Phoxtane

(I don't like making double posts but I somehow managed to absolutely destroy the post editing system with my last one so here we are) One final thought: I would avoid Kickstarter (or any crowdfunding platform) until you have an actual, physical, operating prototype. https://www.kickstarter.com/rules "Projects must be honest and clearly presented. Our community is built on trust and communication. Projects can’t mislead people or misrepresent facts, and creators should be candid about what they plan to accomplish. When a project involves manufacturing and distributing something complex, like a gadget, we require projects to show backers a prototype of what they’re making, and we prohibit the use of misleading imagery." (Emphasis mine). Please also keep in mind many of us are VERY skeptical of crowdfunding stuff for Lego trains due to the fiasco of the ME Models metal rails. Four (?) years later most people still haven't gotten anything, pledges haven't been refunded, and ME Models is, for all intents and purposes, out of business. As a result we're a very tough crowd when it comes to crowdfunding.

I can confirm this is why you were having those problems. Say you have one regulator at full blast one way putting out +9V (measured from the left rail to the right rail), and the second one is at full blast the other direction, putting out -9V (measured again from the left rail to the right rail). Since you had inadvertently connected your regulators in parallel, your regulators would now be cancelling each other out (add -9 to +9) resulting in no movement on either track. Paralleling your regulators is totally fine if you wanted some extra current capacity - but you've already modded some of your regulators to achieve that so it doesn't seem like it's necessary. In addition, if you wanted to parallel them you'd have to make sure they were all at the same setting every time you changed the speed.

I'm not sure I see the functionality/usefulness/effectiveness of PE-Drive, or the business case for E-Drive. It sounds like PE-Drive takes compressed air and uses it to generate electricity to drive the train. I don't think compressed air will be energy-dense enough to allow for any meaningful amount of run time, especially once you run it through a tiny pneumatic V20 motor-generator unit with the efficiency losses there. Examining the efficacy of PE-drive vs batteries: Typically, our Lego trains run off of six AA or AAA batteries in series. Say I use AAA batteries - Duracell Coppertops, part number MN2400 (Duracell because I can find a data sheet for these), and run my train around a track non-stop. It will use on average about 300mA* and thus get about 2.5 hours of run time out of one set of AAA batteries**. This means that at the load this test train is running at, we can extract ~750mAh from those batteries. The PF train motor uses a small brushed DC motor for power, and since it's not hugely expensive let's say it's 75% efficient***. Overall, that means we use 1000mAh for running the train for 2.5 hours (4). Using 1000mAh can also be expressed as having used 32.4 kilojoules of energy (5) (6) (7). Lego pneumatic compressors tend to cap out at around 30psi in my experience, but you're (presumably) using a custom compressor, so let's say that's 40psi. To store 32.4kJ in air that's at 40psi, you would need a reservoir with a volume of 117.47 liters (8). Where in the megablocks does that fit into a Lego train? Even with a 60-gallon 175psi compressor from my local hardware store, that's still a reservoir size of 26.86 liters (9), and IMHO that's a really scary pressure for something the size of an office water cooler tank on my living room floor. That's at an impossible 100% efficiency! This research paper suggests that reciprocating compressed air engines will be, at most, 13% efficient. If your air reservoir is roughly the size of two Lego AAA battery boxes, you have at most .15 liters, and you'd have to compress your reservoir to over 31000psi... In two battery box's worth of volume you could store 42J of energy at 40psi (with an impossible 100% efficient drive train - motor-generator and all). That's the same as a 1.3mAh battery, which will run your train for roughly 3-4 seconds. Even if this gives you a ton of torque in that time, your wheels would slip and most of that energy would be wasted. * https://www.philohome.com/ttrain/ttrain.htm ** https://www.duracell.com/en-us/techlibrary/product-technical-data-sheets (have a look at the constant current curve for 250mA on the Coppertop MN2400 AAA datasheet) *** https://www.quantumdev.com/brushless-motors-vs-brush-motors-whats-the-difference/ (4) https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Solve+X*.75+%3D+750+for+X (5) https://www.rc-electronics-usa.com/battery-electronics-101.html (6) https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1000*9.0*3.6+Joules (7) https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/KhalidaNisimova.shtml (8) https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=117.47+liters+at+40psi (9) https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=26.86+liters+at+175psi Due to the above I don't think PE-Drive will be a good candidate for powering our trains any time soon. On the other hand, from a ridiculously cool steampunkish aesthetic and engineering standpoint I'd love to see this system in action! E-Drive is more feasible in my mind because it propose an alternate all-electric power system. However, I don't think it will be economically viable, because it requires more infrastructure than even the old 12V and 9V systems - how are you going to keep the overhead cables from moving relative to the track? Most of us don't have the space or budget for a permanent layout where these things can be glued or bricked down. In addition this also requires new motors/electrical pickups, transformers, etc... Also: On 1/19/2020 at 1:21 PM, Worldwide_build said: The V20 is an air-motor that drives an electric generator. The power that the generator generates goes to the rail trucks to drive the wheels. On-board there is a lower voltage system that powers the controller (think about a stepper motor to control the airflow) and a small electric motor that powers a very compact air-compressor located in the fuel tank area. These two systems are independent of each other, the only relation being to control the motor and the compressor. All-Electric trains are on a completely different level, as the effort required to design this compared to the Pneumatic-Electric system is much higher. Where does PE-Drive get the electrical power to run the onboard compressor? Don't say it comes from the motor-generator unit because that's a perpetual motion machine and those don't exist. And if it comes from wall power via an overhead cable, why bother with the complexity and poor efficiency of a pneumatic motor-generator unit? Why not just use an on-board electric motor, like the 9V, 12V, RC, PF, and PU systems use? You can get a ton of torque out of an electric motor - if you want more than what Lego currently offers, you should see what electric RC racing has done for the availability of small high-torque brushless motors. (Side note: if you do look into RC gear for cramming into Lego trains, please consider stuffing a nitro RC buggy engine into one too. It'll be hilarious.)

