We're already into the second month of 2025, yet it's not too late to wish everyone a very happy new year!  We think 2025 is going to be both exciting and important for Fx Bricks. We have several products soon to be launched including many in active development.  Let's catch up on what we've been up to.

Fx Track

Good news! New production batches of P40 switches have already started and are actively be assembled tested and packaged. We hope to have these in the store as soon as we can. We've made some improvements to the mold for better consistency and manufacturing yield which should help the final assembly process.  New track elements such as the R136 and R152 are also in production and the last batch of R136 is just about ready for release. We're doing our best to keep up with stock—but if you see an out of stock item, you can sign up for instant notification of new stock on each product page.

Metal Wheelset

Having metal track is awesome—especially if you can actually take power from it! We're still actively developing a motor bogie as well as passive metal wheel pickups. We've previously showed some images of our metal wheelset (product 9700), and now we're delighted to show actual pre-production prototypes of the complete wheelset.  We're satisfied with the overall assembly and we're making refinements based on our testing.  The key thing we need to finalize is the metal wheel finish and treatment.  The wheels are precision CNC machined from brass and then chemically treated to achieve a darkened or black finish.  The current finish is not sufficiently dark and unfortunately the chemical process reduces the electrical conductivity of the metal.  We're going to try a "black Nickel" process to see if we can achieve both a darker appearance and excellent electrical performance.

Incidentally, part of the development of the motor bogie and wheelsets is a new mold for a 6 x 4 stud bogie plate element.  We plan to sell this part separately so that train fans have an alternative source for additional BLACK bogie plates!

9V Cable Assemblies

As we've said before, almost all of our new electrical products depend on developing the 9V-system compatible electrical connector.  We have to admit that this development has been much more effort than we expected.  After several revisions and multiple manufacturers, we finally have a design we are satisfied with.  As such, we have committed to a significant production starting with cable assemblies (5x different lengths) and the track power feeder (product 9100).  The final design of the connector includes notable improvements including full silver plating of the contacts.  This should give the very best electrical contact performance.  We're finalizing our retail packaging design for these products and expect them to be available this summer.  We're also planning to make adapter cables from our 9V connector to LEGO® Power Functions and possibly PoweredUP.

Speed Controller

Our new electrical accessory system will based on a 4 x 16 stud "brick" form factor which is designed to be expandable and modular.  The first key product is the speed controller (product 9005).  We're starting to test the electronics and we're hoping to get  the injection molding started soon too. This basic speed controller will offer easy-to-use, precise and reliable speed control not only for your trains but for any connected motors.  The speed controller is modular and multiple units can be stacked next to each other using our magnetic latch side connection system.  They can draw power automatically from an attached power adapter or from an neighbouring module—thus one power adaptor can energize one or more speed controllers.  Safety features include voltage and current overload protection, over temperature shutdown and reverse polarity protection. 

PFx Brick

The PFx Brick was our first product and we're so happy to see how much it has been embraced for not only for remote train operation but all kinds of creative and amazing applications. The time has come for us to think about the future for the PFx Brick. We don't have any immediate plans for retiring the PFx Brick and whatever direction we take we want to ensure that the existing PFx platform is supported and that we can maximize compatibility. The PFx Brick is fundamentally based on LEGO® Power Functions compatibility—this is a legacy system. We're looking to the future—specifically a future based on our new 9V compatible electrical system. Therefore, we want to evolve the PFx Brick as part of this future. For example, a PFx Brick with identical functionality but with all 9V connections for power and motors. However, we can imagine even more "flavours" of PFx Brick—perhaps some which are part of our modular 4x16 Power Brick system or that are built in to our motor bogie. The core electronics and software in the PFx Brick are proven, reliable and feature-rich—we want to build on this success and make the PFx Brick even better. Stay tuned—and please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts about the PFx Brick—your input is always valuable to our product development!

Shows

Some of us will be dropping by Bricktastic this month in Manchester, UK—look out for the bright orange Fx T-shirt and say "hello"! We'll also be at Brickworld Chicago in June as well as BSBT in Leipzig, Germany in August. We try to get to as many fan events as we can, either as participants or guests—if you see us—please feel free to say hello and chat. We love to hear from you and we value the ideas, inspiration and encouragement we receive—it's always appreciated!

p.s. The neon Fx Logo is not photoshop--it's real! In fact, it is made of LEGO!  Our own Max B. made this creation using a LEGO chassis which includes the high-voltage power supply and custom made neon tubes attached with HV stand-offs screwed into the LEGO 4x4 tiles on the back face.