Brickthus

Looks good as a ready-to-motorize set, especially in pairs. Another one where someone will want extra middle cars to make a full-length train! If two PF train motors can fit in the leading vehicle, will that be enough for the longest train? Parts-wise, the orange front parts won't be much use for anything else but it's worth it for the 18 black train windows. Why did TLG ever get rid of the proper glass for them? At least the larger one (4035) stayed. There are 3 coupling sets in the set. That's actually good for me as I don't use them! I use either the old type on a 2x3 with hole or replace the couplings with Technic 5M thin liftarms for a rake of vehicles. Useful that the set has 4 2x3 plates with hole. Mark

Some more progress on the PF shunting loco: A test went really well, especially in low ratio where there was bags of torque, enough to push a heavy loco with 2 9V train motors up a 1 in 30 hill. Should have no problem with 5 heavy hopper wagons. High ratio is OK but not enough torque to pull a heavy train. Likely to be running light engine for this anyway. At both speed settings the torque capability of the geartrain is sufficient - it exceeds the magnetic coupling strength. At low ratio the top speed is 3.5mph, not fast enough to get right round the looped-eight track in a reasonable time with a train. Another train takes about a minute to do this at 56mph scale speed. The 08 is intended for the yard anyway, so this just confirms its role. I've done the logos in brick and the battery boxes and fuel tanks on the solebar. Some details to do later. The IR receiver wire from the battery box is now hidden inside. The cab end has its yellow zig-zags, using some cut 1x4 tiles, a technique I used like this on another loco. The cab has windows in place. The end windows have an interim position. I might change it later as it's not precisely like the real loco. It would need half-stud widths of stripey tiles, which would be difficult to fix even if I could cut them accurately. That might be a cut too far. Still need to mount some buffers and have a first go at the ladders before I post a picture, as it looks a bit bereft below the solebar! Still no means of seeing what position the gearbox is in! Mark

If you want to go fast but not for a world speed record, you can achieve a similar effect with Flexi-track and just unmodified LEGO parts like this: Other pictures in the folder explain how to make the base. The cambering parts and ballast are attached to the track. The slope and track curvature are created with orthogonal composite tiles and brick walls in the baseplate. So far I have 72ft and 104ft curves, which replace curves with 1 and 2 straights between each standard curve respectively, but any radius is possible. Mark

For me the appeal of Technic sets is new parts, with a lesser appeal from new colours of parts I have already. I don't buy stuff that has the same old parts and no significant building challenge. Hence Unimog 8110 - pneumatics, orange, 4WD Crawler 9398 - PF L-motors and Servo motor but nothing new from the 4x4 system, still the same old steering limitations. Helicopter 9396 - blades for my own flight experiments. Jet Plane 9394 - aerodynamic panels for my own flight experiments. Motorbike 8051 - good smooth wheels for road vehicles. I suppose the next one will have off-road tyres as they tend to alternate between a road bike and trial bike. My favourite car wheels are the ones from the Silver Champion. Steering pivots were closer to the wheels too. TLG needs new ideas and needs to fund the new Technic parts to hold my interest. I have plenty of the usual parts. What I really want is more small versatile parts, often 2M or smaller, that allow me to get stuff into tight spaces. These would not cost much and be high production volume. I had to cut down a few to make a 1M axle with bezel for connecting two 0.5M wide half beams together. That's the sort of piece I need. They could just employ me for a couple of years in the parts department, but I'm sure they've already made most of the parts we want in prototype! Technic sets for me are OK for the model sometimes but are primarily parts packs because the MOC's the thing. More pneumatics please! Mark

I have made some more progress this week. The loco works in all 3 functions - low ratio works the best, high ratio and decoupling OK. I found that the decoupling needed a quick burst of speed to work well. I have added more bricks to get the shape more like the real loco, at least as a mock-up shape in the right base colour. It is too long at the front but the IR receiver is well hidden and works better than anticipated given its concealment! I cut down the gearbox size and can now make the proper roof profile. Just need to see how I will know which function is selected! The loco needs a rebuild for reliability, to prevent torque jumping in the main gear train. When I've fixed this might be a good time for a photo as it is a concept limitation at the moment. Not insurmountable I think. Still a bit concerned about wheelbase vs. points. 3 wheelsets 6M apart is OK on straight and curved track and copes with flexitrack but I'll have to go slowly over the points. Any assistance would defeat the object of having remote decoupling! The gearbox is derived from this one in my PF Rail Crane. The crane has 4 functions, the shunting loco just 3. It means 2 motors can control more than 2 functions, hence only 1 IR Receiver unless you need lights as well! I'd like to do lights in the shunting loco. Finding space to fit the light bricks is the first challenge, then space for on of my direction circuits to set them automatically with the direction of travel. I'll leave that till it works mechanically. Mark

