Mike W
Western Thunderer
We had a family visit to LegoLand at the weekend – for the Grandchildren of course! For anyone without children and thus not able to visit, the MiniWorld area is actually very good indeed. Making models of things which are instantly recognisable, and yet obviously made from Lego must be even more difficult than making a scale model.
Anyway, its not the railway which interested me, but the road vehicles which they claim to be roughly 1:20 scale. As I’m twiddling thumbs waiting to buy a house, I’m sort of idly planning a Gauge 3 garden railway after we move. The LegoLand cars, vans, buses and lorries look crude but work beautifully, gliding along a tarmac road with no visible guidance. According to their website they work like this:
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Cars, lorries and buses all appear to move and steer on their own, never leaving their set paths, yet not using any rails. These operate using cables buried beneath the paths that emit a low-level radio wave specific to each vehicle. The vehicles pick up this signal, and use it to steer. When a vehicle reaches one of the charging points dotted around its track, it stops, and charges its battery for a set amount of time. Outside park opening hours, the vehicles stop on the charging points and recharge overnight.
Unquote
I am no expert at radio control, nor do I wish to be, but can anyone direct me to a website which explains this in a bit more detail? Is it practical for use in a domestic garden? I would of course not want them to work 24x7, just for a few hours occasionally.
Mike
Anyway, its not the railway which interested me, but the road vehicles which they claim to be roughly 1:20 scale. As I’m twiddling thumbs waiting to buy a house, I’m sort of idly planning a Gauge 3 garden railway after we move. The LegoLand cars, vans, buses and lorries look crude but work beautifully, gliding along a tarmac road with no visible guidance. According to their website they work like this:
Quote
Cars, lorries and buses all appear to move and steer on their own, never leaving their set paths, yet not using any rails. These operate using cables buried beneath the paths that emit a low-level radio wave specific to each vehicle. The vehicles pick up this signal, and use it to steer. When a vehicle reaches one of the charging points dotted around its track, it stops, and charges its battery for a set amount of time. Outside park opening hours, the vehicles stop on the charging points and recharge overnight.
Unquote
I am no expert at radio control, nor do I wish to be, but can anyone direct me to a website which explains this in a bit more detail? Is it practical for use in a domestic garden? I would of course not want them to work 24x7, just for a few hours occasionally.
Mike