Toastie

Well, what to add? I just really admire the history, the stories, the photography, the knowledge behind all this - it makes a big difference to me. For me, your building skills are simply playing in another league. I really enjoy just seeing all that in LEGO world - as much as learning all the things you guy are providing here. All the best, Thorsten

I like the "ammonia" bit a lot - the train (engine and tankers are simply superb!) is hauling what many trains are hauling throughout the world: Basic chemicals, used everywhere on this planet to make our lives what they are - or what other inhabitants would like it to be. No ammonia, no fertilizers, and so incredibly many no "things" we use every day. (Unfortunately: No ammonia, hardly any standard explosives - it is what it is) Very nice build, judged from the perspective of a LEGO freak, as well as a chemist. Thank you very much for sharing! All the best, Thorsten

I believe both are "the thing". For me, and I just guess for @Mr Jos as well, it is enjoyable to do that - creating a "LEGO-like" instruction. But most importantly, once you have it done, it becomes - priceless . I just browsed through my "instructions" - some are shared, many are not - but it is nice to awaken old builds - and a structured instruction does that: You go through the process of building, of living "the thing" again ... And for sure, this is a momento, I'd say it is a reference, you can revert to every time you wish. If @Mr Jos is willing to share the instructions, I will download them - and then enjoy the build. For sure. I will never be able to do that in bricks - but that does not count (for me): It is the progress, the evolving build, the final result. Best, Thorsten

Any thoughts about building or MOCing experiences or is this just about capitalizing? Best, Thorsten

This is really impressive. I am still watching over and over again the things that happen. I also like very much, that you placed a train layout in the Technic++ forum Good luck with the selection process - well, I'd say when you guys are not selected, then the folks doing the selection simply don't earn your presence. To be honest though, I can't imagine how this could go wrong ... very well done. As a group effort and as individual ingenuity. All the best, I cross my fingers. Thorsten

Thank you all for your replies, tips, and solutions!!! Yes, this seems to be a very good solution - although it may not work for all situations, as you already said. Very nice video and so elegant! Thanks a lot!!! Heehee ... thank you very much for your reply. I should have watched your video more carefully. Maybe one last question: Do the magnet come a little apart, when operating the switch? Best Thorsten

And it is an insanely beautiful MOC - wow. I can hardly believe what I see. All the best, Thorsten

The Rule - we have a CADA thread in the Technic forum, talk about rules, should we care about spray-painting? When TLG does not make a particular part in a particular color - should we wait for it to happen? Maybe for ever? TLG invents new parts that fit them every other day. I am tired of waiting for the magic to happen to me since long. Yes, this is against all rules. I just don't care All the best, Thorsten

Oh, that is wonderful!!! I love the motion - the slow motion - very much. So elegant when you don't see the mechanism behind it - and so fascinating when you do. These flying species really mastered cruising and feeling the air through their evolutionary path - and left behind not such a mess another species currently driving around on earth as if there were no tomorrow Very well done! All the best, Thorsten

See, that is my problem: Instead of going after a solution for my setup, I am thinking about why the simple blocking type works most of the time. Non-nerds go for the solution and solve the issue - I am still way behind and try to figure it out. Never engage with a basic science guy. They'll ride every horse to death and then claim to having solved the problem - in the middle of a desert. Thinking of horses ... wasn't the 12V system using exactly that approach? Or did the rotating part of the coupler actually weakening or even pushing the magnets apart? I believe @Reker1000000 knows for sure, as he is currently going crazy on documenting/demonstrating the 12V trains system here on EB for us. But thank you very much @Lok24 and @zephyr1934 for guiding me to a working solution!!! All the best, Thorsten

