DanSto

Train prototypes In order to test new powering technic, I use prototypes which are small vehicles which do not necessarily look as trains. At Fana'briques 2010, I build a 3 vehicles prototype based on a central car having an empty motor taking the current from the rails and two 9V RC motors equiped with large diameter wheels: This prototype reached a high speed of 28,5 km/h and was the fastest of all during this exhibition. The main problem was the breaking and each time it runs at high speed, it finished crashed into the loop at the end of the main straight line. The next model has been build to get more power for the acceleration but also more breaking power : this is why, I used pairs of 9V RC boggies coupled directly and having each a single wheeled axle. The idea was to increase the power with one motor per pair of wheels instead of one motor for 2 pairs of wheels. The new prototypes has 3 articuled cars were the central car is reduced to a single empty 9V boggy taking the current for the two paired boggies. Note that such a "train" has a low center of gravity which increases its stability and the speed into the curves. It can be seen on this video with the other prototypes at Fana'briaues 2012 During Fana'briques 2012, it reached the high speed of 29,3 km/h and was the fastest during this show. Up to now, the fastest prototype by Jerome T. reached 29,8 km/h and no train run faster than 30 km/h. But, I think that next time (september 2013), the 30 km/h barrier will be overcome.

Thank you for your links. It is really a very clever technique (unfortunately, it requires a lot of parts ) which could be also applied to straight 9V rails slightly disoriented, isn't it ?

The last official High Speed Train I have build is inspired by the Italo AGV it is a fully articuled train having 11 cars and is very nice in red. For high speed, it is build as light as possible using split train bases and panels when possible. Unfortunately, the curved panels are not available in red so I used trans-blue ones which gives a panoramic look to the train (the final version will include red stickers). This video shows it at Fana'briques 2012 where it reached the max speed of 21,3 km/h.

Thanks. Concerning the tracks, if you read french, have a look on this page. To give the essential info, these are self-made tracks by Denis H. He uses a resine to build a base (some old broken briks are included into it to reduce the volume of the needed resine) And finally he gets the final section of the curves : . So for mounting the curve, he has just to put these long sections together to recover the curvature and the angle immediately including the straigth-curved transition section.

OK, I understand that they could be unhappy. My goal is just to tell you the whole story until I receive my set. So, next time lego makes such a mistake, don't hesitate to order because they will honor the orders even with a wrong price and do not try to cancel them.

Well, everything seems to work nicely : order shipped .

I confirm that it could be ordered on saturday the first september for 139.99 EUROS (with the gift and free postage) on the french legoshop and I have done it. Wait and see what will happen now. My order :

I agree with you and it works very nicely. I have already used this in a prototype train with the aim to use the large wheels and to gain speed in such a way : (very frenchy ) The middle white car take the current for the two others cars build on RC motors with large wheels. This "train" reached 29 km/h. The breaking at the end of the straight line is its main problem. More recently, I have compared the PFS and the RC motors on the same prototype : the PFS motor is clearly more powerful and accelerates much better than the RC but it did not reached the same maximum speed as the RC. This could indicate that the PFS motor has a more efficient protection and is more limited at high voltage. Maybe this is true at 9V but we don't know what really happens at higher voltage. My feeling is that the 9V PFS motors are more powerful but more protected than the other 9V motors. This is why, I will try to use them with a multiplication of the rotation speed to take avantage of the power without having to increase more the voltage. I don't know because I only put a finger on the bottom of some motors : they were warm but not really hot. However, I do not really see the relation between track conductivity and the position of the motors into the train.

Official Thalys Beginning 2010, I decided to build a Thalys train with the idea to keep the correct height/length/width ratio and to have only motors as boggies. Consequently, I had to cover the motors and to use stickers for the windows. Details about the MOC can be found into my MOCpage. The official version (2 locos and 3 cars) has then 8 motors : At Fana'briques 2010 Surprisingly, this heavy articulated train won the official speed competition in 2010 with a high speed of 20,4 km/h. The commercial version (2 locos and 8 cars) has 13 motors and is 3,4 meters long (listen at the sound of the 13 motors) : At Fana'briques 2010 At Fana'briques 2010 At Festibriques 2011 Aboard it at Fana'briques 2012 (because it is very stable, it is easy to put a camera on top).(next post will present the AGV, a light articulated train).

