Brickthus

My layout is on the attic floor at home. We had it purpose-built with low walls to maximise floor area. The layout will be on tables at shows, 16ft x 12ft with the extra attic modules removed. The layout is modular to keep set-up time down. I hope it will still be less than 8 hours when it's finished! Mark

My trains are 8+ wide, built with an objective of 8mm:1ft scale. If I were building US or continental trains, they might be 10+ wide because the gauge is bigger than in the UK e.g. boxcar 10'5" wide. A few challenges should be considered with larger trains: - need 2 train motors for most trains because they are heavier. - need to widen curves, either alternating curves with straights or using flexitrack at wider radius. Standard curves are like 40ft radius in 8mm scale. - Availability of large enough train wheels. Emerald Night's wheels are 3'9" in 8mm scale. I have cut some wheels to make larger thin wheels for trains with the right holes for crank pins and rods, as a better solution than using 40-tooth cogs. - whether you would like it to be more of a model railway than a train set (perhaps adding track ballast, signals, scale scenery etc...) If you're prepared to face those issues then I'd welcome more people building bigger trains! Mark

Flexi-track is good if you're making a tram track through a street. Since I did this ballasting scheme, I've updated it so that the tiles in the middle line up with the studs along the trackside. That means the central tiles can represent either sleepers (alternate black/dark bley with bley tiles) or a street surface (constant colour or cobbles). I already have a ballasting scheme for the surrounding plates outside the track. Less change might be best, unless they're going back to the first prototype (without the check rails). That was much better looking, even if TLG's feeling was that there would be too many derailments for kids at sharp radii. AFOLs were asking for wider radii (56 studs or more), at which radii the prototype was less prone to derailments. I'm experimenting with wide-radius flexitrack (72 or 104 studs radius) having less drag than alternating standard curves with 1 or 2 straights between each one. It looks promising, even though it's not 9V compatible. I have also succeeded in canting flexitrack to 8 degrees, the maximum cant on British railways (track is canted but trains tilt). That means trains could go 15% faster and stay on (given a typical centre of gravity 32mm above the rails)! I'm working on sloping it as well, for hills. I agree that a cheaper rechargeable battery box would be good. I think you can get more juice out of it than from an AAA battery box, with a 2-motor train. Both have an 800mA current limit but the rechargeable battery has lower internal resistance than AAAs and has a restart function so it will get the train up the hill after a few attempts if the power is running low, allowing you to get it to the charging point. Now I just need an inductive charging system, like the ones for phones, so I wouldn't have to plug the train into the transformer! A cheaper transformer would be good cos it's a rip off at the moment. It should be £10. AFOLs need one per battery box because the charging time is 4x the running time. Mark

Here's a few: Steam: Thomas, Duck, Stepney, Toby, Edward (Chassis) Diesels: BoCo, Bear (Hymek) Others: Toad the brake van, Scruffey the trucks' ring-leader. Oh for enough dark purple to do the mountain railway! Could that be made to work with the Indy mine track? Mark

Yes, speed setting 4 is good for up hill and down hill, without stalling or derailment. Given the weight of four 8mm scale Mk1 coaches, I will still use 4 drive motors in my Hogwarts Express, two in the engine tender and two under the first coach. Speed setting 5 is possible without derailment down the hill, but I need more reliability than that at shows, so more motors at speed 4 is better. 12V motors can pull up to 667mA at 12V. They have higher no-load current. I doubled up on 9V motors when I switched from 12V to 9V. I keep the 12V equipment for London Underground trains, which have the conductor rails for real! One reason why the 12V motor work so well at low speed is the rectified power with incomplete smoothing, which provides extra torque in a similar way to PWM over smooth power. Other model railways have enjoyed this benefit too (the ones that haven't converted to PWM or DCC that is!). The tapped transformer was more expensive to produce than a resistor chain on a 3-pin regulator, hence the lighter 9V controller. I have used a dual 30V 3A power supply (set below 12V or 9V), for both 12V and 9V trains at shows. The extra current is plenty for switching trains live - stopping one and starting another as the points change in through-sidings on a 9V layout. The 12V motors don't mind unsmoothed power but the 9V ones complain loudly, which is why I used the smooth supply. I also recognised that unsmoothed power generates more heat in the motors. As I use PF PWM more, for trains of more than 2 motors in 1 vehicle, I might have to make a slave H-bridge in order to guarantee that a 2-loco train always has the same power setting, in case one PF IR receiver missed the IR signal. I would use an NCT and IR-Link sensor to send direct speed commands too, rather than the up and down commands from the standard remote. Yes, I've done the "run it on the desk" test too. Forearm weight can represent wagon weight! Up to now I have had enough ready-made wheelsets not to have to use the self-assembly ones on heavier wagons, but I'll probably keep it that way, using those for the lighter ones. Mark

