F0NIX

Eurobricks Citizen
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    245
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About F0NIX

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    technic

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  • Website URL
    http://www.brikkelauget.no

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Tromsø
  • Interests
    LEGO (of course), computers, gaming, electronics, photographing, bicycling and geocaching.

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  • Country
    Norway

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  1. F0NIX

    [MOC] The Edge

    Then I have set up this model for the fourth time and got some more detailed pictures. But here is a few examples: Here is the groundplane put down. There is now lights in the post along the sidewalk. Those yellow squares marks where the internal columns should stand. Colorful inside :) But nothing of this will be seen when the model is finished set up. I use Duplo for the columns. Here the walls for the ground and 1. floor is set up. Here is the roof on top of the first floor and the internal construction that holds up the side panels for the rest of the building. The internal structure is built with Technic parts. The wall panels on the right side is up. The orange column in the front is just a temporary column for help under the setup. This holds some weight of the right front panel until I got more weight on the rest of the internal structure. The six main panels on the right and left side set up. The start of the roof construction, Here the finished model is set up. Have now got a sign on top of the roof, a ventilation unit on top of the first floor in the rear. And some small gaps around is fixed. Have also put in all those trans-black parts I was missing and had to swap for normal black parts before the PKH exhibition. You can see all the pictures here: https://www.flickr.c...157645474900943
  2. F0NIX

    [MOC] The Edge

    This is another model of a real building from my home town Tromsø in northern part of Norway. Clarion Hotel The Edge was opened 1.may 2014. When they started building it, there had already been some pictures in the local newspaper of how it was supposed to look when finished. And I liked the shape. The architect was inspired of some other spectacular buildings in the town: Ishavskatedralen and Polaria that I have made a model of in LEGO before. I like this type of architecture. I also like some challenges and thought all those angles looks fun and interesting to build. I settled on minifig scale (1:42) just to get as much details of the buildings as I could (there are not many). I used photos that I took myself and some floor and facade drawings to help me plan this out. This is my first LEGO MOC in this huge size so I tried to plan as well as I could. I had a few criteria beside the scale of the building, that I wanted to follow: * It needs to be easy to set up and taken down. * It needs to be stable enough for a public exhibition. * It needs to be as compact as possible when packed down. Used LEGO Duplo bricks as support columns inside. Used LEGO Technic for structural support rack/scaffolding inside to hold up the brick built walls. And it can be dismantled and packed down as a IKEA furniture set (without the umbraco keys) :) The pictures is taken on the first exhibition it was on. PKH2015 in Trondheim, Norway. Not 100% complete yet. Missing some parts that had to be substituted with the closest part I could find until the new parts arrive. The new parts has now been placed and the model is again ready for a new exhibition. PKH is short for "På Kloss Hold" that translates to "at close range" but the word "kloss" could also means like a LEGO brick. So it is a play on words. PKH is the Norwegian LUG Brikkelaugets annual meeting and exhibition. Right front facade: Left front facade: Right rear facade: Front facade: Top View: The Real Building: More pictures here. Some numbers: Real building: 42m high Model = 100cm high Number of bricks: more than 20.000 And here is a video from when I was setting it up for the first time at the first exhibition it was shown at. It was on "På Kloss Hold 2016", the Norwegian LUG Brikkelauget's yearly event. I have fixed a few things on the building since those pictures was taken: Swapped the black bricks with trans-black panel and bricks in the front where I ran out of bricks before PKH. Made the sign on top of the building. Made one of the huge air conditioning units that sits on top of the first floor in the rear right corner. Fixed some of the gaps on the roof where I had trouble finding a wedge plate that matched the angle of the wall. Fixed some other small gaps here and there. Fixed a little low wall on top of the roof of the first floor. I will maybe set out some more minifigs with bags and suitcases and a taxi in front of the hotel. But that depends on how accessible the parts are for small fingers ;) There are also a few other things that I may do with the model in the future: Around on the facade there are some vertical glass panels on the real building. But since they are made of glass they are not very visible in the day. But in the night they are lit up from behind with some cold white-bluish light. But I have not found a good way to implement this feature so it is not very visible in the day. The small posts in the front has a trans clear round 1x1 plate in every second post. On the real building those post are lit up at night. I have already made the model so it is possible to put in light here, but I have not put in the LED here yet. There are also some cranes here and there on top of the building. Those cranes lower down a basket so they can clean the facade of the building. I may put in those at a later time to. I have to find a nice way to build them in the right scale first, and here I only have pictures from below to look at.
  3. F0NIX

    New way to control LEGO trains?!