I'd favor more of a Twin Drive System myself...

To my eye it looks like the buffers are boat studs. They're spaced inwards a bit more than the original and look a bit larger.

Somewhat related thought: What about building some sort of automated compressed-air dusting tunnel? Something similar to the giant blowers that clear the water off your car after going through an automated car wash. While not Lego trains specifically, it would give you an excuse to add another siding to your layout and play with compressed air. I think you're one of the very few people for who this would make sense, since you have multiple long trains. For most people, the effort wouldn't be worth it since their layouts and trains are much smaller. (As an even more tangential thought, what about some sort of custom track dusting car? High-speed fan with 3D printed nozzle that fits over the track, drawing its power from a broken and gutted 9V motor?)

Hence why you would need two of them, and two sensors (maybe RCX sensors with the proper adapters), offsetting one from the other such that in direction of travel one is always triggered before the other, and vice versa.

I'd suggest looking at picking up a handful of part number 2958pb002 off Bricklink. I have a couple of these and I think they were explicitly designed for use in old Technic stuff for sensing rotary motion. This seems like the easier answer - why not use a Mindstorms motor to drive the train itself? It's got enough power that you could gear it up a bit to better match the speed of a standard train motor.

Looks suspiciously like a logic analyzer probe. Or maybe a weird oscilloscope probe?

Mechanically speaking, if you go with a PF motor that isn't the train motor, the fewer gears you have in your drivetrain the better, as each meshing gear will sap some efficiency from the system. It would probably also be a good idea to lubricate any moving parts in the drivetrain with silicone spray, or some other plastic-safe lubricant.

Ages ago I came up with this idea for a bridge: The problem is that it doesn't have a even brick (or plate? been a while) spacing top-to-bottom, making it very difficult to integrate into a layout. In terms of color, making it out of red beams allows you to use red 3-long Technic pins with axle hole and get a better overall look.

Is there a difference in results between a train motor with new O-rings on all four wheels and one that has new O-rings on only one side (two wheels)? If there isn't any difference, I would run new O-rings on only one side since the wheels do need to slip inside a curve - they're connected through a solid axle but will be traveling different distances due to the curve. Hmm - if there's traction issues with replacement O-rings on one side only, maybe it would work better with O-rings being on opposite corners of the motor? I don't have any locomotives or track set up, so I can't test this myself unfortunately.

The door rails are necessary to fill out the "corners" of the round shape, unfortunately. See below: However, as you'll notice, 1x2 jumper plates could also be used, but then the "skin" of the car has to change as well: I don't have a scale to prove this but to me it seems that doing this technique across the entire car would add a lot of weight, and since I'm planning on doing 9+ of these, I probably should worry about that sort of thing. The tradeoff here is parts selection versus weight. Unfortunately, this doesn't change the fact that 6x6 dishes are what limit me the most in terms of color choice. I am planning on using the above technique for vertical striping - it should work nicely on the green-gray model I posted above.