True! I keep most parts in sealed bags now, but MOCs are sadly open to the dust! I did dust and bag a few MOClets. Technic lends itself to many experiments, such as each function of a car, and I might have tens of them made at once. I prefer a mixture of studs and studless, whatever is the most appropriate piece for the function, followed by the aesthetics (not the other way round - this is Technic after all!). For instance, in order to make a studless beam slide, you could put a studless beam either side of it, but a method with less free play is to use studded beams with plates instead, fixing them 1 hole further away from the sliding beam on each side. In this pic the dark bley studless beams slide and are held by black studded beams with plates in order to reduce the free play. Mark

I recommend a maximum of 200mA/motor for long term running, 300mA/motor peak. I add more motors to my trains to avoid burnout and prolong the motors' life because, as you say, they're obsolete. A loco with two 9V motors can pull a load of about 165g tractive effort at a good steady running speed, but only 55g at low speed. A pair of PF motors is more powerful by about 45g at low speed and 30g at higher speeds, so the benefit is greater at low speeds. The wheelset thing has been a big problem. I test them by holding the wheelset upside down and spinning it, to see if either wheel flange catches on the frame. If it does, I file the frame after removing the wheelset. AFAIK the more recent build-it-yourself wheelsets are better in the respect? The wheelset problem made a big difference to the tractive effort required to pull heavy wagons, the Santa Fe carriages being a particular example of this. 9V trains don't need additional weight over the motors as 12V trains do. This is because a) the 9V traction is usually better than worn out (hardened) 12V rubber wheel rims and b) the 9V contact is better on the flanges than it usually was with the 12V contacts on the conductor rails. I think the new 2010 PF wheels are grippier per unit loco weight than 9V motor wheels though. Mark

I used pneumatics in such a way that each end of the crossover can stop in the middle, enabling both tracks to be set straight at once. I changed how the springs push the direction changing parts to provide more tolerance so that the middle position of the lever allows both tracks to run straight. Therefore there was no need to have independence of the two sides. Two sets of pneumatics at each end are set so that a state of 1,1 is one direction, 0,0 is the other direction and 1,0 or 0,1 are both in the middle with both tracks set straight. Two pneumatic switches control the crossover, each one setting the state of one of the two sets of cylinders at each end. Pics here Mark

A single M-motor is unlikely to give enough power. You could try two M-motors geared together in the cab (some alterations to make them fit - motors 6-wide so cab 8-wide to match the firebox diagonal tiles). They should draw the same amount of current as an XL motor and maybe give a bit more speed. No guarantees, but worth the experiment. Mark

Normally you would have to modify a PF extension wire to do this, in order to put the 9V power onto the outer two pins of the PF cable. With the IR receiver it is possible to be naughty and get away with it. If the motor is connected to the blue port of the IR receiver then you can connect the 9V battery box to the red port with another extension wire. The flywheel diodes of the red port's H-bridge motor driver will conduct the 9V power onto the 9V and 0V rails inside the IR receiver. This is not recommended practice BTW! With long-term use you could fry the flywheel diodes, the motor driver chip or anything else in there, so it's your risk! I find this a problem when I try to make a hybrid train using both battery power and track power with 9V motors. The use of brake mode in PWM modes means the track power gets shorted onto the battery rails. Mark

This is the one: 9V motors at the top - metal wheels RC motors in the middle - red stripe PF motors at the bottom - lead with PF plug My guess for the new motor and battery box as separate items would be January, in order to support the train sets whose sales should take off in time for Christmas, but I have no definite information. I have begun tractive effort testing with different motors in the coach. Up to now the PF motors have performed better with PF PWM power on flexi-track than 9V motors on metal track. The new wheels supplied with the PF motor, and in the new train sets, are more grippy even than 9V motor wheels, so PF has less wheel-spin on flexi-track than 9V on metal track! The new wheels have a white dot on the back. I'll continue in order to get more accurate results because I don't yet have any direct comparison data. Overall, tractive effort is less than the scale ought to require, but the train friction is even less (with standard wheelsets modified if required, to minimise friction from the wagons). Therefore the overall result is that the motors have more than enough tractive effort for the vehicles they are pulling, except when sharp curves increase the drag. Mark

