JWBDolphins

The old Western steam locomotives are my personal favorite type of loco. Those look Great! Thanks for the inspiration!

What an awesome comparison! - Great Job!!!

I would agree with Phil B. LEGO LEDs have a Bridge Rectifier built into the PF connector - basically a diamond of diodes that makes sure DC current only flows to their LEDs in the correct polarity regardless the polarity coming into it. If you're using your own LEDs or removed the LEGO LED PF connector, it should be easy enough to add your own Bridge Rectifier so no matter the polarity of C1 and C2 the LED should light.

That's Awesome! Please keep us updated on your progress!

I've been looking for a crane for a long time. This is the one!!

That's Awesome!

"I've cut it twice and its Still too short" Toastie beat me to it - if you want to use "Train Motor 9V Decorative Side with Closed Hub Points" your options are limited. One reason TO use this piece is it comes in "Light Gray" where the new versions are "Light Bluish Gray" if that's important to your build. I have NOT tried this, but you may able to put a 3L axle on one wheel and a 2L on the other and let them Float between the decorative pieces - but I bet those results wouldn't be satisfactory. So you really have 2 options if you choose to Cut. Drill holes through the Decorative Side Closed Hub Points (I would Definitely NOT do this), or cut an axle to 5.5L. I use a 5.5L Axle with Stop as my guide and cut a longer axle to this length. If LEGO were to ever produce a 5.5L axle, I would replace them with that - but in certain instances I'm good with cutting where LEGO doesn't provide another option. Just a few nods from LEGO to the LEGO Train Community would be nice, but that's Another topic!

You really have outdone yourself! You wouldn't know that wasn't an O-Gauge engine (train for that matter), even if you looked at it for a while! As I strive to get better, its always good to have markers of what Is possible!

Agreed, you did a Fantastic job, this is truly Amazing!!!

In the DCC world you can do something like this: https://www.digitrax.com/media/apps/products/autoreversing/ar1/documents/AR1.pdf Don't think this will work for what you're trying to do now, but the general idea is have some isolated sections of track that the metal wheels will energize when they short the gap which is electronically detected and switches the polarity of track between these isolated sections. Not sure I explained that very well!

I'm just glad to see new LEGO trains. Do I Love them?, No. Do I Like them?, Yes. For Me a lot of the fun is figuring out ways to improve the places I think LEGO came up short. Just by the nature of it Being LEGO there are trade-offs everywhere so anything I think I can do better I'll give it a shot. That's the fun of LEGO Trains to me. (And now I'll need to figure out how to make a Muppets Train! )

Thanks for sharing! I bought a used 9V system a few years back and those wires are starting to flake - this will be very useful! And I'll second the BNTECHGO wire, the silicone insulation is very durable, flexible, and easy to work with. I've used their 20 gauge wire to power third-party controls to run both PF and PU motors - works great!

CONGRATS! Well deserved!

Great question! I think probably the Rightest of the right answers is, "its your hobby so whatever you want that answer to be is the right answer." Now if you are a reseller of LEGO, etc, that might be a different answer. But your question is an intriguing one and I think about it a lot! The only answer I can give is where I draw the line. Generally, if LEGO does Not supply an option for what I need, then I improvise and make my own. Once they do come out with whatever part I want, I swap to it. Also, generically, if I'm making instructions for a model (I like to do that for myself so I don't forget what I did!), I'll make the instructions with a "pure" LEGO build, and then a "oh, by the way, you can get around this problem by x" option. A couple examples. I built an engine around a Power Functions train motor and had the sides go down flush against the outside edge of the wheels. LEGO provides a 6L axle but that is too long. The pure LEGO option is put a 3L axle on one wheel that the motor will catch on one side, and a 2L axle on the opposite wheel. The sides will keep the wheels "trapped" so the won't fly out. The motor has the catch on the other end cattycorner from the first end so you reverse the 2L and 3L axles. I didn't like that solution - I wanted 4 wheel drive, so my option was to Cut a 6L axle to fit. If LEGO comes out with a new size axle that fits, I will just use it. Last example. I came to LEGO trains right after the 9V era ended, but I picked up a BNSF engine and want to run it. Power Functions doesn't provide a good solution because the battery box is too wide - you need to either have a big gray blob in the middle of the engine or try to color match stickers. My solution, use a much smaller LiPo battery (works great by the way.) (One caveat, Make Sure you fully research LiPo batteries before going that route.) Now, if I want to connect that LiPo to a PF Receiver - I don't want to modify the receiver at all - so my solution was to buy Power Function Extension cables, cut them in half, and solder on common connectors that will connect to the LiPo. In my case I chose XT30; they are a little big but very easy to solder and can handle a Lot of amps - more than LEGO will be a problem with. Yes, I killed a LEGO part (extension cable) but I fixed a problem LEGO didn't give me a solution for. In reality, I don't use PF or PU, but that's a discussion for later and really relates to the "and other digital tech" topic. Since PF is now dead, LEGO has moved to Powered Up which is Great, but they did NOT give us a backwards compatibility mechanism. LEGO Orphaned all the PF motors, lights, etc. My solution - wait until a Powered Up extension cable comes out, cut it, and add XT30 connectors to it. If they Don't come out with a Powered Up extension cable, I'm very close to buying a Powered Up LED and lopping off that connector and adding an XT30, as I don't really use PU. Or, more realistically, since the PU LEDs increased in price quite a bit over PF, just come up with my own Much cheaper LED option. Again - fill a need that LEGO doesn't really provide for me. I hope this didn't get too off topic, but that's pretty much where I draw the line.

Exactly this! When FX Bricks gets their power pickups done, I think this is something to look into. Several years ago I looked into adding DCC to 9V LEGO Motors and the issue I ran into was finding DCC decoders that would handle the stall amperage of a 9V Motor (which you need to do to run DCC without worry of burning up decoders.) But again, that was several years ago and there are probably a lot more DCC choices these days.