Yes, that's the way I do it And that is the way Thomas is doing it with his setup. However, when I have three coupled cars, I usually hold one and pull the very next car and not the third on the far end. That's my "problem" and that's the way many if not all other LEGO train decouplers I am aware of work: In a consist of 10 cars (#1 = pulled by the engine, #10 = end), if you want to split that consist in two halves, put a block at car #6 and simply pull cars #1-5 away. Yes, it is like breaking covalent bonds - in this case thought, the weakest will break - and if they are of equal strength (lets say in a long CH2 chain - statistics always wins . Clear difference is: None of the atoms is bolted to some stop ... Actually, that's my problem - and I must miss something. I guess the force balance (pulling engine, coupled magnets, blocked end) sketched into my scrap book is wrong - and it may have to do with magnets loosing contact (on the differential scale). The fact that the last car is blocked, but the other(s) can move, affects the distance between the magnets in a way that the unblocked cars stay together/recouple with much higher probability than having the last car grabbing the next to it. The magnetic force between two magnets of opposite polarity with this geometry scales highly non-linearily with distance (https://www.supermagnete.de/eng/faq/What-factors-affect-the-adhesive-force-and-strength-of-a-magnet?). This must have to do with it, particularly because the adhesive force is >> than the force at even a very small distance. Yes, I am a nerd. Best, Thorsten

Interesting steering concept. This should be brought to the attention of the Technic Forum! So is this inverse and upside down Ackermann steering with a two axle fixed pivot section? Best, Thorsten

Saw that, that is entirely rock-solid, also Werner's proof of concept video showed that "clamped" car and then the push action on the other. With your design, there is a 100% success rate. Hmm, but even 1 in 10 is rather favorable. And this is not only owing to video clip selection. I am still thinking about it. There is something I have wrong with the partitioning of the forces, I guess, because there is this fixed point in the distribution. Don't worry, I like to think about such things - as my colleague over in Analytical Chemistry always says: If we were all PChemists, we still would be thinking about why the hell that fire lit up. They eat, we think. Guess who survives. Best, Thorsten

OK folks, this is so on-topic, because @zephyr1934 as well as @dr_spock and @Lok24 and @Ts__ and @HoMa, and, and (HA! Now I have you all spammed ...) replied ... Why on earth - and I need to understand this before making a decoupler - and I need to make one because otherwise my Level 3 project is prone to utter failure (OK, yes, only if I use more than one car to shunt ... but you know ...) - WHY IS THIS working: Let's assume, there is one engine (right) and two cars, coupled by magnets (1st row). Next, the last car (left) is bolted to ground (or blocked by some means) and I do accelerate the engine (2nd row). I have watched countless videos ... 9V/12V/FXTrack, home brew stuff): Why is it, that always the blocked (here last) car is decoupled (3rd row, position 1) and not the engine from the two cars (4th row)??? As far as I see it, the force F is acting equally on the coupling of the first car and loco, as well as on the coupling of first and second car. What is it, that I am not getting? Particularly when the magnetic strength between the connection points is even a little different? Let's say a little less between cars 1 and 2? None of the videos show I watched any faulty behavior, and I believe it is not "take lucky" out of 10 bad ones. Man. I am a chemist. I like to blow up things - but this physics stuff drives me crazy. Well it does, because I am supposed to be a physical chemist, but maybe I should revert to solely chemistry. Any ideas (I need to grab another beer, so take your time )? Best, Thorsten

How nice is that! Of course you can do hat, very nice!!! - see this happens when I get older: Lost in memory. About 10 years ago I did something similar with an engine operated with a 9V train motor, an onboard RCX and a rotation sensor - wait let me dig that up (first I need to grab beer ...) back - holy crap, that was my first post on EB, 12 years ago: and there was exactly one reply from @JopieK The good old days. Well and a bump and some mod flak about that bumping. As far as I understand your code (I simply can't get into the blocks of the PUp programming environment), you are using proportional control (P), is that correct? For the train motor with its weird torque/speed behavior, that was not sufficient; I needed to implement I and also D, and PID control made the train motor behave decently with regard to constant speed independent of load. Your solution would also work on an ESP32 (with Legoino onboard) just hiding somewhere in the layout or dangling from a shelf (held by the USB power cord) and then use the "SetSpeed" command - the medium linear motors repond quite well, even at a speed setting of 5%, which is really slow (that is what I use for my 89). The nice thing is that you can also set the acceleration and deceleration time, which then results in very smooth operation, using one command: SetSpeed, as the ac/dc times need to be submitted only once - or better upon change. Anyway, I like your programmed version a lot, must be fun to watch the tablet! All the best, Thorsten

