Elphiel

Most interesting are the color plates inside the tracks in front or after each "station" or "crossing". Looks like lego is building color sensors now into duplo trains? Interesting how that might translate to city Lego trains in 2025.

I did myself a little work in progress conversion of my Orient Express to 7-wide. Had the issue too, that the train was too wide for my oldschool train stations and also looked way to fat comapared to the regular LEGO trains. Also slimed down the coal tender a bit while keeping the top 8-wide and removed the outer rod from the loco. Not as beautiful anymore but now it wont touch my station platfroms. Works well and slimmer looks even better. Will order correct colored and a bit optimised parts when I got time and money XD

Great. Same plan like i have. Getting two OE sets and put the Croc in front. Will also recolor one of the Bar coaches with a tan upper half between the citiy names and doors like the new Venice Simplon OE are.

First sorry for resurrecting an older Thread but does someone ever tried out the new all plastic wheels but with a short metal axle inside each separate wheel replacing the plastic part. Like, taking an old wheel, drill out the hole to the diameter of the new plastic bar and fit in a short metal axle. Idea is to combine the advantages of both worlds. Independent movement of each wheels for better transition in curves (especially R40 curves and switches) combined with lower friction between axle and plastic wheel holder like in the old train wheels. I don't want to delve into the ball bearing area and actually do like the new wheels, because of the many R40 curves in my layouts I build in my living room from time to time. And now with the Orient Express on the horizon and the official 'wont run well in our tracks' thing, I gave it some new thoughts because I really would love to have this train with multiple wagons driving around in circles :)

Well that is looking very nice! What annoys me most on the leaked OE is that the engine is the same color as the rest of the train. It just looks very boring. So without its own color and its small size compared to these very large (atleast for an official lego design) waggons, the crocodile just looks much better in proportions and color mix. Will get the OE for sure one or two times for the carriages and thinking about selling the engines or keep one for a different train idea.

That is one very nice and easy to use software it seems. Always wished for some easy point and click software to get some automated movement for my trains. Never wanted to get deep into programing and was looking forward for someone to build some simple software like you did. Looks like quite some effort with some real nice result. Sadly I live in a macOS only world. So cant test it :( If you ever get a version that runs on macOS I will be all in ;)

Got my Titanic quite early and enjoyed the build alot. Now she has a nice place on my dresser where I see her bow everytime I enter the room. So after some days it starts to bug me a little how triangle shaped it is with that small gap where it reaches the max hull width. I think the back is much more elegand shaped. So Im thinking to modifiy the front part to give it a little more curve, like on the real titanic. Anyone else feel the same?

You can still achieve what you want. You can pair both HUbs to one remote on the same "channel" (indicated by selecting same color on each hub pressing the green button several times to switch through them) If you put Motor 1 on A of its HUB and Motor 2 on B of its HUB you can control both motors with the same remote. Just turn one dial upside down and you simply increase and decrease the speed by pushing both buttons (plus on one side and minus on the other) at the same time. Other then that, from my experience you don't even need to use two motors for a 6 double long 60197 train, if you replace the motor on one end with a dummy boogie. @XG BC: You can use multiple hubs with same remote on same "channel" with powered up. You could even put a motor on every HUBs A port and with pushing the remote button, all of them would activate simultaneously. The only thing that does not exist like with power functions is a "reverse" modul to put in between, to avoid both motors going each into opposite directions if installed on the same train engine. Thats where you would need the method described above.

Depends if you have enough free straight space after your curve and are willing to cut your r40 lego switches, you could modify four of your switches to build this:

You simple give the motor negative values. So while one motor gets values from 1 to 100 the other will get values from -1 to -100. Use a variable for that. the throttle controls the variable. one motor gets the pure variable value while the other gets the value multiplied by -1.

Well read again. You want to control, your train with one + and on - button of the white controller. Thats what you can do with the powered up app. You don't use the app as controller. You use the white lego controller, jsut that the apps translates your buttons to multiple motors in any directions you want. you cnonne ct the white controler and the hub with its two plugged on motors (or even another hup with more motors) to the app. and then you write a program where hitting the + button on your white remote starts every connected motor to run at your desired speed in your desired direction.

