F0NIX

Ok, no one has explained this the technical way, so here I go: An IR control system has an IR-transmitter and a IR-Receiver. The IR-transmitter has a infrared light emitter diode (IR-LED). The light has an wavelength just out of the range for what an human eye can see. If you try to point the IR-transmitter towards an digital camera, like on a smart phone, you can see the light pulses on the screen when you activate the sender (does work on iPhone 4 but the light is very dim, show up much brighter on other phones or cameras). The pulses has a frequency. The pulses make a string of 1 and 0, like in a binary code. The 1 can be light on and 0 is the light off (or the other way around). Each IR control system operates in different frequencies and set of codes. That is why the TV-remote does not affect the PF-trains. The code has to be exact for the receiver to accept it as a command to do something. And because the IR-transmitter is a light source, the receiver have to "see" that light from the transmitter to understand the code. Thus it would work if the light bounces back from a wall or an object. The light is pretty weak so it has only a short range. The range can be extended with some tweaking of the IR LED driver. I have not tried that on a LEGO controller, but have manage to do it on a TV-remote. Both the old 7897/7898 trains and the newer PF-trains uses IR controllers. But it seems that they operates on different codes or frequencies and are not compatible. I don't have the right equipment right now to record the codes to see what the differences are, but I may do that in the future (if not someone else already has done it?). And back to the first question: can the power from the 7897 box be used to power an PF receiver. The answer is sadly: NO. I have both types of train and I have opened mine (completely) and I can't see any way to transfer the power without any physical modifications. Well, you can just squeeze in some leads between the battery poles at the top of the original battery box and attach them to the PF receiver power plug. But then you have to modify a PF wire. I have just tried to connect the PF receiver to the motor connector on the old 7897/7898 receiver box with a PF-9V extender cable, and then turn on the old receiver and put it on full speed. But it does not work. I tried "driving" the old controller at full speed both ways. I can see there is power out of the old receiver since the light is turning on and off on the 9V light. The PF receiver does not work with an old 9V battery box either (trough an PF-9v cable). So it seems the PF Receiver has to get power on other pairs of wires than the PF-9V extender cables gives out on the 9V side. So some modifications to the cable or other components has to be done to get this working. The motor on the old 7897/7898 trains can be used together with PF systems. You just need to have the PF-9V extender cable between the motor and PF-receiver to get it to work. Hope this was understandable, with my poor English gibberish :)

Here is one that sell standard LEGO lamp posts with light bulb (using 6-12v AC or DC). http://www.blokbricks.com/contents/en-us/p161.html I have seen those at last years (2012) LEGO Fan Weekend in Skærbæk. They look really nice and have a very natural glow since they are made with micro light bulbs and not LED. Since they are normal light bulbs and not LED they can use AC or DC voltage and when using DC it does not matter which way you connect them and makes it easier to connect many of them together. I am not sure how much heat they give of and if that heat can damage the transparent minifig head over years of use. And I am also afraid that those bulbs are a bit more fragile than the LED. You may have to handle them carefully when they are lit and a short time after they are turned off until they have cooled down because of the way the light bulbs are made. But they are used on toy trains so they can handle some small vibrations at least. LED's can handle a lot of force and will probably take more force than a normal LEGO brick would handle before they brakes :)

Well there is an easy way: buy some lamp post from Brickforge, as they come in two parts (at least they did before) and are hollow. http://www.brickforge.com/store/search.php?mode=search&page=1 Then you buy some lights from Lifelites. They come attached with cables and plug: http://lifelites.com/products/261 I'm not sure how bright those Lifelites LED are since there are no data on them on the webpage.

