Brickthus

Best supply of pnematic parts - 10 cylinders and 7 switches. Almost enough to build models like this (it has 8 cylinders and 9 switches). Bring back serious pneumatics in kits! Mark

Longer rails are available from PaB online as "outer cable 256mm" I bought quite a few in order to cut them to length for pneumatics and other uses. A quick chop with a Stanley knife avoids squashing the tube ends (parental supervision recommended for under 18s). Mark

That's why I, and others involved in PF, have worked so hard for backward compatibility with 9V devices. The 9V underside of one end of the short PF extension wire is a major victory for AFOL input to TLG. The shape of the PF light ends and their ability to fit into headlight bricks and Technic beams is down to us too. Sadly they couldn't let the whole light go through a hole because the wire grip was needed for child safety reasons. The result is that we need not change from our 9V train motors and track in order to have PF trains, saving lots of AFOLs oodles of money (that we can spend on the LEGO we'd like to buy ) Dunno about you, but my tongue isn't long enough to reach across the tracks! ==== (Lack of 9V Bzzzz!) Of course either a 9V or PF lead can be put in your mouth, if you're determined to zap yourself. DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME KIDS! OK, to the trains (I started with set 171 and a set 107 motor in 1978): 4.5V blue rails (1960s-1980): Was the only electric system in those days. A revelation for LEGO. Allowed continuous train running for the first time. Had a whistle and control box to start and stop the train (set 138) Set 182 had special bogie curved sliding devices for an 0-8-0 engine. Train could be lit with set 970 light bricks. Reversing loops and triangles could be made with no short circuits. Track could not be picked up and hung on the wall. Too few sleepers and limited colour choice of bricks. Motor required 6x16 or 6x22 loco base, limiting loco size. Magnet polarity fixed (red & blue) - did not work when reversing trains. Motor took up 3 plates height above the base. 12V & 4.5V grey (1981 to 1990 in the UK, spares till 1996): Track could be picked up and hung on the wall. 12V: (some 12V in other countries from the late 1960s?) Transformer control. Control panel devices - points, signals, decoupler, level crossing. Single plugs meant limitless electrics, as long as you know what you're doing to avoid short circuits! TLG ran 12V spares service for 6 years after 9V arrived :thumbup: Expensive motors and remote controls! Wires everywhere! Track OK for tube trains but not so realistic. Too few sleepers too. Isolation, except for signal isolation, was by cutting conductor rails (to isolate both rails for reversing tracks or loops). Default track centres of 8 studs best for 6-wide trains. Could be overcome for wider trains. 9V (from 1991 in the UK): Lighter motor, did not need weights. Motor no longer relied upon weight for electrical contact. No sliding contacts on conductor rails - reduced carbon footprint - literally! Track more realistic - could be ballasted Points did automatic siding isolation with internal contacts. Allowed swap-over of trains from parallel through-sidings just by changing 2 points together. Track geometry supported 16-stud centres, allowing for wider trains by default. RCX could drive a light train. DCC possible with RCX. Neutral: Motor the same price as 12V. Less powerful motor - needed 2 motors to 12V's one. Lack of remote control for points, but AFOLs devised electric and pneumatic ways around this. RC: Batteries could be removed without dismantling loco. Remote control. Reversing loops and triangles can be made with no short circuits. Fixed loco base. BBB steam engine possible but battery power limited. 3-channel limit on remote control. AFOLs have more trains on a layout! Wheel initially lacked grip. Revised wheels can be back-fitted. Horn on handset (but for parents, at least there was only one horn!) White train front end in competition for "most useless piece ever" (prize was narrowly won by dino body) PF: Remote control. Can avoid using train motor if PF gearmotor and banded wheels are used. Therefore accurate 9V steam engine needs no tender motor. Plastic track allows more geometries. Crossover is really good and can be tweaked to set both tracks straight at once. Reversing loops and triangles can be made with no short circuits. Plastic track is cheaper, if only the pack had more straights than curves. PF gearmotors are cheaper than 9V gearmotors or train motors. Flexi-track allows a child to complete a circuit without knowing the maths of track geometry! 4 or 8-channel limit can be overcome by AFOLs. Control of up to 128 trains theoretically possible. 9V points remote control work-arounds still good for PF. IR interference issues can be overcome by AFOLs. Easy to light trains in more ways with new PF light brick. Lights fit less obtrusively in signals too. NXT can send PF IR commands with IR Link sensor. Potential for automatic control. Backward compatibility with 9V devices. TLG listened to AFOLs :thumbup: Li-Po battery good for regular use or exhibitions (500 cycles in 3 years saves £950 of batteries at £4/set of 6 alkaline ones doing 2 equivalent charge cycles) Fill train with PF parts - battery, receiver, motor (if no train motor underneath). Some energy lost in friction using gearmotors. Not always easy to get to battery for charging or removal. Removable roof section or high centre of gravity for battery. Rock and roll of banded wheels on Emerald Night, owing to band thickness variation. Some PF parts expensive - IR receiver, light brick (has more parts than 9V ones), battery (on a par for laptop battery technology) Flexi-track needs check rails to avoid derailments. Can they be removed or the track ballasted? Some reports of its noisy operation. Mark

