Toastie

Yes! That was it. I forgot. Sorry. The bunnies were - after a while - too much for me. So "Test" did it - better nothing than bunnies. OK, the bunnies are cute. There are cute trains as well - but most of them are - well - heavy or ... whatever, but not necessarily cute. Thanks a lot for refreshing my mind. I am getting old I guess. All the best Thorsten

The current banner is "nothing" in a color that is "nothing" to me as well (I am color blind). I don't get the "silly" bit - there is simply nothing. That may be regarded as "empty" but not as "silly", or do I miss something? Bunnies? Best Thorsten

This is so incredibly nice! However, this is no outing, in contrast, you guys can be so proud of what you have achieved, what you do, and what you share! Thanks a lot @zephyr1934 for kicking this off! All the best, and keep on with what you are doing! Very best regards Thorsten

Why not listing names? (OK, I know ... the internet does not forget ... ) But ... I'd love to connect EB avatars with names and faces. Holger was there but all the others? Is that really a secret? I am not in the exhibition loop - not at all - but I can imagine how much of efforts must be put into that. @ecmo47 you were stoked; were on earth are you? Man, there are so wonderful people here on EB/TrainTech ... my name is Thorsten, last name Benter, "Toastie" here on EB. Want to know why? Because I spent a three months - (the best of my life: Played tennis on grass) - research stay in Oxford/UK. The "Th" thing in my name drove people nuts, so they simply called me - Toastie. Whatever. All the best, Thorsten

Good evening @grum64, in my opinion, you have already done all the work. In an ionic world, why don't you just move the yellow parts/axles much closer to each other and then squeeze them so that the axle is much shorter? As far as I am concerned, I would know what you are telling me when acting upon such an icon. Best regards, Thorsten

And it always has been ridiculously expensive ... Back in the days ... the LEGO LiPo box You can use any DC power supply (wall wart or the like) putting out a voltage between 9 V and 18 V. So any dirt cheap lets say 12 V DC wall wart will do. Best Thorsten

Yes: Was this one, I believe. And yes, I have to do that all the time as well - in China, they even "detected" a ting they gave me for a conference talk deeply within the checked baggage: A small LED light powered by a LiPo - I had to put that into my carry on baggage. But then what? Why is TLG putting the LiPo to an end of life? There are ships. Trucks. Yes these can suffer from fire as well - but how on earth does all the stuff come from China to the rest of the world? I simply don't get it. Very interesting! Any tip how I would do that? (Just presume that I am completely CAD illiterate and even worse than that). The PUP LED is around €10 (currently not available in Germany, can't remember the exact price, BL sells them starting around this price). Would like to have a couple of connectors. Anyway, how do you get the metal contacts into the 3D printed plug? Sorry for asking, maybe you have posted that somewhere else? Yes, that would work very nicely. However, I believe TLGs LiPo electronics is really nice (with regard to power range for loading - i.e. the 10 V DC wall wart joke, overloading protection, overcurrent protection - cool). I already entertained the idea of merging the LiPo electronics with the PUP electronics. The latter could be housed in a flat 4x10 (= the lid) x 4 plates or so height with a direct connection to the LiPo. So far I have retrofitted a couple of my trains with a dual LiPo/PUP (2I/O hub) pack + track power pickup without any severe cutting - it is space demanding though. On the other hand it works really nice. Should post it here … Best wishes, Thorsten

This is a very, very good idea!!! I simply don't always know who did what when and who is copying … such a registry would be most helpful for me as I don't want buy anything from such "sources". Best Thorsten

True. However, it is really pretty much straight forward to convert PF (train motors) to PUP. All you need is a PUP LED to get hold of the PUP connector cut that off from the LEDs and wire that to a PF connector. The wiring was shown here before Works like a charm on the PUP 2I/O hub. Also with the correct wiring the hub thinks it has a PUP train motor attached. But the core problem remains, as you pointed out: The PUP 2I/O hub is just a battery box equipped with BLE. What I simply don't get is TLG's reasoning. If it were for changed postal regulations, how do "battery" powered lawn mowers, cell phones, LiPo batteries themselves, and every other LiPo powered device ever make it across borders? They come into stores and via amazon in unaccountable numbers … Best Thorsten

I am pretty sure that this is the case as the location is within the EU (yeap - just checked - you don't know these days anymore, Netherxit not clearly visible on the horizon ) and thus there are no customs fees, VAT is 21% (standard rate, applies to this type of goods, I believe) and close enough to that of many other EU countries (Luxembourg lowest 17%, Croatia/Sweden hightest 25%); shipping should be a lot less. Best Thorsten

On another thought: The torque created on the train motor at low power levels is next to nothing. It kicks in at about power of 3 or 4. When your tram almost runs freely without much friction or moment of inertia it should run fine. The very moment some sort of additional friction (slight relocation of axles, track curves or bumpy track, whatever), power level 1 may simply not create enough torque to keep up the desired speed. This is the very reason I added some PID code to the program operating the train motor. Best Thorsten