Well I made a thread about it some time ago: http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=47675 The short version is; Bore up the LEGO Lamp post (part 2039) with a 2-2,5mm hole from top to bottom (the hard and scary part of this work). Then I bought some 3mm Warm White LED - 20 Degree Clear 12000mcd BUWWC224W20BA12 from Besthongkong.com (well actually it was BUWWC224W20BA11 I bought but are later been replaced by the BA12). But you can probably find LED other places too. The important thing was 3mm size to fit into the inside a stud and the color has to be Warm White and as bright as possible. 12000mcd is good enough for me, for as soon as you put the trans clear minifig head on you dim the light some. I also soldered a 470ohm resistor in series with the LED just for safety and ease of use. Then I cut one LEGO "Electric, Wire with Brick 2 x 2 x 2/3 Pair" (part 5306) in two parts and used one connector for each lamp post. I also made sure I connected all the LED's the same way. I used the LEGO 9v connector because it is easy to stack many of them on top of each other and I can use a standard LEGO battery box or power supply if I like. For wires between LED and this connector I used some 0.8mm thick flexible insulated wires that you can buy in different colors. I use a Mascot 12v DC/3A power supply and have connected the same 9v-connector to it, so it is very easy to set up on events by just using some long LEGO 9v wires... Inside that yellow building (Verdensteateret) I bught some Flexible SMD LED Strip 50cm - Warm White from Besthongkong.com that comes in 50cm and 500cm length. They are very flexible and has Self Adhesive back side so it is easy to fasten them to any LEGO bricks. They come with built in resistors ready to plug into 12v DC power supply.I just soldered some wires and a LEGO 9v-connector Heat is no problem with LED, they almost don't emit any heat at all compared to normal glowing bulbs. The downside is that you can blow up a LED if you connect it the wrong way (I have had no problem with that). With normal bulbs that is not a problem at all as they will light up whatever way you connect them. And LED's can be a bit more expensive if you want the warm white color.The upside is power usage on a LED is so low that you can run a lot of LEDs on one small 9v battery for a loooong time with no problem :) Hope this lights up your mind :)

I like to put in some lights in my models and city landscape. Here are a few examples: This is from the event "Build the change 2013" in my town Tromsø (norway), where we vere a few guys from Brikkelauget with a small layout. I have made some lamp posts with LED and it gave a nice effect to the city streets. They are bright enough to be seen even when the lights in the room is on full strength. I even have lights inside some of the buildings. Here is one with a LED strip in the roof on the two lowest floors. This building has 5 of the same LED as in the lamp posts in just one floor. Two in the livingroom, 1 in the kitchen, 1 in the office behind the livingroom and one in the staircase room/entrance. Here on this picture you are looking into the livingroom and on the window to the right you are seeing part of the kitchen trough the livingroom door. With this type of light effects, people can see the interior of the building even if it is bright outside. I may put in some lights in the other floors as well, since there are interiors there too... I even tried to light up the inside of my model of the "Artic Cathedral" (Tromsdalen church / Ishavskatedralen). But it did not come out too well on this picture. There is a large glass mosaic in the rear that you can't see on this picture, but you can see the diffrent colors of lights scattering on the building behind it. This was just a temporary light setup done for the first time at this event. I also had put in some lights in the Grand Emporium and some vehicle. I do not like the LEGO PF LED because I think the light is too weak and to much bluish in color.

Very beautiful church indeed. I like the trees and details around it too. Is there any interior?

Seems like you are the one living farthest away from where I live, on the other side of the planet... :)

Want someone a bit north? Try me in Tromsø, Norway ;)

My cats have always loved LEGO as I do. They don't build with it of course but they like to play around with a single part or more. Some just like just to lay down on the LEGO. But my youngest cat Frida can sometimes open a box of LEGO parts, fetch one single part out of the box and then play around in my apartment with that part until she loose it under a furniture. Then she goes back and fetch another brick.... and making a mess... :) Here is a picture of here getting along with her new friend the EV3 Raptor:

Here is my modification of the original LEGO set #10228 Haunted House. Started building yesterday evening around 20:00 and was finished with it around 5 in the morning :) But I have planned this in my head for some weeks now. The house is built up from scratch on a 32x32 baseplate and is in mudule house standard. But I have tried to keep the style from the original. I had to use some extra parts for this so you can not build this just from the parts in the original set. As you see there is a lot of windows in the top floor, that is because I dont have more of those steep slopes that came with this set, actually I only have one of those bricks left after I was finished wit this building :) On the first floor there are little interior, only the fireplace and a stair up to second floor. And there is a little room under the stair. This floor was intended to look like an abandoned shop. On the second floor I put in the stove, cabinet, bed, tables and some other small stuff from the original. There are no interior on the top flor except the shelfs along the walls like on the orignal and the genius folding ladder from the original. But you can't lift of the roof on the top floor so there was no point of having any details up there.

Thank you for the comments. Andy D: I dont think this is the first one. But I think this is the first that is truly in the modular style since it is the same size (except for the porch in front) and where each floor can be lifted off. Here is a picture of the modified Haunted House togheter with Town Hall and Pet Shop. Bear in mind that my modification also rised the house with one brick in the first floor vs the original.

