Henry 991

Do you have any information on future availability of PFx Bricks and accessories (XL Speaker and expansion boards)? The products have been unavailable for several months now. I have not managed to reach the customer support. I am asking here because I am not the only one with the issue.

There appears to be six buttons: - arrows up and down: direction of train? - 9V and 12V switches - “Auto” and “Low”, whatever that is

The switch is great, but I had the same issue with that weak linkage. My 3- and 5-year-olds destroyed that thin part in minutes when I left the switch on a table. I was able to repair the part with CA glue. If that fix does not work, I will machine a part of brass or mild steel. Best Henry

I’d also be interested in.

I have been thinking of that As well. A game-changer would be a 2-stud long, geared high-torque motor that could attach directly into axle. In bigger engines, you could have up to 6 of them. I wouldn’t need the power pickup from the rails. LiPo batteries, voltage regular and a controller (FX Brick etc.) woul work finewith me. I have not yet found a suitable RC motor or gearing. For my own use, I would print the enclosure. Best, Henry

Same here. Even though I am fully-proficient in CAD and have a printer, I do not want to make track pieces or other elements where a small-scale manufacturer has a viable product available. It’s not just worth it if you care about where you use your time and about the quality of the product.

Indeed, I have bought Tamiya spray paints and I will use them to achieve DBG and Black surface coats. Regarding the color of the resin, the issue is mainly that e.g. green and black behave quite differently when printing. I have figured out that with Anycubic black, you can achieve very tight fit between parts by offsetting with 0.15 mm. With green, that figure must be at around 0.25-0.3 mm. The vertical tolerances are more complex. You just need to experiment to get everything right. At the moment, most of my parts come out right from the machine without any or with very little post-processing. I am indeed trying printing connecting rods with The SLA. I’m experimenting with the UP Challenger’s 1:48 scale versions. They have integrated ball bearings. The ball bearings should distribute the load quite evenly and the rods are reasonably stiff anyways. I don’t see why this wouldn’t work. I have steel axles and ball bearings everywhere so the setup is very tight. It shouldn't vibrate at all, which reduces the stress on the rods.

Hi, I have been 3D printing parts with my SLA printer for a while. E.g. wheels and connecting rods. You see images on my Flickr account below. However, I do not intend to reduce the usage of Bricktracks and BrickTrainDepot and other manufacturers for the following reasons: (1) It takes a lot of effort to get the manufacturing tolerances exactly right so that the parts clutch together. Eg with SLA, it’s down to the color of the resin which offset value you need to use (2) SLA printers use resin which is brittle and not as strong as ABS plastic that the commercial printing services have (3) Designing a part is a lot of work to get exactly right from design and functional aspects. I do respect and value the quality of the design work that’s been put into the available products from BT and BTD etc. and I want to support the businesses as they keep this hobby developing.

Thanks - this will be useful!

Indeed, this is a smart move. Thanks a lot.

Hi, I just started using the software. Good first impression, I got stuff done with almost non-absent learning curve. However, how do you draw Lego Grand Curves? Those wide radius curves using only straights?

Do the following: - select stores arbitrarily - create carts - open the carts, and review the parts and their prices individually After the analysis, you may find some ridiculously expensive parts. Eliminate them and repeat the cycle above. If there are some expensive but unavoidable parts that you want to have, better strategy might be to buy them separately from stores selling them only at good prices, and get the remaining parts though BrickLink’s automated buying. As said, a target price for a large, 1:48 scale steam engine’s parts of high quality should be $250-300. I think I paid that much recently for Union Pacific Challenger with mostly new conditioned visible parts.

I’d do exactly that. Your bill of materials is 2x what it based on my experience (4 steam locomotives with BrickLink parts) should cost. Go through the parts list manually. It might also be that the rare/expensive parts have such limited supply that you end up paying premium from all other parts as well!

Very interesting, good job! I also would have wanted to have suspension in my Big Boy and Challenger, but could figure it out. It would have limited both engines to two XL engines at max, and/or had limited structural rigidity. Have you would a way install the boiler panels yet? The Big Boys boiler diameter is 107 inches or 7.1 studs in 1:48.

It’s good to be aware of the costs. The bill of materials for the Challenger comes at: - parts 280 EUR (I live in Europe as well and use the German, Polish, Hungarian etc BrickLink stores a lot) - motors (3 x XL) ~50 EUR - FX Brick controller, lights and speaker ~120 EUR - wheels (I’m using 3D printed which are expensive) 50++ EUR - the pushrods are valvegear on top - stickers If you choose to build an 8-stud wide 1:48 scale big locomotive, it will cost you. With the plan, you also get the stickers so I consider it indeed good value for money.

