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zephyr1934

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Everything posted by zephyr1934

  1. zephyr1934
    Greetings Detroit-Funk ordinarily reviving such an old thread is discouraged, but you definitely found the exact right thread for your question. Conceptually it is really easy to add PF to the superchief, you just need to pull out "engine" and there should be enough room to fit the PF battery and receiver. If you want to have "full view" reception you would have to figure out some way to poke the IR receiver out the roof. There is no one way to do it, but at least one pair of the 2x3 curved bricks would have to be replaced in some part of the roof to do it. You could also replace the engineers seat with the IR receiver and shoot the IR through the windshield. It works, but you do have to be in front of it to get the necessary line of site. If you are running on the floor probably not a big deal, but if you are running on the edge of a table you might want more reliable communication in case of an emergency stop. A potential better solution would be the new PUP system that incorporates the Bluetooth receiver in the battery box, so you do not need line of sight. In either case, this segues into the topic of the original thread. The superchief is old gray, but the IR/PF/PUP decorative motor sides never came in old gray. They did come in new gray but they are expensive and do not match the original superchief. If you are building with new parts that will not be an issue, but if you are building an original set you will have to make one of the comprimises in the original post... except, he realized that he could use a 9v motor and the extension cable for PF, which is compatible with the 9v motor connection. Of course 9v motors are a lot more expensive than PF or PUP these days. Furthermore, while PF is compatible with 9v motors, PUP is not. Finally, the BNSF is not as easy to convert to PF or PUP. The hood of the locomotive is 4 wide, while both the battery box and IR receiver are 4 wide. So there is no where to hide.
  2. zephyr1934
    If you don't care about remote control and you are using 9v track and you want to be ultra pure (no modifications) it is hard to beat the "spear switch." The gist is that you leave the switch lined for straight, but then poke a spear through the crimping hole to push a couple of tiles and exploit the spring to line the switch to a diverging movement, e.g., I believe it was first introduced here (OMG, a world before EB, grin) with photos here. And an improved version here or here. With a bit of fishing wire or string you could easily turn the idea into a "pull" mechanism form the other side.
  3. zephyr1934
    Indeed, great work! So are all of the trains track powered? Looks like you need to give the freight trains a little longer clearance interval (as per that... tippy camera car)
  4. zephyr1934
    A splendid build! I have now posted two separate lots of rods for this beautiful locomotive. The first is my standard rod design, available here. But who would want those when there is the deluxe set coming very soon (first run should be ready to ship in a little over two weeks). The valve gear bars are not quite ready, but should be coming soon. Meanwhile... Wow!
  5. zephyr1934
    Just a heads up that I now have a single listing for the rods for this MOC.
  6. zephyr1934
    You know, given all of the detail in the rods and valve gear, you might want to build in to the display a mechanism to turn the driver wheels while the engine is stationary, e.g., as Dr_spock did here in the first post. At any rate, looking really good and glad I could help out.
  7. zephyr1934
    Actually, 3 of the 5 locomotives at Disneyland began life on operating railroads (scroll down to the rollingstock tables), but they have been heavily modified to the point where you would not recognize it. The first 2 locomotives (the 4-4-0's) were actually built in house by Disney and presumably if a lego set were based on the Disneyland trains they would be of the 4-4-0's
  8. zephyr1934
    Excellent work and congratulations on publishing the book! You should post a couple of teaser pages. Meanwhile, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, your background displays are as good as your trains (I particularly like the one with the small hills covered with houses)
  9. zephyr1934
    That looks really good! Indeed, valve gear can be finicky to get working smoothly (so many points of contact). It always seems to require a combination of a PhD in mechanical engineering and a bit of black magic to get them working well. You might want to take a look at my valve gear build on this model, There are a few things in that build that you might consider, (1) at the "cylinder" try flipping the technic half pins around, you should be able to avoid the use of the 1x1 "washers" to keep the pin between the bars. (2) have you tried swapping the top two holes in the 3 hole bar in your design? That would cut the travel of the valve rod and let you go back to a 2 long half width technic beam for the eccentric. But it would come at the cost of putting the connections in the wrong order. You could also go to a 4 long 3 hole bar to keep the order as it is now but keep the travel down. The half crankshafts have low clutch, and going back to a 2 long half width technic beam would allow you to bring it back to 10 wide at the maximum point (3) if you want to eliminate the top lego bar for the valve gear, note how I discretely used a black 2 long full width technic beam to connect the bar in the my design.
