legoman666

Images not working for me :(

I weighed the locomotive before having lengthened it; 2lb 4oz / 1.04kg. Ran a test with test steel wheeled bogies, see below :) The consist is 8 cars, all 7 wide, 6 of which are quite heavy. I've also finished my longer bogies that'll be on the final model. They're based off the instructions in Railbricks issue 6. I have regular train wheels on them for now, but they're already wired up and ready for the steel wheels. The middle set is a dummy sliding axle. Front truck will pick up power from the right side of the track. The rear truck will pick up power from the left. Bridge rectifier will maintain correct polarity. DC-DC converter will keep the Bluetooth controller happy with 10.8VDC. AA battery box is protected by a schottky diode and will provide backup power. 1L motor powers each truck. A 40mm fan keeps it all cool. Ignore the fabulous colors :) Still need to add another 4 studs in the middle section of the loco. I already lengthened the platforms at each end by 1 stud, so by the time I'd done, it'll be 48 studs long, up from 42 earlier.

You might be right, I hadn't really thought about it. We shall see!

Thanks everyone! Yep! No problems after slicing off the mounting holes. Fits right into a 3 stud wide space. The center wheels are only MIA while I'm messing with these metal wheels. Alain is sending me 12 wheels with Technic axle holes cut into them and I'll be using those with my longer trucks. I'll definitely lengthen it after hearing that, wow! I think its 42 studs long right now (assuming I can count) and I'll probably lengthen it by 4. I'm also working on adding a 1 stud gap between wheels and I already moved the fuel tank in anticipation. As for the loss of traction, I thought the same thing at first, then I considered that the stock 9V train motors have metal wheels too that ride on the inside edge of the track. These O gauge wheels ride on the top of the track, which greatly increases the contact patch. The locomotive is also quite heavy because of the 2 L motors and especially the AA battery pack. I've tested it pulling my 6 car Horizon Express without issue. I'll test it more this weekend when I get my 7W rolling stock back from the LUG trailer. I'm hoping there's no problems :D The plan is to make a twin unit to accompany this one.

Finished the top. Still debating whether or not to lengthen the whole thing by 2 studs. Experimenting with O gauge steel wheels.

Ive made about 5 of Codefax's open source controller: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=87340&view=&hl=&fromsearch=1 which uses the same driver as the Lego V2 IR receiver. I've tied the outputs on it together so I can get about 3A for my 2 L motors. By my ammeters reckoning, this loco pulls about .6A when I stop it with my hand (while still allowing the wheels to spin in place.)

I have 3. I sold the extra locomotive to a lug member.

Almost done! Just a few more details to wrap up. I need to hide the motor controller by cutting the PCB to fit into a 3-stud-wide space using the Dremel at work. I'm also waiting on delivery of some steel O gauge wheels with technic axle crosses milled in to them and will rebuild my trucks using the new wheels instead of the regular Lego wheels. I'll be able to pull power from the track with the new wheels, should be awesome. Ignore the wire and controller sprouting from the top, some idiot left his battery charger at Brickfair last weekend and had to hardwire his train to the power source (me). The slopes under the grill should be yellow, but I can't find em. I know I have a couple, but alas, they are nowhere to be found. Also need 1 more yellow clip to finish my "ladder". I started to build each side identical before I realized they are in fact, not. Oops. I am also waiting to apply my CSX decals until I've built a second one of these. I'll probably have to take this first one apart to do it, so the decals go on last. These vents took about a week off my life. They actually work too. There's a 40mm fan under the top vent that pushes air out the headlight bricks behind these 1x2 grill tiles. Aforementioned fan. Fits perfectly into a 5 stud wide space. The fan is for the DC-DC converter that gets stupidly hot. Waiting for decals.

I'd worry about something tacky picking up every piece of dust on the track and making your traction even worse. I'd recommend rubber bands or o-rings instead. My experience with the cheap rubber bands that kids make bracelets out of has been good. There are like 2000 in a $2.00 bag. They're really grippy but wear down pretty quickly (8-10 hours of driving). I had to replace them twice on my EMD I ran at Brickfair. They're so cheap it makes up for any negatives. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=rubber%20band%20bracelet Plus, they come in variety of colors. I have a bag of black ones. They sell them basically everywhere, I got mine at a grocery store, but I've seen them at toy stores and craft stores too.