I tried an L-motor in the Emerald night. Seems to be a good balance between the M-motor that was not powerful enough and the XL motor that was too slow. Power is just less than 2x M-motors and speed just less than 1x M-motor. I didn't try equalising speed with a train motor in the tender or adjacent carriage though - that is necessary for best multiple working because a steam engine would often pull more heavy coaches than the amount of torque its driving wheels could transmit, so a train motor or two in the tender or first carriage is usually needed. My Hogwarts Express has 2 train motors under the tender and 2 more under the first carriage. For a diesel or electric loco an L-motor on each bogie should give plenty of torque. Might need more grip to pull heavy trains though. Real railways rely on adhesion weight so either add weight to a single loco or use more locos. Find a good gear ratio balance that pulls a heavy train at about 60mph with your chosen wheels. You might need more motors to go faster but I don't often go much faster for long at a show. I'm working on a UK Class 08 shunting loco using an L-motor for power and an M-motor to control a 3-function gearbox. High ratio is overall 5:9 from the L-motor to the (red belted) Emerald Night wheels with a speed range of 3.5-20mph (20mph is its real maximum design speed), low ratio is 5:81 to the same wheels with a speed range of 0.5-3mph - lots of torque for slow running because some of my wagons can self-discharge and UK merry-go-round trains run at 0.5mph whilst unloading. The loco will also have built-in decoupling, so no more "hand of God" whilst operating! Quite a challenge to fit the 2 motors, IR receiver, battery box and gearbox into 27x6x5 volume though! The loco is mostly Technic with facades of bricks and plates! Mark

Really glad someone has got some LEGO to fly, even if it is just a one-shot device. I had a toy helicopter that worked the same way and I broke one and then had a second one. It was one of my favourite outdoor toys whilst camping as a child. Of course the aim is for continuous powered flight from a purely-LEGO model. My efforts so far have generated 200g of lift from a 270g model (not including power source) so I'm about 70% of the way there! Some of my earlier models are here. I think the 9396 set is useful but I don't think the rotor parts (main or tail) are the best TLG has made for generating thrust or lift. The large curved panels are better, as my 2-orange-panel model shows. The keys are light weight, high rpm, powerful fast motor and a wide rotor to get more swept area per revolution. For the time being allow a hand-held battery pack or mains supply till we have got a motor and rotor off the ground. The XL-motor is too slow, the M-motor not powerful enough (even 2 of them). The new L-motor (perhaps 2) has more promise but needs gearing up to get higher speed. Just tried a fan made from the long thin curved panels and an L-motor geared up but there was only a cooling air flow (useful in the summer!), not significant thrust. None of the PF motors are really designed for flight. In the same way RC flying motors are a faster variant than RC car motors - designed for higher rpm and lower torque because gearing wastes energy. I have tried with the 5292 motor and it's a bit better but not quite there. So far I have kept it practical not burdened my experiments with too much maths - pure LEGO will either fly or it won't and the key will be to match power source, motor capability and rotor thrust per rev. I don't think 60 Amps will be needed though - my best experiment uses about 3 Amps at 10 Volts and perhaps 4 Amps at 12 Volts will get it off the ground initially, if I keep the model light enough. I accept that getting 9396 off the ground would need a lot more current, not suitable for any PF or previous LEGO motors or battery packs, and too much torque for LEGO axles too. I tried mounting a drill and melted and axle with 135W! Since this thread is also about mods to 9396, the set could have done with a large turntable to facilitate individual rotor blade controls for cyclic pitch as well as collective. This would take up most of the internal space though, and have more friction from the rotor rotation. I was initially impressed that TLG has made an internal space and kept the gearing on the roof. Mark

That looks good. I see how a 4M length of rack is needed to push the wagon away enough to break the coupling. That sets the gear ratio for the servo motor at 4M for 1/4 turn (assuming the loco decouples at the other end when the servo is commanded the other way). 4M is equivalent to 10 teeth and would suit a 40-tooth cog if one would fit! A 20:12 ratio and a 16:8 ratio with a 12-tooth cog on the rack would be sufficient, also allowing a right-angle turn in the gear train. This is a nice idea for cab control but it needs to change in its implementation. So far the height of the mechanism between the rails is 1 plate + 1 brick width. In order for a train motor to go over the mechanism, it should not be more than 2 plates (and no studs) above the sleepers, equal to the height of the rails. Conversely the red dot could not be lower than the height of the rails or it would foul the rails on the points. Therefore a magnet on the bogie might be better because no physical contact would be needed. The mechanism also needs to allow a train entering from one of the two roads to be able to change the points even if the leading vehicle is light (e.g. reversing a train down a siding). This means pushing the switch rail must be easy so the latch of the mechanism needs to be not too strong. I reloaded my pics at the top because the thumbnails didn't work properly the first time. I edited the links so hopefully they will be moderated soon. Mark