Use the PoweredUp App and connect your Controller and hup to it. Then you can do exactly what you want without turning the motor, soldering anything and so on. Look into the Powered Up Thread. I created a PoweredUp app doing exactly this.

Bottom left is the program start. I wanted the first thing the program does is initiate a variable with the start value of 0. Perhaps something leftover from my IT education. All other parts of the program only start on a specific trigger and don't set a variable, but modify one based on the previous value. I felt that I should set the variables start value before I start to modify it. Like: { X will be X +1 / If X was 0 the result would be 1 as intendet / but if X was 56 for whatever leftover reason the result would be 57, what i did not intended} So without initiating a variable with a start calue, it would modifiy the variable with whatever value had before (Because it could be pretty much anything) So this could be the reason, why you got results like "Sometimes the power would step properly and sometimes it just went from 0 to 100 or vice versa." Because you start the program. click on button and it adds 10 to say a value of 90 that was left over in the variable. Then the first + click will bring the train up to max speed from nothing. By starting the whole program setting the variable to 0, you avoid weird behavior. About the normal connection without the App. Its still working but i had the same problem you ahd some days ago with my nephew on a visit. I wanted the two remote controling the three trains I have like before but it took me some atemts to get the second hup connected to the same controller. In the end I managed it with some kind of reset of the hub and controller. I believe it was something about holding the button 5 seconds.

Hi, The smartphone or the device that runs the App is the main control hub and every Powered Up device is connected to the app. So if I set my iPhone on stand-by for example, the program stops. All devices (my trains and controller) stay connected but won't run anymore or stop running as soon as I set the phone on standby. Whats nice is, that the program on the phone remembers the position of the connected devices even of they are not turned on or are connected. For example. I just turned on the train on hub3 and the controller on "hub2" in my program, and it works like before. No number or position shifting. The hub1 slots simply stays grey until i turn it on. Then I have to manually select it in the app to for it to connect. the program stops again and i can restart it now with both trains again. So the device running the Powered Up App needs to be in reach of the trains and controllers. I tested what happens if I shut down the controller while the trains are running and it also will stop the program even if the trains stay connected. At least I could extend the range of the controller/remote to the trains to about 3 rooms if I put my phone in between. Bluetooth isn't know for its range but who knows perhaps there are some devices out there with a quite strong BT antenna what could expand the range even further. :edit: Just found out we can also change the color of the Controller LED like with the bigger Move hub. At least thats how its set in the App. Cool stuff ahead :) Now lets see if I can access the green button somehow too :)

HI, first post of a long time reader. I just wanted to share my experience with the new 3.1 Update of the App and the option to implement remotes. A feature I was waiting for quite some time to control a multi engine train with a single App. I know of the Win10 Automation Software that can do that but it was quite overkill for my smaller needs and als not compatible with my macOS only environment here at home. Thanks to corona I had the whole day searching for info on how to get a little program running controlling my two 60197 Trains with a singe + and - button from one remote. That was quite the way LEGO wanted it to be without documentation whatsoever. So try and error it was. Because it took me quite some time I thought about sharing my experience here as my first contribution to the community. (bottom left: introduce speed variable, top left: acceleration +10 with 100 as max (because it would go higher but the motor does not) ,top right: deceleration -10, bottom right: stop. middle: set speed to motors) So that little orange controller icon is the new block for the remote that simply connects to the app like any hub does. As soon as its implemented into an operation block the options get the controller buttons as icons. What I found out: - The controller needs to be selected with the hub selector block if its not the first device in the connection list. Here my controller is the second connected device in the list hence its number 02 - One can use the 'StartOnTrue' block to read the button which will continuously execution the programmed command giving the train some sort of acceleration as long as the button is pressed. - Or like I have done with the 'StartOnEdge' block that only executes the program one time no matter how long you keep pushing the button. SO it is more in line with how the controller works originally. What I still like to find out: - The A or B selection on the controller selection block defines what of the two sides of the controller it will read. Interestingly on can choose the green button as criteria too but because I have to select A or B it never reads that green button, or I simply don't know how to read it. - Would be nice to know if I could also change the LED color of the controller. Would be a nice feedback option for automated train switches or anything else. Hope this is helpful. -Elphiel :)