LEGO Flex Track HACKS
Vložit
- čas přidán 24. 06. 2024
- Looking for great ways to use your LEGO flexible track? Check out these LEGO Flex Tracks Hacks! In this video, Bricksie gives tips and tricks that can be used to hack your flexible train track! Whether it is curves or straights there is a way to better used your uses flex track to get the job done! Find out how in this How-To video!
- Zábava
Helpful hints from someone that drives a real train...on your curves, slightly raise the outside and/or slightly lower the inside track.
you can build ultra wide (and the most realistic tbh) curves with lego straights and if you want to save on parts they do even bank a little
for 1 step you just need:
-3x1 tile
-1x1 tile
-2x1>1x1 (that 2x1 with 1 stud in the middle)
-2x1
-2 Straights
so the 2x1>1x1 and the 1x1 go onto the 3x1 which you clip right under the outside of the connections from the 2 rails
the 2x1 goes on the other side and the 2 straights aren't connected straight but rather on a slight angle repeat that and you get a really long and big curve that banks naturally :D
oh or you replace the straights with curves and you get a extreamly narrow turn (not good for normal lego trains tho)
That would be extremely difficult with lego tracks... although not impossible. Doing that with curve tracks would probably require the use of flex tracks to account for the slight upward bend needed to place track pieces at an angle.
How is train driving?
That’s a good tip thanks! So the outside doesn’t separate and the inner doesn’t squish
In other words.
Use the flex tracks not as flexible tracks. Use them as extensions.
Yep, and that's a "hack"?
not really, there are multiple ways to fasten them.
also, not always do rails align perfectly, now THATS where flex tracks really shine :)
A weird flex. Lol! I sell it so I can buy more straight tracks. It is indeed frustrating that LEGO no longer makes the straight only packs which they did for over 40 years.
Hi
Bricktsar! Hey!
an alternate bricks shop sells whatever tracks you want at the piece, the bin with the straight tracks is nearly empty after a couple weeks. XD
Well, I use the old, blue tracks; because they are incredibly cheap.
Trix Brix Brilliant.
I was also sceptical of the flex trains but when I saw how my two sons play with them it changed my mind.
Flex tracks are ideal for kids that build and rebuild tracks all the time. They allow for more track variety and they lower the tension within the tracks when built directly on a soft and uneven carpet.
yeah, I’ve been realizing things like how even though the old trains with the metal rails looked cool, the battery is superior since you can easily have multiple trains and different polarity (direction) on a single rail, and can also easily use bricks to make sections of track
These flex seal products are getting weird
RetroSpecter there’s flex coal! In a can!
You took my comment before I wrote it
FLEX BONES!
100 like! And yes,very strange products
Flex slinky
You can also use 2×2 turntables to connect awkward angle tracks to the baseplate.
Little 1x1 bits can work too, or jumper bricks
Nice tips ! Here is one more: You can also use them to split (isolate) your 9V circuit into different section with different voltages for different train speeds. Those flexible tracks are short enough so that the train motor is always in contact with a metallic track.
HELPFUL TIP (I don’t know if it’s in the video or not because I haven’t watched it yet)
Using Flex Track for the track on bridges not only looks realistic, but sounds realistic aswell.
Now THAT is a nice tip!
Yeah because flex track has "check rails" which in real life are used on bridges, tunnels and tight curves, the purpose is to keep a derailed train moving in the same director instead of diverting off of a bridge or into a tunnel wall, would flex track work like that in Lego as check rails? And the clickity clack sound doesn't really exist anymore except on old wooden trestle bridges, but the check rails would be realistic on bridges, tunnels and sharp turns.
They can also bend upwards a bit so you can let your trains go upward a lot cleaner then with straight tracks or in a spiral
Flex tracks:*exists*
Bricksie: flexible tracks is not flexible.
Reminds me of that flexible track for the toy cars that are battery powered
You have just saved me from a lot of experimenting. You are also right about lining up the track to the end of the base plate because it would be easier to move the baseplate separately with the track or models still on it without half the train track being off the baseplate.