    Th There are no IR LED's in the GOT satellites. The satellites receive ultrasound from the trains for positioning data and then uses radio signals to communicate with the master controller that are connected to the computer. The trains have a little GOT controller unit connected with an IR-sender strapped on to the LEGO PowerFunction IR-receiver with double sided tape. And the train controller gets power from the PF battery pack and uses radio signals to communicate with the master controller. And it also sends out a ultrasound code (or something) from a little speaker you mount on the roof of the train for positioning data. You do not need free sight to the train for controlling the train. You can control it even if it is inside a tunnel. But you can not get the positioning data when the satellites can't get the ultrasound from the train controller. The only thing I miss with this system is able to have motor control also on the second port on the IR-receiver, not only turn lights on/off. The sound chip is connected directly on to the train controller and do not use a port on the PF IR-receiver.
  4. F0NIX

    New way to control LEGO trains?!

    How is it going with your train automation/control system?The GamesOnTrack software has had some updates since last time I posted here. Many new functions. Much better graphics, and you can add your own graphics for each train. We now also have sound in the trains :) I have also had a go on a large layout, but that was partly a failure but I learned a lot of the limitations on this system and what you have to do to get this to work on a large layout. This large layout (PKH2015) was built in a indoor football hall and the layout was shaped like a big T. There was no trouble controlling all the trains and the switches, but position data gave me some trouble. First off all it was not possible to mount the satellites in the ceiling over the layout since it was to high. So I made some "Radio towers" to get the satellites up in the air. They was around 1m high, but that was not enough since we had some huge and high buildings in the layout. The rule is that to get the best positioning data, the train has to see at least three of the satellites from any place on the track. But with high buildings close to the railway you will get some shadows if the satellites are low, and thus is not able to get positioning data from the train at those points, and even worse, the data you are getting is telling the system that the train is far off the track. The solution is to hang the satellites high up over the layout, around 2m is ideal. The reach of each satellites is about 6-7 m, and we had a much larger layout than that so I also had to add more satellites to get the coverage just because of distances. I also had some trouble adding extra satellites into the software. I need more practice there... We also made the track a bit complicated and that did not help on the satellite coverage any better. So my conclusion is this: GOT system is really easy and good for small layouts. On larger layouts you have to take care of a lot of things like coverage and range of the satellites. Make the layout so that you have at least a few loops where trains can be routed into and run around without any control without danger to crashing into another train. Then you will also able to mix in other trains so that people without GOT train transmitters also can drive the trains on the track. But be careful when making automation, the GOT system can not detect other things on the track that does not have the transmitter and it is therefor not possible to run trains from the automation without danger of crashing into those things. This weekend it is time for the "Build the change" LEGO event again and we are setting up a small train layout there again as last year. After that I will report back here what more I learned about GOT and what it can do.
  5. F0NIX

    Which track?

    I started with LEGO trains a few years back and had the same issue. Which type of tracks should I use? At that point LEGO had allready stopped producing 9V tracks and had switched to the plastic PF rails. The first two trains I bought was the RC trains. With those there is an issue of controlling many of them and in an city layout you always needed a line of sight. Then the PF trains arrived, they where better as you could place the electronics where ever you like in the train even though they are a bit bulky compared to the 9V system. With the PF-system you can have a maximum of 8 trains with no extra function on each train. I tried making systems to control them with a LEGO Mindstorm NXT and a IR transmitter to control the trains. That works fine as long as the train is in visible sight of the IR transmitter. But now there is way around the controlling issue with PF is using systems like GamesOnTrack (www.gamesontraack.com). I have bought a complete set from GOT and got positioning and can control many trains at once and make automatic or manual decision of where to send each train. The system can also control switches and signal lights. Here is a small test video I made to show the system: So to wrap it up, go for PowerFuncion and then add a GamesOnTrack system later on, then you are all set up for the future of LEGO trains :)
  6. F0NIX

    My shot at the Nautilus (20k version)

    I was thinking of the panels that are 45 degrees on your model, I think they need an edge in the middle. It can probably be done with slopes? Or you can devide that plate in two parts and make another edge in the middle between the upper and lover edges.
  7. F0NIX

    My shot at the Nautilus (20k version)

    Nice model, but you need more edges on the panel: Look at this drawing: http://www.twentythousandleaguesunderthesea.com/nautilusentireblueprints.jpg
  8. F0NIX

    Any new Minifig scale VW Bug designs?