@Duq thanks for the flowers I am controlling some of my trains with RCX' as well. And it was a pain in the butt to get it right with the LEGO firmware, which has these 8 power levels. If I were you I would not write my own PWM code, I'd get RobotC for RCX. It is freely available at the RobotC website. I assume you are using NQC to get your programs do what the should do, right? If so, the transition to RobotC is easy. Much easier than writing your own PWM. RobotC gives you power settings in steps from 1 to 100 in increments of 1. Plus: I can surely send you my RobotC train control program - which you need to modify - it comes along with PID control of the output power, provided you put a LEGO rotation sensor on one of your trains axles. in that case a train for sure runs with a speed corresponding to power=10 when you set power=10. Best, Thorsten

Hi Gerhard, two things: First, I did purchase the electronic version of your encyclopedia - and it is a fantastic resource of depth and width I have neve seen before. In addition it is not only documenting but partly also interpretation; I believe one cannot go without the other. Your work is beyond believe and unbelievable valuable. Second: Is it really the case that one era ends and another one begins - more or less seamlessly? We work with a number of rather large companies having a range categorized in their portfolio of things they sell. I could try and do the same thing you are trying: A temporal evolution. But: Although some instruments are not even listed on their websites anymore they do still sell these. No more research and development, just getting the stuff out. Eventually that also fades out. However, many other products became available much earlier. It it thus tough or better not feasible to have clear borderlines. In contrast: these lines overlap; sometimes for many, many years. Could this be applicable here as well? At least for a couple of years? Maybe one or two, as some sort of temporal uncertainty? Best, Thorsten (Whoa, look at the post number … no harm meant)

And I take the freedom (no offense please - in too many EB forums way too much heat is created because people have different perspectives - and this is >no< reason to heat) to "counter" that. Or much better: To view this from my perspective. Much better. My "counter" is stupid. I believe that one pivotal point is: Where does the power come from?. Batteries? For me, no way. As far as I am concerned, it does not make much sense. For one, no real train runs off from batteries, much more importantly though, a powered track is a means of power delivery to any devices present on the setup. You mentioned really nifty devices and solutions, but they need power. Sure we can wire unlimited meters/yards of wires through the layout, but it is so much easier to pull-off 9V/12V/15V (whatever) directly from the track in close vicinity to the device needing power, e.g. the intelligent switch drives you proposed. I am doing exactly that on my layout. There is power everywhere due to the metal track system. Now, another thing, which is very closely tied to the metal track, is the power pickup. The moment you have that installed in an "intelligent" (oh my ... big word for "bridge rectifier") way on your engine, things become entirely in line with all past (I don't like using the word "old" - it always implies "out of order" or "not being compatible with 'now' ") and current devices, be that PF, PuP or even 9V. The 9V system is not old; it is an alternative. Plus, there should be no worries about insulating track segments (e.g., reversing loops as a measure of freedom to lay track) - look at what @coaster has announced, these pieces are perfectly suited for that purpose when you don't want to take the invasive route. So, IMHO and only in that, I believe what Michael is trying to create (and pull off) makes not only sense, but is a big step forward. What you are proposing is in full accord with that. All the best Thorsten

@Grover That was such a nice read - the whole thread, but particularly your replies/analyses. Really, really nice. As a physical/theoretical chemist myself, I happen to have I'd say rather well equipped MS laboratories with all sorts of machines and methods - and this at a public university. So the $$ aspect becomes much less of an issue, once we find a good approach and research plan for a BSc or MSc thesis. We do ion/molecule chemistry as one research focus and thus need mass specs to investigate such reactions, i.e. we do basic research. A lot has also to be done "in" the computer as many of these reactions are way to fast and complex to follow them step by step experimentally. As "fall out", we also do develop ionization methods etc. pp. and we work with Bruker, SCIEX, Thermo as well as many other companies. Lets us assume I like LEGO very much. Let us further assume I may find a student interested in such work: What do we want to accomplish? Identify the "yellowing" compound for the white bricks would be a good start; would it be a bromine containing compound surviving some sort of ionization (at atmospheric pressure w/ or w/o LC or GC pre-separation using ESI, APCI, APPI or APLI or in vacuum using EI/CI) am sure we'll find it as the isotopic pattern of Bromine almost always tells you if and if how many bromine atoms are present in the compound. I may also ask one of my colleagues/friends in safety engineering - he is a former chief fire officer and now professor for chemical safety and fire defense. I don't know whether he likes LEGO but he does like to research cool things. In one collaboration, we blew up various types of rechargeable batteries - in a controlled fashion of course - and tried to identify gaseous combustion products. Was fun. However, how do we choose the raw material? From the 1990? 2000? 2010? And how do we find such temporally well categorized raw material? My bricks are all in boxes with certain schemes of categorizing them (e.g. color for the simple x by z bricks), but certainly not according to "year of production". That may thus render such an analysis less interesting, right? Also, do you think there is any chance to get such information from TLG? For a research project I mean? Anyway - I would do it as soon as I see a good chance that something meaningful will come out of such an effort. Anyway here is a link to the MS institute I have founded back in 2011, which is now directed by one of my group co-workers. All the best, Thorsten