I don't even have space for a train in my city 😭😭😭
BrickSpace rip idea though you could just make a straight rail going back and fourth in the city
mine is just a simple loop lol
Make a floating train system that runs above the buildings. Now that I read my idea, I actually want to but I don't have enough lego pieces... unless I use Duplo to hold the track up.
I don’t have space for a city in my train layout 😜😂
Thats why my railway is inside a bathroom
Even in other model railway sets, you get more corners than straights.
But wait there more! It dices it chops it builds for you! Call 1800 flex track now to get in debt now!
Thanks, this will help me out. I think the tracks are slightly overpriced. I could never find a way to place the flex tracks on the studs, my cousin had a bunch
1x1 round studs spaced wherever you can get them with tiles for support in between
Id love using flex track because of the click clack sound it makes that is super nostalgic for trains period but my trains always derail
I love the sound of it
To show you the power of Flex Track, I recreated the Kindertoten!
I dont recognize this Part of CZcams. I did however learn that Lego made traintracks. Thank you CZcams recommended feed
I use flex track for train yards to act as retarders cause they look like the mechanism that grabs the cars wheels as they come down the hill after sorting.
Works great for elevated lines or bridges.I will try the wider curves tonight.thanks.
Thanks for the info. Flex track sure is annoying sometimes.
My preferred way of disposing of flex track is substitute straights with ballasted flex at level crossings.
Two 2x1 jumper plates, a 2x3 plate and a 2x3 tile of your preferred road colour per flex is ideal.
They also flex up and down, which makes them more versatile for gradients, like raising a level crossing by a few plates of height.
You don't have to secure every bit of track to the baseplate and legos have a bit of tolerance built in, so it's usually possible to find a stud here or there to connect two angled things, especially if you include jumpers.
You could also mount a few flex tracks to something solid and have the bits in between be a bit flexible, or connect long plates along the interior of the curve between pieces for a bit of rigidity.
These are awesome tips! Thanks for sharing.
You should check out Bricktracks, trixbrix, 4D bricks. They make custom radius PF curves and really unique switcher tracks. It’s something Lego should have done years ago
and 4d
the track matching with the seams in the plates is a great idea if you are planning on constantly moving the layout either by just rearranging it, by packing it up to take a convention or whatever. if you ate like most people who place layouts of any kind, you are going to place one section down and build from there. so my suggestion is to start the section of track to inbetween the seams so it locks them into place and makes the whole lay out more secure.
I use them to start lifting the rail (for example, through the door sill of the room). Like, setting 2 for flex, then adding under straight uplift segment some tiles or bricks to make support and in the end add from 3 to 6 segments to end the lifting.
You can also use 2x4 or 2x8 plates in the middle of the flex track pieces
For a super wide radius, you can put a single segment of flex track in between each straight segment, but again, some people have hoarded all of the straight sections.
Tbh with the flex track being raised that's kin of accurate to some areas where train tracks are raised above ground level either to level them or to keep them above flood risk
Thanks for the tip. I might use that idea of yours in my LEGO city in the future. :-)
if you straighten the flextracks with tiles at the bottom, I would take the color of the base plate so that it looks more like a rail
Another great video,thanks, I learned a lot about LEGO track in this one. I anted to buy a couple more straight sections and found out you are right, I had to buy a box woth straights, curves, and flex sections. Why can’t they sell just straights. Is there any aftermarket track that you have tried that blends in with LEGO and works well? Thank you Bricksie
OCD.
As a model railroad modeller, I completely would use the flex track differently: I'd make easements into curves.
Instead of 8 curves, I'd use 6 curves and 2x6..8 flextracs to have a smooth transition from straight to curve.
When connectng on the bottom, I'd add light brown 2x1's between the sleepers, simulating sandy railbed.
Using flextrack for "ackward" adjustments is exactly the thing that's NOT ackward. That's what flextrack is for: Smooth S-curves (your "snakes") and adjustments where standard track won't do the job. And those must be plenty, since Lego makes the switches with an ackward zigzag diverting leg.
Hacks? Only the large curve extension, maybe.
