graafderk

By the time I get that shipped to NL it's a ~€40 role of wire, Please let me know how those experiments go!

I loved the tutorial and thanks to it I managed to open a connector without breaking it to have a look for myself. Did anyone find a European alternative to the listed cable? With shipping and import taxes, the somewhat cost-effective solution becomes a very expensive solution unfortunately.

I recently got a BrickPi3 to play around with. Looking for a project to build, I was thinking about making a small factory including a minifigure-sized industrial robot (some examples in the picture below). I've tried googling for inspiration, but didn't come up with many industrial robot in minifigure scale. (Although this Ideas submission is awesome and spot on.) At this point, I don't care too much about it actually working or just a display piece. Does anyone have other great examples? P.S. @mods: I wasn't sure where on the forum to put this topic, so please move it around if necessary.

I might be posting in the wrong forum/thread, in that case: I'm sorry! Anyway, I noticed this set completely disappered (even not visible as retired product, as is for instance 10216 Winter Village Bakery) from the Dutch and most other European S@H websites, while on the US S@H site one can still back order this set. Is it retiring already or sould this just be some website glitch?

This is one of the coolest minifig scale buildings I have ever seen! Could you please please please show how you hide the floor plates behind the curved facade? Maybe take a picture of the bottom of one of the floors?

I'm not sure if this is the right part of the forum to post, but I really thought I should share this with you. (Dear moderators, please move this thread to the appropriate place if necessary ). On Marktplaats, a Dutch bidding website, a complete circle of red RC track is for auction. Quick and dirty translation of the interesting part of the accompanying text: "For sale, unique RC track for the new trains. I have 16 of them, so it is one complete circle. Mail contact with LEGO in Denmark tells me that this unique circle has never been on the market and should have never left the factory. So, you are bidding on a circle of track that no one in the world will have! A real must have for the real LEGO collector! The production number is the same as the RC track which you get with the new trains. According to the e-mail contact with LEGO, the track will rapidly increase in value, due to the rarity. That's why I sell them to a fan for a good price. To give everyone a chance, please bid trough Marktplaats." The Dutch version of the text has a lot of spelling errors, which normally makes me really cautious about these sorts of things. And I never heard of so many red parts (which are normally used for production tests right?) with one person. Anyway, the big question: is this for real?

The Dutch and German S@H sites also indicate that it is sold out. Maybe the European stock is out, but there is still some stock in the US left?

I ordered last Sunday evening (CEST) and just received an e-mail stating: "Unfortunately, the item(s) listed below are currently out of stock and it will be a little longer before we can ship them to you." The order status changed from 'customer service' to 'in process', so I guess this means I will get a set of the second batch. Anyone having similar experiences?

There is a newer version of the document: here I missed the Toggle Address Bit function when I previously read the document. That is a very interesting function indeed! Thanks for pointing that one out!

What kind of signal do you send to have the receivers respond to the extended addresses? The v1.20 protocol as published by LEGO does not show any sequence with such a function and but the document can be interpreted in such a way that this switch to extended address space is possible. I have been experimenting with a custom (gcc-avr based) IR system and would be very interested in using more address space. Could you send me (part of) the Arduino code?

I just came accross this link in which somebody made a custom PF receiver. About the remote control, I think there are some kind of 'universal learning remotes' which can record and store the signal send by another remote. The problem then is, how to get the signal for the additional four channels into this device...

Arduino is basically a combination of a programmable chip (microcontroller) and a set of software libraries to make it relatively easy to program the chip. It is aimed at hobbyists and artists who like to use technology in their designs: think about interactive art, robotics, home automation, etc. (Hobbyists is a broad term right , AFOLs are hobbyists, people who like to go fishing as a hobby too. This does not imply that AFOLs can catch a fish and fishing people enjoy putting plastic bricks together.) You need to make your own electronics around the chip (which is most of the time embedded in a board on which you can put so-called shields to make it easier to interface the chip and your own designed peripheral hardware) and write your own program. If you're not into programming and have no affinity with (basic) electronic design, this is probably not the solution for you. More on-topic: The Power Functions protocol (version 1.20) specifies an 'address bit' which enables 'extra address space'. According to the accompanying text: "The address bit is intended for enabling an extra set of 4 channels for future use. The current PF RC Receiver expects by default the address bit to be 0." In other words: there are in theory eight channels (of which the currently available remotes and receivers support four) with two outputs (red and blue). If you would make your own custom remote and receivers, this means you can have an additional eight outputs (4 extended channels with two outputs each). You could use normal LEGO receivers for the first four channels and your own custom ones for the additional four, with your own custom remote. Then again, if you are making custom electronics anyway, there might be more suitable solutions

I smiled Can't wait to see your first rollercoaster!

