SillyOldfart

Mmmm. Have one already - its called "The Wife". Seriously, its good to know that this forum is in such regular use, but its a bit worrying when some of the posters are dafter than me!

Ocht! I'm WAY beyond the American definition of old .... at 71. I actually only started building with Lego two years ago, when I was on the lookout for a new desk-top hobby (computers having left me too far behind). I grew up with Meccano but wanted something a bit more modern. The Mercedes Benz Arocs truck took my fancy and I knew I had found a new passion the moment I started building it. I have since motorised it, thanks to Jurgen, and added an SBrick, then moved on to the 42009 Mobile Crane, the 8043 Ultimate Crawler, plus an MOC Mack Low Loader Artic, all fully motorised and remote controlled. Running out of good vehicles to build, I moved on to the endless possibilities of GBCs. I have built Akiyuki's Ball Factory (very trying), to which I have added two more loops with his Pneumatic Module and Berthil's Rainbow Wave, plus a 'back-and-forward' tipper track, all on one 45" x 15" base. I wonder what I'll get up to next!

Yes, I did think about a pole-reverser, but the motor is on the track. There is no room for the motor (and certainly not the battery pack) on the bogie, mainly because the bucket tips.

Hi; I am new to Eurobricks Forum, having been a member of the Lego Forum which doesn't seem to be on-line anymore, so I'll charge straight in. Does anyone know anything about the amperage required to drive an 8883 motor? I dreamed up a special 8871 extension cable with a flip-flop relay inserted such that power to the motor could be reversed by two microswitches - one at each end of a short track. The idea was that a bogie (ie, railway truck) would be driven one way by the motor until it hit the microswitch at the end of the track, then be automatically reversed until it hit the microswitch at the other end, and so on back and forward. The two outer wires (+9v and 0v) carry straight through. The two inner wires are switched between each other by the (heavy duty) relay, with power supplied by the +9v line, to alternate motor direction. The relay works and the correct voltages are evident at the appropriate (light grey) socket terminals, but there is absolutely no movement by the motor. (The motor runs perfectly without the extension cable.) The wiring I used is the same as in the cable, but do I have a current problem, or do the four wires actually do something very different from +9V - +9v rotate clockwise - +9v rotate anticlockwise - 0v??.