Teddy

The buildings are beautiful and the scaling is really interesting. It makes for an excellent cinematic result. The buildings seem to be more in a classic town scale. Although I feel, probably because the buildings look so realistic to me, the vehicles such as the city bus are a bit too large compared to the lovely buildings. Thanks for sharing. Kind regards, Teddy Edit: Hi Brick Miner, I have used that cornering technique quite extensively over the years, and I think I have seen it been used by other AFOLs as well. As you may see on my MOCpage I at least used it for my two railway stations an my library: Link to Mocpages Kind regards, Teddy

Nice detailing and color scheme. Overall a very good build.

I agree, it looks really nice, but the amount of "stickers" is just too much for my liking as well. In my opinion, they dominate the MOC instead of supporting it. Kind regards, Teddy

Hi Toastie, thanks for your reply. I don't want to hijack your topic of your wonderful BR 23 MOD , so if you PM me an email address, I can send you some photos if you want. The train is not finished yet, so I am waiting a bit with showing it. It is my first train MOC, although I built a mini-scale locomotive a while back. Since it is my first 1:45 scale train MOC, I need to figure out a whole lot of basic issues, such as for example putting O-rings on BBB-wheels. Currently, I am quite happy with the look of the concept vehicle, but it still needs some improvements on the detailing. Kind regards, Teddy

Hi Toastie, thanks for your reply! Do you have any photos of the process? On my desk I have a prototype MOC of a BR 01-10 with the new red BBB-XL wheels. I tried powering it both with the medium and XL PF motor respectively, each snuggly hidden out of sight in a vertical position in the coal burning part of the locomotive. The red BBB XL wheels are all geared together out of sight in the under carriage via very small gears so I maintain a "see through" locomotive. Both the medium and XL motor just make the XL-BBB-wheels slip and shock the locomotive extremely slowly over the track. So, I opted for a tender pushed setup with the new 9V PF train motor, this for the time being. I left the medium PF motor in the loco in place. To re-connect it to the BBB_XL-wheels I only have to reconnect a single technic gear. The 9V PF train motor is comparatively fast and smooth, but ideally I would like a locomotive powered train. I live in an apartment building so I do not have all tooling equipment at hand to make the grooves. If I can see what you have done I might be able to use some of the machines at the workshop of the university. Kind regards, Teddy

Thanks for sharing Toastie! :) A fantastic motorized version of this BB BR23, and a wonderful movie. I was wondering how you attached the O-rings/rubber-bands around the BBB-wheels? Dis you glue them or make grooves in the wheels? Kind regards, Teddy

That is a sweet looking train! And a very nice propulsion system. Currently, I am building a BR01-10 along similar lines, so I am quite interested in the performance of the PF medium motor when pulling carts. Kind regards, Teddy

Excellent and effective use of colors and techniques to add texture and dept. My only advice would be to add some additional texturing/dept on the right and left corners of the building. This to "frame" the front facade a bit, and make it better as a stand alone model. Currently, the facade seems to end suddenly at the edges. To me, this is in too much contrast to the elaborate and excellent gate design. Due to this, it seems to me that the building looks better when placed right beside your other building than as stand alone. Hope this helps. Thanks for sharing, kind regards, Teddy

The exterior photos you have shown are fantastic! Do you have any shots of the back and the interior? kind regards, Teddy

Hi SavaTheAggie, thanks for this article! Currently, I am building a BR 01 MOC and found that the new large Lego wheels are still too small for most locomotives of the BR types if one wants to scale the locomotive correctly. I just keep ending up with an oddly proportioned train. Wheel gauge too wide, or wheels too small, giant mini-figs. It just does not fit well together. So I ordered a set containing the XL BBB wheels yesterday, since that size is better for my purpose. Your review gave me confidence in the quality of the BBB wheels. Thanks! Kind regards, Teddy

Thank you for inventing Bricklink. May you rest in peace Dan.

Hi Ralph, thank you for your reply! I can imagine starting as a new assistant professor can be very time consuming. Hopefully, you will have some more spare time for building in the future. The average hight argumentation seems very reasonable to use for the aircraft carrier. It is one I have used in the past explaining the height of a mini-fig at 1:40 when showing my WIP HMS Victory to visiting friends. Currently, I am doing a small side-project of a BR 01 steam locomotive. Personally, I find scaling there is a bit difficult. The new big and old smaller train wheel sizes suggest a scale close to 1:60 - 1:55, but the train track gauge is more like 1:40. So I have been fiddling around with some sort of a hybrid scale. Morphing the train differently in different directions or mis-scaling several parts on purpose. So far I have not been able to find a satisfying compromise. I either end up with an in-my-eyes weirdly morphed locomotive, a small locomotive, or a locomotive with comparatively small wheels. Currently I have settled with 1:55 for the train wheel base and have ordered some new bricks for the top,of which the width will be closer to 1:45 and the length to 1:50. Do you have any ideas/experience on using different scaling in a vehicle? Kind regards, Teddy Hi Edmond, Thanks for your reply. I don't want to hijack the topic of this magnificent ship, but I will give a short off topic reply. yep, next to building the complete interior I am building the entire hull as well, which makes it more time consuming to build the ship. Two years ago me and my girlfriend visited the HMS Victory so we could take photos of the interior. Yes, We spend a holiday in Great-Brittan of which visiting the HMS Victory was one of the main reasons to go. Kind regards, Teddy

Hi Ralph, the ship looks amazing and so do the aircrafts. As you may know I have been building on a MOC of the HMS Victory in scale 1:39 for about 4.5 years now. Other ship builders like Captain Green Hair have adopted a similar scale for large ship building. When I started out 4.5 years ago I did not have a collection to speak off, so I had to buy all bricks I am using for the ship online and in Lego-stores, slowing my progress. My current half a year long building delay however, is mainly caused by writing up papers and my PhD thesis. We had a discussion on scale in another topic, related to car sizes. Since the aircraft carrier is 1:40, do you think 1:40 is a good scale for large scale models? For me it was trial and error to get to 1:39, roughly one foot a stud and mini-figs still look well proportioned compared to the interior spaces. When interpreting detailed plans of the ship the rounding off seems to be very Lego friendly at about 1:39/1:40 as well. Do you have any ideas/comments on this. Kind regards, Taddy

Congratulations!