  10. zephyr1934
    Wonderfully executed!
  11. zephyr1934
    That's insane!
  12. zephyr1934
    Maybe it is something to do with your pilot truck. Try taking that off and see if that improves things. Repeat for the rear axle. Another thing, having traction bands on two axles might cause a little extra resistance, but not enough that it would explain your problem. (that is kind of looking like an A4)
  13. zephyr1934
    Impressive! Will you be going to brickworld? If so, I trust you will have samples on your layout... Whoa.... I missed that the first time around. Do you have photos of any of these in a loop (I feel a need to drool). Are the RC prices lower than the 9V. Will the metal rails oxidize or need regular cleaning?
  14. zephyr1934
    What a great MOC, all the detail in such a small package, looks like something Bill Peet might have drawn (I say as a high complement). It is also interesting to see just how unstable it becomes at high speeds on the dynanometer table as it shakes so much (presumably due to the inherent nature of lego steam engines rather than this particular build). Just a small quibble, the engineer should be poking out the right side window rather than the left.
  15. zephyr1934
    That is an insane prototype and an excellent recreation. Great work! I THINK someone had a thread here a couple years back where they recreated this functionality for PF... probably using a pole reverser.
  16. zephyr1934
    Oh wow, those look incredible. How does the electrical resistance across track joints compare to lego 9v track?
  17. zephyr1934
    Looking good!
  18. zephyr1934
    Very impressive! Great work.
  19. zephyr1934
    That is a great looking build, unique appearance but very realistic looking (well... I guess I'm not familiar with the prototype so I should say "realistic feel to it" but you get the idea). Excellent work. Aw come on, not up for the challenge of upside down wheel sets? There was a thread here about a year ago about making long two-axle cars, but I don't remember the title off the top of my head. Ultimately though, I don't think anyone has come up with a reliable way of having pivoting axles that will reliably tolerate being shoved. Fortunately, that situation is easily avoidable as long as you are not shunting. The reinforcement on 9v track is definitely a problem for long wheelbases (even bogies) when going counter clockwise through a curve, but it should not be a problem going clockwise. There might still be a problem on PF track, but if there is, it is much less. Regardless, wide radius curves solve so many problems and they look so much better.
  20. zephyr1934
    They all look really great! Spot on and easily recognizable, very well done. Any photos of the lego train altogether on one track?
  21. zephyr1934
    Or use stickers...
  22. zephyr1934
    Wow! Those are all beauties! They all look great (though I'm partial to the Q Class given the extra special rods on her). Sorry about the unbelievable journey that the USPS sent the rods on though.
  23. zephyr1934
    Impressive stuff and even the widest of the third party curves cannot rival the grand curves by Holger Matthes that you used in that second video. Are you doing anything to control for the power loss between the joints of the rails? I would have thought you would need to run power extension cables every meter or so, but it looks like you only have one connection point, very impressive. 9v definitely makes long trains possible since you can put motors where you need them, but once you get above two motors you need more power than the standard 9v controller will deliver. In principle the powered up system will let you control many hubs together (as will SBrick and others for PF).
  24. zephyr1934
    That's a great looking train. Your bridge structure is also quite interesting (and looks to be rather expensive too, grin). At five coaches of that length you are probably nearing the limits of what 9v can pull. It looks like you could use some wide radius curves, e.g., as available from BrickTracks, though at the moment there are no such tracks available in 9v. With wide radius curves you could get a few more cars in, but probably not 6 (but who knows... I'd suggest either adding a few at a time or build mock ups of the additional cars to test the size and weight before you start investing in bricks). Looks great regardless.
  25. zephyr1934
    That locomotive is a thing of beauty. The cab is insane. I'm going to have to borrow that trick. There has got to be a way to move it away from clip snot, something for my todo list I suppose. The way you attached the handrails is also clever and there are many little details (e.g., the studs in plates making up the underframe. The landscape is also beautiful, looks like a great layout.
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