peterab

Yep BBB stands for Big Ben's Bricks. They are pretty much the best accepted third party part in LEGO model railroading. Almost everybody except the ultra pure use them, and they work well. They come in a range of colours and sizes, so you should find something suitable for most prototypes. Since he has been selling them there isn't really much need for any other wheels. I've ordered a few lots now and never had any trouble either with the order and delivery or the wheels themselves. If I had to make a criticism it would be the colour matching, the red ones are just slightly darker and less glossy than LEGO, but it really is a fairly slight difference, and not enough for me to be upset about. It isn't any worse than the variation with some original LEGO colours like dark purple or tan.

Yes, that's exactly how his cars work. I'm not familiar with Scalextric controllers any more but I have a suggestion which may work. If I remember correctly the controllers contain a variable resistor which are powered from a fixed voltage DC supply. If you replace the supply with a 4.5 supply, you could use the existing controllers. Another option is to add in a 4.5V voltage regulator between the existing 16V supply and the controllers. Both these solutions mean you would have to bring your own supply to other peoples track, which is less than your ideal, but both solutions should be relatively easy to design and impliment.

Take a good look around his and Teunis' flickr stream; http://www.flickr.com/photos/33949953@N07/ I'm pretty sure you'll find internal photos and all the trackwork such as the working narrow gauge points. If you'd like anything more our biggest display for the year is a couple of weeks away so I should be able to get photos then, just let me know. Alex is a volunteer on the real Puffing Billy railway, so all his rolling stock is pretty accurate although somewhat unpure (pure as mud). His 12 wide rolling stock are things of beauty.

You might find Alex's Puffing Billy 4W layout interesting;

I don't yet have a final opinion on the PR since I don't have it, but it appears to have some excellent details. I do have an observation on the size versus detail argument though; I think most builders find it harder to design great details than to increase size, so if LEGO wants to please most people they should probably make future modular buildings heavily detailed, since those who want larger ones can just buy multiple sets to modify.

Looks like some of the first sentence was left out. Add "vehicle." for example and it starts to make more sense. The second sentence stands on its own; Plan and go on the ultimate expedition from LEGO® City Arctic Base Camp!

Probably. They will continue to sell them while they have stock of course, so it would appear the US has less stock left of the station than it has of the trains.

The railway station will not be very large at 423 pieces. A pity but not unexpected. Completely expected on the other hand is a large cargo train and a smaller passenger train. I wonder what colour they will be. I hope for large train windows in green but that isn't likely since train windows seem to be out of fashion (in that they are being used less) and I've been told by LEGO designer Mark Stafford that green isn't a popular colour among kids.

The IR controllers in practice only work over a few meters unless the ceiling is low enough to reflect it anyway. In large exhibition spaces it becomes quite unreliable unless you follow the trains around. If bluetooth works reliably over 10 meters that would be an improvement.

Given that your EP-925 seems to have a total output of 3A, at 9V it would be very unlikely that you would be able to melt the LEGO track. I think your most likely point of failure after the controllers is your connection wires. If you use a number of parallel connections or high enough gauge wire that should be easy to avoid. Obviously the higher the current the greater the potential damage a short circuit can cause so take care when connecting things up. I'll try and see if I can get an internal photo of the 9V controllers we use but I won't have access to them till late January (after our next show). I'm sure whatever heatsink is in there is chosen on the basis of easy fit, as is the fan which was fitted in a hole made in the rear wall of the case. Your plan for the very long 6 motor train seem fine and is similar to what train clubs around the world have done so should be fine.

Most electronic devices will operate outside their rated specifications. This will involve creating greater heat and stress on the component, which will greatly increase the risk of failure (most likely by burning out). On the first page you can see the design load current of 1.5A. 2.2A appears on page 4, the Absolute Maximum Ratings, along with note 1; Absolute Maximum Ratings indicate limits beyond which damage to the device will occur. In the same table you can see that 2.2A is the typical maximum. This implies some devices will fail imediately above the minimum of 1.5A, and others will be OK till 3.4A. The maximum maximum (3.4A) suggests that above this all devices will fail. What this means for you in practice is, if you rely on your 9V controller to handle more than 1.5A there is a chance it will burn out. That chance increases the more often you do it and the longer you do it for. These things are inherently statistical, and therefore unpredictable. That's why the guaranteed performance specifications are provided, so you can design to avoid failures. To address your questions; * back in 2006 your set up was limited by the current provided to the controller by the transformer, once the train was using all the current the transformer could supply it couldn't go any faster. Your present test set up has overcome this limit which now means there is more current flowing through the LM317 and thus a faster train, but also more risk of burning the LM317 out. 1.8A is below 2.2A which should mean most devices will be able to handle it for a while. * To safely operate four trains you'd need four EP-925, or four controllers which will handle the current (this could mean modified LEGO controllers or any others). * My train club has modified the 9V controllers by adding larger heatsinks (these are pieces of metal designed for good thermal dissipation, typically with a lot of fins which bolt onto electronic devices such as regulators, CPUs and graphic cards) and fitting a small fan to the rear of the case. This allows as to use a larger power supply without burning out the controllers.

