Your experience motorizing Lego set 21344- the Orient Express

[zephyr1934]

 

 

A lot has been said about Lego set 21344- the Orient Express here in the Train Tech forums.

I think just about everyone here was disappointed upon learning that it did not include any official means to motorize the train. Shortly after release several folks came up with MOC solutions to motorize the train, including at least two that have been posted in the lengthy thread:

https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-165803/StijnD/21344-orient-express-motorization-powered-up/#details

https://brickset.com/article/102806/motorising-the-orient-express

 

Now that the set has been out for roughly six months, I'm wondering about the experiences people had with motorization- either using their own design or a design from someone else. With your response, please note what design you used.

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I was inspired to post this question because I just finished motorizing my Orient Express. I would not say I'm completely happy with the results. It works, but it is not without its flaws. I used my own design for the motorization. I kept the form factor of the set (quite the challenge) and took a different approach than the two solutions noted above. Like the others, I used a PU large motor. The two things that set my solution apart is that I used a gear train to transfer power instead of a few more bevel gears, and I managed to squeeze two weight bricks into the design. I doubt my solution offers anything that the already public designs have to offer unless folks have problems with the wheels spinning or bevel gears coming apart.

It was neat to finally see this train moving on its own. I used a 1:1 gear ratio, which resulted in a slow but acceptable speed at full power using the crocodile option in the PU app.

My permanent layout has R72 and R88 loops, but I swapped in a few standard switches and a 90° R40 curve just to see what happens. Not surprisingly, the engine doesn't like the diverging path on switches, and it doesn't like R40 curves. But it generally powers through okay, generally running forward through switches and R40 curves is "good enough" for me. Not great, but I would not hesitate to run this at a show. On my own at home, I would probably run one of my MOC's instead simply because I'm more interested in those other prototypes .

I tried various combinations of drive bands on the flanged drivers: (a) one band on each of the 4 drivers, (b) bands on both drivers on one side, none on the other side, (c) bands on the lead axle no bands on the trailing axle. Each variant had its own strengths and weaknesses. None outperformed the others in all cases.

With my layout on the floor, the tow-ball couplers get annoying pretty quickly.

When shoving the two cars backwards through a diverging switch usually either the tender or locomotive derails for me. If these results are typical for other people that might explain why Lego never released their own motorization solution and made the set strictly a display piece. I don't expect to shove the train like this very often, so while I don't like it, it is not the end of the world for me.

That's my experience so far, with less than an hour of running time. I'm curious what experience others have had with motorizing this set, especially from folks who have many hours of run time.

 

[JopieK]

Thanks for sharing! I think I will build mine in a few weeks... I finished a MOD of the Bricklink Engine yesterday shed so now I need to test the shed with a locomotive :)

[Interceptor]

Hello folks, here is my experience with the 21344 motorization. My primary goal was to use as few additional pieces as possible and to preserve the original appearance. I use the train on a LEGO 9v layout with R40 curves and original switches.

I chose Rebrickable StijnD's (v1.3.) great mod as the base for my modification for the loco nearly half year ago, and I was basically happy with the outcome, although the top speed wasn't enough for my taste. There is an advice in StijnD's post for cheaper rubber bands, but I wanted to keep it original LEGO, so I purchased 4 red rubber bands (same as used on the Emerald Night) and put them on my Orient locomotive's big wheels (one band on each of the 4 drivers) for bigger adheison of the loco. I also thought about adding weight brick, but decided not to because the loco with the PU L motor already felt heavy enough for the job (I use it with the two coaches coming from the set). The bevel gears are not coming apart during operation. I also wanted to have an easier rolling of the coaches, because these are very heavy and permanently struggled in the R40 curves, so I incorporated metal axles with suitable bearing elements and wheels (used on e.g. on Emerald Night coach) into the bogies, and the end result was satisfying. The whole train moved smoother and faster. I tested it 4-5 times with new batteries until full discharge, non-stop. I always used new non-rechargeable AAA batteries. Before switching to metal axels, operating time was only about 1 hour before full discharge. After switching to metal axels, the operating time was appr. 1 hour and 30 minutes each time before full discharge. Switches and curves are still not the train's favourite part of the layout, but overall it can handle them. The train (tender) derailed a few times going forward but I found out that it was mostly caused by the PU wire when it came into contact with the driver minifigure in the loco's cabin in the curves so I put the minifigure on the top of the tender, and since then it has derailed probably only once. Not remember derailing the train going backwards, but this was tested for a very limited time only, so it's not really authoritative.

I am pleased with the end result, and have no plan to further develop my motorized Orient Express.

Edited June 6, 2024 by Interceptor

[Train of Thought Creations]

This thread is nicely timed! I just started running my Orient Express with the Brickset modification for the first time since January this past Wednesday, and decided to see what people were saying about the train on Eurobricks.

Anyway, in my experience, when it runs well, it runs very smoothly. I don't run my trains super fast anyway, so the current speed that it goes at doesn't bother me any. It takes a bit adjustment of the distance between the driving wheels on their axle to find said smooth performance though.
However, to even get it to run well, it needs to be on a completely even, flat surface. When there's any sort of surface inconsistency, like on the carpet, it will often start spinning its wheels in certain spots.

