kieran

If you hope to race / drive alongside a standard car you really need to keep the voltage drop in your LEGO car. If you know the max current at 5V for the motor you want to use and the max voltage applied to the track you can calculate the voltage drop and current handling of a resistor, if you know that you can calculate the power you need to dissipate in the resistor. If you can fit a big enough resister in the car with no risk of it melting the LEGO then for a simple solution this could well be the way. The variable voltage will come form the trigger controller anyway, all you want to do is only allow the LEGO motor to see 1/3 roughly of what ever the voltage is on the track, then you get speed control as well. if you used a fixed voltage regulator to get to =5V in the car, it will only ever go at one speed if the supply voltage is above 5V + 1.2V drop over the reg, as the voltage drops below this the regulator will become erratic and not deliver a very smooth voltage/current. if you wanted to make a variable supply to the motor based on varying input voltage this can be done but is much more work. hope that helps a little.

My en, has a single m mother in the boiler and can pull three cars at a reasonable scale speed, think i will change to a L at some point

Thanks pacc

Agree, also better as you can run parallel on each track

Where is that, I was in Basingstoke and they had none

Thanks Andy, I really like the idea of the modified track I have hunted around and found lots of info on this, but nothing to show exactly how to cut the turn out off the switch where to make the cut, do you have any tips on that?

Oh and the other thing I forgot to mention is i would like to runs some monorail around as well, the real LEGO type.

Thanks for that, would need a double cross over and they are mega money, but i do like what you did with this. For any one interested, here is a shot of the area I will be building the set-up in.

Thanks Guys, I just filled the area with sidings and see your point they will be too small, maybe I will try and get a loading area in here for containers, it will be more accessible if there are any issues and some fall off anyway. 2 separate loops sounds like a good idea, my final aim is to run DCC so electricity separate tracks is not a hard requirement, but will be for some time. Back to the drawing board

Hi all, a while ago i posted a topic about a new LEGO room I was working on, well at last I am ready to add the tables for my new layout. This will be the first time I have had a fixed layout and need a bit of help. I have started to work with BlueBrick (which is truly excellent) and got this so far The size of the green base plates completely covers the tables I will be building in the next day or so, its roughly 4m at the longest edge by 2m. My main aim is to have a few longs straights to see trains moving in a nice way. I also want to have a few sidings that I can keep other trains on. ( I have quite a few). My main issue is what to do with the middle bit. I do a lot with Minstormes so will automate parts of it a container loading and unloading station. I also have one cross over which may be good to get in somewhere. I have a complete set of Monster fighters that I could use to set a scene, but not sure how that will fit with the ideas of automation which i think is more important to me. I have attached the Bluebrick file here if that helps anyone get a better look. Many thanks and happy new year to you all..

Love it

Take a look at this there are loads of other options from the same source

agree with other comments, this is very nice, I like black and the accent colours used really shine out against the mostly single colour background.

Amazing, cant believe you got that much into such a small package, love this set

Love the tree, it looks really good spinning round. Nice work

Not worth that much, would keep it around

That's really nice

There has been some discussion of late regarding missing batteries form the USA sets, not sure you will be effected though, and as its your sis she can always collect at a later date and post it over.

Just amazing, what a clever way to organize those parts

Very nice, it looks like th top can lift off, is that the idea?

Thanks for the nudge, I read that post a while back, looks to work really well

Nice, really like this one

Let me add my congrats as well

Hi, what option are you using to replace 9v internals? Nice layout by the way

Love it, looking forward to the final result