zephyr1934

I agree about the ugly gaps and the final version looks great!

Good to see you back out of hibernation and back at work making the future now out of lego trains.

That's cool... and now you've got me thinking about it <several minutes of quiet contemplation later> a couple of alternate approaches come to mind, but hard to explain with words alone. If I remember, next time I'm near my CAD I'll put them together. ... I went and played. So "5 studs wide" = "12.5 plates tall" on its side. One needs to get a core of 8.5 plates, where a pair of cheese bricks to bring it to 12.5. I came up with the idea to use a 3x3x1.67 core with brackets on all four sides (use "up" brackets for one pair of opposing sides and "down" brackets for the other pair of sides). The 3x3 + two brackets = 7.5 plates from the core + 2*0.5 plates from the brackets = 8.5 plates. However, this design results in a larger void in the corners due to the height of the bracket and height of the lip on the cheese brick (each 1/2 plate tall). In contrast, your build provides a smoother curve. By using the neck brackets, your design fills this void in, only leaving the 1/2 plate of the cheese brick lip.

Looks great and congratulations It might be moving to your building background, but a lego train build is rarely ever "complete". There will be a new part or a new technique at some point that you'll want to jump back in.

Michael, thank you for the detailed response! I do think having this info in an FAQ or similar will be benefit to your customers. Perhaps even including a recommendation on the speed controller listing, "for larger layouts it is recommended that you use a second power drop" Most excellent! Does that include the overlaod protection mentioned earlier in your post where the controller cuts off track supply when an overload is detected? Lego might claim only the best is good enough, but you are going better than best

I was using a RCX to do a back and forth on an open ended track. It was a stock motor so the thermistor was still in place Okay, if the termistors are known to be flaky with PWM and if Fx is using PWM they probably should warn customers about that with their controllers. If I didn't know and I burned out a vintage 9v motor because it has a weak link I'd be upset. With all of the effort to make the new Fx backward compatible it is inviting folks to use the old motors. If the Lego motors are deficient it seems perfectly reasonable for Fx to say that the new controllers are only compatible with the new motors, but it is better to have a warning of that on the sales page than to apologize to customers after the fact. For some users it is no problem to crack open a 9v motor shell and fix the problem, for others, it might be out of their wheelhouse. So the warning could even include a link to a more length explination. Excellent to hear. I bet the double length straights help a lot (half as many joints). My home loop is about 12ft x 12ft with two power drops on opposite sides and I still have slowing problems due to power drop. Only about half of my straight track are Fx though and I have a small s-curve. So a 15 ft train can be in 4 curves at once, creating a lot of drag (true for PF trains too). So I have roughly 24 ft between drops and that's probably at my limit because of my curves while you have 35+ ft. Lighter trains with few curves could probably go farther than that. I'm just playing the devil's advocate, someone could purchase one controller with one lead and then discover they are under-powered. Last time I ordered from Fx the shipping to the US was around $20. Knowing that I might need the extra power connector at the time of placing my first order I might be inclined to add an extra power drop and connector wires rather than risk needing another shipment with expensive postage. I'm just trying to anticipate realistic negative scenarios

Hi Michael, Did I thank you for all you are doing for the hobby? I think we all appreciate your perfectionist work. But in that regard, I'm not sure if all of my thinking in my last note was clear. Someone who does not have experience with 9v might not even realize the importance of having multiple drops. And even if they do know it is important to have more than one power connection, having that guidance at the time of placing an order will help them get everything they need in one shot. You might want to provide a recommended number of track joints, and maybe quantify that with, "for heavy trains have a connector after every 20 joints, for light trains you can go to 30 or higher". I would think a customer would be much happier if they were able to purchase all the items needed in one order, not having to pay extra shipping or wait a few more weeks to get additional parts they did not know they needed. I had a bad experience with Lego brand 9v motors and PWM, that might have been purely coincidence, but it might not have been. It is possible that the Lego motors would benefit from a capacitor to level out the voltage. If I'm off base, no problem, but it would be piece of mind to see, "tested for NNN hours with Lego brand 9v motor." Or if there are any issues, perhaps another product to keep it plug and play for numskulls like myself that would be a capacitor unit that one can add on at the output of your controller to do the smoothing on the "land side". Meanwhile, it isn't so much Lego brand track but more specifically, doing loops on R40 (presumably a part that you will never have a need to produce) and possibly the tight Lego switches. These tests just seem like a small extension of what you are already doing. You are putting TLC to shame with your quality control

Simply amazing

Looking good! Please include a few shots of the E44 too

Oh, that wasn't meant to be discouraging, it was "I fell your pain".

@michaelgale You are doing amazing work and contributing so much to the Lego train community. Just splitting hairs, but why five bogie plates per pack? I would think an even number would make more sense. On a more practical note, the test bench is impressive. I think at one point in the post you wrote that you have multiple power leads to each the track. Are you also testing it with a single lead? Or probably a better question, do you plan to provide guidance to users, e.g., "we recommend using a additional power connector after every N track segments." The power drop across track segments is a result of the original Lego design and your double straights already cut it in half. But for folks transitioning from plastic to metal rails I bet you would remove some unpleasant surprises if you make sure a customer knows the importance of having multiple leads before finalizing an order so that they get everything they need in a single shipment. Are simple dumb switches equivalent to the poll reverser somewhere in the "future wish list"? I could see it being beneficial to be able to isolate a siding or block. Definitely not the top priority but a useful element in the completely built out system. Oh, and are those remote uncouplers in one photo? This all looks amazing, you are bringing the 7777 to life. Are you testing the new hardware on the original Lego track too? In particular R40 curves and the tight switches. What about testing the new controller with original Lego motors? Are the new controllers true DC or are they PWM? As you get closer to the release of the new motors, I would love to see a pulling power comparison of your new motors against the original rubber-tired Lego version. Where the train, track etc. are held constant but the motors are swapped.

So true, but in all fairness, I think anyone who tried to build a practical train yard using Lego track quickly learned that real train yards have to be very long to accommodate all of the switches. Heck, just building a prototypical curve in Lego gets unwieldy large. The real world is just too darn big

Bumping my old thread because I forgot to do so last fall. I've uploaded a slightly modified version of Katy to IDEAS. For fans of Katy here's a chance to show Lego.

Nice! Thanks for sharing

It's been in and out, its up at the moment http://www.bigbenbricks.com The announcements sounded like there were several interested parties, so hopefully we are in a transition period rather than an after period.