bradaz11

Hi David, Would the big gaps on the side of the rail snag the guide rollers? but your version of @Mark Bellis design has nice sides with no sharp edges.

@Bartosz That sounds an interesting idea.

@Bartosz yeah, looking through his project, it looks like he had that board made, I think that is far beyond me. I got up to buying all the bits like a digispark, and the motor driver arduino lego trains uses, they are quite compact, but I can see where the lego version size comes in. I was considering at one point to just break a lego reciever open, and rearange all the components and set up wired leads to it, to try to get the space saving, and just use the digispark over radio, to control the IR inside the model. but it all comes down to time. with work, other hobbies and my first baby on the way, I can't just get any time to play with trains. and now with the new PF architecture possibly about to solve some of these issues maybe, its taken even more of a backseat. still also waiting on my PFxbrick to arrive too

it's a dead series now, but I had been starting to go down this route https://arduinolegotrains.wordpress.com/category/videos/ he uses a digispark and 2nd arduino to control the pf train motor, no reason why you need the PF battery pack. looks a lot smaller than the link you posted above. I just need to learn a lot more about arduino, but I have most of the kit, just need time to start setting it all up

what I found is if you can get the pin from the motor to sit in the screw hole in the battery box. obviously LDD ect will not let you, but it works. and the train plate is hollow, so putting a lego technic plate for the motor to clip into, would bring the pin lower too. it just means the ride height is slightly higher as the top of the bogie plate is sitting against the base of the floor plate, rather than in it.

I have never used Ldraw, so I don't know what to do with the files shared or if you can examine parts with it. I'm assuming that you are using a solid black train base? could you use a plate, or sections of plate as the base, with the outer edge built up to give it the thickness, and enable you to drop the battery by 2 plates?

how does it look with the PF plugged onto the battery box? on the rear half, could you add a yellow 4x4 plate to hide the top? I think with some designs it would be so much better if they had put the PF connectors on the side of the receiver, rather than in front.

@Hod Carrier thanks for the reply. When I say buffer, I mean the entire buffer brick, so magnet and buffer. I was refering to your bunching issue when pushing the carriages. If the buffer bricks were mounted to the chassis of the carriage, the connection wouldn't bunch would it? Or would it cause issue because the axle wouldn't align itself to the track, and so although it may not bunch, it may still have the wheels at weird angles or worse, derail? thanks for explaining the real wheel relationship to the rails, that does help clear up what is going on IRL. the thing I'm trying to ask is, if a real single axle train carriage length is governed by the curve radius in track, then are we not still limited to that in LEGO? so although the train could be scaled down, we have to adjust it to navigate our LEGO curve radius, so we have to change the dimensions of length, or add a bogie to get it to be compatible to the radius we have to work with, or if we change the radius to match the real life example that train carriage could navigate, then the real life carriage should work if scaled down? or would you stil also need to change LEGO wheel shape?

@Murdoch17 Inspired me too. His Yellow Bi-Polar inspired me, I built it, then modded it, and that then inspired me to branch out and start my own MOC'ing that also got me started using and understanding LDD

how do they do this on real life long trains? or do they not have single axle bogie loooong trains, only double axle bogies? it seems like you are trying to invent a soloution on train, for an issue that is made by the track, where the answer is, modify the track not the train. the other thing with the buffers steering the single axles off. what happens if you remove the buffer and magnet from the axles, and attach them to the actual carriage, leaving the axles to free steer?

well this topic is a bit of a roller coaster isn't it? I think this should go to show what TLG are up against with designing sets, you can't please everyone.

hey I will, I've just got all the bits together to do the other version first, which will be started tonight I think. then I'd need to order the train door, but apart from that, I should have everything I need now. just wish it was easier to cross check wanted lists on bricklink, to see what I already have.

surprised there hasn't been some sort of fire train

wow, god spot

i was thinking something like this Specification: Length - 44mm Width - 26mm Depth - 10mm Weight - 25g Battery Capacity - 350mAh Discharge Rate - 40C Constant Chemistry - LiPo Power Pack Cells - 2S Voltage - 7.4v Watt Hours - 2.59Wh I've used similar little 2 cell lipo's in an airsoft gun mod, this pack should be about 4 plates deep, by 5 bricks long, by 3 bricks. obviously a lot smaller than 4 bricks deep, 8 bricks long and 4 bricks wide. if the lego soloution is 1100mah, and lasts 6 hours of running, i would think you should easily get 2 hrs out of the above lipo unless i've got something wrong and talking out my bottom

Well this Has evolved out of a design from Murdoch17 for a Bi-polar electric train (below), which I fiddled around with on LDD, learning what's what and a few SNOT techniques. I'm a fan of lego trains, but not a train anorak at all, so this is not meant to be anything other than something that I thought looked quite nice. as I say, original file is from murdoch17 but I have changed lots of the internals, just keeping the feel of the shape as you can see. It's been made with PF IR reciever, battery box, motor and space for the wires. colour scheme has been tweaked to camouflage the battery box a bit. hope you like it LDD file here http://www.moc-pages.com/user_images/131778/1498613249m.lxf

I'm still only just scratching the surface on the wealth of knowledge and posts on here, but I've searched a bit, and not found anything.... the main gripe I see for PF trains is the size of the battery box. Does no one make up their own 7.4v lipo packs? I would have thought that if you found the huge boxes to be a drawback, then wiring up a loose battery to a PF brick lead to power the IR and in turn the motor would have been a fairly standard practice, but I'm struggling to have seen anyone else mentioning this. have I just missed the post or is this deemed to be impure lego'ing, even though it is only a battery? or is it down to preference as the weight of the 6 aaa's can obviously aid traction on the train.

just in case anyone was interested, some pics in the flesh, Without doors for the sake of the pics

HI all, just joined up, been rediscovering my love for lego recently, and spending lots of money on bricklink to get older sets I missed out on. Just starting to dip a toe into things like LDD and my own MOC's - although I don't really have any lego that isn't a part of a set to use at the moment. I think I need to go back and liberate some from my parents house. my main passion at the moment is trains and technics heavy plant sets. currently in the middle of building the bucket wheel excavator, and already envisioning working a train / quarry setup....

I got the constitution about a year ago, and decided immediately it needed to move under it's own steam. looking at the possibilities and a few forums, I decided that I it would make the most sense to power the prison car, as I'm not going to full on play with them in that way. at the time of making it, I hadn't seen anyone else do it this way. it will fit the IR receiver and battery, but the space for the wire to pass is tight and you will want to remove the screws from the bottom of the battery box so the pin from the motorised bogey can sit into it, but it will all fit! constitution car by stuart bradley, on Flickr I only decided to make it in LDD after I left it in my car last week after showing to someone at work, looks like it was a bit warm in there as all the bricks have become loose to each other and falls apart as soon as I touch anything, so I need to totally replace the lot :( the only thing LDD wouldnt let me do is place the ladders (4175) on the side, they fit where the red 1x2 bricks are on either side. it thinks they interfere with the train motor sides but they dont. http://www.moc-pages.com/user_images/131778/1498074376m.lxf