As such, @zephyr1934, may I ask where you put the weight bricks? When I place one weight brick on top of the loco, it seems to help with the wheel slip. I'm not certain where a good spot would be to fit one though (let alone 2!? How'd ya do that!?). If you're willing to share your studio model that would be even more amazing, but I do understand if that it something you wish to keep to yourself.

[zephyr1934]

On 6/7/2024 at 8:20 AM, Train of Thought Creations said:

However, to even get it to run well, it needs to be on a completely even, flat surface. When there's any sort of surface inconsistency, like on the carpet, it will often start spinning its wheels in certain spots.

There is the classic steam engine problem where the pilot and trailing trucks can lift the drivers off the track if the engine goes over a short valley, but the OE loco doesn't have a trailing truck. In theory if you had bands on the rear driver wheel it would be making contact. If so, is it just that it does not have enough weight to get enough traction?

I think some of the "only two bands" combinations that I tested on my build resulted in wheels spinning while going through the diverging leg of a switch (both facing or trailing movements), but most of the time it only briefly stalled, the wheels caught and it moved without my intervention.

 

On 6/7/2024 at 8:20 AM, Train of Thought Creations said:

As such, @zephyr1934, may I ask where you put the weight bricks? When I place one weight brick on top of the loco, it seems to help with the wheel slip. I'm not certain where a good spot would be to fit one though (let alone 2!? How'd ya do that!?). If you're willing to share your studio model that would be even more amazing, but I do understand if that it something you wish to keep to yourself.

Quick answer- the weights are three plates down from the top of the boiler, with the top even with the top of the snotted curved slopes on the side of the boiler. In my build I was able to get the motor a little lower than the two MOD's I mentioned in the first post.

I have no problem sharing, it is just that the file will not be very user friendly. I use LDraw and did not have many of the recent parts in my library. So I only built the inside of the locomotive digitally. I'll need to do some simple clean up on the model and then I'll post it, probably within a week.

[Train of Thought Creations]

Awesome! Thank you for sharing that!

Also, your descriptive answer was plenty understandable for me!

So, if you still want to share the CAD model, that's awesome - but I do not need it, and thus, would not want to make you put extra work into polishing it up.

[zephyr1934]

@Train of Thought Creations and anyone else interested, here's the MOD from the engineer's side (assuming French engineers sit on the right)

And then the fireman's side

Yellow black and gray are existing parts in their original spot, blue is really dark blue parts, green (and that one pink plate I missed) are either new or moved parts. I do not have a PU L motor in my LDraw library so I replaced it with PF and spacers in the file.

When building I started it from the middle driver wheel and slowly disassembled the kit's locomotive as I went. The build is very fragile until you click the boiler sides on... at which point it becomes very hard to disassemble. It retains the form factor of the original set. Motor wire goes over the top of the motor following the gap to the back.

Here's the .mpd LDraw file.

Having run it a bit more, I'm not thrilled with the performance. The PU Hub keeps flashing red as it goes around curves, which I assume is the HUB saying it is not happy with the load. I bet it would run A LOT better with the cars converted to ball bearing wheel sets.

Meanwhile, I made a very important discovery. The pilot truck was causing a HUGE amount of drag. Between the fixed axles for the wheels also used as structural members and the traction bands on the wheels, it is nothing but a literal drag. The best solution would be to rebuild it, but failing that, I just pulled the traction bands off the pilot wheels so the wheels could simply slip along the top of the rails whenever they did not want to cooperate.

I can definitely understand why Lego ultimately did not offer an official motorization, but I also appreciate the fact they built the tender so that it would handle a motorized MOC.

[Train of Thought Creations]

@zephyr1934 Thank you for sharing this in such great detail. After hearing from you that 2 weight bricks and a motor could be successfully fitted, I felt inspired to give it a shot, and see if I could add just 1 weight brick to the design I posed on Brickset. I did have success, and it holds itself together fairly well!

Additionally, with this design I have yet to run into the flashing indicator problem. Something of note: I was told by LEGO customer service back when I was developing the Blue Comet that the blinking light is meant to be a low battery indicator. I spoke with some electrical engineering friends about that, and they told me that a low battery indicator looks for a drop in something, voltage if I remember correctly, and it being under excessive load can cause that - or something like that. My memory about the conversation is foggy, but the one thing that I can say for sure its that the blinking is intended to be a low battery indicator - that as a side effect - is indeed tripped when under excessive load as well.

I can share the studio files here this weekend if you would like to see them.

[idlemarvel]

Flashing orange light is low battery, and flashing red is overload IIRC.

[Train of Thought Creations]

1 hour ago, idlemarvel said:

Flashing orange light is low battery, and flashing red is overload IIRC.

Nice!
I did not know that they had separate indicators for such things.
Do you remember where you found this? Official documentation for Powered Up is shockingly scarce, so I'd love to see the whole document. If you don't remember, then don't worry about it!

[idlemarvel]

13 hours ago, Train of Thought Creations said:

Nice!
I did not know that they had separate indicators for such things.
Do you remember where you found this? Official documentation for Powered Up is shockingly scarce, so I'd love to see the whole document. If you don't remember, then don't worry about it!