I modified some half pins with axle to fit in that hole on one of my locos. They fall out occasionally as I didn't do an awesome job.

Thanks guys. The build is coming right along but I'm still trying to decide if I should lengthen the bogies by 2 studs... Last 2 shots show the front motor. Reasonably easy to access, just pull off the top of the cab. Next on the list is the angled top vents.

After spending about a week on one side of the rear grills, here's what I have to show for it. This is the result of a lot of tinkering. It's made difficult because the motor behind the grill is 3 wide and the entire rear is 5 wide, so I only have 1 stud to work with. The last shot shows the hidden battery pack. I'm considering adding a stud in between each wheelset on the bogies. Not sure if I want to mess with something that's already working, but on the real thing the wheels are spaced a little apart. It'd also give me a little more room to try to cram in power pickups. I'll mess with it more tonight.

I intended to post a WIP shot in the original post, but I seem to have had a brain fart. I'll post one when I get home. Right now I'm trying to get the vents on the rear half to look good with an L motor behind them. The L motor is 3 wide and the rear half is 5W, so I only have 1 stud on each side to work with.

Thanks zephyr, I knew of swooftys work, but I had not seen the other!

Hi all. Been work on this for a few weeks now. Coming along nicely. I've tried for days to get this correct I can't get the slightly sloped top-of-front to work. I think what I have looks good, but it doesn't look correct and I was hoping for some inspiration. Right now I'm using 2x3 wedges to create the angle on the face and the top is simply flat. http://hobbyit.eu/us...e_wv_2012_L.jpg Eventually making 4. 2 for myself, 2 for the club. 2L motors, large AA PF battery box, 7 wide, custom bluetooth controller, dc-dc converter in each. Hoping to put metal wheels in em too, but I'm not sure if it's possible. EDIT: See my most recent post.

You can easily bypass the thermal fuse in the battery boxes if you're electronically inclined.

Keep an eye out on eBay and you can find good deals. If you have a large budget, there are folks who occasionally sell huge lots of train and track that sell for less than the sum of their parts. I've built up my train parts collection by purchasing large lots then sell the track, motors and the occasional complete set to fund the entire purchase.

How can I modify my firmware to use the finer stepping? I saw that the array holding the pwm values had 28, but I didn't really make the connection until now.

Any chance of getting a video of it in action showing the gears shifting?

That's pretty awesome. Thanks for showing the internals! Clever use of the tires to make it go.

Glad to help debugging. Of my first set of 3 controllers, 2 work great! I think I killed the BT chip on the third. I've already ordered the parts for 6 more. The first two will be making an appearance at Brickfair VA Auguest 1st. No line of sight = awesome. Also, if you are tired of trying to hide the bulky Lego IR receiver, this is for your. It's only a couple mm thick and about 1.25x1.25".

Thanks for the compliments everyone! Seeing other people's bridges on here is what inspired me to make one myself (or rather, two...). Here's a few more crappy shots The suspension bridge supplanted my truss bridge and finally let me run two trains at once on my new layout. I'll probably replace the truss bridge with something more interesting or maybe just widen the suspension bridge. At the very least, I'll replace the random colors with something uniform... The plan is to add 1 or 2 more tables at the far end and fill them with a big train yard. The city area will be fleshed out with a few more buildings too. I'm also waiting on my wide radius curves from MeModels. Right now I'm working on final touches on a bluetooth motor controller for the freight train before Brickfair, VA.

Thanks for the kind words. The bricks themselves are not bending but rather the gap between bricks (about .1mm if I recall) is what allows for the curve. The arches are made from 1x4 technic bricks and the straight supports under the track are 1x16 technic bricks. I can even get a little more curve out of the arches, there's some "slack."

Span is 128 studs (I think. It's a little over 3') I'll be making a few small modifications soon. I want to add a walkway, put ties on the tracks, reduce the arch on the trackbed, and try to stiffen it a little more. Luckily my wife is very crafty and so had some nice dark red thick crocheting thread for me to use for the cables. I might also modify it some time down the road to have 2 tracks instead of just 1. My heavy freight train and the horizon express zip right across it :) There's a 10 stud wide space for trains, which only causes problems with the cab of my steam locomotive whose trim over the windows is exactly 10 studs wide. I might have to modify it a little....