Hi Mark, I do not understand this sentence. Especially the latter part after "equivalent". Would you care to elaborate. Kind regards, Johan

Hi Rick, this is a really great MOD! I just found it in your flickr folder. Captures the look of the Flying Scotsman very well!

Hi JopieK, do you have an estimate/idea of the cost breakdown of the LEGuanO and its cost bottlenecks? Although 20 Euro is already a very good price point. Kind regards, Teddy

I love Tony his trains. If Lego would decide to sell them as is, I think the price point of the train would be beyond most peoples purchase power. Tony, can you give an guesstimate of the number of bricks involved? For price point estimate, I would think a good guess is: #bricks x 10 = price point estimate. The only way to make them affordable to more people is to sell locomotives and cars separately. But since Lego discontinued that approach a few years back I am unsure if it was a great seller. But maybe nowadays people are more willing to buy stuff online from Lego than a few years back.

Hi JopieK, a Bluetooth connection would be brilliant. And the fact it is already available is just fantastic! The stuff I was contemplating has to do with practical implementation. My PhD is in analog RF-CMOS design. So I was thinking in analog RF circuits and PCB implementation issues. I did my Master of Science in wireless channel modeling and digital baseband algorithms for wireless channel estimation. But if it is already available it can just be used. A Bluetooth RF connection will allow train control even when the train is in a cave and one could build the antenna inside the MOC. Personally, I quite dislike the IR receiver which needs to pop out of the MOC and requires a line of sight connection. In regard to the LiPo, I am talking about Toastie his power pickup ideas: Link to topic on EB Which he is proposing to combine with his RCX ideas published here (page 44 - 62): Railbrick 3 But I guess you are already quite familiar with the ideas of Toastie. I think you are right it is more practical to have the voltage converter on a separate board for footprint reduction. My thinking was also more along the lines of: Not all AFOLs are tech savvy, the LEGO PF uses 9V, it would be easy if the power supply can be easily hooked up to the PF. Kind regards, Teddy

Beautiful! Very well done indeed! I am going to enjoy watching all the photos you took! Thanks for sharing. Kind regards, Teddy

Hi JopieK and Toastie, In regard to my thesis: well writing is not my favorite hobby and it takes me quite some time to get it right. Personally, I prefer to do maths and experiments. JopieK, those specs sounds pretty cool! The board you build is a nice RCX replacement for implementation of Toastie his system ideas. I guess if we would like the board to be used in LEGO MOCs and layouts of other users, it might require a voltage converter to allow it to be fed from the Lego Lipo battery. This can be implemented on a very small separate board, but if you plan a second version of LEGuanO, you might consider adding it to a second version of the board. Does your board have SMD components on both sides of the board, or only on the top layer? If you are planning to do an update of the board I am interested to help. Your experience and effort is a valuable resource for anybody attempting a similar project. I have been playing with the idea of using Atmels, but I felt the software interface might be a problem. The Adruino approach you took solves that. I would be interested in thinking about board dimensions and casing sizes which are still practical for MOCcing, but large enough to contain the electronics. For footprint reduction one could consider PCB board stacking: I think Toastie has a lot of experience with RCX size and integration into MOCs, with his interesting RCX projects. For an RF interface, I expect there are standard RF transceiver ICs with i2c interface which operate in an ISM band that can be hooked up to the Adruino system of JopieK. Some RF questions remain such as: -Strip-line antenna on the PCB or hook up a separate antenna -Single ended or differential inputs. -Matching of the RF-PCB strip-lines -RF and digital isolation/interference -RF losses in IC footprints. -Direct soldering to the PCB -Decoupling caps and pi networks. But those are mainly implementation issues which affect RF throughput, range, and size. And these requirements are dictated by the RF-IC layout and content. Kind regards, Teddy

Hi JopieK, that would be a great idea and I would love to toy around with it. Currently I am writing my PhD thesis, but after February I should have more time for this. It would be fantastic if we could combine it with the ideas of Toastie and Mark Bellis. Get some general platform to combine all the great ideas floating around. Kind regards, Teddy

That is a very elegant and simple method to use the old 9V motor both as a power pick up for a PF system and as a train engine simultaneously.

Thanks for your reply! The Arduinos website looks interesting. I had never heard from them. My experience is in RF design, so with PCB designs I am used to designing them custom for my needs. I am familiar with design packages such as Eagle, Cadence and Mentor. I have never heard of a generalized approach as Aduinos, I looked on their website which looks very interesting. Was it difficult customizing your own board from a standard Aduinos one? Kind regards, Teddy

Hi JopieK, your post is very interesting. did you buy the PCB board or did you design it yourself? It appears there is an Atmel micro-controller on the board which is the main component. The rest looks like it is just there for interfacing. Am I right? Given the amount of components there appears to be a lot of "empty" space on the board, indicating it can be squeezed on a smaller board. Regrettably, The video you posted appears up-side-down on my video player. Kind regards, Teddy