coreyg

I think the easiest way for a single siding to work with the P40 Switch is to use the connector that the jumper is attached to on the inner divergent track. If that's a short, there's power, if it's an open, that rail is dead. You could very easily attach a 2 conductor wire to that and bring it out for a switch (or in my case, I'd attach it to a relay that is controlled by the same power I use to control the motor that will flip the switch). So, for a single siding, it's pretty easy and for me, self contained with no extra changes outside the switch. However, for a yard ladder to work, it also needs to deactivate one of the rails on the straight route or it'll give power to both tracks and if there's a train parked there, both trains will have power. Deactivating the other line in addition to powering the divergent rail starts getting a lot more complicated. I personally am out on that complexity especially if you start thinking about a yard ladder of 3 or 4 tracks/lines. A side note: I've completely given up on the Lego track connectors after I found I lost 1 full volt between my controller and the track with a mid-sized train. Some of the voltage was that connector but most of it was from the 2x2 plate connectors that Lego uses, so I've switched to soldering onto the side of the track and using better connectors to the wire. Michael Gale in one of his interviews mentioned some type of design issue with Lego's 2x2 plate connector and they fixed whatever that issue that was, so maybe their connectors will be better. Thanks for the feedback. I would not have thought of the single siding solution without Andy's comments. -Corey

Thanks for the info. It makes these switches useless to me for sidings or yard ladders but for crossovers, they'll work nice and with closer main lines, so that'll be nice to have. I'm very disappointed that the switches don't work for sidings or yard ladders with existing motors. All of those pictures of yard ladders using the P40 switch and no way of currently using them. Some day, I may go to DCC and then it won't matter. Thanks, Corey

I just got finished replacing the tie bars for my P40 Switch Track from Fx Bricks. It gave me an opportunity of looking pretty closely at the switch itself and I started wondering how it turned off power on the inactive pathway. I just didn't see a way. At first I thought the Switch Rail's connection may somehow depend on if it's switched or not, but it was backwards from that. So, tonight I powered the track up and switched back and forth. And, at all times, both the diverging route and the straight route were powered. (Yes, if I pulled the jumper, there was no power on the diverging route at all times regardless of how the switch was positioned which is not a solution.) So, how would you have a siding for a train if it's always powered regardless of how the switch is positioned? The only possible way I can think of is this switch requires DCC so the train itself knows when it can go or not. I really hope I have something wrong because if I don't, then the P40 Switch Track is not compatible with 9v trains. Yes, it can deliver power, but it can't shut it off if the path is not active. Think of a yard ladder. Every lane would be powered at all times. There's no stopping trains then. All of the trains would be moving. Please let me know I'm missing something because if I'm not I spent a lot of money for nothing that I can use and I'm stuck with Lego's switches for a long time to come. (Yes, I'm stuck on 9v and happy with it, but trying to improve it.) ------ Later addition ----- Ok, I just reread the FAQ that's included in the product guide: >Does changing the switch route also switch the electrical power to the route? >No. The P40 switch does not switch the electrical power between the straight and diverging routes. Both routes are "live" and their corresponding rails are connected together. Then how would you have a siding to park a train? Or a yard ladder with multiple trains parked? All of the track would be powered at all times. Are they assuming DCC for everything? -Corey

Thanks for the link. There's a couple possibilities in there that I didn't know about. And if FxBrick comes out with a 4 stud long track, there would be a lot more that could work. -Corey

I have become fascinated by the non standard curves that the FxBrick Catalog (Summer 2021) have in their Progressive Curves, Loop Variety 1 and 2 sections and I'm wondering if there's more examples of what's possible with the new track pieces that are now available. I finally (after a few hours of digging up old memories of trig) got a spreadsheet working to calculate the locations of various end points of the track sections and plugging in one of FxBricks' Loop Variety 1 and the locations (if my calculations were correct) were exact (or at least to 2 decimal points). The one I tried was R56+R56+R56+R40+R40+R40+R40+S16+R40. That implies to me, there's some mathematical reason for it (although, I guess it could just be luck). I was wondering if there were other options beyond what they have or other ways to look for this. It seems like just plugging different curves in is going to take a while to find anything. Also, I was very curious about the 45 deg section on Plan 5 with the very low key explanation of "A 45deg bend is added to one corner to add visual interest make the layout slightly more compact". So, how did they know that combination of track would work? Trial and error? I did plug that one into my calculator (R72+R72+S16+S16+S16+S16+S16+S16+S16+S8+R56+R56+S3.2+S3.2) and it's a bit off (.06 studs in one direction and .17 studs in the other direction), so not exact, but obviously close enough. Are there other 45deg options (beyond the increase all of the curves and get the next larger one)? I had found (somewhere on the internet), an S-Curve based on R88 curves (R88+R88+S16+S16+S16+R88+R88) and by my calculation, it's .23 and .30 studs off alignment (close enough). The S-curves based on R64P sections were of course exact. Is there more info on this type of stuff somewhere? I'm getting bored with just straight loops and I'd like to have my track move in different ways. I have my track on MILS, so it has less tolerance than a loose bit of track and I have to plan ahead since I have to build the base. Thanks for any info or pointers on this. -Corey

