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zephyr1934

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Everything posted by zephyr1934

  1. zephyr1934
    That is very impressive how you got all of those curves working so well using a purist solution (excluding a few holes for the electronics of course) at such a small size. Yet another fantastic build, I don't know how you keep up the pace.
  2. zephyr1934
    Those fence parts effectively have a 1x4 tile for the base, as such, even if you can get a curve gong, you will always have a gap between each 1x4 fence element. I would suggest trying this fence: It has another nice quality, the posts are six studs apart. You can get a 1x6 at roughly a 30° angle to fit on two studs. But in general, you could probably get a real nice curve going using a 1x1 plate under one end and a 1x1 tile under the other to free yourself from the limits of the grid like geometry of lego studs.
  3. zephyr1934
    Ah, there is one other alternative you haven't considered, go big... that is to say, take a smaller locomotive prototype and build it larger than 8 wide. I think the lego train track is proportionately scaled to about 10-12 stud wide trains. Why there is a mighty fine LNER Mikado that is screaming for a lego build that would probably dot all of the requirements. And at 12 wide you can fit an incredible amount of detail in to it, you'll blow the competition away. See, e.g., Tenderlok's fine 12 wide builds for inspiration, you just have to narrow the gauge down from G by about one stud.
  4. zephyr1934
    Wow! That is insane, the one risk is that the switch throwing mechanism runs the risk of being more interesting than watching trains running (grin).
  5. zephyr1934
    Greetings Charnchai, that is an excellent question. Looking at the design of the engine it would be very tough to impossible to fit rods on it without doing a massive redesign of the loco (especially when motorized since the motor replaces the pilot truck), sorry about that. Benn
  6. zephyr1934
    I am not sure why I thought the PF IR receiver is not PWM, but a quick search shows that it IS PWM. To which I must say "Duh!" at myself. Since the IR receivers are fine for the PF motors, then they should be fine for the 9v motors too. Aside from changing how the power gets to the motor there is not much different in the 9v and PF motors. It has been a long time since I beat on the 9v train motors with the RCX, but perhaps my problem wasn't PWM per se. I may have stressed the motors by going from full-off to full-on instantaneously while pulling a heavy load too many times. With the tiny memory of the RCX there is not much room to step up power if you are doing a complicated movement... guess I should have used a subroutine (grin).
  7. zephyr1934
    I THINK the IR receivers are friendly to the 9v train motors since one of the repairs to a burned out 9v motor is to take a motor out of a PF train motor (search the form for details, a couple of people have posted good tutorials). I don't know about 12v though. The v2 IR receiver should be similar to the normal IR receiver. I THINK the primary difference is just that the v2 can deliver higher current per channel. Far more details than you can imagine about the IR receiver can be found here.
  8. zephyr1934
    The 9v motors were designed to fit the form factor of the 12v motors, and then the PF motors were similarly designed to be backwards compatible in size and shape. You may have need for one additional modification. The PF train bases have 2x2 holes to get the connectors through while the old 12v and 9v have 1x2 holes. You might be able to squeeze the PF connector through the 1x2 hole, otherwise, you might need to replace the train base with a plate built bottom. Assuming you are only modifying one car, the train bases extend one plate below the top of the motor, so you might need to go only one plate tall at the location of the trucks on that car (you can use a 2x6 technic plate for the hole for the truck)
  9. zephyr1934
    Just be careful, I believe that Midstorms uses PWM to vary the voltage while the 9v train motors prefer pure DC. I did an RCX controlled layout long ago and afterwards the 9v motors did not seem too happy.
  10. zephyr1934
    I like the way you use the mindstorms to control the blocks but do not power them directly from the mindstorms brick. Another way to do this using a single 9v controller is to use polarity switches to turn on or off different sections of track.
  11. zephyr1934
    The original 4558 had mostly 4093c with 6 holes each end, but some shipped with 4093a that had 3 holes per end. The re-release 10001 is listed as only having 3 holes per end. Looking at the release dates for the various 6x28 train baseplates, the 10+10 holes was 1980-87, strictly black. The 6+6 holes was 1991, strictly light gray, and the 3+3 holes was 1991-2009 in 6 colors.
