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zephyr1934

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Everything posted by zephyr1934

  1. zephyr1934
    Wow!!! And look, remote 9v too. That is an amazing collection. I like the fence you put up to keep mischievous minifigs from wandering into the controls
  2. zephyr1934
    Great work on the reverse engineering. I would agree with others though that the body is 7 wide and it looks like the top is 6 wide with the top of the brown being door rails at 6 wide for the transition to 7 wide below. The Emerald Night had the same wheels at 9 stud spacing. For the thoughts on the IDEAS designs, remember that Lego has up to a 3 year lead time from idea to release on some sets. So the JP, Fiat, and even the Croc might have already been in the plans for AFOL sets before other designs showed up in the IDEAS pipeline. They are all obvious subjects. If they were already in the design stage, what's Lego supposed to say, "lovely design and all, but sorry, we've already been working on that and you should see it in a year." I doubt we'll ever know if Lego stole the idea from the MOCers, I just can't see there being a good reason for them to do so (bad PR and relatively small cost had they been accepted). And there's a very good reason for them NOT to acknowledge a good idea that duplicated one they were already working on- I bet there were dozens of other IDEAS projects on the same subjects that were nowhere near as nice and so never got any attention. So do you give all of those folks a consolation prize? It is certainly possible that Lego stole ideas from IDEAS (just ask Kiddicraft), but if the sets were already in the pipeline it just seems like a situation where the only real response from Lego should be silence. Exactly this! If the train set attracts an AFOL into trains, that is a win for everyone interested in Lego Trains. We haven't had a gateway set since the Horizon Express.
  3. zephyr1934
    I expect they went with brown simply because they went with brown, they don't seem to think about these things (e.g., the hobby train was in red in spite of the fact that all of the AFOL designers were asking for a rare color). I'm just wishing it was dark green. That's why I was musing that it could be possible for them to provide alt builds in the app with parts from the set + basic train wheels that they ensure remain available throughout the run of the set. Which might be why they chose brown... but I suspect that is wishful thinking on my part. Regardless, I'm sure there will be many options for cars that come up from the AFOL community.
  4. zephyr1934
    Wow! I get distracted for a minute and this happens? I don't believe it, I thought lego would never make another AFOL train. As others have said, I think the presentation is excellent, by making it a display model it will attract many more buyers, tapping into the non-train folks in the architecture and "model cars" (e.g., Ford Mustang) markets. There's no way they could have done a full train justice with a set this size and the price point (if truly 99) is very good. There are many train head AFOLs, but there are many more static model AFOL's out there who will be likely to buy this set. I can totally understand where people are coming from wishing there were cars either in the set or available elsewhere. But that was one of the failings of EN, it had ONE coach. It needed 5 or 6 coaches. And so the locomotive showed compromises, e.g., the tiny tender. It would have been better as a two set offering- one loco and one car. But Lego has these sales targets that make it hard for AFOL trains to succeed. I think they did a great job threading the needle with the croc. It would be great if they use this model to push their "instructions app" (they would love to replace the printed instruction books with digital instructions) by putting a few car design "inspirations" in the app that could be built either from parts in the set (except perhaps the normal train wheels) as if it were a 3in1 set and/or parts that they know will be on PaB for the duration of the set. Regardless, I would not worry much about the availability of cars, people will make sets and instructions for cars to go behind the locomotive (that would make for a fantastic Bricktober train competition- make instructions for cars to go behind this loco) I only wish they had made it in dark green rather than brown, it would have been an amazing parts pack on top of being what looks like an amazing set. Now, how many copies do I need of this set...?
  5. zephyr1934
    Handrails are good for hiding things like that (grin). If you have curved slopes on the side you can line them up to cover the gap: there is a half plate lip on the end of all of the curved slopes, if you place the studs out slope to completely cover the lip on the first step of the expansion, the next lip back will be seen but it will not look out of place. In the case of just half plate offsets you can mix studs up bricks with studs out tiles (a sideways 1x tile is 2.5 plates tall). In the case of coasters 1/4 plate offset most of the above would still work, or 1x2 tiles are amazing because they are not locked into a particular stud position, or simply leaving a 1/4 plate gap is approaching the size of the nail groove on the bottom of tiles. At any rate, your build is looking even better!
  6. zephyr1934
    The 7740 set is considered a classic. So I would suggest you do not modify the parts. The 6x28 train base that came with it should have 1x2 holes. I'm pretty sure you SHOULD be able to squeeze the PF connector from the motor up through the bottom of one of these holes. It will be tight, but it should fit. You could also replace the train base with the PF version, 92339. This part in black is stupid expensive, if you go this route it would be cheaper to replace all of the black ones in in the set with dark gray. In any event, PF is a lot cheaper than the new PowereUP so as long as you have room to fit the IR receiver in it is a good option.
  7. zephyr1934
    Amazing job, with just a few small adjustments you took a "toyish" set and made it look real. Some clever new tricks on the backhead in the cab.
  8. zephyr1934
    In the olden days the easiest way was probably a sequence of headlight bricks, but now brackets make it even easier, e.g.,
  9. zephyr1934
    Okay, brickshelf is back up. I don't have any great photos of the stepping up, but here's a mediocre shot, look under the bell. If you went up half a plate in 2 stud long steps it might actually work.