My crystal ball must have been defective 2.5 years ago when I backed the kickstarter. They had a prototype for the straight track which they had been selling a couple years earlier and it looked (to me) like they had everything figured out and just needed some startup cash to get stuff going.

I just got an email saying mine is shipping Tuesday. I guess they are shipping everything at once and it takes time to ship everything. That makes sense and I'm very happy to finally get it. -Corey

So, they're shipping to people ordering from the website before the backers again...

We need switches as well. This is a suppliment to the existing track. No R40, no switches, no power adapters. Since it's no longer a real suppliment (ie, conversion piece required), it needs every part (even the R40 since they are in every layout now). I hope that is coming with a followup. But, I will certainly not put any money on it until they are shipping actual product next time. My main problem with the connectors is that we suddenly found out about it now. They must have known about them at the time they were asking for additional orders a few months ago. They did not let anyone know at that time. To me that is very close to being a bait and switch. A redesign from the first kickstarter, I can see and if it solved issues with the orginal design, I welcome the change, but they should have let us know about it. The question I keep asking myself is, "is the use of track connectors to save money so they don't have to machine each piece?" or "are they because of reliability issues with connectivity?", or it's also possible that it put a lot of strain on the plastic "holder" of the rail which could break or fall off.

I would only back something that included 9V. I'm pretty heavy into the ME models and have received nothing yet. That stings so it's difficult for me to go too much into this one. Even with that, I have backed it with the 9V circle and straight kit level, although it looks like it doesn't matter now. It looks like price is key so you can't really add something that will double the cost. I'm not even sure how ME models made it. They were way behind their goal just a few days before the end and they almost doubled their pledged amount in the last few days. I'm not sure if it makes sense, but have you thought about getting partners or investors that both want to make the track happen but also want to make back a bit of the startup cost if it succeeds?

I built these about a year ago. They are as close to the orginal I could make it with the new colors. Switching from Red to blue meant I didn't have to buy the red windscreen and the porthole in red was not possible so I was forced to do a different solution for the portholes. I just did a standard train window instead. If I was redoing it now, I'd probably try to get stickers for it instead. I remember one of the little doors being a pain to buy. I forget why now. Somehow I came up with the idea of using a cupboard instead of a door. I think it was because I couldn't find them in light bley, but I'm not sure anymore. The curved slope pieces on the top were a pain. This uses *a lot*. It's easy to get a hand full of them, but to get enough to build those cars took me a lot of orders. It's now on my standard want list, so they get bought anytime a store I'm buying from has them (and they are at a reasonable price). I did add a bit of blue to the passenger cars. I thought the all grey look was a bit blah and I wanted to easily tell which cars were mine when there was a real santa fe on the same layout. (and the blue train bases are cheap because of the blue cargo train).

I have not been successful grinding down the plasic ring to fit the motor body correctly so I've given up on that personally and I'll use those for power pick ups for real pf train motors. Actually, based on that picture, that's the older 9v train motor which will need the PF motor modified to fit (grind down the outer plastic around the gear). The difference between the 2 types of 9v that I notice is whether the 2 contacts are soldiered at the top (the new one) or have the little punch throughs in the middle (the older one). I had thought all of the MoT motors were the newer type (what Lazarus calls the rare version), so if this did in fact come from a MoT motor, that is bad news to me since most of mine are MoT (from the small motor set). Although, so far going through about 10 motors, I think 7 of them are the "rare" type and most of my motors came from MoT, but not all. I had not realized that removing the thermister is a short term solution. Obviously, if the motor overheats, it will have issues, but I had hoped that it was well beyond where the thermister first fails. I just started removing the thermistor a month ago and so far about half of the failed motors were "fixed" with just removing it and for the other half, it was the dc motor itself. I've been running a lot of trains in the past 2 months. We had a store front display up for 6 weekends and the trains were running all day Saturday and Sunday (swapping them out mostly every hour). And a lot of these failures happened at previous shows and I didn't pull them out. Only running the trains for about an hour at a time and then letting them rest has helped prevent failures a lot. Most of the failed motors showed up after a train was running for more than 2 hours at one time. Also, I'd like to thank Lazarus for those youtube videos, even though I didn't get the motor grinding worked out, it did help a lot on everything else.