I wrote a book about Powered Up! See the pinned topics at the top of this forum to get a free download copy or a link to buy a hardcopy on amazon.

[allanp]

Well, here's how I did it....

Runs great 

[zephyr1934]

23 hours ago, Train of Thought Creations said:

@zephyr1934 Thank you for sharing this in such great detail. After hearing from you that 2 weight bricks and a motor could be successfully fitted, I felt inspired to give it a shot, and see if I could add just 1 weight brick to the design I posed on Brickset. I did have success, and it holds itself together fairly well!

Nice!

I don't plan on rebuilding my locomotive, but it sounds like your build has less internal mechanical resistance so others will likely be interested in your version with the weight brick added. So feel free to post a link in this thread (regardless, I think it would be a great addition to your original Brickset article too).

I'm using brand new rechargeable AAA batteries that were fully charged within 48 hr of my running. I realize rechargeable have a lower max voltage than alkaline, but I doubt it would be a "go/no-go" on a fresh charge.

The blinking light might have been orange rather than red, hard to tell seeing it through the cracks between the bricks while the train was moving. In fact I only knew that it was a warning light because of @idlemarvel's book, which is a fantastic resource (and stupefying why it had to come from the AFOL community instead of Lego... Lego designer in development: "let's build in a lot of great functionality" Lego manager at release: "Documentation? We don't have any budget for that, and why would we want to document anything anyway? It's only good enough, that's the best."). Functionally though, for me it was definitely correlated with low power, after about a half hour of run time the train would stop in the curves. But the hub remained on and after resting the controller on the app I could get it to move sluggishly. Next time round I'll see how long it runs on a fresh charge.

@allanp has some interesting thoughts on improving the piston working and I see he split the axles on the pilot truck too.

[allanp]

22 minutes ago, zephyr1934 said:

 

@allanp has some interesting thoughts on improving the piston working and I see he split the axles on the pilot truck too.

Just some quick thoughts I probably should have made, or made clearer in my video.

You don't really need to split the axles on the pilot truck, I didn't really notice much difference doing that, but guess it doesn't hurt.

Also to help it round corners I chose not to add rubber tyres to the main loco drive wheels. The low torque of the ungeared motor, the high speed gearing plus the weight of the loco is just enough to stop them slipping too much.

I mentioned that I don't fully subscribe to the idea of motors fighting each other, but of course you should always try to gear them to at least be roughly the same. I have seen one motorisation effort which used 2 PF motors linked together via a differential, but as they are linked to spin together at the same speed you really don't need a differential. I did choose the ungeared 9v motor for the loco because it's the only motor I have that spins even remotely fast enough to not bog down the 9v train motor.

[Train of Thought Creations]

8 hours ago, idlemarvel said:

I wrote a book about Powered Up! See the pinned topics at the top of this forum to get a free download copy or a link to buy a hardcopy on amazon.

Woah! That's super cool! I'll give it a look this evening.

42 minutes ago, zephyr1934 said:

I don't plan on rebuilding my locomotive, but it sounds like your build has less internal mechanical resistance so others will likely be interested in your version with the weight brick added. So feel free to post a link in this thread (regardless, I think it would be a great addition to your original Brickset article too).

Alrighty! I'll post the studio model here when I get a chance to clean it up!

As for the article, updating that is out of the scope of the project at this point.
If the comments weren't locked, I would post a link to the updated studio model there though.

[zephyr1934]

On 6/14/2024 at 11:26 AM, Train of Thought Creations said:

Alrighty! I'll post the studio model here when I get a chance to clean it up!

As for the article, updating that is out of the scope of the project at this point.
If the comments weren't locked, I would post a link to the updated studio model there though.

That's too bad that you can't do a follow up on your article, It is a good resource to point new train builders to. Feel free to post a link in this thread. Although it will undoubtedly get lost in the huge number of posts, I think it would be of value to post it on the main Orient Express thread too.

[JHS_NL]

I was thinking of trying the motorization used in this video:

 

[Train of Thought Creations]

18 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

That's too bad that you can't do a follow up on your article, It is a good resource to point new train builders to. Feel free to post a link in this thread. Although it will undoubtedly get lost in the huge number of posts, I think it would be of value to post it on the main Orient Express thread too.

Alrighty! Once I get a chance, I absolutely will post the model in both.
I'm sorry to disappoint with the lack of an update to the article, but I am delighted to know that it has served as a resource that you have sent new builders toward.

Also of note, I still would consider that version a valid design for folks to be directed towards, with the weighted version serving as an alternate, more extreme option for uneven conditions. Most beginning train enthusiasts probably don't have a weight brick handy, so I like still having a finalized version that uses just common parts.

[zephyr1934]

On 6/17/2024 at 1:38 AM, JHS_NL said:

I was thinking of trying the motorization used in this video:

Oh, that's nice too.

[JHS_NL]

I'll build it during the weekend so will let everybody know what my findings are.

[Nuul]

Changing the plastic wheels/axles with the old metal axle ones will help too. Makes it roll much easier!