I would put two 9V or PF train motors under the Santa Fe engine, perhaps even do the same with a second loco for a really long train. I know some US AFOLs used multiple 9V train motors in loco sets up to A-B-B-A. There have previously been threads on several sites about Santa Fe coach drag. When using multiple motors, connect them with wires to share the load better, and so that one does not push another if one loses power. This was an issue with 9V motors but it will be automatically solved for PF because a wire is the only connection. So far I have three PF-compatible trains: The first is a Class 14 shunter. The real one has a design speed of 40mph, so it was not necessary to gear it to go fast. There is a Technic gearmotor in the cab, driving BBB wheels. There is so much SNOT in the bodywork that a more powerful PF motor could not be fitted Only the wires can fit through the gaps. Electrical connection can be made to either end of the loco. It would connect with a 9V lead to an adjacent coach containing the Power Functions elements and train motors. The train motors pull the train whilst the Technic gearmotor has enough power to move the loco as a light engine. The second train is a Class 35 "Hymek" loco. This one has all the PF elements onboard: PF Battery box (not shown). Two IR receivers, which are cascaded with a modified PF lead for exhibition-standard robustness to interference. Two receivers shown in this latest photo. Two light bricks, with a custom electronic circuit to set them in the right direction and keep them on in the previous direction when the train stops. Two 9V train motors. PF motors could equally be used. The loco can run in PF mode on plastic track, or in 9V mode with the PF battery doing the lights. The latter is achieved by turning on the first PF IR receiver but not the second one, such that the light circuit gets 9V and 0V power but the motors do not get C1 and C2 power. The motor power from the track feeds through to the input of the light direction circuit. The third is a rail crane, a scale model of a Cowans Sheldon 76T rail crane. The yellow one in this picture. The 9V battery box is used as a counterweight when lifting heavy stuff. It is not permanently attached. The plan is tha the crane will lift a scale 76 tonnes at the correct scale radius, which amounts to 6 sets of 6 AA batteries at about 16M from the turntable centre. The crane has one PF IR receiver that controls two motors: Motor 1 moves a worm gear selecttor for the gearbox, which switches between turntable, jib and two hook functions. Motor 2 moves whichever function(s) are selected. Some combinations of two can be selected at once. Crane functional and prototype photos here. A small panel at the back can be removed in order to change the PF channel on the receiver. Power for the IR receiver will come in on a 9V lead from an adjacent coach, the same one as for the Class 14. The coach pulls the train as well as providing space for the track workers' equipment. A second IF receiver in the coach will enable the crane. This is so it can be switched off and not inadvertently or maliciously activated when the train is in motion (e.g. turning the turntable when approaching a tunnel!!!) The turntable function is deliberately highly geared, without a worm gear, so that it can turn passively as track curvature changes. The other three functions, jib raising and two hooks, all use worms to prevent lowering when they are not selected. Mark

Not quite the electrical panels you're after, but these are the panel modules for my pneumatic points control on my 9V layout. I used a hand pump per point, so that if one went wrong I wouldn't lose control of any others at a show. The panel modules are 48x8 and pneumatic tubes attach to tubes on the next modules so that I can control point 9 tracks away with 6 pumps or less of the hand pump cylinder. It will follow the same philosophy electrically when I've finalised those connections, i.e. the locations of feeds and signals and the consequent inter-module connection requirements. I will use switches in each of the panel modules. I might put diode modules in the track modules themselves, with an isolation between track sections within a module made with insulating tape and a diode drop between uphill and flat and between flat and downhill. This would reduce the need for connections back the the panel modules. I will be using a large power supply for the main lines - a 9V controller is not powerful enough. I mounted some toggle switches in some LEGO parts. these switches are rated higher than LEGO pole reverser switches, so they can handle switching trains at an amp each (= 2 amps on change-over). Static lights for signals etc... will be on a separate 9V DC circuit from a 300mA DC power supply - no need to waste a train controller on those. Any electric points will use a panel of 9V pole reverser switches as I did on previous layouts. I might use PF leads to multiplex connections onto one lead, to reduce lead connections. Mark

