Comments for Mike Walsh's LEGO® Blog

Comment on Converting the Emerald Night to 9v by Peter

Peter — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:10:59 +0000

Thanks for your response, Mike. Hope you have a great time with LEGO Palooza.

It finally dawned on me what you meant about smooth pins anyway, using the same little pins that connect most of the other non-powered wheels on the train (duh). For some reason i was picturing smooth axels that went all the way through like the current axels do, but now that i understand i may try out and let you know how it goes.

Looking forward to seeing what you figure out once you find the time to dig in.

Ciao for now.

Comment on AFOL A Blocumentary by AFOL A Blocumentary

AFOL A Blocumentary — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:46:48 +0000

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Comment on Converting the Emerald Night to 9v by Mike Walsh

Mike Walsh — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:35:51 +0000

I have not done any more work on it – my compelling event, LEGO Palooza, was rescheduled due to some unusual winter weather we had here. I expect to get back to it in the next month or so, I will post an update as soon as I can.

Comment on 9v vs RC – which to buy? by Mike Walsh

Mike Walsh — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:34:10 +0000

The latest I have heard is the 2010 Trains will be available later in 2010, probably in the Fall. As to where to buy them - certainly LEGO Shop at Home will sell them and they may also be carried by other retailers. Around me, Toys-R-Us stocked Trains this past holiday season.

Comment on Converting the Emerald Night to 9v by Peter

Peter — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:45:06 +0000

Hi Mike

Did you ever try out your idea of replacing the axels with smooth pins to reduce friction? How would that work, anyway? I don’t know of any smooth pins that would still have the crosshair style connections on the end required for connecting to the large wheels.

I’ve tried various mods to eliminate friction and run this train with on 9v motor in the tender (similar to your design), but the train crawls at best, unless i add some weight to the tender. These include eliminating friction caused by the piston rods in the front, disconnecting the gears, and even trying a 90 degree offset of the wheel assemblies instead of the 45 degree offset mentioned in the original instructions, but none of these mods has really helped.

Any other ideas?