legoman666

For your 9v train slowing on the far end, my club uses 4 hookups per loop. Granted, our display is larger, but you probably want at least 1 more. I'd recommend using a 2nd 9v regulator for it and tying the 2 together. Before we switched to custom power supplies, we had 6 regulators per loop. It was kind of ridiculous. Now we use a single 24V supply and 2 hookups. Much better.

Sounds like a good idea to me!

Are your trucks articulated or do they have sliding axles? BBB needs to release some blind small drivers...

I've just started work on something similar, a Big Boy /w a UP passenger consist. Yours turned out fantastic, so I can't wait to start work on my own.

Thought you guys might be interested in this. Items you will need: Phosphor bronze wire: http://www.hobbylinc...tic/tic1105.htm is what I used Soldering iron & solder Small needle nose pliers Small dikes 9V train motor with worn out contacts 1) Open up your train motor. If the contacts are good, but the motor still doesn't spin when voltage is applied, I'm afraid this procedure will not help. Here's one of mine opened up. You will notice that the right set of contacts are broken/worn off. In the rear of the photo, you can see both sets on the other side are also worn off. 2) Remove contacts. These just rest in there and come right out. 3) Cut and shape a piece of the phosphor bronze wire to match the shape of the original contacts. Cut off the remaining portion of the original contacts too. 4) Solder them on the outside of the bracket. The bracket will not fit back in the motor if you put them on the inside. 5) Put back in place. You may have to fiddle with the tension to get the wheels to spin freely. You might try a thinner wire if you have problems. The stuff I used is borderline too thick. 6) Test:

I have a few.

I use stiff phosphor bronze wire to solder new contacts on the original nickel silver contacts. If you mail it to me, I'll do it to yours for a small fee.

If you switch to 7 wide, you'd be able to fit the L motors in much more easily. With 6 wide spec, the rear of your locomotive is 4 wide which means you have to cover it with tiles. Hiding the battery box and receiver will also be impossible/difficult. Take a look at the Maersk and the new freight train to see how they hid it.

Cool, any chance of some photos that aren't so tiny?

Thanks guys. Having a hard time scrounging up the orange, might make another CSX locomotive with their new dark blue paint acheme while I collect more orange.

Droid arms and tubing.

Awesome. How much does it sag with trains on it?

I finished the handrails and changed the peak of the top radiator grille from black to red. Need some red minifig neck brackets for the ditch lights still. Added the exhaust port. Front hand rails done too. Two brothers, back to back. Working on this badboy next.

Thanks! It works very well, I highly recommend BT in lieu of IR. You are correct that it is a little high, but it's not because of the motor, I think the main problem is that on the real thing, the sides slope away from the center on the front. I couldn't find a way to do that smoothly on my model, so the entire thing is as high as the center. I spent a lot of hours fiddling trying to get it right and never came up with a satisfactory result. Thanks! There is a gap between the plates and the wheel because the center axle has to have room to slide. As a result, the side of the trucks are about half a stud away from the edge of the wheels. If the center wheels were blind, it wouldn't be an issue and I could scoot everything in. Blind center wheels is something I could look in to I guess. Cheers. They'd look better on an 8 wide locomotive I think ;) They should also probably be black, but it was too hard to see the details when they were black, so I made them dark grey instead. Plus, in dark grey, I was able to use the 1x2 plate /w technic axle hole, which is a closer match to the real thing. I've added a few more details since my most recent post. Few things left to do; add decals and get another set of custom steel wheels, but it will take a while. I'm working on a BNSF ES44DC now, but I'm short on orange pieces, so I'll have to order a lot of them. Also want to make a loco in dark blue to match the newer CSX paint scheme and so have been stock piling some parts. Why all these replies all of a sudden, lol?

Those standard Lego curves doesn't do it justice. Did you order any of ME Models wide radius curves?

Choo choo

Technically, the locomotive could be arbitrarily long and still make sharp Lego curves as long as the trucks have the clearance needed. My latest 2 locomotive are 48 studs and take turns no problem. Turn your locomotive upside down and lay the track on top of the bogies and see what's causing your problems. Switching from standard Lego curves to using straights to make the turn is frankly ridiculous.

Mostly done from this point of view. A few small details on the front and rear walkways are not complete. At the peak on the top of the rear, I'd like to make it red, but it'll show through the vents and I'm not sure of how it will look. Missing the proper ditch lights and handrails. Battery box drops right in. Electronics are on the bottom this time, figured I could get away with not using a fan to cool them since air would kind of be flowing by. I still have yet to see if it will work okay in practice. Board on the left is a custom Bluetooth controller designed by Codefox421, and the board on the right is a DC-DC converter to supply it with 10.8V. That's all for now, waiting on a bricklink order with a few small bits. Hope to replace the wheels with steel O gauge, just need to mill a technic axle cross into them.

You need to reread the suggestions.

Or use a 2x2 turn table and mount it off center inside the tubes on the bottom of the train. Or, use a 2x3 plate /w pin hole that's offset. Or, use an old technic 1x5 "liftarm" that has the pin holes on either end. Or, use jumpers to offset a regular Technic 2x6 plate inside the locomotive.

The video was hilarious. Well done and I'm glad it doesn't snow enough to warrant one of those big snow removers here in Kentucky. 4-5" is plenty, thanks.

Can a mod edit the title, that's supposed to be national, not northern. I blame autocorrect on my phone ;) Edit: damn you're fast!

Following up on my CSX AC4400CW: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=98313 This build shares a lot of similarities and techniques but some of the details are different and I plan on arranging all of the electronics differently. Here's the prototype I'm trying to mimic: And here's what I have done so far: As you can see, I'm trying to place the battery box horizontal rather than vertical. Hopefully this will make some of my pervious hurdles less troublesome this time around. The specs will be the same as my CSX: custom pickups to pull 24V from the track, bridge rectifier, DC-DC converter to maintain a feed of 10.8V to a custom Bluetooth controller, battery backup protected by a diode all powering 2 Large PF motors.

I'd guess just shy of $1000. Figure about $0.12-0.15 per piece.

Recently visited the UK and took several of these trains from city to city. Spot on! Can't wait to see them in actual brick.