  12. zephyr1934
    You just need to make some minor mods to the design. The really expensive bits will be the gray wheels and buffer beams, the gray doors, and the train baseplate. So do the wheels in black. Do a plate built base instead of the train baseplate, I personally think light gray would look better than dark gray, but that is a personal matter. In The train bogie plate could be expensive in black and the current yellow (which also isn't cheap, but it is cheaper) would look odd from the side, so maybe replace those with turn tables and perhaps a tile or two for stability. If you like opening doors you could build doors in the style of the Emerald Night (instructions should be available from Lego.com). The 2x3 round curve bricks for the roof might also be expensive in quantity, but you could easily use 1x3x1 curved slopes or 2x4x0.66 curved slopes instead for the roof. The trans clear macaroni for the observation care will also be stupid expensive. There are a lot of potential alternate builds, but nothing that is simple that I can think of that captures the curved feeling. If you don't have a huge part selection, sketch it out first in LDD or LDraw, while keeping an eye on part cost over at bricklink. Happy building
  13. zephyr1934
    Here you go...
  14. zephyr1934
    That's a pretty good 44 tonner
  15. zephyr1934
    I've never really used the AAA battery box, but I have used the LiPo battery a lot. I've had troubles with the IR receiver tripping its thermal resistor but never the battery box. This problem only occurs on my heaviest trains. I just always assumed the IR receiver was the weakest link and have not had troubles with the LiPo batteries after replacing the receiver with an SBrick on the heavy trains. Since you've already tried an SBrick, I too would suspect the battery box. If you have a second AAA box around definitely try that. Oh... wait... you tried that too. Stupid question, but just in case, did you try fresh batteries? It is possible that an entire pack of batteries are bad or your lot of rechargeables are nearing the end of their lives. So try borrowing 6 new AAA batteries from a friend or neighbor. The battery box should be able to pull a light locomotive with two L motors (I have a couple of trains with two XL motors and an IR receiver and no problems there). The fact that the single motor runs slow and then dies indicates that some current is flowing. There was a problem with the AAA battery box not fitting all batteries well, you might be encountering that problem too. Search the train forum for AAA battery box and you should find a few threads on it. Failing all of that, try calling Lego customer support. At the very least they should be able to tell you whether or not the AAA box is rated for two L motors, and if it is maybe they will deem yours defective and send out a free replacement.
  16. zephyr1934
    Oh wow, that is a great little piece of history. I would agree about the windows (best being 1x1x2 + 1x2x1), but in a pinch replace the 1x2x1 with 1x2x2. If you dig up the original post of the prototypes that would a very interesting read as well.
  17. zephyr1934
    Brilliant solution to the size and cost of battery packs. I like the prospect of a wayside switch to reverse the train too... but just like the 4.5v reverser, I wouldn't depend on it for an unmanned display at the end of a track.
  18. zephyr1934
    A lot of the sets came with logos for many European railways in addition to DB, but yes, I would agree that Germany was the most likely target audience. I had no idea that Playmobil trains were that old and there certainly are a lot of similarities between the offerings from the two companies, with a collection of complete sets and individual cars/locos. That makes perfect sense that Lego would be working hard to keep Playmobil from getting an exclusive on trains. On the other end of the gray era I recall seeing a lego ad from the introduction of 9v that talked about the smooth transition. It was might have been this one, (the same thing in French can be found here) Thanks for sharing the brick model railroader article, I guess there is a lot of nostalgia going around these days, and yes, that would be fantastic if you can find out more about the origins of the gray era
  19. zephyr1934
    This thread about the 7777 book got me thinking more about the gray era train system. The advances in the gray system were huge compared to anything before and in many ways have not been surpassed (by Lego) since. Holes in the ties to screw them down to a board, remote control switches/signals/decouplers, designs in the 7777 book that would inspire future advances (you can see prototypes for the BNSF and engine shed from the early 2000's in the book). So now a days we get a hint at the designers of a set from the initials on the license plates or what have you. And for big changes Lego gathers some number of users in focus groups to give feedback. But in the 1980's Lego was still run like a family business and I would be surprised if they used any sort of focus groups. The gray era looks more like someone sat down and spent a long time thinking about how all of the pieces should go together. Does anyone know who was the driving force behind all of the advances that became the gray era? Are there any other insights as to how/why it came off?
  20. zephyr1934
    The 11 yr old me is SOOOOO envious (and so is the old old me). Now another challenge (for your wallet), build up the full layout with all of the remote controls (grin) that made the 12v system the best true model railroading system Lego produced. Excellent work!
  21. zephyr1934
    A bright day is coming for us English (non-German) speaking lego train fans. Holger's book is now available for pre-order in English.
  22. zephyr1934
    Very nice, looks like it was a great show.
  23. zephyr1934
    The connector wire is getting more expensive, but used can still be found for under $10.
  24. zephyr1934
    That is really sharp, only one suggestion is to make the studs on the cab roof go away. Perhaps using a pair of 2x2 curved slopes? I would agree, 6 wide is difficult, 4 wide is REALLY difficult.
  25. zephyr1934
    An excellent build of a prototype that has some challenging angles. Great work
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