Hi Patrick. I've been reading your posts on the electronic part with a lot of interest as I'm in the process of making a similar setup (although not with such a big layout as you have due to a lack of space). Could you tell us (me?) some more about the electronics? What are these cards you're using and how do they work? From reading your posts I assume you detect the resistive load of the 9v train motors on your track. How do you send this data to your computer and how do you send data back to your signals? i.e. what kind of protocol do you use, etc. Anyway, I'll keep on following this topic as it seems you are making yourself a very interesting layout! Veel plezier met bouwen ;)

This kind of rail cars are not that uncommon in Europe and LEGO has produced a lot like these over the years (2126, 3225, 3742, 4536, 4537, 4563, 4564, 10014 to name a few 9V ones.). I never had a problem running the ones from for instance 4564, which I think look good anyway (for a secondary line maybe?). If I remember correctly, they have six studs between the wheel assemblies instead of eight in the Octan car from 7939, so maybe if you modify it like that, you have less running problems?

I was wrong, now €99,99 on Amazon.DE

It was Dutch. Apparently the website does not like it if you link to their pics... I changed the image now.

You mean with just two axles in a fixed arrangement? Like this?: EDIT: apparently some security measure of the website kicked in...

Amazon.de currently has 3677 for around € 110,- (depending on your local VAT). I think you won't find it much cheaper in Europe.

Eric Brok (the designer of Market Street) was in his forties (I guess) when he designed the set. He passed away in 2007.

Saw the above link in this thread, might be of interest for your garden...

You made me loose my weekend ;) I think there are a lot of parts available for the LGB trains and the like (that's G gauge I guess), maybe you could get some axles and wheels for that scale and build your lego trains around them? In Legoland Billund, they use some custom track for their trains. The Lego parts seem to be glued to a custom frame which holds the train wheels, motors, etc.

Hi All! this has been long overdue, but I think it is still a good time to introduce myself here... Like so many of you, I started LEGO very young and got my first sets when I was 3 years old. After a short change to Duplo I was back to LEGO and have been hooked to trains since I got the 4564 and 4551 for my 7th birthday. I own a lot of (train)sets, but 9V trains are still my favorite. When I started university, LEGO was not put very high on my agenda, but I fell in love with Café Corner and bought all Modulars since. As budget is limited for a student like me, I have to make choices on which sets to buy, but recent series like the Modular buildings, Winter Village and of course the Creator trains make me spend more on LEGO each year. As I am currently abroad, I have no bricks to fiddle around with and the cost for a set here in Asia is incredibly high (about 2.5 times the European price, where LEGO already isn't the cheapest). The lack of bricks inspired me, an electrical engineering student, to finally start working on a custom digital control LEGO train system I've been thinking about for a long time. As a purist, I dare not to open a LEGO train motor to add DCC decoders and the like, so it will be a block based system with modules for each block costing around € 15,- for the current circuit (including train detection system, signalling, 9V voltage control, hopefully PF IR commands so both PF and 9V can run on the same track and CANbus communication to a computer). A friend in software development (and also huge LEGO train fan) will work on the PC part of the system, possibly integrating our system with Rocrail (http://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php). When I am back home at the start of next year, I can start testing the hardware design and see which design choices give the best results (can blocks make decisions autonomously or should everything go through the central computer, etc.). Hopefully we can show you some results next year! Although I have read on this and other forums about LEGO train systems using DCC decoders, I have not found examples of systems using digitally controlled analog blocks. Is there anyone around here who has tried such systems (for instance the Dutch DINAMO (http://dinamo.vanperlo.net/)system)?

I was just checking S@H (don't do it that often, otherwise my financial situation will take a very hard hit as I want to buy so many sets ) and saw that the set was put online. But somehow, this set is € 10,- more expensive in the Netherlands than in Germany. I do get that there are price difference between the different currencies (and continents), but a 10% price difference between neighboring countries? I guess I have to go to Oberhausen to buy some (where they even have Dutch speaking staff as the lack of an official Lego Store in the Netherlands makes us go there).

I really like the Octan truck. I like the fact that the flatbed car carrier has a new type of frontend (or atleast looks different from what they did previous years), as most city cars and trucks of the last few years all had the same basic frontend design (and indeed you see them again this time with the octan truck, cement mixer, ladder truck, etc.) /Off-topic Very nice part indeed! Afaik this part is (or has been) available in black, old dark gray, red, green and now this new dark blue, which is a great color for train building!