It was Technic parts that I was washing, so there are fewer corners to be damaged. The ABS parts were mostly unscathed, just one or two minor dents with no functional consequence. The fact that I used a thick pillow case helped - cushioned the impact against the drum. I wouldn't do it with parts I intended to sell, but selling LEGO is not on my agenda Mark

I use BBB wheels as 3'9" wheels, but for anything from 3'6" to 4'6" in 8mm:1ft scale. Cogs, and now 32020 wheels, pick up from 5'0" to over 6'0". That makes BBB wheels good for a J94. I use them on my Class 14 diesel and have thought about doing an '08' with them (simpler chassis if I use flangeless wheels in the middle). The curves are 40ft radius to 8mm scale. I put straights between them in the yard (72ft radius) and more on the main line (104ft radius). I had hoped flexi-tracks could make good wider radius curves, but for me to use them on an exhibition layout it depends on removing the check rails and ballasting the track. A 4-6-4 or 4-8-4 is a particularly stable loco configuration. Not surprised they went fast. Not many of those types appeared in the UK. Remembrance class was a 4-6-4 in 1919 but I think there were only 5 of them. I will test whether my 32020 modded wheels will run OK on standard track. I expect the 'flanges' will be too thick to work on points or flexi-track, even if they fit between the tracks with the 4-wide chassis. Mark

Have you seen the one on my YouTube? (link below) It's made with Bulldozer tracks. I wonder if anyone will be able to make a barrel roll track with 8867 tracks? Mark

I recently bought a set 2nd hand and found it was seriously smoky - ugh! I decided that I had nothing to lose by trying the parts in a washing machine, in an old pillow case. The pillow case was a think material, not thin cotton. First I made sure the pillow case had no holes! Then I double tied it with string, folded over the tied opening and double tied it again - making sure it would not open. It was still tied OK by the end of the wash. I used a normal 40 wash, set to "heavy soil", making it 105 minutes long. The spin had less impact on machine vibration than a normal wash, once the drum was up to speed. Afterwards: I spread the parts out on an old tea towel for sorting while they dried. The parts were drier than they would have been from a bowl wash. They were dry by the time I had sorted them. A few white bits of cotton were on some parts - easily removed by blowing on them. Some scuffing on a couple of polypropylene parts and a few small bumps on parts but nothing serious. The smell was fresh Previous experience with hand washing had partly melted a few parts when they strayed under the hot tap as I was filling the bowl in the bath. I recommend: Wash polypropylene parts by hand. Wipe (don't wash) decorated and chromed parts by hand. Wipe (don't wash) electrical and pneumatic parts by hand. The box includes this instruction for electrical parts. Wash any parts longer than half the distance between the washing machine drum paddles by hand. This reduces impact on parts in the machine. Use old tea towels for drying - they make fewer bits than hand towels or bath towels. Keep your old toothbrushes for cleaning, some for dry dusting and some for washing. A computer keyboard brush can also work well for dusting. Don't get smoke anywhere near LEGO bricks. Treat your bricks as you would a child's lungs! When hand washing: Don't soak parts in a hand wash for long. The water makes the bricks swell, so they stick together too well afterwards! Fill a bowl with water and dip the parts with your toothbrush in the other hand. Use rubber gloves (or equivalent if you're allergic to them). Put the bath plug in to stop parts going down the plug hole. Use an old sieve for rinsing parts. When using a washing machine: Use a sturdy old pillow case with no holes and double tie it twice. You are responsible for your machine's warranty! Keep wash temperatures at 40 degrees C or below. Melted bricks in the machine would be unthinkably expensive! Wash about 300-400 parts at a time, just enough for one tea towel on the kitchen work top. Don't swamp yourself with too many parts to dry at once. Mark

San Francisco might be modelled with hill tracks from the Indy Mine Chase! According to model railway books, tracks on a model railway should not exceed a slope of 1 in 30. Very few places on real railways exceed this slope, but one in the UK is the Mersey rail tunnel between Birkenhead and Liverpool, which is 1 in 25. The well-known Lickey incline is only 1 in 37 but used to need a banking engine for most goods trains. Steeper tracks are for a rack railway or roller-coaster. The track on my layout are 1 in 30, which is 1 plate height for every 12 studs long. I put opposite slopes alongside each other in orde rto do a looped-eight layout. The front track is 1 in 30 down to the right, the 2nd track becomes flat in the middle and the 3rd and 4th tracks slope at 1 in 30 down to the left (red train). The 5th track becomes flat again (crane) and the 6th-9th tracks slope to the right again. It takes quite a long track for trains to swap places vertically! Mark

