742-1 110V blue train transformer

[UltraViolet]

  I would like to know if anyone can confirm whether or not the 742-1 110V blue train transformer ever made it to market.  It appeared as a catalog order reference item, but they seem to be unobtainium now.  I also cannot definitively determine which country these were designed to be sold for.  The photos of the box show a dual round pin plug, like much of Europe, but this may have been generic box art.  I have heard it suggested that it might have been for Japan.  Is there anyone out there who owns one of these rarities, or has at least seen a real one in the flesh?

[Andy Glascott]

I’m pretty sure one of the Great Ball Contraption builders uses one, if you look up the Beyond the Brick GBC videos from Brickfair he gets a mention in one of them but I don’t know which one I’m afraid. I saw it sitting behind a module at Brickfair VA last month but three was no one nearby to ask about it. 

[UltraViolet]

On 9/8/2024 at 9:41 PM, Andy Glascott said:

I’m pretty sure one of the Great Ball Contraption builders uses one, if you look up the Beyond the Brick GBC videos from Brickfair he gets a mention in one of them but I don’t know which one I’m afraid. I saw it sitting behind a module at Brickfair VA last month but three was no one nearby to ask about it. 

  I managed to find it in a video, perhaps not the one you had seen.  This shot was in the Brickworld Chicago BTB vid starting at about the 29 minute mark:
LEGO Great Ball Contraption at Brickworld Chicago 2024 (Rube Goldberg Machine) (youtube.com)

  The sign on that table was for Nova-LUG, out of Virginia, so that would make sense from what you said.  It's impossible to know from the video if the blue transformer is actually 110V, or the common 220V using a step-up converter, though.  At least I could contact the LUG to see if they know anything about it.

[Lego48]

I can shed a little bit of light on this question, as I'm the GBC builder with "Big Blue". :-)  I got the transformer along with the old lego 12V train set (blue tracks) somewhere in the early 1970s - maybe 1973?  The transformer itself is model 742; images that I've seen for this are labeled 110V, and in fact the specs on the bottom of the transformer also specify 110V as primary current.  That said, the images also show the transformer with a German electrical plug, which just doesn't make any sense at all since they run 220V - so no idea what they were thinking!  My parents were originally from Germany (I grew up in the U.S.), and my grandmother still lived there - so growing up I went to Germany every couple of years to visit and had the opportunity to buy lego sets there long before they were available in the States.  I'm 99% certain that my parents bought the set in Germany and brought it home, and then my Dad (who was an engineer and pretty handy with tools) probably cut the German plug off and replaced it with an American plug.  Our train set was still running at the family cottage until the pandemic, when it was disassembled and given to my nephew to play with.  I was able to get the transformer back from him when I got into GBC in late 2021, and I noticed that the plug was loose and a bit corroded, so I replaced it myself with a newer plug.  No, there is no step-down or other converter - it simply plugs in to the power strips, and I made my own cable connector for the PF motors using Marklin electrical connector pins.  Any other questions?

Pictures of the bottom and sides:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e5l7J_91d1g3btMG_QVOX3NJLF-Khzi-/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eFu9-zk8h1GRSlgjWi0Ehpr9iFyuPp3o/view?usp=sharing

 

[JopieK]

Great info @Lego48, thanks for sharing and welcome to Eurobricks and Train Tech.

[Lego48]

Happy to share.  I actually found this thread via Google search when I was trying to find more information on the transformer, after someone asked the same question via our LUG website (possibly @UltraViolet?)  When I first got into Great Ball Contraptions (GBCs) in late 2021, I saw everyone using the newer 9V train controllers, and assumed that people were using these to adjust their modules to the GBC standard speed of 1 ball-per-second.  (Nope: they just use them for "on" or "off".)  Seeing this I decided that I could use my old train controller instead, at least for my first module.  In the meantime, I've come up with a better power control solution, but I still like to use my transformer to honor my history with Lego.  Yeah, it will probably die at some point, but I figure keeping it around and not using it at all isn't any different than it being dead, so might as well!  Besides, by using it, it gets seen, and starts fascinating conversations like this one.  ;-)

On 9/8/2024 at 9:41 PM, Andy Glascott said:

I’m pretty sure one of the Great Ball Contraption builders uses one, if you look up the Beyond the Brick GBC videos from Brickfair he gets a mention in one of them but I don’t know which one I’m afraid. I saw it sitting behind a module at Brickfair VA last month but three was no one nearby to ask about it. 