The new PF Servo motor from set 9398 lends itself very well to the control of switch points. A point motor has these requirements: 1) The motor shall operate within the end stops of the switch point slider without putting too much stress on it. 2) The motor shall be capable of remote control. 3) The motor and mechanism shall be robust and reliable in out-of-reach places for at least a 2-day show. 4) The motor and mechanism shall not foul the loading gauge of rail vehicles. For the new Mk3 mechanism, the Servo motor has built-in end stops, so it was natural to find a gear ratio that matched these with the end stops of the switch point slider. A gear ratio of 12:20 works well, with 12-tooth cog onto a long rack (2 available in set 9394 Jet Plane and others). The long rack has a hole at each end for overlapping the switch point slider. I included a tell-tale, which also serves to prevent Servo movement in the other direction and thereby takes the stress off the switch point slider. I enhanced the clamp that fixes the mechanism to the switch point for reliability. Pictures of the Mk3 mechanism (when moderated): Pic1 shows the mechanism in the straight position, tell-tale down, panel switch centred. Pic2 shows the mechanism in the curved position, tell-tale up, panel switch to one side (configurable on the switch). Pic3 shows the mounting of the Servo motor on the baseplate. Pegs into the beam and jumper plates into the other holes. Pic4 shows this from above. Pic5 shows the clamping of the switch point to the mechanism. This is key to reliability because the clamp has to resist the forces as the mechanism changes the points. Folder when moderated The rack-with-end-hole principle worked previously with the Mk2 mechanism that used the PF M-motor, 71427/43362 gearmotor or 47154 monkey motor, the earlier racks and an 8-tooth cog. The Servo motor has simplified the mechanism compared to the M-motor solution, which needed a clutch gear for the end stops and another gear reduction. Testing of the Mk3 mechanism has gone well. It seems to be reliable and also has more torque than the Mk2 mechanism. This means it should overcome stuck points more easily. I had one that switch point that needed more torque than a single clutch gear could provide. There are other train applications of the servo motor: 1) Level Crossing Barriers - could use proportional control for smooth raising, or switched is easy if you don't mind the sudden movement. 2) Decoupler on the loco - pushing a device out from either end to push the adjacent vehicle away. Controlled by Infra Red switching commands to the loco. Needs enough torque to break the magnetic contact but the Servo motor has enough. Allows shunting without "Hand of God" intervention. 3) Signals, either semaphore actuation by levers or flex, ground-based signals by rotation or colour light signals by linear movement of red/yellow/green filters in front of a PF light brick LED. All applications need 2 or 3 fixed positions so these are ideal to be driven from the PF pole reverser switch. A single Servo motor could operate 2 semaphore signals with either end stop for one green and one red and the centre position for both red. The fact that the Servo Motor stays in its commanded position when controlled from the PF pole reverser switch without running the motor continuously is great for train applications because most applications use occasional movement and long periods at fixed positions. I look forward to using the Servo motor for more train applications. The Servo motor should be available as a single item sometime in 2013. How will you use the new Servo motor in train applications? Mark