Hi, another easy way to get started is to buy a plan from BrickTrainDepot.com. You can get the instructions in pdf and xml-file of the required parts that’s easy to upload to BrickLink where you can purchase the parts. If you are uncertain, I’m happy to help. After inspecting plans from great designers, you can soon start making your own designs. I’m indeed constructing my own Union Pacific Challenger on “Month 11” in the LEGO hobby. So you can make the learning curve pretty fast by inspecting and adapting. The LEGO train community is also very helpful and approachable

I don’t see BrickTrainDepot.com been suggested. It’s an obvious pick for high-quality plans. Recommend.

Sounds great! Your next challenge will be to transfer all that torque to the driving wheels without breaking the gears or dislocating any driveline component.

You will be traction-limited with your Big Boy; the engine is somewhat prone to gear slippage under heavy load. Therefore, even distribution of power to two sets of drivers is better.

Please notice that the motors don’t necessarily have to be placed where the power output from the engine is. It is possible to have the motors placed in more convenient locations of your choice and output the power elsewhere. See picture below. However, this limits the number of motors you can pack into the boiler and works better with L motors which are 4 studs wide (XL is 5).

Hi, it’s probably a best practice to run the Technic axle through a 4x4 turntable. It makes the setup very solid.

The gains from moving motors from the tender to the engine can be significant. Not only would you have more weight on the driving wheels, creating higher maximum friction, but the direct drive from motors makes it easier to overcome the parasitic friction of the driving wheels&pushrods vs. tender-pushing configurations. Also, it allows you to add ball bearings into the tender, and increase the available pulling power of the entire engine set. Don’t forget to install friction rings into the drivers. What comes to the motors, XL motor is about double the power of the L motor, assuming suitable gearing. XL motor has the highest power density and is shorter than L, making packaging easier. So, try fit 3-4 XL motors in the first place. If that doesn’t work, settle with 2 XLs or 4 L motors. All of these configurations fit into 8-wide Big Boy. If you got with 3-4 motors, the motors probably need to be stressed members of the chassis. What comes to the control box, FX Brick or such allows you to have smoother power curve than LEGO. I.e. their speed increment is very small, allowing you to apply power gently. That is more friendly for the gears, and makes gear skipping less prone. Even better, FX Brick allows you to run motors with 11-12 Volts, e.g. with a three-cell LiPo battery. Although the torque of the motors remains the same, you can run the motors on higher top RPM. The benefit of that is the possibility to have lower gearing and keep the same top speed. With 3-cell LiPo, you can drive XL motors with direct drive and don’t have to gear up, e.g. with 20:14 as some in this forum do. Where this all takes us, I believe that the strongest possible single LEGO engine one can make in 1:48 scale is probably a Big Boy with: 4 XL motors 1:1 gearing and friction rings Ballasting 3-cell lipo with a FX Brick controller

Thanks a lot for the encouraging feedback! After sleeping on this for a couple of nights, here is the plan. Our first development priority will be to complete the 3 existing modules with surface texture. I’d like to finish them just to get experience from making a 3D hill with plates and bricks. Then, we might continue by making 2-3 additional modules to balance the scenery with another hill and to get a longer track. It would then be 10-12 of 32-stud baseplates long. What I’m not very fond of in the current layout, is that the track spacing is only 12 studs, not 16. 16 studs would have not been practical as the parallel tracks would have eaten too much of the hill part. 64 studs of building depth is not all that much. I’m already thinking of a longer term semi-permanent layout in larger dimension. I’d like to make it bi-level. What is your experience, with friction tires (I have on each engines’ traction wheels), can the locomotives pull gradients of 3%, or should I settle with 2.5%? I’ll have approximately 5 meters of free straight on the wall. With 3%, the track could climb over itself in 5 meters. Best, Henry

This is very cool. UP Challenger has been on my short list for a long time, and I’d really like to build one like yours. I like the lights as well. Very prototypical to the video you had included!

We participated a LEGO show in Helsinki today. Please find below a couple of pictures from our layout. We didn’t quite have the time to finish the surface layer of the scenery, but although incomplete, we were proud to put the setup up for the show. It contains a mountain scenery inspired by Southern California railroads. The Big Boy and other train equipment is built from BMR and BrickTrainDepot plans. With my son, we started doing LEGO trains 12 months ago so this was our first show ever! We are now thinking about the ambition for next year. Should we have 2-3 additional modules? Our make a circle so that we could run the trains? Any ideas?