TrainDragon

That's the plan. I just ordered the Trans-Light Blue version to dissect. It's a little bit cheaper on Bricklink, plus I'm hoping that being able to see a little bit through the body might help in understanding how to take it apart without damaging the pieces... If it works, maybe I could even manage an antler transplant. Brown reindeer with blue antlers?!

Hah Actually, I think there's probably enough room to hide a battery and LED inside his chest. So I could turn him into a Rudolph.

This reindeer, the molded one included in the Elf Club House and Santa's Sleigh. It looks like two molded ABS pieces with a soft piece for the antlers. Has anyone managed to separate it back into two halves? I found this guide on how to split a horse in half. But since I only have one reindeer at the moment, I'm scared that I'll break it attempting what they've done with the horses.

I think I may give this one a shot. Have you tried it before? I found some that look potentially interesting online. But as they are made for hair, most of them don't really advertise the actual dimensions... Maybe I'll order some and hope for the best.

Ahh, yes. Those previous threads are likely where I'd seen the o-ring idea. They work, but I don't love them aesthetically. (Plus as I mentioned, the ones I had did eventually begin to degrade) I was hoping someone would have suggestions for something more similar to the clear ones that come on the wheels by default now. I'll keep searching!

I thought there was a topic about this, but I couldn't find one by searching... Does anyone have ideas for suitable replacement bands for the standard powered train wheel? Part 55423. Ideally in trans-clear, and silicone -- I've tried using rubber o-rings for wheels before and they slowly dry-rot and crack.

I think the Technic hub is fairly huge, though. 8 wide by itself, I believe. So, difficult to design around.

Remember the AFOL Designer Program sets that BrickLink did last year? With Lego's recent acquisition of BrickLink, that sort of partnership would be a great way to produce low sales volume sets like rolling stock for this loco.

The 2x2 brick should fit through the 1x2 opening (sideways). If the IR receiver, battery box, etc, are not quite fitting in your train, you might consider the new Powered Up version. The motor connects to the battery box on the side instead of the top, and you won't need to worry about the big IR receiver either as it works over Bluetooth. I also stumbled onto this site after I posted. I don't know anything about them but they look like they are based in Europe, which would probably be much faster/simpler delivery than the US one.

You could order a 6x28 with the 2x2 holes from BrickLink, part 92339. But I just checked a PF motor cable and it fits through the 1x2 hole in part 4093. Maybe I'm not understanding your problem, but it seems to me that what you already have should work without needing to be drilled? The stickers, you can get replica stickers for the set and put them on whatever parts you choose. I found these stickers from OKBrickWorks for your set on eBay.

What is that crossing track?

This is very nice, thanks for sharing.

This link to a discussion on the pirate forum suggests a size of 1920x200. Looks like the picture will be center cropped for users with smaller screens, so items at the center of the image will be preserved with the edges being discarded. Current in-use banner images appear to be a mixture of PNG and JPG.

I've put the design files up on my GitHub now.

@Henry 991, wow, those are beautiful wheels. I never would have guessed they were 3d printed!

I ordered the parts from AliExpress and made my own. You'll need to order both the grey female socket and the black cable with "crystal" connector. They work fine for me, but the crystal connectors seem to be veeeeeeeeeeery slightly larger than the official Lego ones. They insert into the socket fine, but require a bit more force to remove than the official Lego connectors. I made this circuit board to hold the socket and cable. Cost me only $1.25 for three boards. OSHPark is an American company so I'm not sure what the economics would be for you to order boards from them to Europe, but I will try to post my board files on Github later today so you can use any manufacturer you want. This design is a straight-through extension. If you wanted to reverse the polarity, you'd simply swap the M1 and M2 wires when soldering the cable to the board. I've also designed this splitter to easily connect two train motors to one hub port, with jumper wires to select whether they should run in the same direction or opposite. However, I just ordered the boards yesterday, and won't receive them for a few weeks. So this design is untested, still.

@Phil B, how is the power from these? I have played with a couple of LiPo "9V" batteries. One type worked fairly well, and the other was seemingly unable to provide sufficient amperage -- the train was very weak and sluggish with that battery. I've ordered two more of the brand that worked well, but they're coming from China so that'll be quite a while...

I don't think we'll find much in the way of chargers that narrow, unfortunately. The market is dominated by 18650 cells, which are 18mm diameter x 65mm length. So probably the narrowest you'll ever find will be 18mm + a bit of case, so maybe 20-22mm? That would still fit in a 3-stud-wide space, so could be feasible for some designs.

I recently ordered a couple of these USB-C/PD to 9V adapters with the idea that I could then use a standard battery bank (a newer one that supports USB-PD) to power the train. I haven't ordered a battery yet so I can't give any recommendations there, but the adapter worked perfectly when plugged into a wall charger. As a bonus, the adapter is really tiny, much smaller than I thought it would be from the picture, so it should fit just about anywhere. I measure it at 11mm x 19mm.

It depends how interconnected your automation needs to be. But I would keep my eye on Pybricks. It's only available for EV3 at the moment, but they are actively working to bring support to other hardware (including the standard Powered Up train hub). Once that's available, you will be able to use Python to program some autonomy on the hub itself without being continuously tethered to a bluetooth device -- all on standard LEGO hardware. I did a test with this to do, as @AlecDGeneric mentioned, colored plates on the tracks to tell the train to speed up/slow down/pause. I didn't do any IR automation, but that's a fun idea and should be possible!

Has anyone purchased these? They look like they would be very useful. But surely that price can't be right, $13.65 for one cable? Is this for a lot of (X) cables and they just don't specify?

Nice idea. I like it! Great find. I will have to order some of these to try out. I see they even have the female socket, that's intriguing. Wonder what we can do with that?

This is a neat idea. I have heard of plenty of people trying to machine wheels from stock, but you are the first I can recall doing it from a casting. Do you worry about it tarnishing and losing conductivity?

Yes, this is the essence of the decoder project on my github page. I've posted a bunch of sample data captures there. If you install Sigrok and my python plugin, you should be able to easily visualize the communications between the hub and sensor. To directly answer your question, I did find a possible identification marker at connect for the motor: # from handlers.py ... # Motor initialization marker? # The Hub sends this message to the Motor, then the Motor echoes it back to the Hub # 0x54 22 00 10 20 B9 but did not find a similar marker for the color/distance sensor.

Looks like some sort of monster/zombie/mad scientist theme? Not interesting to me, but maybe kids will be into it. Also disappointing that they're again foregoing the standard magnetic couplers. My son loves coupling/decoupling/rearranging the train cars, I imagine other kids do too. I'm interested in that weird track piece. That "funnel" shaped piece in front of the locomotive. Could function as an on/off ramp to tracks could be useful somehow.