You need the PF one, not the RC one. The difference is that the PF one has a PF lead attached. The PF one (in the new train sets) is at least as strong as a 9V train motor. The RC one (8866) is weak and has poor speed regulation. For outright torque, XL motors should be able to pull a heavier train, as long as you can put that torque onto the rails. That needs lots of wheels with belts, like the Emerald Night but more so. However, operation at speed is not really the preserve of XL motors, so for speed PF train motors are best. That includes using them in the tender of a steam loco and letting the wheels operate by friction (e.g. remove all but the rear axle belts on Emerald Night). If you need high torque and high speed, use pairs of PF train motors. See testing here. Also make sure the vehicle with the motors has enough weight to get good traction. 12V trains used to have the weight bricks to help with this. Mark

Great upgrade - thanks guys! I found that it takes more clicks to log in when you first decide to reply to a thread. Would be nice to be 2 clicks as before. I would also like the "forums > theme > topic" links to appear at the bottom of the page as well as where they are at the top, because it would save scrolling all the way up in order to go back to the theme topic list. (Maybe I should select the same theme in the box on the right but that's not so intuitive). Some of the font boldness or not has changed. Dunno if it's possible to have this as before? Things like I remember who posted last but it's more difficult to find the name to see if anyone else has replied when the name isn't bold. I'll probably get used to it. Some things take a bit longer to load - perhaps logging in in particular. Pleased to say no problems running with Firefox. Mark

TLG were made aware that 3 trains was not nearly enough for AFOLs. 8 functions is the most required for most MOCs. If you need more, add a gearbox (my rail crane has one so that it can use just 2 motors to do 4 functions and hence be a scale model. The grey bit slides between the function gears). Freight loading is interesting. I've read a few model railway books on the subject, especially since we do similar stuff with a different modelling medium and method. A cattle loading dock for a 50-year-old station is good, as are coal bins. Some railway modellers think a mine with working wheel is a bit big for a model railway, though I have seen working coal chutes on some 4mm scale layouts. A miniature railway for a mine could be good - use Indy mine track and have an exchange platform? TLG did do a car loading ramp in the 9V sets. Did you see the circus train in the 7777 ideas book? Mark

Nice! Are some of these UK Mk1s without the middle doors (for selective compression)? Mark

The one thing TLG should definitely do for trains in 2011 is make the train motor available separately. I guess the train sets range would last about 3 years, but it will remain a small range because of its small market. As for the AFOL market, there needs to be a better replacement for Emerald Night when the time comes. Something to maintain the supply of special train wheels, but not too similar to the Emerald Night itself. Another rare colour that would be as popular as Earth Green - how about Dark Tan or Dark Orange? Whilst I would prefer train motors (yes, 2) under the tender, with driving wheels coasting, the reality is that the train would always have to be suitable for 10-year-olds, so we can't expect miracles. We'll just have to make our own better trains. I would guess that, since Emerald Night could be seen as a UK/US prototype, it's more likely to be German prototype next time, with red wheels. Unfortunately that means no rare body colour since they're mostly black locos. An update to the Pacific engine from 7777 ideas book would be too logical and too similar to EN. Maybe an update to 7750 would be popular? It wouldn't require as much technical detail as some ideas, it would have 8 special wheels, most likely 8 with flanges (but there's no reason why the blind ones shouldn't be included in the set as extras since they come in a 3-pack) and it would have a train motor in the tender, which keeps up the use of train motors and hence reduces TLG's overheads for the motor. We need a new Railway Ideas Book. Please petition for one! That would certainly increase train sales, and more train sales means more train sets for us! Mark

53.7g would be more accurate. I weighed 30 at 1600g! BTW a Train torque rig is a possible application for so many weights Mark

Something else that could have been asked is: "Have you ever used LEGO products to make prototypes for real-world innovations?" Three of my models have led to patent applications Mark

