bricks n bolts

If it's more like 2mm you could maybe fix it with this : http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1001 ? Interesting, did you try a very large gear (such as http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3649) where you have the top of the belt / half bush and a small gear on the actual wheel axle (maybe http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=32270 would be better than http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3647 ) ?

Some strange things are up at the train station, the night CCTV is picking up something : The hard-up stable owner is handing over her old horses to the farmer who's taking his cows for slaughter It gets worse, the horses are not only chained up but restricted by metal posts and heading to a processed beef product near you What metal posts were these I hear you ask? I was wondering what could be done with these : It's a lamppost pack from 1958 ! Can be used for any sort of cargo, not just horses They're too small to be used as real lampposts in minfig scale and can't hold a real light, other suggestions welcome.

Reading up, that thing was scary - 230km/h in 1929!! BMW engine...

Probably a 4.5v, I had one just like that in the '80s but it broke back then...were made in 12v but much rarer - I ordered a black 12v one from bricklink but it was broken too. Still have the original battery box that came with the 4.5v motor though, from which I made an 'alternative' 4.5v battery wagon :

Excellent repair job Andromeda and interesting use of chemicals How did you test/confirm your bad connections were racking up 15 ohms?

Super nice bridge LegoSjaak! That monkey is asking for trouble What are the cross beams made from?

Wow, functional and looks in keeping with train scale, an iPhone as you say just looks a bit odd plus is too high. Looking forward to your productions!

No, neither can I, funny this is though I'm doing that also right now... It worked quite well as you have it there until I started adding weight (more friction on the worm gear eventually halting the motor)./ In the end I moved the worm gear down one level so the actual motor only has a normal (small) gear.

Worked fine for me, but then I have all sorts installed on my WinXP. Installing either one of these should fix it : http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=6523 http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=1639

Have you actually tried running it? I don't use it so can't try, but I thought .NET 2 was installed on all machines by default these days (via Windows update)

If you have full PF you can then wire up the pickup bricks to recharge a Lipo as it's moving around EDIT: You'd only need one pickup brick for such operation, rather than two, as you don't need to worry about dead spots

No reason not to use PF motors and BBB wheels with 12v, just run the track power on three quarter power and you'll be fine. Connect the motors via your '70s pickup bricks.

You're not kidding! Just seen your new photos on Flickr, love the town, airport, carousel and monorail, nice use of space and function, but this is simply amazing :

Lovely 12v train Locomotive Annie! Great to see combinations of ancient brick with the modern stuff, the '70s red crank pin with Zephyr's rods Never used the sliding bogies before. Just had to double take bricklink, wow those '70s black wheels are rare, almost as rare as the '80s red ones... Do you have any plans for the Type 1 motor you are going to replace with a Type 2? Still waiting for that photo of 12v grey conductive rails on brown Enlighten track, I can just make out out a little corner of it on the first photo...

You'd have to modify them or just break the electrical connection with some sticky plastic at a join, the signal rails only isolate the power on one side at a time as they are for turning on/off the power rather than reversing the polarity.

Just the PF plugs / wiring alone take up too much space...

THE BNSF train was a 2004 set - http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?S=10133-1

Yep, it's all the same guy, the year after he made the custom 12v tracks he switched to making his own custom 9v track, got to love those points of his..(http://www.brickshel...y.cgi?i=3184301) EDIT: the second link was someone different, from 2005, so it was his ideas that were expanded on

lol, no point in switching but not at all pointless.. Also check out http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Grunneger/Veendam2007/0012.jpg and http://users.erols.com/kennrice/flextrack.htm

I've never owned any 9v, having 12v in the '80s then going into my dark ages, only emerging again at the start of the PF era. For the moment I'm sticking with 12v but am using 9V wiring/conductive plate, PF track with 12v conductive rails and PF wheels with modified 12v pickups. I do like 9v, preferring it over PF. If I started out with 9v I would probably stick to it, the problem is the same for both 9v and 12v - they are ageing systems which will only get more and more expensive on the second hand market. Longer term, if reliable third party suppliers ever emerge for 9v such as BBB or MeModel that can supply all components then I would be tempted to switch. Contributions such as Alainneke's pickups help us reach that goal. Conversely if reliable and imaginative third party suppliers emerge for 12v there may be no point in switching....

Super nice layout dundarach, love the small steamer with the tipper trucks and also the use of blue track for the monorail, amazing how you've managed to stabilise seeing as blue track can fall apart quite easily.

That's great alainneke, masterly done with the dual purpose signal post. Great layout too, with 7740, Horizon Express, monorail, train shed and crossing! Like the grass too, helps finish it all off, my layout is currently on two dining tables, so don't think I'll be allowed to drill through them , but the grass idea may help hide all the wiring.

Thanks, have you tried mounting '80s grey on Enlighten brown yet? Would love a picture as still can't make up my mind about the colour combinations. Annoying, as unlike the grey/bley dilemma of 9v users we can't hide the colour differences with ballasting. I was going to go for blue on bley but am having second thoughts as now I have a long stretch of it, it doesn't look as nice as it did with only small sections. Bit silly, but don't much like the the light grey on bley look either....

Cool, can we have a picture of how you've mounted and hidden the sensors?

I haven't used it but you could try this : http://www.azatrax.com/automatic-reverse-loop.html Site's components looks very good for 12v, I'm tempted to give their sensors a go.