  10. zephyr1934
    While it isn't pure lego, lego live steam has been done.
  11. zephyr1934
    Looking good! I don't know, if I were going to tweak anything, it would be to try to capture the conical expansion of the boiler between the sand dome and steam dome. However, this gentle change is something that is VERY tricky to do in lego. I would think you only need to capture the increase in height and can ignore the increased width as you move back along the boiler since the width would be hard to see from most angles and insignificant from the few angles where you could see it. The best I've ever managed is doing the rise in half plate steps.
  12. zephyr1934
    I don't care if I am the third person to say it in this thread, but wow, that is amazing! Just shows what is possible in 12 wide (grin). Incredible work you've done there
  13. zephyr1934
    That looks spot on! A right proper workhorse. Is the cab roof normal red? If so, you might want to also moc-up a variant with dark red. You might want to swap out the tan axle pins on the blind drives with black axles.
  14. zephyr1934
    Great job with the paint scheme!
  15. zephyr1934
    A good looking train MOC and I like the color scheme. It would be neat to see a reference photo of the prototype to see how you captured its essence.
  16. zephyr1934
    That is some great styling, you did a good job capturing the feel of the popular mechanics covers. Some of the angles you work in there are pretty tricky. While it is probably an old trick, the use of the 1x2 hinge bricks near the nose is very appropriate. Yeah, I would suspect the ball joint as well. You probably want a double joint, one that allows left/right and one that allows up/down. If you are always going to run on flat surfaces you do not even need the up/down. The ball joint will let the axle twist (roll) which is probably part of your problem. In terms of making it a good runner, it is definitely doable, but you have a few hurdles. The rule of thumb I've heard is that for normal train wheels you do not want a wheel-base of more than 12 studs for a given truck or two axle car. You are probably at or beyond that limit with the XXL wheels. Probably the easiest path is to go PF and larger radius curves. You could power the drive wheels, but you would need traction grooves on at least one pair so that you could put bands on them. And of course you would have to rip apart the locomotive to get your motor etc. in there. So you are probably better keeping it with tender power. If you are running with a single motor then I bet a pair of motors would help a lot. If you don't care about going slow, this design can pull/push anything you can throw at it: but there is a 1:1 gear ratio so it is slow. Replace the XL with L motors and it would still probably be more than enough power while giving you more speed.
  17. zephyr1934
    That looks REALLY nice. And one thing to think about would be making an open-loop layout, with a bit of switching on either end of the line so you could still operate and play with it. You already answered your own question in terms of making it work. Using the slanted plates not only makes it more interesting to look at than a pure slope build, it also saves on part count. As others have said, using non-lego behind the scenes would save you a lot of money. You could use duplo or quatro, but they don't have good clutch. Ha ha, if you want to save money don't attempt the hills. If this is a multi-year project you could also join your local LUG (if you have 3 lego stores within an hour's drive you probably have at least one LUG in that same radius) and aim for next year's LUGBULK. In this program Lego gives a deep discount to the LUG on up to ~80 different parts. If you need a few thousand of something it is hard to beat LUGBULK. Unfotunately LUGBULK comes but once a year, with the cycle starting in December and delivery roughly the following summer. So if you want this built before next summer LUGBULK is not an option for you.
  18. zephyr1934
    In the process of updating the banner, could you also update the color scheme of the page to match the banner, e.g., replacing the teal-blues with something closer to the dark green of the EN?
  19. zephyr1934
    ... using other old toys from childhood (grin)
  20. zephyr1934
    So I take the 16v coming out of the 12v transformer and feed it in to the 9v tracks. And then I take the 9v motor and bypass the power feed so I can use the brain from a PUP battery box without its 9v batteries and replace the track based speed control with Bluetooth! Wahh ha hah ha ha! I've created life! In other words, that's very Frankenstein mixed with a hint of Rube Goldberg. Impressive that you made it work.
  21. zephyr1934
    I would agree with the others that the cars look too short, even after seeing the photo of the prototype, maybe by two plates. A two plate difference is still well within reason for a train MOC given the resolution of Lego. But in this case most people don't think about the very real height difference and so although it is realistic it still looks strange when rendered in Lego. It really catches your eye, but it is all a matter of design style.
  22. zephyr1934
    Looking good
  23. zephyr1934
    Now you're going somewhere, Vancouver in 4 days!
  24. zephyr1934
    The wire comes out of the end of the block, either the left 2 or right 2 studs on the top "front" (for lack of a better word for one of the 4 stud long sides). You need at least 1 stud clearance beyond the end so that you can pull the top of the battery box since the wire(s) will be attached. Probably 2 studs is better on the wire end and at least for the top of the box you would want at least one stud on the opposite end for clearance. Probably best to leave the top unscrewed and use the bottom of the box structurally. You will either need room to also get your fingers in there to pull the top of the box out make sure the sides are slack enough that you can flip it over to dump out the top of the box.
  25. zephyr1934
    It is hard to see the details in the photo of the MOC, but from the silhouette it looks well proportioned.
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