Pair them with straight track & you can get perfect wide radius curves
Many thanks for this great video. I was able to take some suggestions with me.
Thanks dude! I’ve been collecting Lego for 40 odd years and only just now got my first train! Appreciate this and all your videos, keep up the good work!😎
Very helpful! Thank you.
I see that this video was made two years ago, so I will stay subscribed to your channel based on more recent videos… however, I actually use these flex tracks a lot and I really love the versatility they add, so to hear someone in your position continue to push that they’re “terrible”, or “ugly”, or “awful” gets annoying pretty quick.
Thanks for the track hack 👍🏻
These are good tips if you want to use your flex track, I have a few hundred pieces of flex tracks that I’ve thrown in a box because it will never be added to my city as it looks and sounds awful and the train loses traction on them. I’ve bought 3D printed R56 and R72 track from trixbrix to build dual tracks and it’s so much better and a good colour match to the Lego track.
good tips love the trains
Thanks for the tip!!
I use my flex track for tight areas that might just need the line angle changed a little.
Thank Jordan these hacks are very helpful 💗💕👍
Why the ICE has an EVGA sticker on it?🤔😄
Nice video thanks. What you have done, essentially, with these horrible flex tracks, is create stable straight tracks out of them, that are 1/4 the length of standard straight tracks.
Just one thing. We all know Pythagoras' theorem: the square of the actual track length equals the sum of the square of the height of a slope (or deviation from the straight) plus the underlying baseplate length - you create small stress points to the track whenever you add angles. If we want to lock track to the base plate (as I do), the four-track-curve locks at the end points of every 90 degrees, which necessitates raising the track one plate and resting the rest of the track on tiles. If you add any flex tracks to this, it is inevitable that you will add stress to the larger curve. Fortunately, because none of the curve other than the two end-points connect to the base plate, this stress is often not very noticeable.
Junctions also require you to raise the track one plate to connect to the base plate, so my whole configuration is always at least one plate above the baseplate. For junctions, the only way to avoid stress is to have a curve as per your video, straightening out the off-ramp immediately, before anything else. If you do that, the junction plus off ramp curve aligns exactly with the straight part at the exit of the junction, and both straight lines align with the base plate. This is a key Lego design and used to be illustrated on boxes in the previous century.
Adding a straight of any kind to the angle of departure before the parallel (as per your video) will cause stress elsewhere along the off ramp track. It is impossible to avoid it, due to Pythagoras, because we are talking about square roots, irrational numbers. It also becomes problematic whether you can force the ensuing straight tracks to attach to the baseplate, because the off ramp straight is now no longer perfectly aligned to the baseplate.
Any "S" track configuration will not align with the base plate, and will create stress. Indeed, if you do an S that ends up straight, and you place straight tracks above both end points, you will notice that the straight tracks are longer. This again is due to the Pythagoras effect.
Lego's curves are extremely tight and far tighter than actual real life rail track. This is due to the fact that the Lego models are rather large-scale. The consequence of this is that some trains (like the white passenger train sticking out of your marshalling yard) can fail to make the curve, or bump into buildings that seem far enough away but aren't, because the wheels of the train aren't configured near its nose. So often, it is actually required to include flex tracks to increase the effective radius of the curve. If you do this, you must do as per your video, which is, have exactly matching configurations of the flex track, and you will still get stress when locking in the end points against the base plates. Sometimes it is actually necessary to avoid unflexing the flex tracks, to help absorb this stress.
Interesting idea to use flex track to increase the curve radius. I would have to cut some straight tracks in half.
I like to use the flex track to make abandoned lines that are old and rusty as my trains make lots of noise going over it just like real trains would going over unstable rusted tracks that havent been used in years
I used em to make a t-crossing
Very helpful video. Thank u
A better hack that wasn’t listed or talked about is to put 2 flex pieces in between every straight track to make a wide radius curve without the need for custom track. Increase the flex pieces to make the curve smaller. This also helps if you want to super elevate curves with plates on the outer edge of the curve.
when you build a curve and it doesn’t really align then you can fill the gap with flex tracks and it fills the gap very well
it can also me used to make unique arched roofs for large builds
It would be nice to buy a box of strictly straight or curved but the #60205 kit is nice having 8 straight and 4 curved, 2:1 ain’t bad. I use a single flex track between each connection. Lengthens the entire set.
