2-8-8-4 AC-9 "yellowstone"

[Ropefish]

After almost a week of building Version whatever of the AC-9 is now ( mostly ) complete. However I am missing a set of flanged drivers, Electronics, lights, running gear, and one of those round 3x3 Black tiles that didn't become available till after i got all my parts! and some track but all in good time. I am 90% sure that it should run on R104 but 50% of all statistics are made up. A lot of shaping and internal structure didn't change all to much but little happy accidents happened here and there that really gave way to a good looking boiler ontop of being much more solid then originally intended resulting in me having to actually /reduce/ the connections to the external plats here and there. The front was also modified in its connection and the 'monkey' deck lowered a plate for the boiler to swing without  knocking into stuff. Also do not mind the boiler pointing a bit further up then normal i placed tile under it to lift it up for the time being.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Ropefish
Photo of boiler plate and cab

[Murdoch17]

Awesome work, can't wait to see it 100% done.

Also, love the clip you added. That cartoon was my childhood... I remember when it first premiered in 1999. (when I was 5!)

[Ropefish]

Little sneak of my continued work, most of the LED's have been placed and routed, just waiting on the PFx Brick to come in to start programming away. It will be a week or so till my printer finally ships out due to some delays sadly so the running gear is on standby still but the train should be operational by then... now to just find some space to put up a loop of track.

[Ropefish]

Boiler light test by R0P3-F15H, on Flickr

Edited April 30, 2022 by Ropefish

[Ropefish]

another update, got the rest of the wheels ( shout out to Brick Train Depot ) and half a circle of R104 track in and had to move the linkage  from the boiler to the fore drivers back a touch and it goes over smoothly.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Ropefish

[High_Admiral]

Amazing work. How's her performance? 

[Ropefish]

1 hour ago, High_Admiral said:

Amazing work. How's her performance? 

So far she can run fine but I have not been able to do any extensive testing with both motors, Still waiting on the PFx Brick and need to finish a test loop of track but I do not expect any major complications.

edit: forgot to add, the front drivers are only connected by a Universal Joint and a Technic Linkage arm ( 2739a ) and i was not expecting it to hold itself together as well as it did! Though I am going to replace the modified lego tile with hole piece with a 3d printed bit as it just is not long enough.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Ropefish

[Ropefish]

getting real close now, all the parts for the driving gear are printed now and being assembled, quick video of the first set running. It did take some time to get them running well and the motor struggles a bit when it runs both sets, however when the tender pushes along with the drivers it runs a lot smoother.
 

 

[Ropefish]

The locomotive is now 99.5% complete, finalizing some stuff with Okbrickworks and ill have some decals to top off the build! in the meantime this is a demonstration of the train running.
 

Now one thing you might notice here, why isn't the chuffing synced? well, that's because either A. im to dumb or B. there is no way to do what i want with the PFx brick. I originally was using gated looping for the locomotive, however this presented the problem of the chuffing starting to early in slow speeds or when stopped ( it takes a bit for the motors to start moving the weight of the locomotive ) or when it gets up to full speed the gating sounds horrible and tries to reply the sound to fast. Indexed playback solves this slightly in that I can have the audio I want at the steps I want... however... Indexed playback has a bit of a bug where if you change at what point the step transitions to the next with its sliders, it resets all index slider and notch count settings when the brick restarts, there is also no way to have a notch be a gated playback loop, which I ideally want to do having a gated playback of a slow and fast chuff between stopped/slow and full speed sound effects. Maybe I can wrangle the attention of PFx bricks about this, but for now it  is mostly what I want and can't really complain about that.

You might also noticed the front driver segment is no longer powered, I was running into far to many issues on R104 tests where the drivers needed to space just slightly in or out which the universal joint did not allow for and the added gearing caused a whole lot more strain. So i redid the gearing and at least now the weighted driver on the main driver set is powered so there is still a rule of cool. Compromises had to be made and I'm just glad they did not involve an entire redesign

Edited May 27, 2022 by Ropefish

[Paperinik77pk]

It's huge, big and...great! Fantastic locomotive with a really really interesting rods solution - the sound circuit is a fantastic addition to an already spectacular locomotive! 

Ciao!

Davide

[XG BC]

now lets see this go around r40 ;-). jk. nice work.

[Ropefish]

On 6/5/2022 at 5:01 PM, Paperinik77pk said:

It's huge, big and...great! Fantastic locomotive with a really really interesting rods solution - the sound circuit is a fantastic addition to an already spectacular locomotive! 

Ciao!

Davide

hah hah thank you, i really wanted to go big with the sound for such a project and the PFx brick was worth it despite some issues i have with it.
 

