F0NIX

Which monorail sets do you own : none Whick monorail do you want: none I build my own :D

* Gulp * This has grown a bit since I first saw it on Brikkelauget.no :) Really nice. All the diffrent types of building seems to fit together really nice. There not to much in there, and still there is a LOT in there even if it is HUGE!! :) Lots of details, lots of things going on. I like it. And this is actually my first post in Classic-Pirates.com :) Think I have to look more into this forume too...

I have also seen this in some reviews. But since I'm a technic fan I am always very happy for all technic parts in any sets. And I also find it very interesting when they turn to a Technic solution for a function in a normal city set. The reason someone rate it as negative is maybe that they think technic parts are not useful for other applications than they have seen it used in just that set? I have to admit that I have the same view for Bionicle parts. But I have seen fantastic non-Bionicle creations with use of Bionicle parts. But I find them very hard to implement both in Technic creations and in Town/City related creations.

Well, if I didn't want anyone to get inspirations or ideas of my creations I would not publish any pictures ;) So, please go on, and build or copy or whatever. You can even modify and make it better! I'm just happy that my pictures can make someone want to build more with LEGO. That is how I get my inspirations anyway; looking at other peoples LEGO-creations. And I would also be very happy if you shared pictures of YOUR creation. Maybe I can see ways to make my train even better? And for what type of motor, I'm using Power Functions (PF) M motors. One in the front and one in the rear wagon. And I put the PF receiver and PF rechargeable battery box in the middle wagon. I had some trouble with getting a secure and stable motor mount. But the One I have now works well if you dont open and close the train wagons too often...

Mine for sure can climb up small hills. And I'm sure DLuders train can do that as well. But it is a bit harder to make a track that is smooth enough and has a bend vertical. But if you make long hills it would work just fine (and that would also look more realistic too). The trains has good tracktions since it is rubber wheels against the track, and I have two motors in mine. And with the way I built the tracks (upside down) it actually get some extra grip to the track (that was not the intention)

I built the track upside down just to make it even cheaper, and I did not have that many grey tiles at the moment either. But it will look better if you use just 2 rows of bricks and top it of with some tiles. It still will be strong enough and flexible. But the lower profile would fit better above the streets in a town layout. This was just for a test and "proof-of-consept"... All this was just made of the parts I had avaiable at the time. I would prefer the train to be white with the black window frames. Maybe a red or blue line along the train below the windows?

Thanx for all the comments! I can also add that I used some time to think through this project in my head and planned the main features of the building: windows, the stripes and the brickwork. I was looking carfully on the photos I have taken of the real building to see the details. And my main focus is not the scale but the overall proportions of the model, and then the scale had to be whatever the proportions and main features demanded. That is why this building is slightly larger in scale than the Kirkegårdsvegen 14 building I built before this. Next step was to find the correct mixture of color for the brickwalls. As you probably have seen in the Flickr folder there is some color-test there. And I settled on this mixture: 60% Dark Orange, 15% Reddish Brown, 15% Dark Tan and 10% Dark Red. And that was the closest I could get to the real thing. I put this mix of about 4000 1x2 plates in a big box and mixed them well. When building I try to NOT look into the box when selecting a brick, so it should be as random as possible. I actually startet building this model on a very strange part: 2th floor north facade windows and the round corner in 1th floor and built out from there :) Thanx! The initial plans was to have interior in the building. You can probably see the vertical split on two of the facades. This was made so it should be possible to open the building in two parts to show of the interior. But it seems it can take some time before the interior is finished. I'm almost out of parts after these three huge LEGO-buildings :)

Well, I have tried every combination of wings I have and I can't find any that have the correct angle. The closest is 45 degree. But I figure that if I first make the main roof and then let the smaller parts go into the main roof. It will probably look better on the outside. And THEN i can use the wings on the inside to make a nicer transition.

This is a Work in Progress. It is a model after a real building in my home town Tromsø. It is a brick building built of LEGO bricks (duh) :) It started a few years back after building Ishavskatedralen and Polaria (two iconic and very well known buildings in my town). I then wanted a more complex building to make a model of and selected an old cinema Verdensteateret. After that I was looking around in my town for new inspirations or building to make models after. After some photographing and looking around I desided to build two residenc building in Kirkegårdsvegen. Both these and Verdensteateret is drawn and built by the same arcitects. Verdensteateret was built in 1915, not sure exactly when these other building was created but it was a few years after. I have already built Kirkegårdsvegen 14 and this is a thread about the last creation, Kirkegårdsvegen 16. Have now finished about 99% of the facades. Not happy about how the roof came out, have to redo that. I'm waiting for some white 1x1 plates for the windows and some jumper plates so the windows can be half into the walls. The doors should be white not black. And ofcourse I have to build the ground floor and some gardens and lawn outside. I may also rebuild the house so that it is 2 studs longer and making the roof above the curved veranda on the east facade not so steep. It should probably be more like the other. You find more pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/f0nix/sets/72157627108342525/with/6031670654/ Hope you like it. And please comment and give me some hints and tips on how to do the roof better (and no, I do not want to make it out of slope bricks) or other improvement you see needs to be done.