That would be very welcome news.

This might be a helpful site, though it is quite old, the geometry hasn't changed except for the addition of flex track. http://www.brickpile.com/track-layout-geometry/ and a helpful google search https://www.google.com.au/search?q=lego+train+layouts+plans&safe=off&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=76emUqrgOoakkgWh6YGoAg&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1920&bih=1028

I did a bit of research and you are technically correct. 230VAC +10% -6%. What is still most commonly supplied is 240 VAC since this is within the tolerances and what the transmission equipment is designed to deliver. You learn something new every day.

You have a couple of options. As 1974 says you could use an adapter. Germany uses 230 VAC, Australia uses 240VAC so it will work, though is slightly above the rating. You could also replace the wall wart with an Australian one, the things to look for are a similar plug at the controller end and similar output. You could try an electronics store such as Jaycar, and you should find something useable. The outputs varied slightly from region to region, so it's not critical. There are photos of the various wall warts on Bricklink so you can compare.

I'm interested to see how you go about computer control. There are tech docs available for the IR controllers and receivers so if you built a controller which interfaced with a PC you would get pretty close to your aim.

A simple photo would be enough to replicate the sort of design variations likely in a container. That doesn't surprise me in the least, given most of those that wanted to swap containers could safely assume they were all pretty close. If you look at the club list on the website I'm pretty sure you will notice most clubs are in the US, and since clubs are more likely to participate than individuals I'd suggest that will be true of the container swap. If not it might end up that Europe is the epicentre, in which case having the central location there would seem to be smart. It would be more equitable for everyone to commit to pay to ship all their containers to all participants (not just to and from a central location), this would be far more equitable cost sharing, and would lead to pressure for optimal distribution co-operation too, since everybody's costs would come down. Best is a misleading term since not everybody is trying to optimise for the same things. I'd dearly like to be involved, but it really depends on how the shipping costs are divided up. If I were to swap a container with an individual, I'd expect to pay to ship my container to the other participant, and have them do the same in return.

The drop point is a good idea, but the central problem still remains shipping whole containers. It makes no sense to in essence ship identical whole container bodies back and forth when the shipping costs are the most likely make or break factor for European and Australian participants. I've previously made the suggestion to ship just the club logo panel to ensure the minimum cost, both weight and volume add cost. Since Australian and Europeans seem to be in the minority, and this issue mostly impacts them, a purely democratic approach may not lead to the most inclusive outcome. Combined with drop points, shipping cost for just logo panels would be minimal. Even if this was allowed as an option (ie choose to swap a whole container or just two logos), it would help us out. I'm pretty sure mail is the best option to optimise the greatest participation, I'm not certain anyone gets to all the major Australian conventions in the same year, and only a few people from Australia attend overseas conventions, and the cost of excess baggage is even greater than postage.

I really like the way station, but I love the little rail bus. The micro striping with hinges and rubber bands is very nice and the headlight mounting is clever. A great little scene that shows if you concentrate your detailing efforts into a small area you can get great results. I just noticed the front window mounting, that is just genius, and I know a prototype it will work for. I hope you agree with me copying someone's technique is the highest praise Oh and I'd suggest you submit this as an entry to the Railbus challenge on Flickr; http://www.flickr.com/groups/legotrains/discuss/72157632986480226/

The containers have the train club logo on them which you are unlikely to be able to get any other way. I agree shipping the whole container is pointless, I think it reflects the fact that the majority of clubs that interact are in the US so for them it isn't a huge issue. I'd suggest they'd encourage more international participation by being a bit more thoughtful about the way shipping cost affect everyone else.

Magnets on road plates can work if you limit the size of the car. Dave Boddy uses this technique on a dogem car ride which you can see working in this video at 4:20.

I'd guess the trains are out again because as trains sell well for Christmas, they've restocked. Who knows what extras we might or might not receive, it's hard enough to predict when trains will be refreshed. I'm hoping before Xmas next year we'll see some new city train sets, 1 cargo, 1 passenger and a few supporting sets. If any further sets get released after that depends on sales, and I'd guess we are more likely to get another cargo train since they seem to sell better.

I don't think it's unreasonable of the LUG to expect 9V trains can run around the whole display layout. I think it is very unreasonable that PF trains are excluded, and if the LUG wants you to participate they should encourage you by loaning you enough 9V track to make it possible. Is the layout they want to display supposed to be a museum piece with only correct to era sets? IMHO these are less interesting than layouts with MOCs, and I have displayed both (though my sets are blue track 4.5V).

Here's an image of some portals which might be useful. They were built by Teunis Davey of the Melbourne L-Guage Train Club ;

At Brickvention there is often an auction of special items such us sets not yet released in Australia or sets signed by a visiting designer. These often sell for more than the retail price, sometimes several times it, but that's because the audience are mostly AFOLs and the cause is either charity or offsetting the expense of the AFOL convention. At a large enough convention with AFOL train fans I'm sure you'd get a good price for it at auction. To make it more interesting to the buyer you need to be able to explain who all the signitures belong to, and their connection to the set, or their role at LEGO.