The problem is caused by misalignment of cylinder slide with the crank rotational centre in the design. See here See how my 9F has sloping cylinders (like the real one) to avoid this problem. Mark

1. They are smoke deflectors, which send the smoke upwards, rather than it choking the driver in adverse wind conditions! Flying Scotsman was retro-fitted with smoke deflectors in the 1960s. IMHO the original shape, without them, looks better and 10194 might have looked better without them too. 2. and 3. Google knows better than I do! Best to check images of Dora and Gustav for clues. 4. 64 pieces = 1 circle at maximum turn. Mark

From the Flying Scotsman picture it looks like Emerald Night should have been given larger wheels. I wondered whether the name "Emerald Night" was derived from the green colour (though green is nearer to an emerald than dark green) and the name of "Evening Star", the last main line steam engine to be built in Britain and the only Class 9F to be painted green. Evening Star model. I hope if there is a connection to Evening Star then there is no omen of Emerald Night being the last steam engine from TLG!!! 10194 is certainly a step in the right direction as far as train kits are concerned. I know a 9F is 2-10-0 rather than 4-6-2 and most 9Fs were for heavy goods, but 92220 Evening Star was a passenger express engine (90mph and some people in the industry were horrified by the thought of running that design so fast because the middle wheels on the real engine were flangeless). The smaller wheels in 10194 fit a 9F profile better - 5'3" rather than Flying Scotsman's 6'8". I'm not sure TLG would have dared try a 2-10-0 for a kit because the chassis is more advanced to accommodate overhanging wheels, as my BBB 0-10-0 chassis demonstrates, as well as a further pair of wheels at one end, whose pivot placement is hampered by the wheel overhang. My solution to the Larger Train Wheel problem: I used to use 40-tooth cogs for driving wheels, with the whole set suspended off the rails. Those wheels were 42mm, a scale size of 5'3", and fitted well on my 9F. I decided that, given the advances between the 9F's debut in 2000 and the present day, I would seek an alternative solution for large loco wheels. Ben Fleskes advised me that larger wheel running on the rails had issues with derailments caused by the flanges, such that it was not his intention to make larger wheels. This prompted me to seek my own solution, so I came up with this: It's a 32020 Model Team wheel, turned to make it 1M thick to the face, a little more to the rim. This folder contains pictures of the turning process, for those of you not too squeamish to see LEGO parts being modded . I intend to re-wheel my 9F as well as 5972 Olton Hall, the Hogwarts Express engine. The next engine to receive the wheels should be Edward the Blue Engine which, as you see, is at the chassis stage. What do you think about larger LEGO train wheels? Should 10194 have larger wheels? Are the 32020 wheels an improvement on the 40-tooth cogs? Mark

In LSMK there is a Pick-a-Brick wall, like most LEGO shops. You can also make up your own Minifigs in most LEGO shops. £1 might be a bit steep though. I found some old sets in LSBW - Technic parts packs that would never have been available at other high street stores. At LSMK you can order stuff from LS@H. You can take with you what they have and the rest will be posted to you without postage charge. e.g. Emerald Night train kit with Power Functions, you take the train and the electric bits are posted. There is a "Window in the Community" display by members of the Brickish Association , the UK AFOL group. You might find members there when you visit! Last time I went, I used the Park & Ride by the M1 motorway, but then fetched the car once I had spent about £350 because it was too much to take in the bus! The staff are more helpful than in Toys R Us too. If you want any LEGO item, just ask and they will do their best to help you buy it, even if it's not in stock. There is a restriction like not buying more than 2 of any set without prior arrangement, because a few people exploited systems in the past. There are other LEGO accessories too, like on LS@H, which you won't find in the high street. There is a voucher scheme - £5 or £15 if you spend so much. It's easy to buy enough to complete a voucher! They often have a wider LEGO range than other shops, including the really big sets. Mark