This is a huge model! I thought that the real truck could rotate each wheel set 360 degrees? So if each wheel set is mounted on a turntable and then wait until summer when LEGO releases the new small NXT motor. Then you can attach one of those small motors to each turntable and work out a program for turning each set of wheels independently and accurate. You will need one NXT V3 for four pair of wheels .... THEN it will be a real monster :D

As I said on the Brikkelauget forum; this is realy nice model! I think you got all the important details from the building into the model. About the railings at the terrace, here is a few ideas: You could use the Fence 1x4x1 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3633 part in tan. But it would be tricky in the corners. And the pattern is "wrong" You can also stick a 1x1 tile between two studs and put a 1x plate upside down on top of those. But that may be too thick. A third option is to use some brick 1x4 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3066 in Trans-Clear without anything on top. The railings is pretty thin, so maybe a tube or something like that. Only fixed into some 1x1 bricks with stud on side on each end.

I would like to see a mining truck like these: It does not look very special at first. But it has a special suspension system. The truck on the picture has actually 20 wheels, where there are 10 pairs with independent steering and suspension on each pair of wheels. That is pretty unique? Here is a picture of the suspension system: See more of these trucks at http://www.etftrucks.eu/ I don't know if they ever have made any real trucks, but those pictures of it and the videos looks like a pretty good concept.

Well there are several parts newer than 1999 in there: 32270 Technic, Gear 12 Tooth Double Bevel and 32269 Technic, Gear 20 Tooth Double Bevel is both from 1999 and after. But the model is nice anyway. I just imagine there should be a crane on the rear of the vehicle. I also like the "classic" technic parts. Since I'm an old technic fan that has grown up with the old technic and has still some hard time making something nice from the new studless technic. Seems like Ari Holopainen has made many different gearboxes. I like the comparing he has done with different gears and put them up in a table with distance and gear ratio.

By using this little part, and some pneumatic switches you can make both pressure and vacuum to control the pneumatic pistons. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4692 This is how it was done in the "old days", but it is way more efficient to have pressure on both side of the piston.

On this site there is a table that may help you get the geometry right for the corner. http://ericbrok.com/legomind/projects/geometry/hinges.htm According to that site if you have a 7 stud long wall (or multiple of 7) you can have a 45 degree wall (a and b equaly long).

I would definite buy this set just because of that sweet little Squirrel! Well, I do like most Friends set anyway...

As I have said before, the GE looks a lot better when it gets larger. And this one looks nice. An idea for the escalators can be to move them a bit apart, so when you put a normal GE floor on top of this, one escalator hit the inside of the wall and the other on the outside (or you can have just one on that floor). But my favorite of the two buildings is the modified brown pet shop building with that marvelous inside corner! Just the idea is great! And I think you have done it fantastic too. I like it when people go of the "normal" straight lines and a little off the standards too, but still do fit to the standards. Just look at my "diagonal road" here.

The motion you are after is like a "wave motion" that starts at the root and spreads out to the tip of the tail... Tried a few things here. I found one method but it would not work on vertical motions, only on horizontal motions like on a fish. Because I used clutch-gears that spread the motion from the root and out to the tip with one clutch gear on each joint, and the joint has restricted movement. I will try to make a short movie of it later...

Carsten Svendsen, what size are you aiming for in the dolphin? I'm thinking out an idea for an mechanism in my head right now, but it will be a bit bulky and requires a lot of gears an liftarms...

And here is some pictures I took of that nice model of Morty. I was also so lucky to see this model taking shape via Skype. But I have to say that even images through Skype or the images I provided for you here is not as good as too see it with your own eyes. Both the size of it and the amount of details is stunning.

To get a strong but still smooth power delivery you can use these old gears: They are though and have more teeth that make the transfer smoother. But they are a bit hard to get hold on (probably expensive too). I have some from my childhood. I have the red (9T), the blue (15T) and the yellow (21T).

Here is a few images of the finished creation at the event in Oslo "Bygge landet". Here you can see the roof finished. Photo by L@ go Here is a few by myself, but they dont show of the roof as good as the image by L@go This creation is now taken apart. Now I know of many things that could be done to improve a MOC like this. And I also hope other will take the step to make some MOC a with some twist on the road and shape of the town building.

Nice creations! The form and colorscheme made me think of the RV vehicle in the old TV-series "Ark II" from 1976. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0127989/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_II http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/ark2/blueprints.html But as you see of the pictures, the Ark was a 6 wheeled vehicle.