I was having trouble finding alternate color schemes for tank cars; image searches were returning mostly all-black, all-brown, or all dark-red cars. So, why not turn to traditional model railroad storefronts for ideas? As it turns out, this was a great idea. While every manufacturer has tank cars of some type available for purchase, I found that the biggest and easiest-to-browse selection came from Walthers (no affiliation, content for reference only, etc.): https://www.walthers.com/products/trains/freight-cars/tank-car/# Unfortunately, many of the color schemes I've been interested in so far are impossible to reproduce due to lack of certain critical parts (listed above) in the colors necessary. For example: an all-blue Montana Rail Link car, which would look spectacular... I did find some that I am considering, however: (Dark blue-gray 6x6 dishes are rare and expensive, unfortunately. I only need six though...) While maybe not in these colors, I'm interested in doing another two-tone car, but in the style above. Another idea for a two-tone car. I could spice this one up by building the end rail sections out of white pieces as well. Finding white tubing would take some searching however. And finally, one I might consider doing if I ever decide I really hate myself. I might do one of these just for fun - thankfully, I know from building the first run of three that 6x6 dishes can be found in white.

This model came about after I realized I wanted a simple train car I could build copies of over and over again for cheap and easy long trains. I made three copies of the original version for my old LUG's annual train show in my home town, but the images here are primarily of the second version that I finalized two weeks ago. In my opinion, this second design is much better than the first, as its proportions are much closer to a real-life tank car. Measured from the end rails, it's about 33 studs long. The bogies can spin a full 360 degrees, so it shouldn't have any issues navigating standard Lego curves. The round shape was accomplished by borrowing a technique from (Lego) steam engine boiler designs. In my digital designs, hot pink parts denote which parts don't have to be a specific color (either ones I already have free in my collection or the cheapest I can find on Bricklink). The tank section is attached to the end sections via 2x2 round plates with center holes and 2x2 jumper tiles. The car was designed such that the color scheme depends primarily on five "exotic" pieces: 2x2 round plates, 6x6 dishes, 2x4x2/3 curved slopes, 1x8 door rails, and 1x2 door rails. The color range these parts can be found is is fairly diverse and should allow for many different liveries without requiring stickers. (2x4 plates come in almost any color so I'm not considering them "exotic") (New version on the left, old version on the right) My future plans for this design are to update the two remaining old-type cars to new ones. Afterwards, I want to build two more sets of three in different liveries. This will give me a total of nine cars to work with!

For some improvements on a previous model, I knew I would need a decent amount of 3mm rigid tubing - but I didn't know yet how much I would or how long the pieces would need to be. Since buying genuine rigid tubing can get expensive fast, and I would likely have to cut it up into various lengths that wouldn't end up being used, I decided to find an alternative. I found 1/8" (3.175mm) OD nylon tubing on McMaster-Carr which seems to work well enough for what I need. Unfortunately, McMaster-Carr only ships to addresses within the United States (for us little people, anyway), so this substitution is only available to those in the US. Below is an image of the tubing after I opened the package and cut a medium-length piece for comparison purposes: Below is a comparison between the substitute tubing (middle) and official Lego tubing (bottom), with a black 1x16 brick for comparing color: McMaster charges 29 cents per foot for this stuff, and sells it in lengths of 25, 50, or 100 feet. I ordered a 25ft roll, and it cost me $7.25 (with minimal or no shipping costs - McMaster is a bit weird with their invoices). As for how well it works as a substitute for genuine Lego tubing, it's perfectly adequate for my purposes! My tubing is black, which matches Lego black almost perfectly. It does have a much smoother and glossier surface than genuine tubing, but in my opinion that makes it match the surface of a fresh brick better than the real stuff. It feels a bit softer and certainly more flexible than genuine tubing; however, it's not nearly as soft or flexible as the silicone pneumatic tubing. The internal diameter is much larger than the Lego tubing, resulting in much thinner walls than the Lego tubing. This probably explains why it's so flexible, but it also means it will be more prone to kinking or collapsing on itself. It snaps in and out of clip pieces a bit more easily due to being softer than the real stuff. Another thing to note is that there's information printed onto the tubing itself. It does ruin the look, but thankfully the text can be cleaned off with an alcohol wipe. Overall I'm quite pleased with this stuff. Apart from black, McMaster supplies it in blue, green, red, yellow, and gray (none of which I needed so I can't comment on how the color matches to their corresponding Lego colors). Oddly enough, the gray is only available in metric, at 3mm, so it may be too small. Here's the link to the McMaster page: https://www.mcmaster.com/standard-plastic-and-rubber-tubing/=60fa861250244b82b607a2f2a3d13811k0yhfgb7 As a side note, McMaster-Carr is weird to order from - you have to create an account, then go into your account settings and put in card information that orders will charge to. At that point, you're free to order as much as you want. They then send a confirmation email, send an invoice shortly after that, ship your items the day after, and the charge shows up on your card about five days later. I'm baaaaack. I graduated college and moved halfway across the US to the East Coast for a job, and even have cats to knock stuff over for me instead of doing it myself.