Thanks for the review. How fast does it run with the medium motor, compared to the XL one prescribed in the instructions? I read that with the XL motor it is slower than if the carriage had normal train motors underneath. It's important to make the driving wheels turn at the same speed as they would for train motors if anyone intends to make a long train and finds that they need train motors under the carriage as well as the PF motor in the cab. Some people have speculated about changing the gear ratios in the loco, but I think a medium motor with train motors might work instead, speeding up the loco but giving it only enough power for itself, whilst the train motors will pull the rest of the train. Note that the supplied carriage is the dining car, of which there would be one per train IRL. About 10-12 ordinary coaches should be added, one or two of which would be brake coaches. British passenger trains of the era didn't need a caboose or brake van. Hopefully TLG will release a separate carriage kit. I understand the sticker sheet covers that eventuality. Addition of 10-12 coaches might need train motors under the first one because of the load. Mark

And if you have only plastic track on your layout, you can use the same 9V train motor(s) in the trains without needing any 8866 train motors. Any train with two or more 9V train motors on plastic tracks will need all motors to be connected together. If you go for the PF rechargeable battery (e.g. if you will use 500 charge/discharge cycles in 3 years by exhibiting trains) then mount the battery high up, so that it is easy to plug the charger in through the roof of the train. Lower down would be better for the centre of gravity (faster cornering) but you'd have to make a larger roof piece removable to get to the charging socket. If instead you go for the normal PF battery box, you might need to make a new carriage base out of plates, to let the battery box take up space under the base as well as above it. A 9V 14x4x3 battery box would fit more easily without carriage base replacement, but you'd need to modify a PF lead in order to power the IR receiver, either by connecting C1 and C2 to 9V and 0V or by putting 12V plugs on half a 9V lead and half a PF lead (9V and 0V pins) and connecting the two halves together. Mark

I concur. Holodoc, check engine instructions step 49, on page 51 of book 1. The lower right box shows the correct alignment of the wheel crank pins at 90 degrees to each other. The jamming of the rods also goes to show that, for any steam engine, a rearward extension of the line of slide of the main piston rods should pass through a point at the rotational centre of the crank that attaches the drive rod to the connecting rod. For steam engines with 6 driving wheels, where the driving rod attaches to the cank pin of the middle set of driving wheels, that point is on the axle of the middle set of driving wheels. Many steam engines have their cylinders at an angle for this reason, except when the slide of the piston rods is along the horizontal line through all the driving axles. In the case of 10194 the line should point to a place 1M behind the front driving axle. That is a bad point of 10194 - the drive rod should extend to the crank pin of the middle wheel, but a 1x8 half beam (extending the 1x5 rod by 3M) is only available with a rack, which wouldn't look right. A 1x7 half beam would have been better. Angling steam engine cylinders requires a bit more cunning than would be expected in a set, though the Vestas Wind Turbine set 4999 is not the only sets to use a suitable offset peg technique in the attachment of the turbine blades to the spool. Mark

I have had a layer of skin die on my thumbs after putting in 52 hours of building on my railway in 2 weeks. That's mainly 2x2 stud imprints. Today I had my first Power Functions wire imprint on my arm, after typing whilst leaning over a PF light brick on the desk! The best long-term effect is that I have strong hands, so my dad got me to fit a new gas pipe in his camper van the other day because my hands are stronger than his. Mark

Up to £2700/year for me. It used to work as a monthly budget but in recent years it has been concentrated in fewer larger purchases, so some months I am ahead of budget and other months a bit behind it. I tend to spend a few hundred pounds at Shop@home when I place an order - saves paying postage twice! I see LEGO as an obsolescence market for parts - parts are only available in sets for a couple of years. Their continuation after that depends on another set using them, which depends on the new set designs within TLG. Sometimes our lobbying can influence a set to include the best parts, Emerald Night 10194 being a good example. Because of the obsolescence I consider how many of a piece I need and buy that many before it disappears. I also take maximum advantage of bargains and have been known to buy more than ten of one set (others do this even more than me!). A large proportion of what I buy is for my railway layout, which will measure 16ft x 12ft at 8mm:1ft scale. A big project needs a lot of bricks! I haven't yet sold any LEGO. I would have to determine that I had a large surplus of something before doing that, as well as being prepared to commit the time to running a Bricklink store (being able to respond to emails every day rather than 2-3 times a week). Mark

That's a relief. Just a matter of smoothing the bands then. I assume the loco ran smoothly (despite the rougher sound) and didn't rock without the bands? Did you try it on straights rather than the flexi-track? If the friction of the wheels is sufficient to move the rods with no slippage, then I recommend two train motors under the carriage instead of motorising the engine, as long as the engine is dedicated to that train. Mark