Hi Thomas, Huh? Are - you - crazy??? Of course you don't delete them - a started this thread and I want them here Honestly, this a really impressive, fantastic layout/yard!!! Thank you very much for sharing. I do have more questions - what instantaneously popped up there ;) is this: So you are saying that the city hub does correctly handle the set speed command with the boost motors (or PUp medium linear motor, #88008)? Because the PUp app crashes when using the set speed command (icon) using the PUp L motor (#88013), when issued a couple of times, as discussed here: That would be very interesting! Best, Thorsten

Yes, this is the thing. Absolutely. Now - I don't show all of this "to the public" in reality - family believes I am a little weird but happy, so all is good. Actually my take was trying to minimize the delay e.g. between moving off from the table and on the trip - because I wanted to demonstrate what PUp can accomplish. With an ESP32 as brain. But when it works, then you can go down the road you are illustrating - and I like to do that. Because it adds - life. Thank you very much (again), and all the best, Thorsten

Oh yes - when I ran into this one - I mean, this is really cool to read on the serial monitor of the ArduinoIDE: Guru Meditation Error: Core 0 panic'ed (Some error here). Exception was unhandled. Core 0 register dump: PC : 0x4008cfc9 PS : 0x00060c33 A0 : 0x8008bf8e A1 : 0x3ffdad40 A2 : 0x24a8b351 A3 : 0x00000000 A4 : 0x000005a1 A5 : 0x3f4124c8 A6 : 0x3ffc1480 A7 : 0x00060023 A8 : 0x0000abab A9 : 0xb33fffff A10 : 0x0000cdcd A11 : 0x00060c20 A12 : 0x00060c20 A13 : 0x00000001 A14 : 0x0000cdcd A15 : 0x00000000 SAR : 0x00000000 EXCCAUSE: 0x00000009 EXCVADDR: 0x24a8b351 LBEG : 0x4000c2e0 LEND : 0x4000c2f6 LCOUNT : 0x00000000 Backtrace: 0x4008cfc9:0x3ffdad40 0x4008bf8b:0x3ffdad60 0x400d2470:0x3ffdada0 Rebooting... and then it does that over and over again ... and NONE of the hex codes meant anything to me ... (BTW: "Guru" is cool, I like the "Core 0 panic'ed" bit much more - someone has to program it that way to produce such output on the serial monitor - and that someone sure has some type of humor, I really do share ) There is a) a solution "now" in the Legoino library (the "yourHub.isScanning()" method) and there is b) maybe a workaround I used on my MuPLI code, which is scanning for 8 devices - and that is a simple time schedule: The ESP core panics when the "yourHub.init("address here")" method is called too often. A five-second interval will take care of that - however, that was just my noob solution. The init period is about the time I scheduled (I believe it is 10s max; this is part of the NimBLE library Legoino is referencing), but even 2 seconds did do. So you can arbitrarily scan for multiple BLE hubs. Now, what you raised as issue has not been taken care of - I am sorry to see that. However, Legoino is at least on my applications rock-solid. I believe you want to accomplish much more than what I am doing. BTW: I am a BASIC apprentice. Started out with FORTRAN on a PDP10. Mastered (yeah, dude, what ever; you tried, but ...) Sinclair BASIC on a Sinclair Spectrum . Learned QBASIC. Then VB6.0. And always admired C (I do have the Kernighan and Ritchie book, 1988), but never got it. For me, C++ within the ArduinoIDE world is just - trial and error. Maybe a little more, but not much. So I sincerely believe that you can program C++ code even better than I can, given your experience in so many other programming languages, particularly PyBricks! Best, Thorsten