Great idea and well done. I had just the same idea myself since I have limited space for the display. With tunnels like this you have both trains in a loop and buildings on display. And since the buildings in the back are raised you will see all the buildings better. I have my tunnel still up, but run out of space on my desk for any good trainlayout...

legodac, I have seen your work before and it is wonderful. Specially like the train layout and the tunnels through the walls. The lights give it a extra dimension and seems more "alive". But I wonder if there is a reason for using those pesky 12v bulbs? Normal bulbs has a few disadvantages vs LED: First of all bulbs produce a lot more heat than a LED with the same amount of light (measured in candela or lumen). The other thing is they use a lot of power, so you need thicker wires to feed them enough current. And third as other have mentioned, LED has longer running lifetime than bulbs. But they have two advantages vs LED: the bulbs gives of a better light color (measured in Kelvin) and looks more like normal household bulbs that we use in our real houses. The second thing is that they normally spread the lights out in a broader angle than the LED. I have found nice LED with a nice warm white color (around 3500K) with high intensity and they draw almost no power at all. And best of all, no heat! :) Se this thread for more info about it: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=47675&st=0&p=836627entry836627 I have later also used SMD LED strips with self-adhesive tape on the back inside some LEGO buildings with great success. They are even flexible so you can bend them easy around corners or objects. You can cut them (at marked points) and extend them with some wires. You can get these in lengths up to 5 meters long. And as a comment about you "damaging" so much LEGO: hey, its just a hobby, everyone may do as they want with the hobby! But I think most of us here on this forum will try the best we can to give the layout a "true" LEGO look, and do as best we can to hide all wires and at the same time not harm any LEGO-parts so they can be used in another creation at a later time. And some will even never use any Non-LEGO parts in their layout. So we all do it different. Do what YOU think is best for YOU, and what you are most comfortable with.

Is it just me or does the bricks seems of a newer date? Did the bricks have those tubes and reinforcements back in the 60's? See bottom of bricks. But the baseplates and the car is definitive old school... Another fun thing is if you look at the road plate, the streets are about 4 studs wide, today's streets is around 7? But the houses was a lot smaller back then too.

Have you tried pointing the remote control up into the ceiling? It spreads much better in your room and you get better control of the train. The reason is the IR receiver on top of the train pointing up. And even if it has receptions to the side it is best from straight above the receiver.

Before the annual meeting in Brikkelauget in May this year, Freddie (at Brikkelauget.no) asked for ideas on making a durable drive mechanism for an idea he had of making a train running on a 1x wide monorailtrack. I tried some ideas that can be seen on the Consept version at Brickshelf: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=471404 But I realized that I had to build a complete train to be able to test the consept further. And then I found myself sitting there building a few hours in stretch and got up with a train that worked on my short little monorail track built up of 3bricks high monorail track with just 1x2 bricks. At the Brikkelauget meeting we tested my monorail train on Freddie's track but it had some stability issues in the curves and mostly fell of the track and taking the track with it. After I got back home I have rebuilt it several times and are now on a more final stage that works. The first version had technic chain for driving two wheels on the same car, but that was too noisy and also was not very effective. So now I have only one drive wheel but added another PF-motor in the rear. The middle car contains the PF-receiver and battery box. Pictures of the last version and the 1st conspet can be found here: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=471404 Here is a small video I made today of the thing running on my monorail track. The reason for building the track with 1x bricks upside/down is so I did not had to use any tiles, and thus making it even cheaper to build. The curves is built with 1x2 bricks only, and the straight mostly of 1x8 bricks. It is important that the track supports are sturdy and I had to make them of 2x bricks. There are some forces on the side track when the trains enters the curves. Hope you like it :) Note: I do not know lot about trains, so the looks on this train is just a "mashup" of the parts I had available at the time and I was not paying attention to the outside design, but more to the inner technical part and functions. And now that the idea works I can build it in new colors and with other windows and such... maybe...

Has anyone tried to make an "Faller car system" in LEGO? Like this one: Here is a simple explanation on how it works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eagvbT0tTjY I was thinking of only adding one non-LEGO element: a metal string under the road plates. And then using a train magnet attached to the steering mechanism somehow. Then there is the challenge to find a small enough motor and battery box to make a really small motorized car in LEGO :) I will at least try to experiment on this with LEGO-parts...