For a heavy car I recommend that you attach one motor to each wheel and suspend the lot on each side, leaving out transmission altogether. I had conceived such a scheme for an 8x8 truck using the largest wheels from 8466 off-roader and one XL motor per wheel, though I might make it one medium PF motor per wheel for more speed if the power requirement is lower. The electrics would sort out any differential speed between wheels when cornering. Standard LEGO axles and uni-joints just weren't made for power transmission. That's one reason why the first RC car with suspension used the 52192 motors rather than having a differential gear. Remember that an XL motor can twist a 3M axle, so the shorter the axle the better, though it has to be at least 3M in order to go through a frame so you could attach each motor and wheel assembly to the suspension. Mark

Makes it even more realistic! That happens in crucifixion. Great MOC. Mark

I saw an Emerald Night at an event recently. When I moved it along the track it rocked, such that the front bogie moved about relative to the body of the loco. I wondered whether the rocking was caused by either a slight squashing of the driving wheels (shape slightly ovoid rather than perfectly circular) or variation in the thickness of the red belts fitted around them. BBB wheels have not suffered from this effect. Either way, I wonder about its stability at high cornering speeds. I would be inclined to put train motors under the coach rather than powering the driving wheels. The design of a loco in a set has certain compromises that I would not make in my own MoCs. The Emerald Night has its driving wheels fixed rigidly to the loco body. Many AFOL MoCs use more articulation to improve stability. Mark

OK, we've established that a LEGO MoC can fly for a short distance if it drives fast enough off a ramp, but can a LEGO creation fly under its own power? I did a few experiments to see. The first was to create a replica of a bird toy, with dual flapping wings. The idea is to force air backwards and down at an angle, whilst making the wings suitable for gliding, which is what the toy does when the wings stop flapping. Unfortunately LEGO is rather heavier than the polystyrene body of the toy. I have obtained some thrust from the wings but not enough to move the model. The other experiments involve propellers, using a 4000 RPM motor. The aim is to make a quad rotor helicopter like the fire service use with a camera for looking into burning buildings. 3- or 4-blade town propellers do not provide much thrust. 4x8 plates with 12 studs on top provide more thrust. I put 3 at angles on some 24mm pulleys. The first go ended up with a blade-off incident. Good job it didn't fly off in my direction! I fixed the plates more securely and got more thrust out of it. Still not enough to lift the weight of the motor and propeller when dangled over a table though. I tried with some of the blue polypropylene sheets from the Technic Mars Rover. These are light, but not efficient as propeller blades, even with axles supporting their shape. I might try with two of the sheets with something between them, in order to try a wing shape. I think aerodynamics is the key to this. I have other experiments but the blades are not very aerodynamic because they use the underside of plates. There was a 1-piece propeller from a Technic plane years ago. Would this provide some real thrust? I'll have to check on some scales how much thrust each experiment produces, as well as taking some pictures of the models. Mark

I agree. Pneumatics and LAs each have their best uses. LAs are taking over much of the territory of pneumatics in sets. Before Power Functions, LAs would have been too expensive to produce. Their complementary effect on the PF medium motor (selling more motors, keeping motor volume cost down) has removed that cost barrier. The Excavator 8294 is a prime example of a set that needs a motor to go with its LAs, but the two work so well together. Previously, excavators were pneumatic (8455, 8851). Pneumatics are best in applications that require full linear travel, such as rail points control. I have used pneumatic control for my points in places where there is room to hide the pneumatics underneath the track. I have used only the bottom nozzle of the cylinders because the top nozzle is prone to leakage (in up to 1/3 of the cylinders in my 10 8455s). This means I have set two cylinders end to end to push the point actuator. For the crossover track I have used four pairs of cylinders to achieve a good centre position (both tracks straight) as well as both diversionary positions. The other reason for using pneumatics is that it avoids electrical system obsolescence, considering that I need to support the mechanisms for more than 10 years! It is possible to do automatic robots with pneumatic finite state machines. My Pick and Place Robot is an example of this. All electronic logic gates can be done with LEGO pneumatics. It is also possible to get pneumatics to stop in the middle but it is not nearly as easy as it is with LAs. It would be a real shame to lose pneumatics in favour of LAs. Power Functions can complement pneumatics. With the more powerful XL motor it is possible to get some serious power from a Pneumatic Pump, rather than using a car tyre air compressor (if you do that, get one with a pressure limiter, not just a gauge, and set the limiter to 20-25psi). BTW it was the alternative model of crane truck 8868 that got me into automatic pneumatic models. Mark