Phil B

I happened to get in touch with one of the founders of Circuit Cubes when I had a small issue with my order. Fantastic guy, called me back twice. He is definitely (now) aware of the fact that there is interest in the AFOL Train community. I am going to ask the question above on Monday - will keep you all posted!

Yes I did read the post. What is your point?

Seriously gentlemen, reviving an 11 year old thread??

I ordered two bluetooth+ kits ... cannot wait to use these.

@Hod Carrier fwiw, I never said it was easy to do a digital build. I stressed that going from digital to physical is yet another level of complexity, and that (my personal opinion having done both) it is easier to build something digitally vs building “in the brick”, starting with the fact that most of us don’t have every brick in every color to our disposal. Not sure if my post was included in your comments, but just making sure you understand I never dissed digital building.

Or put your folder where you save your files in Git :)

How about just a simple round white sticker? You might even find one of the right size at an office supply store. Just stick it on, push an axle through to create the necessary hole and you’re all set.

Amen to this. You took the words right out of my mouth. @SteamSewnEmpire : This is now the third time that you have been utterly aggressive at the slightest suggestion of something less than praise on this board. First in the debate on "building for a patron", second as a response to the Mercury post, third to @supertruper1988's response to you. There are ways to have dialog on a public message board, and there are ways to voice discontent. The way you do it is not the way to go - you create an air of entitlement around yourself that is unjustified. I really appreciate the great digital designs you have contributed to this board over the last year and wish you would continue to do so. I also wish you acknowledge that those designs are merely digital drawings and are unproven until built "in the brick", and that doing so and making the engine run reliably on (standard LEGO or third-party) track is an art on its own. You are free to make only digital builds, and if you keep documenting them as you have done, you are a great addition to this board. With regards to the Mercury - I think it would have been a good courtesy of @AbleChristopher to acknowledge your Mercury _IF_ he had indeed taken inspiration from your digital build. I cannot judge if he did - there are only limited parts in LEGO, so when trying to build a complex shape 2 builders will independently likely use several similar constructions.

Just an additional and repeat warning: it hardly ever happens that a digital build translates directly to a real-life working build without (often significant) modifications. It takes skill to build impressive digital models, but it takes even more skill to then turn them into working engines. There are alignment issues, strength issues, part availability issues, etc. that you will need to resolve that will drive up your cost significantly and require lots of time. You will need to budget for this.

The reason for all this has been highlighted many times before: just not enough market for a company that focuses on mass production for a broad audience. They made attempts, several times even, but none of them brought in returns that justified the cost of creating the (often complex and expensive) parts. See the 12V system, the My Own Train line and anything containing non-plastic components.

The driving rods are LBG, once you notice that you can easily see the boiler is DBG.

Wait until they stop updating the PU app in a few years ... which will happen inevitably (anyone try to download the Nexo Knights app recently?). Let’s just hope the homebrew apps continue to be available, otherwise all this expensive PU stuff will be useless (sort of).

Or check out @legoman666‘s supercapacitor solution. I think there’s a thread here somewhere detailing how he made that work.

There are ways to do that using rubber bands, but it does require you to build something inside your train. I am not able to give details in this post (device I use is rudimentary) but google for “LEGO train close coupling” and you should get some answers.

I’d stick a pin with eye (15100) in the center hole of the airplane part, and then use a 3L technic beam (either thick or thin) with a frictionless pin on each end across them to link them up, just like they do on 75955 Hogwarts Express. if that is not sturdy enough, you can replace the 15100 with a 32184, connected with 2 axle pins to the airplane part.

I would look at part 3957/3957b Antenna 1x4 for the roof supports. Both versions exist in Blue.

That is the “Bricks and Pieces” OP refers to :) . Only available in a select few countries.

This is not a direct answer to your question, but something to consider: unless you already have a vast collection of bricks of all different kinds, take into account that no matter how well you plan your first brick purchase (be it from BL, BrickOwl or LEGO.com), you will find that once you start building you will have to make one or more additional purchases. For three reasons: 1. You will invariably have missed something from your list of parts, or ordered the wrong quantity. 2. You will find out during the build that what seemed to work digitally does not render a stable build in the brick, or simply does not fit due to unexpected tolerance issues. 3. Most annoyingly: shops might not send you the right bricks, or the right amount of bricks, or tell you at shipping time that a specific part or quantity could not be filled. As a seller, if that happened to me I would always make it right and order the parts from somewhere else without cost to you, the buyer (as it is my inventory mistake), but not all sellers do this. Lots of sellers just refund you the cost of the missing parts, but that means you now have to pay for a new order at another seller, often for just a few pieces, and pay more shipping. Quite unfair and I would love to see BrickLink mandate a replacement policy for sellers, but I doubt that will happen. Net, expect to spend more than what your first attempt at ordering all the pieces is estimated to cost. This is not a cheap hobby.

Please, as per the forum rules, do not post in threads that have been silent for a long time. This thread is 10 years old. You can open a new thread expressing your love for 4564, and post a link to this thread, but do not directly post here. Thanks.

Holy thread revival, Batman!

HA! But the PF motor package contained wheels and axles, and the PU motor does not. So the PU train motor ends up being more expensive if you need the wheels.

That Potomac link does not work, nor will the text-link that you pasted, as it refers to a file on your personal computer. You will need to upload the picture to an image hosting service like Flickr and then embed or share the link here.

I have been running BlueBrick on Linux for years by simply using WINE. Never had compatibility issues.

Thanks. I have one more thing to check - I didn't remove the lower ladder pieces on the left and right side of the tender as I somehow managed to put the motor plus the decorative sides inside these ladders. However, the ladders might be pressing on the decorative sides, which causes friction against the 9V wheels. I'm going to remove the ladders to see if my hunch is right.

Lo and behold - unlimited runtime when installed in 10254. So the next question: Is 10173 not powerable with 1 9V motor (under the tender as per LEGO’s official suggestion) or is there something on my specific 10173 that is causing more friction? Before I converted 10173 to 9V I powered it from a custom box car with 2 PF train motors under it, so I always used 2 motors, but the train had extra carriages at that time. Now it is just the stock 10173. Anyone who can speak from experience?