SteveB

Here's a few... Steve

The Dino neck piece can work too. It's tough to get it all to hang together. In the old days I used castle corner walls similar to this tanker MOC.

They look to be around $2.50 these days! A nice price if you need 20-30 of them around the layout. Man if you could get these working it'd be very cool for qussi-automated layouts. I can easily imagine points (switch track) controller. If each pt controller is addressable then a smart phone app can be used to switch points at a distance! Steve

Purist or not make sure you don't order 3mm hose, I believe it's 1/8" (3.17500 mm). Also note the polyurethane tubing I bought is a bit rubbery to the touch which makes it a bit too sticky when sliding elements along it. And it is not as stiff as LEGO tubing. I think Nylon is the right material. Has any one else had better material matching luck? Steve

"Just Go For It" is the most irresponsible thing in the world to say. Taking tens of thousands of dollars from people on the internet is very serious business, certainly ethically if not legally. Your KS supporters expect to get what they support. And a mold is VERY expensive to get wrong... there is no "reset" / "do over" button. A mold is typically $12,000.00 to $20,000.00 USD and that's a very expensive paper-weight. Fett the best advice is to listen to "coaster". All his advice is exactly correct. You cannot scan and copy, you must have a 3D CAD drawing made. You cannot make a side stud without a slide-out mold, consider creating a slight modification to the design. This is possible because you can make the assumption that a 1x4 is the only element attached, imagine a vertically slotted stud. SteveB

Really great design. I love the super clean lines! I hope you don't mind if i copy it. I'd love to add it to my elongated version. I built 6 shared bogie coaches bookended by the engine units. Thanks SteveB

Dumb Question... is there a DAT/MPD to LDD converter out there? Steve

Hi All, I'm thinking about a doing a Kickstarter project for this. If I can get 250 motors pre-sold via KS I'll do it. In the mean time I'm getting bids on wheels and wipers and I'm not getting very affordable results. If anyone has a favorite machine-shop that they work with I'd like to get bids from them. Please LMK the name and contact info. Thanks, Steve

Steve, which size of magnets does one need for the magnet holder and coupler you sell? Yikes, I don't actually know! :-) I assumed you'd use the existing LEGO ones which slide out with a little coaxing. I guess I'll measure them and post that info. SteveB

I get a lot of stuff from www.banggood.com and had no issues. Typically it is free shipping too. http://www.banggood.com/search/rare-earth-magnets.html SteveB

It seems that super capacitors have a decreasing linear charge v. voltage slope, where batteries, esp LiPo's, have a nice flat voltage until the tail end of the charge. Also the super capacitors have about 1/10th the charge density. But of course you can charge a super capacitors very quickly... interesting trade offs. Steve

I'm getting bids on wheels and wipers... Some homework before a doing a KickStarter for altBricks. If I can get 250 replacement motors pre-sold via KS, I'll do it. I think I'll tackle the 9v motor replacement first by removing the Pf wire and internally hard wiring it. All the same new components as the Hybrid but a bit less labor intensive. Udo (a German LEGO Rail fan) showed me a Pf train motor as a 9v replacement motor using external wipers. Great work, I love the idea of a simple 9v replacement train motor as a second SKU to the Hybrid. Unfortunately for Udo I had to reload my Flickr video and lost his comments. :-( Udo... Please comment and link your videos! On LiPo's: I fly quad copters (my other hobby) and I know that 7.4v 2000mAh batteries are ~$10 ea. vs. LEGO $50ea. They need to be ran through a PCB (protection circuit board ~$1.50) but "should" run fine. I'll be testing that in a week or two. :-) I already have the batteries... waiting for the PCB's to arrive. This solution would require charging out side the MOC. It would be nice to get a recharging solution in a small package and charge from the rails using the Batts as a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), mentioned above by Bricks & Bolts. This would be so cool... power and recharge from the rail and still run on plastic rail if needed. Unfortunately the 2S (two cell) 7.4 LiPo recharging circuit is harder to implement then the 1S. Any pointers to a low cost single chip solution would be awesome. I'm sure the Arduino community is working on this so its only a matter of time. :-) LEGO tackled this in their LiPo pack... but this design is several years old (kudos to LEGO to release a "new" technology), but lot's of components in there! Steve

What does it do.... great question. :-) Since there are no more 9v motors being made it helps solve that issue. It modifies a Power Functions (Pf) train motor to pick up power from 9v track. It routes that power up the Pf cable to supply power to the Pf receiver so no battery is required. So you might say its the best of both worlds, remote control track powered train motors. BTY once there is a constant 9v's is on the rails any track side accessory can pull power from the rails. Steve

Hi All I posted three videos on Flickr showing a DIY hybrid 9v / Power Functions train motor modification I made this weekend. Thanks, SteveB

Thanks guys... I assumed that if I was logged in and made two searches it wouldn't do that! :-) I'll try that Google search idea! SteveB