One PF light brick will stretch to 48 studs long between the two lights, but not 62. An easy and pure LEGO way to do it is to cut one LED wire and use single or double 12V plugs on the wire ends. You can push 1/0.6 bell wire into the centre of the 4-lobe pins to add extra length. Alternatively, the lowest current "chocolate block" barrier strip connector would do. Yes, the polarity matters for the LED twin cable. It matters too for the 4-way PF cable the other side of the 2x2 block. The block contains a bridge rectifier, so the C1/C2 polarity would not matter, but there is a connection to the 0V line and no connection to the +9V line so that would matter. Circuit diagram. I wish making a red/green signal whose aspect depended on polarity (like the 12V one in 7860) were as simple as reversing one LED, but unfortunately this won't work! Mark

Probably not. My Hymek loco is 48 studs long and the lights just reach to each end. Mark

Best way is to put two 1x1 brick with hole on an axle and then embed the studs in some technic half beam holes, so that they won't rotate and cause friction. Stud connections are not as good at resisting rotation of the bricks. Is this for steam engine cylinders? Mark

Best time was 1991 when 9V was new - nearly 20 years ago now! I can't believe it's that long - 14 years since I bought the last of the 12V spares! You have a great opportunity with PF trains. My tests proved that the PF motors are just as good as 9V ones for power, torque and speed regulation. The new wheels also have more grip. All this means the new PF train system is sound, so the spending brakes are off! I hope it will be popular for many years to come. I might make a few electronic additions of my own, for things like double heading, hybrid 9V/PF trains, lighting effects etc... - some here. I like the diorama picture on the back of the box. Pictures like that sold me more trains in the '80s and '90s. Good to resurrect the spirit of 7822, the 12V station with 2 platforms. I might have liked to see a 16M bridge extension, to enable easy conversion to double track. Another way is to buy another set so that you can also double the platform length for longer MOC trains. I like the sliding door too - using the slider parts for their original purpose. Thanks for the review L-T. Keep on clicking Mark

A summary of a few things I added to the other post: 1. Both - 1 for display if it looks good, especially if it works too, plus more if it's a good parts pack, like Statue of Liberty (but not Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal) 2. Theme for street sets (depending on price increases), individual for others. 3. Big Ben, but do it properly, with PF motorized clock and a bell chime sound brick. I added a wish for an ultimate pneumatics set, with at least 10 large and 2 small cylinders, 10 valve switches and lots of compression technology. Models to include finite state machine robots and variable position pneumatics, to teach a new generation of Technic fans a bit of real engineering! More ideas books for Technic and Trains too! The trains are PF-compatible. The motors are at least as good as 9V ones in terms of power, torque and speed regulation. More here. Having axle holes, they might have uses in Technic MOCs too, and could easily be used in multiple on the same pair of shafts, perhaps pairs of motors with 10M axles through them with an axle extender each side. The only limit is the power to weight ratio of a mobile MOC. Signals are country-specific. My UK semaphore signals use the Technic flex system, which I'd definitely like to see again! I might have to use the string-with-studs parts for more signals. A functional level crossing is possible with PF medium motors and light bricks. Try using a worm gear block for the barrier pivot. Controlling it makes a good RCX or NXT project! The PF system IR Receivers can be cascaded, to control up to 128 bidirectional devices. Diagrams here and others in the folder. An easier way to get more channels, with more immunity from interference would be better, I agree. Mark

My bad timing, sorry. I think I missed reading page 2 of the thread. That, of course, is a further stage of badness, similar to taking a photo of an official set and making money from it. The worst cases in the community have been on LEGO Factory, where people have copied others' MOCs and passed them off as their own. At least TLG are aware of this problem. It seems we have quite a few items to make a "community etiquette" guide, apologising quickly being rule no.1 Mark