That is a nice decoupler! Thank you for sharing! Quick question: There is a rather long array of gear racks to position the unit. Is this used to "find" the correct position for the decoupling, when using different length cars? On the other hand, there are two tacho motors attached to the City hub - and there is no port left for detection. Or am I mistaken? Anyway: Nice one. I like it. Best, Thorsten

Davide, this. Absolutely the same here: A lot of nice, helpful people - I may add: Encouraging (that is the most important thing to me) and "valuing", even if they are not interested in what was posted. Or play in a totally different league. See, I am a terrible MOCer. All I can accomplish is MODding. Which is so different: The entire idea, the core of the matter - the model - has been shown or laid out. Twisting things here or changing things there is a totally different world: It needs much fewer skills or knowledge about parts, their possible/envisioned usage etc. And I'd like to say this as well: A like button means not much to me. A comment (and allow me to cite @zephyr1934, just as an example) "Okay, so on the technical side that is pretty amazing. On the action side, what about punching it up a little more?" Followed by a paragraph of ideas. What more can you possibly get? Someone takes the time to voice ideas. And here in TrainTech these are almost every time "valuable" - I have seen it so often. Yes, they are all here. And here is to feeling good about that: Best, Thorsten You deserve it, typo or not. Best, Thorsten

No Sir: Your train mocs are so nice. Generic search results or not: They are. And most of the time far more than just "nice". Best, Thorsten

Who knows, but we are on the Chemistry metrology side. They do all the physics and engineering. 13.8 nm is quite the short wavelength for illumination. Turns out that chemistry gets into full forward ultra-fast mode ... 90 eV photons make every atom and every molecule very excited. They literally freak out (and have wild parties) ... and the poor mirrors designed to project that wavelength never wanted to party. Oh, well. As Alexander Makarov (on a totally different issue) asked me sometime ago: "Can't we turn off the chemistry?" I must have looked like an idiot, because he said a couple of moments later, still staring at me: "Huh. Let me guess: We can't?" So chippy-wise, I really don't know. I can ask them - what do we want? A chip in the City hub that actually works when talking to the PUp app? Best, Thorsten

These are very nice ideas! Thank you very much for taking your time writing this up. I really appreciate this! Actually, I had level 3 on my mind when starting out with this ... adventure (it took waaaay longer than I thought ). The thing was the switch bit. Switching into the room means that I will run into shelves/rails, in other words, will break something - chances are light injuries on my head on a regular basis - however the little breakout thingy I made for the 23 can of course be made much larger ... The thing was: I did not know what was hiding directly behind the drywall, now I know: Space. At least 15 cm, then thermal insulation stuff. Hmmm - the good thing is: My wife does not care what I change/damage up here (other than time avoiding the family ...). Oh dear ... You know what: I call that the "Level 3" project. This could also go with @dr_spock's suggestion of another turntable (the first one is located where one of the windows is ...) "Level 3 project" ... it will have 3 hubs: 2 City hubs (as is) and additionally a 4-port Technic hub for a) the switch motor, b) the decoupler motor, c) the 2nd turntable motor, d) the 2nd turntable color sensor. I guess the ESP32 will be happy, as just now, it more or less idles all the time OK, levels 1 and 2 are also very good ideas ... and more straight forward to implement. Hmmm. I guess, when I call this the "Level 3" project, levels 1 and 2 need to be part of it. Hee hee ... that's why I am on EB: As you said, this will keep me out of trouble and off the streets for a while. Thank you all very much again! All the best, Thorsten

Absolutely: Very creative - and fantastic use of pneumatics!!! I can watch that video over and over again. Thank you very much for sharing! Best regards, Thorsten

Oh man ... no, I haven't. But now - thinking of it ... it would mean that the 89 can go forward in an indefinite loop - made from straight track only ... Best, Thorsten