For running on the LGV and for establishing the speed record, two categories of trains have been defined : 1. Official High Speed Trains : such trains must have 5 vehicles (usually one loco + 3 cars + one loco). This includes MOCs of existing trains like french TGV, ICE, Shinkansen, AGV, ... but also official sets like 4511 HST, 4558/10001 Metroliner, 4560/4561 Railway Express, 7897 ICE, 7938 passengers train and even 10020/10022/10025 Santa Fe Super Chief. During these last 4 years most of the MOC trains participating to the speed competition were based on french TGV (La Poste, orange prototype, V150 record, Atlantic or Thalys) and a Shinkansen. 2. Prototype trains : the only restriction is to use lego parts. In these posts, I will mainly focus on my own trains. Official Shinkansen I build my first train in 2008 inspired by the Taiwan Shinkansen because I like the orange/dark gray stripe on the white main colour. The building is based on the 4511 lego HST (small cars and magnet couplings) but because it was heavier than the 4511, it was finally not so fast as expected reaching a maximum speed of 14 km/h with 2 old 9V motors at Fana'briques 2008. At Saint Rambert 2009, with 4 to 10 new 9V motors it reached the maximum speed of 21,1 km/h : To compare with the 4511, I bought two sets with some additional cars but surprisingly the maximum speed it could reached was 18,2 km/h : I think that it was to light for the LGV1 line on which there was too much shaking. This is the reason why I decided to build articulated trains in the future. (next post will present the Thalys).

I agree with you but the magnet coupling is the weak point of this train. This is why my most recent high speed train is an AGV using the more panels as possible (light and a low center of gravity), is articulated (the inner boggies are shared between cars) and has only motors (no passive boggies). Clear : this is why we use a special power supply having no problem to power up to 20 motors up to 30 (or more) V. Usually, the train come out from the curve at 12 km/h and the goal is to increase progressively the speed to reach the maximum speed at the start measuring point. No, no siding because most of the trains are not able to run over switches (my Thalys and my AGV cannot because they are designed for 3 m diameter curves) and introducing switches on such a track is not a good idea. Concerning the heating/cooling of the motors, my personnal experience tells me that the heating is essential : during the first runs, the motors are warming up and this increases the performances (each loop, you gain a few km/h), then the optimal temperature is reached and the speed saturates and finally when the motor is too hot, the speed decreases (usually I stop to run when this happens). Very interesting : do you have details (company and reference) on such kind of motors ?

There were put into this curve like the tires into the curves of the Formula one races .

If you want to see some crash at nearly full speed (inside and outside) : or

Thanks. Well, it seems that the 9V motors are more robust than expected : I use only new motors protected by their thermistor and, in 4 weekends, I have burned only 2 of them (I have to present you my trains in a coming post : a Thalys with 13 motors and an AGV with 6 motors). Usually, 30 V are applied only during a few seconds into the straight lines on a loop. During Fana'briques 2010, I used to run with the short Thalys (8 motors) for one hour with full voltage during a few seconds every loop without problem. Of course, at the end, the motors were hot but not burned.

Since 2007, a group of french AFOLs (including BàB, FreeLUG and Fanabriques members) tries to run trains at effective high speeds up to 30 km/h. The aim of this topic is to present briefly this experience. The LGV (Ligne Grande Vitesse) railway (made by Denis H. and Xavier V.) First, usual lego 9V rails were used but it becomes rapidly clear that special straight rails are needed for high speed runs. During the Fana'briques 2008 exhibition, nearly 30 meters of such rails (each having a length of 96 studs) were used and a maximum speed around 19 km/h was reached with an applied voltage up to 30 V. Next year, during the Saint Rambert modelism exhibition, thanks to a voltage up to 40-50 V, much higher speed were reached : 25 km/h with a 9V motorized ICE (lego 7897) and 30 km/h with a prototype train (these two values remain the best marks up to now). This (not so good) video shows the 25 km/h speed record by the ICE train. If you read french, you can get more details here. For Fana'briques 2010, a completely new LGV (LGV2) has been made with 128 studs long straigth rails and inclined curves with a 3 meters diameter in order to maintain a high speed over all the loop. This video shows the same ICE train running on the new railway which can be entirely detailled on this panoramic video .For the french language readers, more details are given here. This LGV2 has been improved for the Festibriques 2011 and the recently Fana'briques 2012 exhibitions with more straigth rails, a better detection of the trains for the speed measurements and an electrical breaking. You can run aboard a Thalys on the LGV2 at Fana'briques 2012 into this video by Denis H. .(next post will present shortly the trains).