    So what you are looking for is a bug fix? I like the one you linked to but as someone said in that thread I have not seen any that "click". Curved shapes is not the easiest thing to get right with the "squareness" of LEGO. If you go up a size or two, I have seen many pretty representations of the VW Beetle.
  9. F0NIX

    Lytro camera and LEGO

    One fun, interesting and good thing with Lytro is that when they develope the software further you get new functions on all your existing images too :) Just the other day they updated the software and now I have a lot of new functions I can play with on the images, like setting focus range/spread on the image.
  10. F0NIX

    Sets with 'modularising' potential

    I have also rebuilt the 10228 Haunted House to a modular building. You can see it on this picture between my double Palace Cinema and a Cafe Corner building.
  11. Well I have missed out on all the trains before the PF-trains arrived. Mostly because I had little interest in trains since I live in a area without trains. But I have traveled some in my work in the last few years and seen a lot of trains and the interest for trains has grown. And I have up to now bought all the PF-trains in addition to some other trains like the Holiday train, Harry Potter train and Toy Story train. I have no plan to miss out on any new trains that LEGO put out. And I in addition to all those PF trains I have also bought a GamesOnTrack system to control all the trains :)
  12. F0NIX

    Help with Emerald Night please

    Another idea that I found useful is to remove the rubber bands from the small front and rear wheels and only keeping the rubber bands on the big driving wheels. That gives the wheels a little more playroom vertically and ensure that the big wheels gets most of the load towards the track even if the track has some bumps.
  13. F0NIX

    Lytro camera and LEGO

    I do understand that some people see this new technology as "gimmicky" and "it will always be just a toy and never be any useful". But many has said that about many new technologies before, just look at the evolution of mobile phones... :) I know my pictures does not make the best out of Lytro and lightfield photography technology, but I try and I hope to learn more. And it is really hard to shift your mind around when you have been used to always have the object in focus and only thinking in the "space" that is captured in the moment on the normal photography (from a regular camera). The more I look at Lytro images taken by professional photographers with cameras like the Lytro Illum and hear and read about what those photographers say about the lightfield technology the more I am sure that this have a good future and we are now just seeing the beginning. With lightfield photography you have to think more about the 3D-space and what is in the foreground and what is in the back and compose the image in a totaly new way. Or you CAN do it at least, and they who master it can tell a much better story with this type of images than normal "flat" images that can only be seen one way... I hope more people will give this new technology a try and share their experiences (and photos too...) :) And I dont think this will replace "normal" photography, but it will complement it. Just like video does.
  14. F0NIX

    Lytro camera and LEGO

    I was searching the forum but could not find out if anyone else than me has used a Lytro camera and LEGO. Or am I searching wrong? I see in the "Bricks Flicks & Comics" part there is a Tutorial: Choosing a Camera. Maybe it should be updated with a light field camera like Lytro? For those who don't know what's special with a light field camera like a Lytro camera, the short story is that is more like a "living picture" where the viewer select the focus point on the image after the photos has been taken, rather than the photographer selecting the focus point before taking the photo. Here is a more in-depth explanation: http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/lightfield-photography-revolutionizes-imaging/ I have the first generation Lytro camera and have followed the development of this camera since they announced it many years ago. First it was only available in the US, and also the software was for Mac users only at first. But for over a year ago they was also available in the Europe and also had software for Windows. I searched a lot to find a shop here in my country but could not find any for a long time until I found it at the electronic shop at the airport near Oslo :) The second generation Lytro camera called Lytro Illum was released a few month ago and are more like an DSLR camera (but without the R) and even more powerfull. I have tried it out some and as I expected it works just perfect for small scenarios like a LEGO town or inside a LEGO building. You can see some of the pictures I have taken with the camera here: https://pictures.lytro.com/f0nix Now I just need more training for taking a good picture with it since you have to think different when taking a picture with this type of camera. :) Is there anyone else that have a Lytro camera? Have you tried to take any LEGO related photos with it? What does the rest of the people think of this photo technology? Do you think it works with LEGO creations?
  15. F0NIX

    Would you recommend 10243 Parisian Restaurant?

    I would say buy all the modular houses, they are all great! The Parisian Restaurant is also very detailed both outside and inside. And you mention Brickfilms, comics, dioramas and the outside balcony/restaurant area is just perfect for that. And also the room under the roof where you can just lift up one side of the roof and display all its interior, that would also be perfect for a filmset. As for the other rooms, I don't know how you are filming them, but you can just dismantle the sidewalls to be able to better film some action on the inside... and that goes for all the modular houses, but I agree that some of them have larger rooms inside.