9396 is the best helicopter TLG have produced IMHO, but it has a few let-down features too. It was great to see a return to individual pitch control of the main rotor blades (following 852), and the effort that has gone into making them a more realistic shape. The tail rotor blades add to the improvement in the shape of key components. Those and the main rotor blades were the parts that attracted me to this set in particular. I would not be surprised if the tail rotor blades turned up in a City set later on. The problem with the tail rotor blades is that if you just put them onto axles, they would quickly fly off if you revved the rotor up to any significant speed (i.e. for generating thrust). This hinders their use for anything aerodynamic, such as improving the 2nd model of 9394 (a propeller plane). For real aerodynamics the blades would have to be mounted other than at the orthogonal twist positions of an axle, which is not easy to achieve. The weight of the rotor hub to do this properly is prohibitive for small blades - I designed one for either the large blades or the blades from the 9688 Educational Energy Add-On Set. Other parts of note include the z36 gear. There is also one in 9398, so well done TLG for getting more large cogs out into the wild. The bevel brackets (x3) are useful, with similar geometry to the right-angle LA brackets. The z28 turntable (also in 9397) is useful but this is the element that restricts the pitch control to be collective-only. It would need a large z56 turntable for cyclic pitch as well (this is a welcome line of technology development for us AFOLs and TFOLs in the community!). The gear mix is biased towards 16-tooth cogs in this set and 12- and 20-tooth cogs in 9398. Insignificant if you're a seasoned collector but better to have both sets if you're new to Technic. The body panels include one of each red large panel, one of the more aerodynamic ones for anyone who wants to make a LEGO helicopter take off! There is also the long thin panel for the tail. This will offset the number of left and right ones that TLG make - look out for the next helicopter using the other-hand one! There are 4 pairs of thin medium yellow panels and few small ones. The yellow ones go well with the straight panels used under the doors. If TLG don't have any large yellow panels then that might be a reason for the mixed colour scheme. By hand the rotor rotation, landing gear retraction, ramp lift and winch are quite playable, but there is difference when the motor is added. With the motor, the rotor rotation is a good demonstration but not so fast that it would be dangerous for a younger fan swooshing it round the house! The landing gear and ramp are OK at this speed too but the winch struggles to overcome the friction of its friction peg. I modded the mechanism by speeding up the motor with 16:16 instead of the prescribed 8:24 ratio. Without the clutch gear you have to watch out that the motor doesn't stall. The 3x speed increase made the rotor rotation much more realistic (160rpm is typical for a real helicopter and this is a little faster). I could then feel a small down-draught from the rotor at full collective pitch but it's still not significant in terms of lift. The landing gear and ramp are much more responsive with a faster motor drive but again the winch falls short - I didn't expect anything because a lower ratio also struggled. I would recommend that the friction peg for the winch be geared down by 3:1 from the winch shaft. This would be sufficient to maintain the winch location without burdening the motor. The landing gear internal mechanism seems overly complicated. Previous sets have used gears for this, leaving a more discreet mechanism. The pitch control mechanism is a bit clumsy. It clearly doesn't use the parts to best effect, with a friction-peg 1x3 with hole expected to straighten up to keep the vertical axle vertical. It doesn't do this very well. A good haul of standard parts. 5 mechanisms plus sliding doors is OK for £70 - I usually reckon at least 1 function for every £10. Shame the colour scheme is mixed - I would have preferred all-yellow like a Sea King, and 5-blade rotors would have been a challenge! I found the mixed colour scheme put me off buying more of them. Still, I bought a second one to see if rotors with 8 blades can generate any lift comparable to the 200g I achieved with the large panels (I also bought 2x 9394s at sale price for more of those panels and especially the long racks). So TLG won't worry as 2 is probably more than they expected me to buy of both 9396 and 9394! Before I bought the new kits I expected to buy up to 6 9396s for the blades and maybe a couple of 9398s for the motors. Having built them I think more than 2x 9396s will need justification that the blades from 2 make it worthwhile, but I might get another in a sale. By contrast I'm much keener on the servo motors than I expected to be, but more of that in the 9398 thread! You could fit a servo motor to the pitch control if you have 9398 too. Only worth it if you have the rotors going faster though! Hope this helps those of you who needed a comprehensive review! Mark

I tried that. It seems to climb OK with them and definitely looks better. The size of 9398 is built for those wheels, not the ones supplied! I also tried with the 8051 motorbike wheels - another good result, especially on the flat. I swapped over the front and rear z12 and z20 gears for better performance on the flat, then increased the speed again by doing the same to the gears either side of each motor. The latter was OK with 56mm or 49.6mm wheels but had too little torque with nig wheels. I compromised the ratio by reducing the front and read to 16:16 with extra gears from another set. This leaves an overall ratio of 5:7 from the z20 and diff. I used the same ratio on a chassis I've had for many years, which I just fitted the PF parts to. Can't believe I've waited 17 years for TLG to produce a remote controlled car without wires that has proportional steering (using a train remote or NXT with IR Link sensor)! The chassis was designed with the smooth 49.6mm wheels and a low clearance so that a 1-piece lightweight body could be attached to the top in a similar way to commercial RC cars. The speed of my car chassis, with L-motors at 5:7 to 49.6mm wheels, is OK for following it round the house but it's still nowhere near RC car speeds. TLG would need a much more powerful motor for that. The speed of 9398 with 5:7 and 8051 motorbike wheels is probably the best speed for a large vehicle - might be good for an Ariel Atom or similar. I expect I will redesign the car chassis with a more studless approach, since it came from the 8440 era! This would also improve the integration of the motors. I have many other applications for the Servo motor! Mark

I have all of those It depends where you want to go with your Technic building. If you just want to build cars then a car will do. 8865 has the old hard-to-remove black pegs. Otherwise take your pick of the type of car you would like - F1, Ferrari or 4x4. If you want to design complex systems and your interest is primarily in engineering then it's 8868 all the way. 8868 was the father of LEGO pneumatic logic systems. Its second model, the refuse truck, introduced an automatic loop into pneumatics for the first time. From there many automated pneumatic models were created by AFOLs. My whole Brickshelf pneumatics section can testify to that! Strange that TLG has never repeated the pneumatic automation in a set since. It's high time they did. BTW daniele have you tried Brickset for turning set numbers into pictures? Mark