Would it be maybe be worth the time and investment to start making these yourself with an SLA 3D printer, such as the Anycubic Photon or similar? The advantage to such a setup would be that you'd have total control over production (and cut out the middleman costs). Prototyping new parts would also become much cheaper for the same reasons. A resin printer would also eliminate the grainy texture the current parts have. The downside of course is that resin printing is somewhat labor intensive, as the parts must be washed and cured after coming off the printer to come to full strength. In addition, the resin can result in severe irritation or even chemical burns if it gets on your skin, so gloves are necessary (and it's not recommended to breath the fumes, of course). And then there's the color matching issue - though you might be able to alleviate that with a very light colored resin that you could then dye to its final color. Of course, there might also be production capacity issues too - I don't know what sort of order volume you get, but one or even two or three printers might not be enough. EDIT: What about resin part strength? I'm not so sure it would be much of a concern - they might be comparable to the parts you're currently getting, maybe even stronger. I don't have any experience with resin, just old-fashioned FDM printing.

If the light normally only blinks when the batteries are low, it could be that the box is monitoring the battery voltage to use as a sign of when the batteries start running low. A way to confirm this would be to measure the voltage from the batteries while the motors are under load - I'm not sure how you'd go about creating an artificial load, as it seems pretty impractical to measure this directly off a running a train.

I would try the 3D printed option first, as you are more likely to get the steel shaft running true successfully, but it will take up more space than the second method. However, the second method is trickier to get working, as you'll have to get the hole for the steel shaft drilled straight and on-center - a mini lathe might be your best option here. EDIT: Come to think of it, you'd probably want access to a resin printer, as the part in question is so small it wouldn't really work out well on a traditional hobby-level 3D printer. Now I'm not sure what the best option is.

I just filled out the new question. More than happy to do so if it means less spam! How effective is this new measure in the Spam Wars?

I'm interested in the idea of a hybrid system - this helps reduce cost, as one could limit the use of more expensive metal track to the charging section, while using lower-cost plastic rails for the rest of the layout. However, the hybrid has the disadvantage of still requiring a battery pack on board the train (although maybe a smaller one, since you would only need tens of minutes of run time as it would be being charged each time the train traveled the charging section).

Was there any community discussion/consultation prior to developing PU, as there was with Power Functions?

A thought about your app (even though I don't have an Apple phone) - I would like to see a numerical value associated with the speed (say, "Speed: 1"). That way, you don't have to count button presses. A "cruise control" feature may be useful as well; engage this function and the speed value is saved. You could have a train running at a certain speed, then slow it down and bring it to a stop at a station. Upon re-engaging the cruise control, the train smoothly ramps back up to the saved speed!

What got upgraded? As far as I can tell, it seems and feels about the same, which is probably a good thing considering how these things can go.

The datasheet for the CC2640 chip on the controller has, according to its datasheet: "2-pin cJTAG and JTAG Debugging", as well as the following peripherals: UART, 2x SSI (SPI, MICROWIRE, TI), I2C, I2S. Google seems to think that the 6 pin connections at the top are related to JTAG in some way. This is what I found online (from this site: https://www.xjtag.com/about-jtag/jtag-a-technical-overview/) about the JTAG connection: "Interface Signals The JTAG interface, collectively known as a Test Access Port, or TAP, uses the following signals to support the operation of boundary scan. TCK (Test Clock) – this signal synchronizes the internal state machine operations. TMS (Test Mode Select) – this signal is sampled at the rising edge of TCK to determine the next state. TDI (Test Data In) – this signal represents the data shifted into the device’s test or programming logic. It is sampled at the rising edge of TCK when the internal state machine is in the correct state. TDO (Test Data Out) – this signal represents the data shifted out of the device’s test or programming logic and is valid on the falling edge of TCK when the internal state machine is in the correct state. TRST (Test Reset) – this is an optional pin which, when available, can reset the TAP controller’s state machine." If this is indeed a JTAG connector, I'm not sure why Lego decided to use TDC instead of TDO and Reset instead of TRST. Also, the datasheet says that the chip does support OTA updates.