AlmightyArjen

Yes. I needed a hopper wagon design in which I could put a motor and a small linear actuator. After looking up some designs of real life hopper wagons, I came up with this version.

Ehm, no... The 4560 is indeed worse than the EM... Yes, most of the train enthusiasts love the EM. I don't: it's to slick in my opinion ;)

I will make a how-it-works video, I'll include also how the hopper wagons work. When it's done, I'll post the link here.

Thanks for all the nice comments! I never considered doing this for a Lego show, mainly because it took us 2 days to set it all up and finetune everything. Maybe some smaller scale project some day ;) For the ones who didn't have enough: there will be an extra footage video in a month or so :)

After 7 months of engineering and building, I'm proud that I can present you my new video! In the video you'll see three coal trains riding around. They can load at two silos and unload at the main terminal. The unloaded coals are delivered by conveyor belts and an excavator to the loading silos, so a continuous loop is possible! The unloading part is the most complicated part of the structure: pneumatic cilinders will push a conductor to the bottom of the wagons, where also a conductor is located. These conductors power motors in the wagon which open a hatch in the bottom of the Lego coal wagon. The coals drop on a conveyor belt and are transported with other conveyor belts and an excavator to the silos. It's all automated by 6 Arduino controllers (including the arduino that controls the passenger trains). I cleared out the living room (GF was away for a few days, as planned) with a friend of mine and after 12 hours of setting the whole thing up we could finally begin with running some trains and commission the whole thing! Obviously the whole thing didn't work at once, so a hilarious fails-video is on the way too. Enjoy, share and let me know what you think of it!

In my opinion the Emeral Night is the worst Lego train since the 70's. If I had one, I wouldn't mind crashing it ;)

The monorail had that system, was really nice.

Oh nice design, also nice details!

LOL, genius!

So we get from June a new 3677-alike train set AND from Q3 a new Creator train??

Nice idea. That would also explain the fast follow-up after the 60052. Interesting thought...

I get your concerns. Also the fact that the BL store is empty doesn't sound promissing But a shipment of 5 working days is BS: I'm living in the Netherlands and when I have to ship something to New Zealand, it takes an average of 4 weeks to arrive. So I guess that's your only hope... Does anyone know how Bricklink handles these cases? Do they have a "fund" when an item isn't shipped? Never heard of it though...

It's already out of production. If you buy it now, you'll get it cheaper then when you buy it tomorrow: prices are rising pretty quick the last few weeks...

I seriously think that IF there will be a new train, it will be on the 2nd half of 2015 and we'll hear the upcoming 4 months nothing about it...

So much detail! It looks really awesome, nice job!

The question is: do we NEED new motors?? What's wrong with the current ones?

no no no, hands off the 7740! ;)

Nice contest, curious about the creations!

Indeed, it's the finishing touch! Nice work!

Very clever! What part did you use to make contact to the conducting rail?

No offense taken! ;)

Yes, technically both sensors are connected to an interrupt pin of the microcontroller. This means that when a sensor is activated, the program immediately acts on it by opening (in case there's not another train on the crossing) or closing (in case they weren't already closed) the bars Yes this would indeed be a solution. The only problem that occurs in my layouts are possible traffic jams, as I run multiple trains on one section... Nice suggestion, not even thought of it! I don't know how close a magnet must be to the switch but in my experience it's always something of a few milimeters (or you have to use a bigger magnet). It could be done I think... Your idea might work with another type of sensors, like infrared or ultrasonic distance sensors. By simply measuring the distance, one could easily detect which track is occupied by a train. I have thought of it but the downside is that you cannot connect that kind of sensors to a interrupt pin of the microcontroller. If the microcontroller has to do other things besides looking for a train on a track, it could be possible that the train isn't detected in time... Good point indeed. Those magnets are pretty strong and a distance of 8 studs is more than enough. That might work I guess... Thanks for all the questions and suggestions, I'm glad you like it!

I've used IR sensors that detect a reflection. In the past year I've tried various sensors from DX.com and they were all very instable. Now I have these sensors and I like them a lot: http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/sensors/sharp-distance-sensor-5cm The system in the video contains two sensors, one per track, and therefore not able to detect a train from the other direction. But one could easily upgrade it to a system with four sensors. It needs some minor reprogramming and that's it. I've chosen for two sensors since I almost never reverse the polarity on the rails to make a train go the other way...

This is just amazing, well done! Are you going to use it in a layout?

Ehm, difficult. It's not just basic electronics knowledge, you have to program too. I started my own website a few weeks back, www.almightyarjen.com , where I will explain in detail all of my creations. But it's still under construction so you'll have to wait a few months ;) In the mean time, this is a good website for some electronics know-how: http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/ As a programming platform I use Arduino, which is really easy to learn. Search on that and you get a bunch of tutorials...