Well done guys - a substantial achievement. How many laps did the batteries last? Even more impressive would be the longest fully-scenic railway, with the entire scenery made from LEGO parts and no empty baseplates with just track on them. What is the longest scenic railway? I don't suppose mine is anywhere near it at 2 circuits of 4.8m x 3.6m - a looped-eight with about 23 straights in each long straight (x4), 10 on the short ones (x4) and 3 in each of the 8 curves per double lap. I think quite a few LUGs have made much longer collaborative layouts, even if non-scenic fiddle yards are discounted from the track length. The building of scenic layout modules would take a while but final assembly of the 48x48 modules would be quicker. Mark

Looks good. Useful if you make a scenic boundary over the top of the tunnel too, so that you can have a short tunnel section and from either side it looks like the tunnel was longer, as the exit to a fiddle yard, when really it is to the next scene. If you make a very long tunnel it is worth making sure you can take the roof off easily in order to re-rail any derailed trains. This is why I came up with a structure for fiddle yards that are underneath scenery. Use a tunnel portal or brisge as the entry to the fiddle yard but keep most of the rest open so that it is reachable by hand. The structure in this pic shows a fiddle yard underneath, where the coach is, and tracks on top that are now on baseplates. The arches in the sides of the layout allow for reaching in and the plates may be slid out from between the upper tracks and the structure if need be. I might make some sections removable as small areas; this is common practice in model railways, either by scenery or a building being removable for maintenance and access. This is especially true for points, so I left more space around them. The structure above is made from 5 layers of overlapping plates in order to spread the weight of the modules on baseplates above it where a stanchion has to be missed out where the points or curves need a wider gap than 16M between them. It is inevitable that one will eventually want to have points behind the scenes! Mark

Take a look at the circuit and sequence for my robot. A simplification, by taking out one of the four functions, should get you quite close to what you need. The two building blocks are a gray-code flip-flop and an exclusive-OR gate. My robot extends the flip-flop loop with a third stage in the sequence. The exclusive-OR output cylinder moves a single switch that dictates which of the two (or two sets of) functions in the flip-flop are allowed to get an air supply to allow them to change state. The two flip-flop functions (or the last stage in each set) each have one half of the exclusive-OR logic, one with 1 switch and the other with 4 switches. Mark

You might find that after repeated operations the mechanism begins to lift off the points. My rack mechanism uses the gantry feet to lock the points piece to the mechanism and prevent detachment. I used a white clutch gear to prevent motor strain at the end stops, since at a show it is difficult to hear the mechanisms reaching full travel, especially if they are underneath other tracks, in the fiddle yard. I might see if using a second white clutch gear can help overcome a sticky point mechanism. My mechanism is designed for maximum reliability so I can use it in out-of-reach places for a 2-day show. Mark

LEGO gears are designed not to need lubricating. Better to use a lower friction geartrain, with 8, 16, 24 and 40-tooth cogs rather than worm, 12, 20 and 36. If you use silicone lubricant then the tiniest amount should do. Don't use anything intended for metal. Pneumatic parts contain a kind of grease, for the purpose of sealing the piston against the cylinder wall. I think Teflon grease is the substitute for lithium greases, at least last time I bought some from a bike shop. Red Lithium grease was outlawed as carcinogenic. The cylinders and valves shouldn't need lubricating but it is sometimes useful to rotate a cylinder's piston as you extend and squeeze it, to ensure the grease is well spread around the cylinder. I wouldn't use anything but grease with pneumatics because you might remove the grease that's there already. When I tried hooking up a drill to a LEGO axle at 10,000rpm it melted the axle and the beam. There is a theoretical maximum rpm for LEGO parts because of the heat generated by friction and the melting temperature of the plastics. It was 4000rpm with the 47154 9V motors, with little torque, so the speed reduced quickly. That's why high speed with significant torque is likely to result in melted parts. I use the 5292 RC motors either geared down (lower speed) or in direct drive (lowest friction). Ideas I have conceived for high powered vehicles have the motors at the wheels and the low torque drivetrain back to the engine, not having the motor by the engine with friction losses through the geartrain to the wheels. I have found GT85, a spray oil with Teflon beads, great for my bike, and for lubricating door and window locks and hinges but it would not do for LEGO. Mark

Just wondered if you had seen my Apache that has both cyclic and collective pitch control. Mark

I once made a station clock with a 9V Micro Motor, using the standard belt drive followed by a 24:1 worm drive. It had just enough torque for that, and turned a clock tile in 57 seconds. I would like to see a new Micro Motor of some kind. I haven't heard anything about the possibility of one. It's a popular idea so I'll investigate, but even if I heard anything, I would not be able to say! Even in the best case it would not happen this year, and we have 2 new motors this year, each with probably a wider spread of applications (L-motor = truck trials, power and torque with more speed than XL; servo motor = steering, rotor pitch control (as soon as someone buys both 9396 and 9398!), and many things traditionally done by RC servos). Most applications of the 9V Micro Motor had the motor being visible. Examples are the ship radar in the City range and the Technic Space Shuttle satellite. Therefore one criterion of any future motor motor to replace it is that its size should not grow because the size becomes at least one dimension of the model. This could be a problem for the PF range. PF motors have internal gearing that takes up space. They also have an external case and an internal motor unit case. The wire termination takes up space next to the motor. A PF motor would most likely have this rather than an on-board socket (output device philosophy) so it would not save the space that the 9V Micro Motor did. I would suggest that a significant increase in speed and torque over the 9V Micro Motor would be ambitious for the same size, even with the latest magnetic materials. If happiness is wanting what you get then it is all about expectation management! In the meantime we are stuck with a significantly larger way of doing it, with an M-motor and worm drive, giving 10-20 rpm but with better torque. That should do the trick for all but the visible applications. Getting the drive to a satellite down the Canada Arm of a space shuttle is the challenge! Mark

