newer protocol?

Damn it this looks great. Some idea for future (maybe less distant as it's breaking change): alter the API, so that port is not an argument to method, but rather another index to use: Hub[0].Ports["A"].SetMotorSpeed(...) Or even hub[0]["A"].SetMotorSpeed... What's the advantage? One could specify alias: var redTrain = Hub[0]["A"] which then could be used in code. Just think how many comments would not be needed with this change:) PS. I'm also statically-typed programming freak, so I wonder how the API could be made more type safe :)

Some people would agonize over making it pretty/portable and never get to anything, whereas others would "just do it" :) I guess just take care of releasing it before you get bored/go MIA (as it, unfortunately, often happens ;) ). My myself I do not own any PU hub yet, so I don't have any real interest in this software, but - just in case (and since I'm programmer as well:) )

@Cosmik42 pardon if it's been asked/answered somewhere in this thread - is the source available /is it going to be open sourced?

Is it possible to open the top part of the hub to take out the pcb easily? Bare 6f22 battery should fit in 2 studs width, and I wonder what's the size of pcb itself. Could make those smaller engines possible finally:)

That was my rationale behind it. "I don't have space for permanent layout, but since the Christmas tree is going to occupy some place, I might as well put a train below it!" I also had a plan of doing some automation (and lights possibly), but of course time didn't allow to. So yeah, maybe next year!

@RuffDraftoh wow, it looks neat. Straight out of some commercial ;)

I've just decided to use this thread, as I had pretty unimportant question so didn't want to open anything new :) ...and I've just found out the last post is somewhat relevant, so I'll begin with asking @RuffDraft on how his setup turned out to be? I've bought the same (plus winter station) for the christmas tree this year, and it was cute :) (I didn't go wild with it, just simple loop at the floor around the tree, and I don't have great camera so no good photos...) And even kids did some playing with it, and that's unusual, because they don't really play a lot with trains (which I find deeply saddening :( ) Now, back to what I was about to ask. Since the Christmas is over, I've thought of adapting the station to be "non-wintery". Just replacing the white roof ground parts with different color ( just such trivial mod). But I'm wondering what color would go well for the roof. My current plan is to just fetch the LXF of the 10259, and check it in Stud.io, but I'm struggling a bit now to get it working (I'm on linux). Has anyone tried something like this by the chance :) ?

That's true, although one got to wonder how big of a problem it is. That is - whether it really irks a casual buyer to buy something that resembles more closely something that's used across the ocean? I must admit, that myself, I've never been a fan of 60052 for example, and probably the more you go "nuts" with your train passion, the more it might be a problem, but in general...who knows? Yeah, maybe for wider audience a loco is just a loco...

Someone pitch this to be heard in the right places by right ears :) ? Obviously here we'd like that :)

Hey! You had the previous one! ;) let's enjoy something European this time ;>

Could you elaborate? What does "other" stands for? A particular off-brand product (SBrick?)

Ah right, somehow I thought you mean distance made by train...

How do you plan on automating those? How does the distance "sensing" works? Looks so great anyway. What I see in the video is like...a room of my dreams ;D

By that you mean automatic start stop at those points? Any concrete plans? I plan to use distance sensor to detect train, but only because I have one:)