It is AMAZING!! I just love it! :) Lots of details, and not too much either. And that small scale! (when I try this type of buildings they gets huge)

I'm not sure how to vote on this: "not at all" or "all the time" since I dont have trains in my region :) But the trainstation and trains I'm going to build is going to be based on pictures of the Norwegian trains.... I have allready built one trainstation and it was based upon an old Norwegian trainstation.

Hello all train fans! I'm pretty new to LEGO trains, but I have some old gray 4,5v tracks from my childhood. I think I had just two trains back then, but it newer took off. I mostly build technic creations until a few years back when I started to build some realistic building and modeling real buildings in LEGO. And when the first LEGO RC trains came out (7897 and 7898) I thought they where nice and I started collecting trains again. I have also built a MOC train station to accompany the RC trains on a local hobby show a few years ago. I have not built many MOC trains yet. The latest was a monorail built from an idea from Freddie/Goksnedeh. It is almost finished now and I will put up some more images of it soon. I also have one 7597 Western Train Chase (Toy Story), one 7897 Passenger Train, one 7898 Cargo Train Deluxe, one 7938 Passenger Train, one 7939 Cargo Train, one , one 10173 Holiday Train, two 10194 Emerald Night, one 10219 Maersk train beside the RC train tracks and a few of the latest train stations. I have been for a long time now worked on a automation of the RC trains with some NXT and RCX bricks, with sensors, motors and IR receiver/transmitters. So far the only problem I have is detecting where a specific train are at any moment on the tracks. I like to build the system so it is easy to add more trains and tracks. And in the end I just have to point out that I don't have real trains in my regions to look at for inspiration as we don't have trains here in northern part of Norway....

Only problem with long cables is voltage drop because of resistance inside the cable, and less power to the rails. But doubling the cables (connect them in parallel), cuts the resistance in half. Otherwise you can make your own cables by cutting one short original extension cable in half and solder, or in other way connect new thicker cable in between.

Fantastic! Very realistic! Nice colors too.

The heat is so low that you normally do not need to think about it. It is just the brightest and largest LED that are giving of some significant amount of heat.

This is a good site for calculating the resistor if you use higher voltage then the LED-voltage. http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz Todays LED's seem to start emitting light with very low voltage level and the current is very low. But for safety reason I always put on a resistor in series with the LED. I have tested a bit with different LED's in different colors too. But I like to use the LED with high brightness and a warm white color around 3000-3500 Kelvin (color temperature). With a brightness around 10000mcd they light up very well and can be seen even in rooms with normal light levels. And in my opinion the reason for having lights in or around a LEGO creation is to make some extra effects when its on display like on shows and events. I also like to use a fixed power supply since the power from a battery pack does not last long if you got many LED's in your town. Of course you can put many battery packs around in every house or creation... Has anyone found a clever way to make a connector? Or do you just twist the leads together with no soldering or anything else? I have up to now used the old 9v LEGO 2x2 connector, then it is a bit easier to connect and disconnect, and easier to use different types of LEGO power supplies. Can even power some LED from the Mindstorm RCX and program them to flash in a specific order if I like to :)

Hi Øyvind! Really nice train you have built and a really nice layout too. I have a few things in common with you except that I'm not that good with trains (have just started after the RC trains), but my name is also Øyvind and I'm also from Norway. And since I'm from northern part of Norway (Tromsø too be precise) we do not have trains around here that I can look at, so I have to use pictures on the Internet for inspirations. And here yu came up with a lot of inspirations for me :) Thanx for sharing! (And as morty and other, I'm also a member on the Norwegian Brikkelauget LUG)

Nice modification. This requires no soldering and no modification of any bricks. Well done! But I'm recomending using a Warm White color, it looks much more realistic. I have also used LED's in my buildings. Look at this thread about it: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=47675 And as you see I started of by modify my street lamp posts. Now I have even tried using a strip of SMD LED inside the buildings. That gives a realy nice effect of interior lightning: Sorry, I have no images of how I mounted the LED strip inside the building yet, but it is self adhesive and easy to stick to any wall or ceiling. You will find more information about it here.

Just a question from one that is new to LEGO trains. Some of you mentioned RC, do you mean the IR (Infra Red) control that was before the PF? If RC stands for Radio Controlled then I cant seem to find any info about that. If RC stands for Remote Controlled then it could be mixed up with the PF (Power Function) that also can be remote controlled with IR transmitters. I have both these PF/IR systems and also have some old 4.5v systems. And can also add to both PF and IR systems that they can be controlled from Mindstorm NXT system. And I think that is a very positive aspect about them. Off course you can have some intelligent control systems with the 9v LEGO trains too (DCC), but that is not a LEGO-only system and the way you have to modify the train motor is not for everyone to do. With the mix of PF and NXT the intelligent train control can be done by almost everyone with out modify any LEGO components.