The thing about parallel power sources is, the nominal design current for 9V and PF is about 1 Amp steady state, a bit more at the peaks. The leads and connectors will start to heat up if you use much more than that. I have a pneumatic compressor driven by 2x 5292 motors that pulls 2.5 Amps from a power supply and causes the 9V leads and connectors to warm up - not to the point of damage but it's noticeable. Therefore I kept the leads short, used both sides of the end of the input lead to split the power to the motors via other leads and put in a bridging lead between the motors to share the current well. As has been suggested, separate receivers and power supplies for each motor can get round this problem but that doesn't help the power to weight ratio of a vehicle (let alone a pure-LEGO aircraft!). The output current limit for an IR receiver (LB1936 chip) is 400mA/channel or 600mA if only 1 channel is used. That's less than the peak operating current draw for a single M-Motor (850mA), let alone an XL motor (1700mA) or L-motor (we can probably expect 1700mA but hope for as much as the 5292 motor - it might even be the same motor unit inside). The steady-state currents are less than half those peak values - see Philo's motor comparison for details. There is also the issue of making sure both motors get the same command. The Crawler would not work well with receivers if the front wheels tried to move without the rear wheels moving! I think the IR receiver might have been designed to be less able to burn out motors because that way TLG would get fewer returns of burnt-out motors, when motors have always been problematic for other reasons! Not sure this is deliberately the case but it makes sense, otherwise they would have used a bigger-capacity motor driver like the L293, or some power transistors. That might have made the IR receiver too large. Up to now the most powerful LEGO motors (XL, 5292 and NXT, each suitably geared) have provided up to 35Ncm of torque, the 5292 being the most efficient because the torque is at the most useful speed (fewer losses in further gearing). I hope the L-motor will provide at least that much torque at a higher speed than the XL-motor does, perhaps at least M-motor speed, hence demonstrating that it is more powerful (power = speed x torque). If that is the case as we hope, it would not help the IR receiver situation because all the torque has to come from current. To get more power I was thinking of an 11.1V RC Li-Po pack and an RS-380 RC motor, driven by an RC speed controller, using a bespoke 9V PWM converter circuit to turn an IR receiver output into RC speed control input. This would need only a low current from the IR receiver, so that several speed controllers could be driven from one IR signal. Perhaps the RS-380 motor could fit into the girth of the case of an XL Motor and drive its gears for a moderate speed output? Would have to check the gear torque capability. RC motors tend to be fast; as the most powerful LEGO motor, the 5292 motor unit is faster than those in other LEGO motors. Mark

I tested LAs, gearing up a pair 36:12 from an XL motor and they could lift my forearm easily enough. Just have to use them within the designed torque range and avoid the mess of excavator set design with reversed gearing! Same as motors really - add more in parallel for beefier drive. Pneumatics can be made to stop in the middle or wherever you like, so the end-to-end limit on operation no longer applies. Video here. Compressing enough air is another matter - 4x PF M-motors were barely sufficient to drive a 16-cylinder compressor! I'm trying it with 4x 5292 motors but that needs a big power supply. I had hoped it would fit in a train! Mark

Yes, I have 4 of those. Having tried 4 PF M-motors, I'm about to try all 4 5292 motors at once on my compressor, which uses 16-cylinder dual crankshaft V-formation and is driving a pneumatic stepper motor. The PF M-motors managed enough air for 85rpm at 1.2 Amps with the hose disconnected, 1.8 Amps whilst pressurised, so it will be interesting to see whether the stepper motor driver speed can be increased - need more M-motors to drive that faster. The potential move towards more powerful motors (e.g. RS-380) gathers motivation! I think my car tyre air compressor might use an RS-540 or similar. Having seen a couple in YouTube, I will see whether it's possible to drive a pneumatic steam engine without any tether to mains air or power. It's looking like one carriage for the compressor, one for the batteries! Whether it will still use 40-tooth cogs for driving wheels I don't know yet. Yes, albeit with greater friction. I don't like the amount of friction in the double bevel gears. It's the softer compound that causes some of it. That was a hangover from the z24 contrate gear. One thing that's better is that the bevel gears are more rigid than the contrate gear, which was redesigned at least twice over the years in order to stop the face bending relative to the axle support. Also I actually like the fact that a 20-tooth gear can slide on an axle. I used it in the gearbox of my rail crane: The pic shows the worm and one of the 8-tooth gears that engages with it so that the worm can move the 3x3 frame left and right. The 20-tooth gear slides by 4M, meshing with each of 4 12-tooth gears in turn, or two at once if you stop in the right place. This drives two winches, jib raising and turntable functions. Folder here. I agree that sliding is not often so useful. I had to file a helicopter 8-lobe CV joint gear to allow it to slide for my Apache's full rotor control. Mark