The final scene : Anakin's arm has to be repaired by R2-D2 after a blaster shot damaged it and Obiwan takes care during the reparation. and the picture for the entry into this contest : All high resolution pictures can be found in this Flickr album.

More high resolution pictures are available into my Flickr galery

The scale is larger - the head is 3 studs large - than the miniland one where the head is 2 studs large. I will send close up of R2-D2 soon and instructions should be done for september.

When are the Astromech most useful ? During battles and mainly when they help to win it like aboard Invisible Hand. Here are a few images of may Work in progress showing the holographic projection of the Invisible Hand by R2-D2. The scenario : While Obiwan and Anakin are fighting against the security droids of the Invisible Hand, R2-D2 runs in the direction of the computer interface. A droid tries to stop R2-D2 but Obiwan cut it into parts and push it against the wall using the power of the force. In the mean time, Anakin shuts down the last droid who’s parts fall onto the floor near Obiwan and R2-D2. R2-D2 connects finally to the computer interface and shows the hologram of the Invisible Hand allowing Obiwan to find where Palpatine is. Anakin protects Obiwan and R2-D2 from other possible droid's attack. Other pictures will follow.

During the Festibriques 2011 exhibition, the world record of the longest monster train was set by the Festibriques/Fanabriques LUGs cooperation. The track was 60 meters longs and only made of straight 9V lego tracks (the curves had a radius of 2 meters). This track was partitionned into 20 sectors; each sector having its own power supply and something like 70 lego 3 meters long wires were used for the electrical connection. The starting Monster train consisted in 7 various locos and 150 wagons (the octan wagons from set 7939) : the locos were dispatched along the train every 25 wagons. The train has been started slowly and the speed has been progressively increased up to the maximum voltage on the 20 power supplies has been reached. At maximum speed, the train made the 60 meters long loop in 80 seconds. This train made 15 loops without braking (only magnets are used for connecting the vehicles) and several other wagons have been added at each loop reaching a final length of 172 vehicles. A few videos of this incredible show : : the train brakes at the end of the video : the good one and then we increased the power progressively (allows to count the number of vehicles)

Presentation of my Thalys : It is certainly not the longest train because it is only 3,40 meters long and consists in 10 vehicles (2 locos and 8 cars). However, all 13 boggies are 9V motors which makes it certainly one of the most powerful lego train ever build. Of course, for running, it requires a special power supply and also a special train track : this is the LGV (Ligne Grande Vitesse = High Speed Line) build by the french BàB team. Some videos of this Thalys on the LGV : 1. 2. 3. 4. : on the train; listen the 13 motors.During these runs at 30 V, it has reached a real speed around 20 km/h. During another exhibition (Festibriques 2011 bis), I replaced the 9 inner motors by passive boggies in order to make it running on a line made only with straight lego tracks sectionned into 9 parts (each of 2,7 meters long); each part having its own lego power supply so that only two motors were powered on each part. On this track, the Thalys runs simultaneously with a long Maersk train. (have a look around 1:30)

Does everything on the entry be new ? I mean, I have build a mid-size R2-D2 in May that I have displayed on the french SeTechnic forum : can I use it as a part of my entry or not ?

A selection of my past MOCs : French Basketball league trophee Thalys train Lenticular Harry Potter Mosaic Winter layout for Fana'briques 2010 Twilight layout for Fana'briques 2012 Shanghai museum of chinese art Speederbike pursuit on Endoor

This was definitely my prefered MOCs shown at Fana'briques 2012. Did you destroyed it after the exhibition (like other Brickpirate's members do with their MOCs) ?

That's clearly the final goal but don't forget the weight of the wings : when you add them into this position, you will get the X. Calculon, please, give us a feedback about this.