 

On 6/5/2022 at 5:32 PM, XG BC said:

now lets see this go around r40 ;-). jk. nice work.

Hah, well Im glad it runs on R104 but i think it might run worse on anything smaller!


The locomotive is 100% done now, though I will wait to get a large paper backdrop to get some better photos for a finished post plus some video of it running! in the meantime enjoy some images and this album i threw together
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzTrbm

[ColletArrow]

What a locomotive! 

The middle picture is taken from enough of a distance it's barely detectable as LEGO, just a fantastic model! Of course the rods and decals help a lot with that, they prefectly enhance the model - and the lighting is the icing on the cake, it stands out beautifully.

I'm already looking forward to your pictures and video!

[bogieman]

Agree with ColletArrow, very nicely done. Love all the LED's you've added.

[Craig Strader]

Did you build this to a certain scale or did you just decided to just build it? It looks like to me that you built it slightly larger than 1/48th scale

[Ropefish]

18 hours ago, Craig Strader said:

Did you build this to a certain scale or did you just decided to just build it? It looks like to me that you built it slightly larger than 1/48th scale

it started at around 1/48th but is probably just a bit off due to lego being lego.... I focused more on wanting to get details in then going for a perfect scale, even among O scale different brands have slightly different scales between models so i don't min d it to much. Granted i don't have a layout to put it on for any comparisons but it should be fine, i made some compromises to get it to what i had pictured in my head haha.

[Ropefish]

AC-9 test ( reupload) by R0P3-F15H, on Flickr

Finally got a test loop and well she runs so well i was surprised, I did apparently forget some traction o rings but i also need some oil to put on the driving gear and axles as its super squeaky, i also feel ( though i muted the audio ) that the audio blends with the XL motor in the tender a bit well... speaking of switching the tenders L to an XL gave it torque needed which resolved some tests i ran where the tender was moving faster then the locomotive! overall im really happy it runs, i can't seem to get the IR to work at the moment but i need to dig around in the firmware probably.

Edit: well the video insert isn't working so ill just leave it as a plain link i guess?

Edited July 10, 2022 by Ropefish

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Wow, I had completely skipped this topic, and only now I'm seeing all the design and construction phases!

I'm lucky to have immediately seen the video and the photos with the (wonderful) final result.

The articulated solution of the plungers is fascinating and the lights are the icing on the cake!

[Ropefish]

10 hours ago, LEGO Train 12 Volts said:

Wow, I had completely skipped this topic, and only now I'm seeing all the design and construction phases!

I'm lucky to have immediately seen the video and the photos with the (wonderful) final result.

The articulated solution of the plungers is fascinating and the lights are the icing on the cake!

haha thank you! turns out i uploaded a smaller video before! so now you can see it even bigger-er this time o/

[bogieman]

Beautiful locomotive, the lighting and valve gear are wonderful! Love it.

In the pictures it looks like there is no vertical connection between the loco frame and the trailing truck so no weight on that truck but it is pinned to the rear set of drivers and then the tender is linked to it. Does that cause any running problems when pulling a train - I'd be concerned that truck would derail without any vertical load and tractive forces passing thru it.

Dave

 

[Ropefish]

4 hours ago, bogieman said:

Beautiful locomotive, the lighting and valve gear are wonderful! Love it.

In the pictures it looks like there is no vertical connection between the loco frame and the trailing truck so no weight on that truck but it is pinned to the rear set of drivers and then the tender is linked to it. Does that cause any running problems when pulling a train - I'd be concerned that truck would derail without any vertical load and tractive forces passing thru it.

Dave

 

so far there isn't, but the tender has its own motor wich pushes into the locomotive itself....  so i have yet to see what will happen under load but have a few solutions if it comes to it!

[Ropefish]

Well it’s been a while! Lots of stuff in love got all funky but I’ve recently done a minor external and major internal rebuild of the AC-9! I’ll be uploading more photos soon (maybe) but for now here’s her on display.

 

[zephyr1934]

Looking amazing. Now you just need about 100 PFE reefers and you're all set

[Ropefish]

1 hour ago, zephyr1934 said:

Looking amazing. Now you just need about 100 PFE reefers and you're all set

Oh it’s on the docket but maybe not quite 100!

[Ropefish]

I got a few updates to share in the coming weeks , however I wanted to bring up a subject I’ve not seen! Everyone knows about circuit cubes but CaDa makes their own micro motors with almost the same foot print ( they have a little axle connector that sticks out about a stud ) so I’ve gone ahead and ordered two to attempt powering both driver sets on the project. I was wondering if anyone’s had experience with them as they fit a perfect solution where I want a small motor to run with the larger motor in the tender but off of a power functions connection.

Edited May 7, 2024 by Ropefish
photo hadn't uploaded! e