Apart from my first blue-rail train set 171, I have always looked at the parts in a train set before deciding to buy. The parts trigger has increased as my LEGO collection has grown. I think the decision to buy has varied for each set and has varied depending on whether I wanted 1 or many of each set. From age 9 to a TFOL I found the 12V range very desirable, but due to lack of funds at the time I bought bare motors rather than the train sets. In 1996, just as I was buying up the last 12V spares, my trains went wider than 6 and have stayed there ever since. I ran 10 12V motors in my own 8mm:1ft scale trains till 1 failed. Then in 2001, with 12V motors being unavailable, I had to convert to 9V, replacing motors 2 for 1 in most locos. I still bought mostly bare motors. Of the 9V sets, here's why I bought the ones I did (note personal opinions, not pejorative, each person has their own motives): 4525 rail repair digger had finger hinges, a rail worker and suspension wheels (when I didn't buy those from City sets). Bought 5 4537 tankers made a handy rake of wagons. Bought 6 4544 car transporter was a good basic 4-wheel wagon chassis and a last chance to get the uniquely-thin signal gantry pieces used in the 12V range. Bought 6 4547 club car was a good carriage but not a "buy many" set as I didn't have the Metroliner train set to go with it. That is the problem with a derivative extra carriage - you have to have the base set in order to buy many.. This may have crossed TLG's mind when refusing to make an extra carriage set for Emerald Night. Station 4554 had ramps and looked better in yellow than its red equivalent - I would not have bought it in red, given similar availability where I live. This was better than any of the other stations too - I didn't buy any others. Cargo terminal 4555 had useful wagons and slider parts that I used in a larger crane in 1996, so this was mostly about parts: high yield = more sales. These might have been the first 9V sets I bought, with enough track (10 straights) to test whether the 12V wheels would work with 9V track. Bought 5 Train set 4559 was not a "buy new" set because it was weird. Yellow bases not useful. I got one second-hand. Train set 4561 was better and the windows were versatile considering the demise of proper train windows. Black bases were a more useful colour. I bought 2 new and 1 second hand. Also no need to buy separate controllers. Goods train set 4565 had some interesting parts but it was not a "buy many" set. Motor 5300 / 10153. Bought at least 50. Most in use and a few spares in case of failure (lesson learned from 12V failure). Some of my trains use 4. 10013 Caboose: bought 10 10014 Log Wagon: bought 10. Logs are one type of load that would make a good train, maybe 3 bought wagons to 1 built wagon? 10015 Passenger Coach: was too bespoke so I didn't buy any. Would have bought some if it had had a mix of wide and narrow windows. Would have made a great conversion to Class 101 DMU as "Daisy" from the Thomas stories. 10016 Tanker. Bought 5, converted to 4-wheel wagons because the 8-wide tank works well with my wider trains. 10017 Hopper. Bought 1. Prototype for my Railtrack hoppers - I used a similar means of opening the hopper doors. The My Own Train loco concept was flawed because the design of the train itself was not what I wanted to buy. 10020 Santa Fe Loco: Bought 2, to run as a pair. 10025: bought 5, enough to make a train for the locos. Didn't buy 10022. 10027 Shed: Arches not wide enough for my bigger trains. I took the concept lessons and added them to those of the shed in the 7777 ideas book, but didn't buy the set. 10133 BNSF loco: bought 2, as education in US trains (you can never have just 1 with US trains!), and to compare with Cyclopedia books. Might make a larger version sometime. 10173 Christmas Train: Bought 2. Fun set, has proper train windows. I made a better 6-wide tree wagon from the 2 sets, more like a British prototype log wagon. 9V Track: lots of all types but no 90-degree crossings. Feed wires: lots, all allocated for experiments or permanent use. Plans for sectional operation, using insulation tape at some track joints to make the sections. My layout currently has 4 sections, each using 2 feed wires. The inner circuit will be similar. RC trains: Bought no sets. Train set 7897 was atrocious, with its nose being the 2nd most useless part ever. Bought just a few motors 8866 to experiment with. Torque hopelessly inadequate. This would have been the demise of LEGO trains if we AFOLs had not stepped in to push for a more powerful PF train motor. PF trains: 7938 Passenger Train: Good stand-alone set. Versatile enough, learnt the lessons after the poor RC train. Having bought 1 I thought I could make a second through-carriage from the parts of the two end ones, so I bought another. I now have a 5-car multiple unit as a basis for 6-wide experiments, to supplement and feed the wider trains. I haven't bought any of the goods trains yet, because I still have 9V track and plenty of LEGO parts to make any conceivable plant to go with the trains. Now that I'm into scale modelling I'm more likely to make a real-looking hopper system from Technic parts and hence not need the bespoke parts from the good trains sets. So in a sense I've grown out of the play opportunities presented by these sets. 10194 Emerald Night: Bought 1 for experimenting, then another 4 to support my Future Large Steam Engine project. Best steam engine TLG has ever made, so I had to encourage them by buying it. I hope its replacement is just as good, has black wheels (red ones are useless to me) and is not long in coming. 10219 Maersk Train: Not a bad set but not quite what I wanted. I already have larger containers and a pocket wagon for them. 7867 Flexi Track: I'm getting into flexi-track slowly, pending good results from my experiments with it. If it continues to do well then I should buy some more, maybe up to another 1000 pieces over the next 10 years. 7996 Double Crossover. I was glad to be able to operate this pneumatically. Bought 2 88002 Motors: They performed well in torque testing. I expect to buy more as PF trains grow on me. I will retain the 9V capability for the main line for the time being and run PF in the yard, but a wide flexi-track curve will be tested on the main line in due course. If it performs well then my transition to PF will accelerate. In summary: My experiments with 6-wide sets have supported my wider trains. If the parts yield from a set, for use with my wider trains, is poor then I won't buy. The new anti-swallow couplings are expensive parts (high proportion of the cost of the sets) and I need only so many of them before I won't buy the sets any more. If TLG separate the buffers from the coupling mount then I could buy the sets freely and widen the buffers. Wagon baseplates are another high proportion of the cost of a set so these have to be a sensible colour. Black, grey, dark grey OK but white or yellow are silly, resulting in no sale. I think PF-compatible is a good way to go for locos. Keep the motor etc... separate so that the train set can be a better parts pack or the customer can define their own motorising solution if they wish. As time has gone by, growing up and getting a job, my LEGO funds have exceeded my ambition to buy the sets and I have become more choosy. I used to have a train set. Now I have a scale model railway with proper scenery. I buy a lot of PaB and fewer sets. Everything's a parts pack and a set has to be spectacular and reasonably priced for me to buy it just for the set it is. What I want from a train set is the right bespoke train parts, good value and a model that gives me an idea, especially if I can convert the set into something for my wider trains. The extra wagon packs were good for that. LEGO is what it always has been - a new toy every day. The driver is ideas, followed by the parts to make them happen. Mark