1. Yes, with some exceptions. I bought 11 Statue of Liberty sets (keeping 1 built up) because the bricks were the best colour for layout scenery. Same with 13 Yoda statues, for the plates in his head, and the Green Dragon (I bought 3 and kept one built up). I didn't buy the Eiffel Tower because it was too expensive for basic bricks and I didn't need a lot of dark bley 2x2s. I didn't buy the Taj Mahal because it needs a large table area (whose house has one free?) and the parts mix wasn't good for me - it had a lot of a couple of pieces that I wouldn't use for MOCs afterwards. Sets have to have MOC value in their parts mix, whatever the set, unless the set is *so* good that you would leave it built permanently, but in that case you're buying a particular set, not a number of parts, so the commercial equation is different. The Statue of Liberty had a good parts mix - a range of bricks in reasonable proportions to what one would use for MOC statues. I ended up designing layout modules around the mix of bricks, and later bought black bricks in accordance with that mix. I didn't buy the very largest Star Wars sets (Ultimate Millennium Falcon) because I didn't have the table space and couldn't use the parts later. Exceptions to the rule are the Ferris Wheel, Carousel and Cafe Corner street sets, which look good on their own and which I have not dismantled yet. They have good technical functionality for display but are not quite so good as parts packs, which is why I bought one of each. You therefore have 3 criteria: A. How good the set is as a parts pack B. How good the set is as a static display C. How good the set is in technical functions for active display (grabbing attention of passers-by) If you have just B or C, I will buy one set, more likely for C than B. If you have just A I will buy several sets if I can use the bricks, but if I build one up I would take it apart in a week and not display it. If you have C then I'm more likely to display it for longer, and even take it to shows. If you have A and B or C then I'll display one and buy many more for the parts. In some cases, like Cafe Corner, many sets can be displayed together, such as the 18-storey 2x2 Cafe block. The multiple set display appeal has not been milked as it used to be (e.g. instructions for 1970s-80s Technic sets and ideas books showed what could be built with 2 or 3 sets added together). As a child, those extra sets were virtually sold to me as soon as I looked at the pictures. 2. It varies, depending on the theme. Usually specific models for their appeal (whih can be as the set, like the Ferris Wheel and Carousel, or as a parts pack like the Statue of Liberty, Yoda and Dragon), except the street sets, of which I have 1 of each, but I might discontinue this as the price gets too high (e.g. Grand Emporium has too few parts for the price). 3. The Big Ben tower would be good, but you would have to do it properly, with lots of detail and motorized clock faces with a PF medium motor. It would fit well in the home because its footprint is small. Even better if you could put a chime sound brick in it! I would probably buy it as a 5000 piece set because it is so iconic and would make a good display model. Whether I would want to buy any more as parts packs would depend on whether I needed the tan bricks for anything! Certainly if it included some Dark Tan bricks at the right price it would be a big hit in the community! 4. Ultimate Pneumatics set in the Technic range. The return of pneumatics in 8049 tractor has been a success, so it is time to show what pneumatics can do. A robot like this, or variable position control like this, or maybe even a pneumatic train! Get some real engineering into a LEGO set! Set contents to include at least 10 large and 2 small pneumatic cylinders, 10 pneumatic valves and the compression power of 6 pump cylinders. Maybe a PF-powered swash plate pump could be used? This would not only teach a new generation of Technic enthusiasts about pneumatics but would be a great parts pack for AFOLs! 5a. Bigger steam engine wheels please! I need them at 43.2mm and 49.6mm diameters (both fit in with the multiples of plate heights relative to existing train wheels). Flanges and belt grooves optional - It is easier to motorize smaller wheels in the tender with a train motor and just turn these wheels by friction or with a separate motor. The biggest existing 1M-wide wheels with a crank pin hole are 40-tooth cogs, which look a bit ugly, so I tried cutting down some model team wheel hubs. A new loco set using the new wheels would be great. Emerald Night was a step in the right direction but it should now be surpassed! 5b. A decent SNOT set would be good too. Teach the kids how to do lettering like this. The set would need 1x1 and 1x2 tiles and plates and some SNOT bricks. Probably 2x2 corner and 2x2 plates and tiles too. Price should be cheap per piece for that range of parts. The instructions should show how to make all the letters of the alphabet, and numbers too, and include enough parts for at least 20 letters to be made at once. Need to pick a colour scheme of the best 2 colours. This might make a good theme like My Own Train, where a child could pick a colour scheme online for one set of parts, where the other set of parts was standard. 5c. Bring back the 1x1 black tile letters pack, and include numbers 0-9! Maybe a black letters on white tiles version too. 5d. More ideas books. Ideas using particular sets, especially from the Technic and Train ranges, lead to more sales. Yes, we AFOLs show many good ideas for complex models with lots of pieces, but a child of 9-12 needs ideas of how to get started in larger MOCs by adding particular sets together, to make a model of 500-2000 pieces. The earlier books 8888, 8889, 8890, 8891 and 7777 were great. By all means get AFOLs to contribute, with the stipulation that particular sets from a single year in a single theme should be used. I'm not sure than many kids have used the Track Designer program, so some track plans in a railway ideas book would be good. Mark