Emerald Night: quick question

[Missing Brick]

Just my two cents:

I couldn't face ruining the model as per the official instructions: having that huge ugly XL motor sticking out of the cab with the ugly wires floating in space across to the ugly battery box sticking out the top of the tender. Ugly ugly. No thanks.

Instead I put the battery box and PF-train motor in the first passenger car, IR receiver in the tender disguised under the coal, and LED lights in the engine - including one LED behind the boiler so it looks like the furnace fire is burning. The only drawbacks are the low level wires running between the 3 cars and the batt box filling half the first passenger car - but it's still much less visible than the official lego method.

The trick to making the PF-train motor work well is to add some ballast weight directly above the powered bogie to prevent wheel-spin. The battery box isn't heavy enough itself. So I use lead weight string - from a curtain shop. This can easily be cut to the optimum weight and is flexible enough to coil up below the window line. So mine has no problem pulling 3 passenger carriages while pushing the tender and engine. And I get to keep all the cab and tender details - plus I have a boiler that lights up.

[Spitfire2865]

The battery box isnt too hard to hide in the tender. I disguised mine as coal. It was easy!

[galacticslave]

I'm going to have a powered luggage/postal van as the first coach behind the engine.

[Daedalus304]

Daedalus, that looks very good! I can't buy two sets to make one, so widening the whole train is out of the question for me, but maybe lengthening the tender might by the best solution. If I understood your pics right, and from looking at the tender's instructions, you lengthened it only two studs? Would that be enough to accommodate the battery pack and IR receiver? The best thing about this solution is that I don't have to mess with the furnace in the loco - I was also wondering how the blazes I would manage to run the cable around it to the tender. The only drawback is the lights; with everything in the tender, I'll have the same issues with the cable from the lights. But honestly, maybe I should consider ditching the lights, or maybe, going for a non-Lego solution for the lights up front.

Thanks for all the feedback, all this info will help a LOT when it's time to start bricking.

Actually, that tender is 6 studs longer and a brick taller. There is enough wiggle room in there that you could probably fit everything in there with only 4 studs extra length, but I strongly suggest you make it taller so it looks nicer. If you want I can play around in LDD and make a shorter 7-wide version of my tender, that should work perfectly.

[Werlu Ulcur]

The trick to making the PF-train motor work well is to add some ballast weight directly above the powered bogie to prevent wheel-spin.

Noted! I didn't have any issues with my red and yellow cargo engines, but I'll keep this in mind when I assemble my EN (which BTW, I haven't even ordered yet - my cc needs DESPERATELY to cool down first ).

Actually, that tender is 6 studs longer and a brick taller. There is enough wiggle room in there that you could probably fit everything in there with only 4 studs extra length, but I strongly suggest you make it taller so it looks nicer. If you want I can play around in LDD and make a shorter 7-wide version of my tender, that should work perfectly.

That would be GREATLY appreciated, if you could. But won't it look a bit weird 7 studs wide while the loco is 6 studs wide? If possible I would like to make it as "integrated" with the loco (the principal star of the show IMO) as possible. And of course, use the less bricks as possible - my spendings at BL for "just some parts to make a set better" are getting expensive .

[Daedalus304]

Noted! I didn't have any issues with my red and yellow cargo engines, but I'll keep this in mind when I assemble my EN (which BTW, I haven't even ordered yet - my cc needs DESPERATELY to cool down first ).

That would be GREATLY appreciated, if you could. But won't it look a bit weird 7 studs wide while the loco is 6 studs wide? If possible I would like to make it as "integrated" with the loco (the principal star of the show IMO) as possible. And of course, use the less bricks as possible - my spendings at BL for "just some parts to make a set better" are getting expensive .

Ah, the great thing about that is that the Emerald Night actually really is more of a 7-wide loco, bordering on 8. The cab itself 7 studs wide, which means that a 7-stud wide tender would actually fit perfectly. I'll do my best to keep the parts number down for you, too.

[Werlu Ulcur]

Thanks buddy! I'm dieing to see this!

[Daedalus304]

Thanks buddy! I'm dieing to see this!

Haha! Well, hopefully you managed to survive long enough, because it's more or less done!

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Daedalus304/Trainystuff/7-wide_emerald_tender.lxf

I put in the PF receiver and a stand-in battery box just to help demonstrate how it would fit. I tried to use as many pieces off the standard tender as I could and not bring in too many extras, but in the end the design should be flexible for your needs. This design allows you to fit the whole PF ordeal in one decently sized tender. It's the same width as the EN cabin, so it should fit in just perfectly. You might actually be able to squeeze a wire for your PF lights over the top of the firebox (Or mod the design a little to make it work), but either way there is room in the tender for you to run the wires for that between the battery box and tender walls; I really wanted this to be versatile for you. Obviously you can build/mod my design however you want to, though; or just ask if you want any help.

The only thing I think needs added is coal greebles on top of the battery box, but this LXF was meant to be a bit simpler than that. You have plenty of room though so go nuts! I hope this is what you were looking for!!

[zephyr1934]

That was short work on the tender, and good job stashing the IR receiver.

[Werlu Ulcur]

Friggentastic Daedalus, thanks a bunch! This is exactly what I needed!

So I guess my EN will have a "power tender" . I'll try to get the extras at the same time when I get the set, so that I can put the whole thing together at once. I'm also looking into a way of implementing some 9v lights in the loco - I'm confident that using a non-Lego solution would be easy to do, and NO WIRES to the tender. But I'll have to figure that out on the fly.

Thanks everyone (and specially Daedalus) for the feedback, it's not always that you get the opportunity of knowing what do to to a set to make it better even before you get it .

[Missing Brick]

Nice lxf Daedalus, however, in my experience, single axle bogies tend to be unstable, since there is zero force to keep the axle perpendicular to the tracks. As a result they tend to derail - particularly when being pushed. So I think your original arrangement with a pair of double axle bogies is better.

The other thing about having the batt box in the tender is the difficulty disguising the grey 2x2 connector and ribbon cable. It requires a huge pile of 'coal' extending above the height of the tender walls. Hence my preference for housing the batteries in the first carriage where they can be easily hidden - eg. by making half the car a windowless kitchen / guard's compartment.

[Daedalus304]

Nice lxf Daedalus, however, in my experience, single axle bogies tend to be unstable, since there is zero force to keep the axle perpendicular to the tracks. As a result they tend to derail - particularly when being pushed. So I think your original arrangement with a pair of double axle bogies is better.

The other thing about having the batt box in the tender is the difficulty disguising the grey 2x2 connector and ribbon cable. It requires a huge pile of 'coal' extending above the height of the tender walls. Hence my preference for housing the batteries in the first carriage where they can be easily hidden - eg. by making half the car a windowless kitchen / guard's compartment.

Thanks, Missing Brick. I don't imagine that should be much of a problem with this design - I haven't tested it with actual bricks, but my 2-6-6-2 mallet engine is pushed just fine from it's single axle trailing truck. I think the key is the amount of vertical movement the axle is capable of, and with this tender design and the way the EN is built, there isn't any room for those wheels to move up and jump the track, especially because of the weight they've got on them.

Covering the wire completely is tricky yes, but less so on this version than the original EN, as there is a whole extra brick's worth of tender height to work with.

Edited March 21, 2013 by Daedalus304