If the train can take being raised one plate, can you keep raising the track to go up a hill?
Love your vids
I put it in my tunnels and you get that echo sound
You can also make slopes with it
You know what I think we can do with the Flex tracks we can make an abandoned track siding sitting in an Old Town were there used to be a lot of railroads
Well done awesome vidio
Pretty helpful video.
The only time Id ever use this is if it was on the floor if I build a floor track because that way if there was still an accident like the driver was going too fast or something the damage would be minimal
Nice!
Nice Idea :)
Flex track doesn’t look that realistic either but does help to extend the radius of wider curves as you’ve shown us. I wonder if you can use it in other buildings techniques?
Hey there!
A nice video and a nice train layout!
We should not make it sound as if LEGO blew it when it comes to this part; the fact that you can list all these "hacks", from the many which there are, says how cleverly-designed this piece is.
thanks... nice hacks!
WARNING - Flex-track segments are NOT symmetrical. And this is part of the reason trains run a bit crappy over them. So when using flex-track be sure to orient the segments all in the same direction.
Why do I watch this if have an exam tomorrow?.. I don't even have any Legos
Finnaly everyday content
Nice hints and Awesome video 🙂
However 🙂, I would say there is a problem when you add the single flex-track to the curved part of the switch-track. Then it doesn't go the full 4 studs in length. It also doesn't align the parallel tracks correctly. Instead I would recomment that you only use flex-tracks in straight lines or the full curves.
Another thing with the longer radius turns, you should "always" have 8 studs between the tracks to make the tracks have a good radius in their turns. Take a look at the 4DBrix curved train tracks and see how the illustrations are with theirs.
How I uss flex track: it bends a bit more than normal curved rail, so I use it to make sharper turns.
Very good, best regard :)
This video is very helpfull
Is it legal to make the flex tracks curve up?
I don’t like the Lego flex trax plus they don’t have much in the range of switch’s and others. They stoped making their crossover slips and + crossings. I like this third party manufacturer: www.trixbrix.eu they make the crossovers, + crossings, Dimond, crossings, a big range of Curve radius rails, different points size lengths, 3 way points, double slips, single slips, what I want to make a good Metro city network with. Just look at their website and see what they have.
can you use metal track and plastic and fit them together?
Nice 👍
You could actually use flex track with straight track to make a very very big curve to make the train go at high speeds!!😮
How do your trains get to the main layout
It can used making a bridge
I personally like the sound, it reminds me of a Thomas Wooden Railway engine on the old Clickety Clack Track.
By god I haven’t heard that name in years
@@jerbinatorcc4999 I hear it everyday, I’m part of the hardcore Thomas community
@@TankEngine_12 I am impressed that exists and I’m not surprised
@@jerbinatorcc4999 There’s a reason, as a matter a fact, most of the hardcore fans are teens or older, myself not included in this demographic, but still, the maker of the old show (seasons 1-5 available on Prime) and the original books that inspired the show always said not to shove the morals down the kids throats and that not only would you be writing for the kids, but also the people who had to read these stories again and again for the kids.
Nice
In real life we have flex tape, in lego we have flex tracks,what else
You can make a looping with it
I missed it , how is this flex track called again? Flex track or is it flex track?
Flex Trax Hax
Where do you buy this I don’t see it in amazon?
Are those flexible tracks actual pieces? Or are they custom made
Actual Lego pieces.
Wooo, how could I buy it?
Just saying switch track is called a point
Should be titled flex trax hax
sliding track as :moving to track to a different line?
It doesn’t need to connect to a baseplate if your gonna use straight track
Hey, Phil Swift here for *Flex Track* !
"everyone already has too many curves"
me- only has 3/4ths of a circle of track = not enough curves
I use it if i have a rail like this rail tract rail ofset