The black thing should be a capacitor based on where it is. The thermister is a thin shiny disk that was touching the lower right contact on your motor (based on your second image). In your first picture, it is in the upper right under the axle that the gear is on. It's pretty small.

I've had to refurbish about 8 9v train motors in the past several weeks. Since you have the MoT motor, the good news is that the dc motor itself (almost certainly) can be replaced with the internal PF motor if it's needed but you probably don't need to. I'd recommend, opening up the 9v train motor, I use an X-Acto to cut the 12 clips on the bottom, (don't worry, what's left will still hold the bottom of the motor), take the thermistor out. The thermistor is a very thin round piece that is smaller than a dime that's in between 2 contacts right next to one of the metal strips on the motor itself. Make sure the contact between motor and the box is still good and close it up and try it out. There's a couple videos on youtube showing opening the 9v train motor. Don't worry about the rest of the steps since you most likely won't need to replace the dc motor and even if you do, you have (almost certainly) a slightly different 9v train motor than what they are showing. They have the older version which doesn't fit the pf motors. Once the thermister has overheated once, it does seem to have problems later and just seems to keep getting worse. If you still have issues after removing the thermister, you can actually remove the motor itself and replace it with a pf motor and since you only have the one train, you can actually solder the contact strips from the old motor to the new motor. The MoT train motor uses the same form factor for the dc motor that the pf motor uses except the leads are reversed. So, if you do this, the motor will go backwards, but you don't care about that with only the one train. Most likely though, it's the thermistor. Just remove it and everything should be happy. -Corey

You are correct about the 9v wheels pick up power on the edge, but I clean my track straight across the top most of the time and it makes a big difference. I've bought some used track that had visible corrosion on the top of the track and I've cleaned it with a straight pad just across the top and that fixed the power issue (the train wasn't moving before and it was moving after cleaning). I sometimes try to clean on the edge as well, but not always and I'm not convinced it's any better than just the top of the track. -Corey

I have heard of people adding a lubricant to the axles of the 9v motors although I have not. I have had a few squeeky motors (I'm not sure where they are now) that I would add lubricant to (if I find them again). The issue that I've heard of on the wheels are the thin metal pick ups that are inside the motor wearing out and I know of a few people soldering some wires to it so it will contact the wheel better. I would not worry about the metal wheels themselves. I have had to clean the track both because of running trains and buying used track. I use the smoother side of "Rail Pal - Tidy Track -- 2-Sided Pad Rescue" to clean the track but I just heard from a local O gauge train club that they started using masonite board attached to the bottom of a car. I'm planning on trying this soon. I hadn't heard of this before and I'd be curious to know if anyone in the Lego community has tried it.

I've had a lot of issues will 9v train motor failures after I designed a train controller using an arduino with a motor controller. I had the motor controller in a Forward/Brake configuration which is common for robotics but for long running motors, it seems to be bad. I've switched to an DC source (non-inverting op-amp and a Buck converter) but I continue to see failures. I think all of the recent failures were motors that were run on the original design but I'm not sure. I have run the trains outside (at a show) for a couple hours at a time on a hot day (98 degrees) and that may have contributed to some failures but I'm not sure what "normal" is. We've had some long running shows that were 5 weekends in a row and the trains would be running on Friday for 3 hours, Saturday for 10 hours and Sunday for 7 hours. I've been swapping out the trains every hour and now I've gone down to every 30 minutes and that seems to eliminate the issues. In the past, I've run trains for a couple hours at a time and then trade them out, but I've seen the trains kind of slow down after an hour or two and then they wouldn't reliable start again. Sometimes, I could push them and they'd start, but just applying voltage would not get them to start. I've been shrinking the length of the trains as well. In general, I have no more than 3 cars for each engine and fewer for the heavier trains (santa fe and horizon express). When people run 9v trains, how long do you generally run the same train and how often do you swap out the train? Do you have very many 9v motor issues (ie failures)? Do you see cases where a train will start slowing down, and you give it a rest and then a hour later or so, it won't start up? -Corey

What are you using to supply the voltage? My first gen trolley system used an EV3 with a pole reverser and a standard Lego 9v train controller but I wanted to change the voltage (increased power to get the train started but slow down once moving). I didn't think the EV3 could supply enough current to drive the train but I've heard of other people using an NXT to supply the power directly.

