Paperballpark

Well I bought a load of them just today from a Lego Brand store. They're still available.

Legoleaks Discord thread.

I've seen them now, and very frustratingly, there are stickers over the PF section in the bottom right. Not on purpose though - there's stickers in the same place on other set boxes too. I think I can make out though, that the extra word on the new Power Functions logo is '2.0'

Where? I can't find any hi-res images in the usual places.

Metal rails are a lot more expensive and complicated to produce. I think there's also an issue around the classification and regulation of toys which include power adaptors etc, as opposed to battery-operated toys. I don't see Lego ever going back to metal rails.

Aha brilliant! :) Thank you!

I managed to figure out how to use LPub3D yesterday, and changed the camera angles in that (although sometimes it doesn't do what you tell it to). I can't see any way to add call-outs, put multiple steps on one page, add arrows or things like that though.

I'm trying to generate instructions for a model I've recreated in stud.io, and whilst I can see them online, I can't find a way to create a PDF for instructions. Does anyone know a way? I tried to export as LDraw and import into MLCad, but it's separated out all the 'sub models', and I have no idea where the instruction steps that I created in stud.io have gone. Help!

When I used to use points on my show layout, I used to find that some trains didn't like going over them. After some investigation, I determined that it was only if the points were straight after a curve. If I put three or four straight sections between the curve and the points, I didn't have a problem. It seemed that the wheels on some of the trains didn't have time to go back to 'straight' after the curves, before they went into the points. Those wheels would then snag on the points (I can't remember exactly how) because they weren't yet pointing 'straight'.

Who says it was a bundled contract? Disney: "Hey Lego, we have a really cool new Lone Ranger film coming out next year! It's got Johnny Depp in it, and it's going to be a real hit! Do you want to make some Lego sets to tie in with it? They'll be bound to sell, especially with Johnny Depp in the film!" Lego: "That sounds pretty good, yeah why not?" The point is that Lego will have agreed to make sets based on a conversation with Disney about the forthcoming film. Both Disney and Lego will have assumed it would be a hit - or at very least fairly successful - otherwise Lego probably wouldn't have done the sets, and more to the point, Disney wouldn't have made the film!

I got around this issue by putting them back-to-back right next to each other. I figured that by doing so it would be very unlikely that one picked up the signal but the other didn't. Plus, the very nature of needing two motors means that you're likely to run it at full speed anyway, so I just turned the dial a lot, so both were bound to be at full speed anyway, even if one somehow missed one of the signals.

But you do switch it - right at the start! ;)

Polarity switches are cheap, easy to buy from the LEGO website or any of the 12 or so Brand stores in the UK, and actually quite small, so easy to fit into a train - especially if it's large enough to be able to take two train motors. I managed to fit two motors, two battery boxes, two IR Receivers and a polarity switch into my Horizon Express cab. Given the small size of the polarity switch, I don't really see the issue with the size of it. My only issue with soldering would be if I eventually took that train apart, I'd then have a motor which ran in the opposite direction to everything else! As for the first problem of not enough traction, I found that putting the battery box directly above the train motor really helps with that, as it's easily the heaviest (and densest) part of the whole train. Obviously in some cases you can't do that, but I found those to be quite rare.

To be honest, I think I'll leave you all to your dreams. TLG will have done enough research over the years to know what will work and what won't. Just stating on here that 'if they did X, Y would happen' is completely unverifiable and therefore merely speculation, nothing more. If however, you commission proper research and present the findings, then I'd be interested. For example, stating 'if they took trains out of CITY and made it its own theme, it would do better', is merely opinion. Why wouldn't TLG do that if they thought the same? They are more likely to have done market research than you, so actually I suspect that taking trains out of CITY would probably be more likely to have the opposite effect. Tying it into the CITY theme gives kids and adults something they can work trains into, rather than it just being lonely on its own.

Fixed that for you.

Technic axles are one of the biggest sources of friction on trains. Replace them if at all possible.

You just disconnect the jacob bogie from one of them :) Thanks! Twelve wagons though, including the cabs ;) Nope, I did it! ;) I had to change the centre underbody section though, to enable the second motor to fit :)

Two motors will, as they'll draw twice the current from the battery box. A few years ago I extended my HE to have ten coaches and two cabs. I modified the front cab to be able to take two motors, two (rechargeable) battery boxes, two IR receivers and a polarity switch. I also built a duplicate cab, in order to be able to quickly switch it out when running at shows - one was on charge while the other was running. The two motors had no problems at all pulling twelve carriage (although I did have to use a 1x2 tile to clip the front magnets together). Another thing I did was replace all the coach bogies with Jacob bogies, except for the very first and last bogies. I figured that having almost half the number of bogies would reduce the friction caused by the wheels on the track. Here's a couple of photos of it:

A sound brick would not use a AAA battery. There is a sound brick (or a light brick) in the new Hospital set, but not in either of the train sets.

That would be my guess too. All I know is that the sets require ten AAA batteries, not how they're distributed! :)

Yup, arctic is looking good for new animals! I spy a mammoth in 60195, a polar bear in 60194, a new tiger print/recolour in 60193, and a husky in 60191 :)

The new trains require ten AAA batteries each, rather than the nine required in the current sets.

^ It wouldn't be too difficult to build a Technic beam 'frontage' over the top of the orange speed control dials, and use gears to gear down the speed at which the dials turn. I'm guessing that's how they've done it :)

Yes, I hope they'll at least have a converter between PF leads and PF2 leads, like they have with PF and 9V. EDIT: I've just seen leaked images of some summer Technic sets, and a couple of them seem to have regular PF, so who knows what's going on?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Lego don't make the City trains for us. We are not the target demographic for them. I'm sure the trains will sell just fine to the target demographic - Lego aren't stupid. Arguably, it's those who think Lego won't have done their research that are stupid. As for the track packs, again they're not stupid. If you want 80 straights, you'll have to buy 10 packs. If they sold them with 16 straights in a pack, you'd only have to buy 5 packs. That might be better for you, but Lego would only sell half the number of packs. Again, they're not stupid.