The "historical interpretation" (and it will hardly be any more than that) of LEGO history will always be a matter of discussion. The moment one puts any kind of any "personal" aspect into that - and >missing a thing< or >pointing to a thing< is such a personal thing, among so many other things - the entire discussion may skip into a battle. In other words: Any kind of historical assessment of any temporal evolution is - inherently personal. There is no absolute truth. I bet: Even TLG does not know, what - on an absolute scale - is going on. No way. Particularly with regard to this thread, whatever TLG prints on boxes, whatever they push, whatever they do see fit is - essentially meaningless. For the best, it is a marketing thing. Or: A best guess or best try. What does the label "Expert Set" mean? I am not an expert, but I could build these sets. Somebody over there decided to call it "expert". Honestly? Good guess. So what. Modular? Who is defining modular? Because they stick to each other, have the same scale (sort of) they are defined as modular? That is crap. They do fit. That is all. Put it anywhere you want, but don't hunt it down to some sort of "truth". As in: I know better than "X". LEGO is no absolute measure. Nor is TLG. No higher authorities power. They are a company. As Amazon is. Or Microsoft. All of these believe they make the world a better place. And all they try to achieve is: Making more money. We may want to pull up the graphs shown before. No one here knows things. There are interpretations. And with that: Pipe down. This discussion has reached a temperature absolutely not worth it. All the best Thorsten

Very nice discussion you have going here! Question: Is it really necessary to use bold face, italics, underline, larger font to … what … point out things? Or emphasize things? When entire paragraphs are phrased in this way, it becomes … at least to me … less … pointed out. I am always irritated by that. Just discussing the matter is way enough for me. But this is just me. Hope the discussion continues! All the best Thorsten

>Fully< agreed on! Quite honestly: It sounds like TLG is venturing into the circle of "big companies life" where the people pushing and knowing "it" either retired or simply died. And these people took all that unaccountable knowledge with them. Plus: The world is changing. BIG TIME. Plus: Going from simple ABS bricks to current BLE device technology - encased in ABS plastic molds - is - "different". I really fully agree: Why on earth don't they hire like crazy? Why don't they contract out like crazy? Why don't they alley - in a "you have ideas, I give you a share" way? Vigorously? Instead they suggest the "Your are so super smart - tell us how to do it" way - for what? For free? For honorable mention? With China on their back? Oh my. This is … crazy. When you want to push through in a highly competitive market - act like that. TLG has long lost the charisma of being a "Toy Company". They are a fully blown world-wide operating power player. So get the best people on board, give them a living and cut the crap. Or voice it differently. Man. Just my 2 cents. Best Thorsten

I fully agree with your thoughts and your approach. TLG is "inventing" parts as >they do see fit for their projects< - uhmm - products. I don't see any reason (at all!) why a skilled individual as you are should not take the exact same route. This is creative. It is the core of the matter. TLG tells us how creative their approach is. Well, you are as well! Best Thorsten

Phew - I don't know. Just look at what LiPo's cost - today. You may find differences, but not this kind not in the +10 € sector. None-what-so-ever. Plus: They almost always come from … China. It would be thus interesting to find out, what TLG used - well what they ordered, back then - as they don't do electronics (right?). Chances are: They came from China anyways … So what is decent and what is junk with regard to LiPo's becomes … at least - interesting. BTW, the last LiPo blow-up is history; at least in the media. Time progresses, as technology and production does. And they do learn fast and efficient in China. They are homo sapiens sapiens as well … Looking forward to your review! All the best, Thorsten (Emanuele … I will never take offense from what you feel and write!)

+1!!! I fully agree with what you and @coinoperatorhave voiced. Best, Thorsten

Hmmm. My HE consisting of two sets has two motors (one 9V w/ power pickup and one PF motor) + PF light all in one engine. The other engine is not motorized. At least when the motorized engine is pulling the entire consists it never derails. Some people are worried about the different characteristics of the two motors - but: Never had problems at all. I don't know about having the engine pushing the other cars - never tried. Sometimes I have issues on other trains (= derailing) when the wires from the PF motors cannot move freely enough upon negotiating curves or particularly switches. The motors need to pivot without much resetting forces coming from the (rather stiff as compared to 9V) PF wires. I believe that this issue may even be more severe, when a motor in the back is pushing the front section with a motor already loosing some contact with the track. But I am just guessing. Good luck with your HE! Thorsten

@Lowa I am really deeply impressed. You guys have so many brilliant ideas (just take the curved switches alone). What I like so much about your software is the "cleanliness". It is very intuitive - and at the same time very powerful. I mean, you can run your own python scripts, operate BLE and 4DBrix WiFi devices … and all that is tile oriented and highly modular. And: It is a track designer on the side … Wow. This is so well thought out! Plus: Help from your side comes fast and efficient. Really nice. Best regards, Thorsten

As others have said - a beautiful steam engine - one of the most beautiful steamers I have seen. What I really really like though is the entire train. She pulls it so nicely and smoothly - and everything is "in harmony". Wow. Congratulations! Best regards, Thorsten

Wow. That is really really nice. I am all 9V; nevertheless I do share all the excitement! Moving the switches into curved track segments even with perfect half cross overs is an extremely nice solution. Thanks for the note! Best Thorsten