@Andy Glascott:  I'm sorry I missed you - I would have been happy to talk to you about it!  If I wasn't nearby then I was either off getting something to eat, or dealing with an emergency elsewhere in the GBC loop.  I expect to have it out again next year at BrickWorld Chicago (June) and then again at the next BrickFair NOVA (August).  If you're local to the Northern Virginia area, you should look up NOVA-LUG and come to a meeting.

Edited September 19, 2024 by Lego48

[Andy Glascott]

@Lego48 I didn’t have a lot of time at Brickfair, we were there with my 5 year old daughter so attention spans can be short! I’m very familiar with the 12v system, the layout I’m working on will take 3 or 4 of the grey era transformers to power it, all run off a voltage converter… 

I’m in the Richmond area and active in RVALUG, some of the NoVaLug guys are in our Discord and brought some of the boardwalk to our public day in February, I suspect our paths will cross at some point! 

[UltraViolet]

On 9/19/2024 at 11:41 AM, Lego48 said:

Happy to share.  I actually found this thread via Google search when I was trying to find more information on the transformer, after someone asked the same question via our LUG website (possibly @UltraViolet?)  When I first got into Great Ball Contraptions (GBCs) in late 2021, I saw everyone using the newer 9V train controllers, and assumed that people were using these to adjust their modules to the GBC standard speed of 1 ball-per-second.  (Nope: they just use them for "on" or "off".)  Seeing this I decided that I could use my old train controller instead, at least for my first module.  In the meantime, I've come up with a better power control solution, but I still like to use my transformer to honor my history with Lego.  Yeah, it will probably die at some point, but I figure keeping it around and not using it at all isn't any different than it being dead, so might as well!  Besides, by using it, it gets seen, and starts fascinating conversations like this one.  ;-)

@Andy Glascott:  I'm sorry I missed you - I would have been happy to talk to you about it!  If I wasn't nearby then I was either off getting something to eat, or dealing with an emergency elsewhere in the GBC loop.  I expect to have it out again next year at BrickWorld Chicago (June) and then again at the next BrickFair NOVA (August).  If you're local to the Northern Virginia area, you should look up NOVA-LUG and come to a meeting.

I am so overjoyed that you found this forum thread and responded to it, as I was the person who posted the question to the LUG website, and I wasn't sure if I was going to get any response.  I certainly didn't expect to hear directly from the exact person I was seeking out!  Thank-you so much for posting the background story behind your transformer and for the photo of the bottom of the unit proving that it really did exist.  While I would very much like to be able to find one of these 110V transformers myself some day, I'm hard-pressed to believe I will ever see another one of them.  It seems quite unlikely that many were ever sold, and even less likely they would have survived until now.

What I still haven't been able to determine is what country or countries these were intended for.  There were very few countries that ever used the European type-C plug but also had 110V supply.  Japan used the wrong plug, and Brazil hardly had any 110V.  There had been some 110V in parts of Europe until after the Second World War, but I can't find a reference that could say if any of the old standard survived long enough to have still been around in the late 60's.  My best guess is that the box used a generic photo of the version with the European plug, but the actual 742 transformer may have had a different plug.  As your original plug is long since removed, I still can't be sure.

Many thanks again to you, and also to Andy for pointing me to the videos.  I'm much closer now to unravelling this mystery, and there is still slim hope that I ever might own one some day.