No train detection on this controller yet. I have a trolley controller that uses reed switches to detect when to change directions but that's a separate design. I plan to add train crossing with lights/guard coming down to this but I've spent far more time than I expected just getting this controller to work good. Of course, this version has not been used in a show yet, so I'll know next weekend after our Phx Comicon display on whether this is a workable design.

Well, I finished my 3rd generation Lego 9v Train Controller. It uses an Arduino pro mini on a breadboard connected to a bluetooth module. It uses h-bridges to control up to 16 switches and buck converters (basically just a variable DC power source) to supply power to the train tracks. Since these can't supply reversible power, I had to add a relay to switch directions and another relay to power it off (ok, it's much, much more complex than I thought it'd be when I started) but seeing the voltage is COOL! Of course, you may be asking what the first 2 generations was... The 1st generation used H-bridges and worked wonderfully except for a higher than normal percentage of train motors dying. The 2nd generation used power op-amps and worked mostly for a while. It had issues with having power go through a breadboard. Actually, the breadboard never melted like I thought it might, but it did have too much resistance which hurt the voltage out as the current went up. The op-amps however were getting a bit hot even with some good sized heatsinks. so, here it is in it's (hopefully) final glory: Feel free to call me nuts for doing this, but it's really cool switching trains out on a tablet (or a cell phone)!

I don't like the main model of the hobby train as well, but I like several of the alternate builds. The idea of having so many alternate builds for a train kit is great and I wish they'd do it again, but I don't think it would sell well either. It seems to me that the picture on the box sells the sets. If that picture is good, it sells, if not, it doesn't sell well. For something that has alternate builds, it's difficult to have one picture to show what it can be. Just my take on it. I've bought 3 of the hobby train but I never built the main model. I've built 3 or 4 of the alternates models though. I brought in one of the alternate builds (one of the engines) to one of our shows and most of our club members didn't even remember/know about the hobby train and the few that knew about it, only one of them knew it had alternate models.

The panel with the orange/black diagonal pattern was my biggest issue and the slope 75 and inverse slope piece replacement caused the black section to increase in height just a little. Once past that issue, the wedge and the Train base is pretty much the only strange pieces. There are multiple part numbers for the Train Base 6 x 28 which increases the color selection with Red, Yellow, Light Gray, and Dark Gray. Although the yellow is so expensive and rare that it mostly removes it from the options. I'm in process of building a red version although it's now so different than the HE, that it's really a MOC slightly inspired by the HE (and a couple other TGV trains on flickr). I hope to have that finished by next month. For the signature block, I loaded the standard HE model sig files and changed the orange to blue in paint and then for the double inter-modal piece, took half of the picture, flipped it and over layed it on the other half.

Thanks. The pieces (part# 32084) came in the Railway Express (set 4560), however I just bought them from Bricklink. They were only $0.20 each or so. I don't think those pieces are used very much.

I thought I'd share my previous train project. The "Blue Horizon". A mod of Horizon Express with a couple minor changes because of the orange diagonal panel. A closeup of 1 engine and 1 passenger car:

Do the optical sensors have to be adjusted for lighted rooms vs darker rooms or have anything specific on the "other side of the track" so it doesn't see something in the distance? For my train layout, I'm not using any sensors. I have 4 lines of track power and up to 16 lines for controlling switches. I've attached a bluetooth module (HC-05) to the arduino pro mini and I'm using DRV8835 motor controllers for the power and multiple shift registers for the on/off input of the switches (through the DRV8835s). The pro mini only has 6 PWM lines so I was limited on how many variable controlled lines I could have. I also wrote a simple android app that can control the speed/direction of the train as well as the switches. Here's my previous version (the current one is still in development): This version is using the DRV8835 in a mode that causes damage to the 9v motors. The new version I'm working on now will fix that. The main issue is if the h-bridge is configured in a Forward/brake,Reverse/brake or a Forward/Coast,Reverse/Coast mode. It seems the "Coast" mode is required unless you want to put undo stress on the motors. I have tons of plans to add stuff (detectors, sounds, lights, etc) to this layout, but the issue with damaging the motors had slowed my progress down a lot.