I have always liked the 40T gear. It is great for taking a gear train sideways by a large amount. This is especially useful when connecting to a motor. I have used it noth as 5:1 reduction from a motor and for 1:1 sideways transmission when using multiple motors to increase the torque on a high-speed axle. Gearing up by 5:1 for a faster axle is best with these too, since TLG don't have a 4000rpm motor available in the current range. This is useful for my flight experiments: The 40T gear has been superseded in the crawler track role to some extent by the new sprockets and 5-wide links. It looked like TLG were trying to phase out the older chain links (e.g. sets 856, 8851) but AFOLs stepped in to order more of them. May there always be a motorbike to use that system. Yes, the trend towards heavier, higher-friction gear trains is bad. Bad for AFOLs and bad for children learning about basic mechanisms. If all the friction is taken by the double bevel gears, less power is left for the wheels of each super-fast car that every young lad wants to make. It was a travesty when the crankshaft axle holes were removed from the 24T gear. That lost us a unique offset, which is in fact very useful for driving a crankshaft with small pneumatic cylinders, whose travel is less than 2M. We can hope that TLG would update the design of the cylinder in line with the compressor in Unimog 8110, so that small cylinders could be used with 2M half beams as the crank pieces. With the 24T gear hole removal in mind, I sincerely hope that TLG will never tamper with the 40T gear design. The 40T cog has also been the best one for large steam engines whose wheels are suspended off the rails, till the model team 62mm wheel hubs came along. The latter are smoother but need modification for use in that role. Mark

Most sets are made to a price point. If a set of £50 is going to have a battery box and motor, it has to justify the £11.48 cost of those two parts by having better functionality than could be made with Technic parts of the same value. Some sets at that price point have done this, but not all. It is those where the price of the battery box is most noticeable. It put me off the tipper truck a few years ago. Most of the largest sets will have some PF parts. The question is how to make the best value from them. Both 8043 excavator and 8110 Unimog have done well in that respect, yet they are at opposite ends of the PF complexity spectrum. Mark