legoman666

I do all of my building in 7W: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=106163&hl= http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102535&hl= http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=100590&hl= http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=98313&hl= http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=89181&hl= All of my rolling stock is 7W or 8W as well, but I don't have any photos to showcase them. I aim for 7, but sometimes they end up 8 due to the geometry of the pieces I use.

Swoofty is the man. Very prolific. I pull a lot of my inspiration from him (as you can tell by looking at the rear grills). I wish he built in 7W though, then I could see what he comes up with for the windshield on the American diesels we both seem to like. I tried a couple solutions for brick built, but none were satisfactory. My current implementation has a gap. All in all, it's pretty strong. Only weak parts are the windshield and some of the rear grills. The nose is pretty sturdy considering every bit of it is snot.

Funny how an idea of how to do one thing turns in to an entire locomotive. Waiting on an order of a couple pieces to finish it off. The zigzag is done with cheese. Inspiration is a Union Pacific C45ACCTE AKA ES44DC:

I used this: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11801 cheap and works fine. I did need to download an addon for the arduino program so that it could use it though.

Only piece that floats is the double 45 peak. Will only fall out if you flip the thing upside down. Everything else is reasonably sturdy.

Unless you do something fancy with brackets, the only way the back will line up is too keep it multiples of 2 studs. Yours is 7 studs so it's not going to work. 6 or 8 would be easy.

Very nice work. Fitting all the PF internals in there is no easy task.

I have a bunch of locomotive's that each have 2 L motors and AA battery packs. Even with custom steel wheels that have less traction than Lego's stock wheels, each locomotive can pull 16' of 7/8W rolling stock without bogging down. My loco with 2 PF train motors goes too fast through straights and almost stops through curves.

If you want it to be more correct, the only way to make the bogies is to drop the PF train motors in favor of gearing it via motors. Here's one I recently did: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102535 The trim around the wheels is hard to make look good if you use the train motor.

Not too fragile. I don't understand the question. Thanks. Hope to start construction soon. Will make some sort of UP liveried EMD. It will probably be a dummy unit, I've got plenty of powered locomotives at the moment. Also want to remake my Norfolk Southern to be slightly larger. Maybe I'll do that first.

I hid 4L motors in my big boy. That thing can haul megablocks. Starts slipping before it runs out of power.

I think I finally got it. This was my previous best attempt: And here's what I came up with: Still in a 7 wide envelope too. Only downside is that the pieces used to make it are kind of limited in color. They are only all available in black, blue, dark grey, light grey, red, tan, and yellow. I'll probably end up doing a UP locomotive in yellow/dark grey. I really wanted to do a dark blue CSX es44DC, but the parts aren't there yet. For reference, here's the real thing: http://www.trainspot...0110530-823.jpg

Awesome, I'd love to see a video of the transmission in action and of the train running.

Are you using the extended parts selection in LDD?

I actually ordered a roll from tapecase. After going through the considerable difficulty of cutting the tape in to 1/4" wide strips and cutting my fingers repeatedly on the sharp edge while applying it, I only managed to get it to work well on straights. With curved track, the outside of the tape either needs to stretch or the inside needs to bunch up. Either way does not work well. I tried a few pieces of R104 track, and it was easier to apply, but then I had issues with the tape curling up since the adhesive was not strong enough (even though it was damn strong.) To summarize, I do not recommend using tape.

Just got home and played with the steam wheels. The holes are too small. Not a huge deal, but they need to be fixed. To make my first set of 4 work, I sanded down the ends of the 6L axle. Secondly, the flange is spaced about .5mm too far out from the center. That is to say, when two wheels are spaced 4 studs apart on the same axle, the wheels do not fit nicely into the gap between the rails. Other than that, they are ok. The look fantastic too. On the small flange regular wheels, my set of 4 are ok. In my experience, I have found that there are two different diameter axles. On the larger of the two, these wheels work great. On the small, the axle hole is too big. Aaron, you might try digging through your collection of axles and find a pair that fit better.

I've ordered a roll from there. It is quite thick (borderline too thick) but I couldn't tell you for sure how thick exactly. Any tape you find will be too wide. I cut it in to 1/4" wide strips.

http://www.tapecase.com/pd/cn/tapes-die-cuts/1081/1001079/tc862-stainless-steel-foil-tape.aspx

That makes sense. I use this wire: http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/tic/tic1100.htm it is stiff copper. Easy to solder. I posted a photo earlier showing how.

I wouldn't mind having a couple r104 switches 3d printed. That way you could save on the tooling.

I'm not sure I understand. You want to put steel wheels on a RC or PF train motor and pick up power from the track? If so, how are you going up pull power up from the wheels? The bulk of the motor casing will get in the way.

I'd love some r104 switches.

I made a quick how to a couple months ago for repairing worn out contacts. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102241

My wheels arrived, but I'm out of town for the week. Sigh.

ME Models will. Hasn't been released yet though.