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Coaltrain
Engine Wiper
380 Posts |
 Posted - 06/04/2009 : 08:32:41 AM
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Now I know how Frankenstine felt when his monster sat up. I did some searching on the internet and found a site called www.hobbyengineering.com that had a small right angle motor and gear box that would fit in my Mann's Creek hopper like it was designed for it. The cool thing about the drive is that it has a "clutch" in it which works great because all I had to do was add start and stop pins to control the amount of rotation I needed to open the doors and the gears and motor can keep going with out breaking or burning anything out. The other cool thing was that final output shaft is removable and solderable, which made adding the cam a dream.
I used a Digitrax decoder to power the drive and added contacts to one set of trucks, if it proves difficult to make good contact to the rail I will add a second set of contacts to the other truck.
To operate the car all I do is select the hopper car number (address) with my DT400, set the direction to forward and press the "+" button one time. When the hopper is unloaded I change the direction to reverse to close the doors, once the doors are closed I press the "-" button one time to return the motor to idle and I dispatch the car address.
the cool thing is that the unloading tresstle can just be a static model.
The car still has the test arms installed and I will have to come up with a nicer way to make the final arms. this car requires a lot of pivot in the arms in all directions so I will have to do something better than I am doing now. I would like to use some RC airplane ball joints but I don't know if they make them really small, I'll have to do some searching to see what is out there.
I am so excited that this actually works! Now that I know what it takes to make the hopper work I can crank out a dozen of these guys. I had to do some hacking on some of the inside bracing which I will have to clean up and make look nice on this hopper.
Here are the videos of it working.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N-Tct5-8OM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUevD6Z9aAA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrUmhfU6i68
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http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k304/70NovaSS/RandS/ |
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racedirector
Engine Wiper
Australia
245 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 08:55:01 AM
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| Man that is just too cool for words!!!! Once the hoppers are all weathered up and a train of about 10 of them are there, this is going to make it look so realistic! LOVE IT!!!! |
Bruce Nordstrand, Riverstone, NSW, Oz-stralia
Back in HO...and stayin there! |
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Coaltrain
Engine Wiper
380 Posts |
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racedirector
Engine Wiper
Australia
245 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 09:17:11 AM
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| LOL! You do have a point :) |
Bruce Nordstrand, Riverstone, NSW, Oz-stralia
Back in HO...and stayin there! |
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k9wrangler
Fireman
USA
4317 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 10:01:51 AM
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| EXCELLENT!!!! WOW!!!! AMAZING!!!! |
Karl Scribner
H.M.F.W.B.I.C.
Kentucky Southern Rwy & Associated Lines
Sunfield Twp. Michigan
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Geezer
Fireman
USA
3487 Posts |
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Coaltrain
Engine Wiper
380 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 10:26:21 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Geezer
That's amazin!!! Now all you need is a "vibrator" to shake the
rails & get the balance of the coal out! Just like the real thing!
Great engineering there!!!!
All ready in the works [:-eyebrows] |
http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k304/70NovaSS/RandS/ |
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CieloVistaRy
Fireman
USA
2512 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 11:25:42 AM
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Awesome! Not only is it a great design, it also functions smoothly.
Arthur |
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Chuck Doan
Fireman
USA
1070 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 2:35:32 PM
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| Well done! |
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Frederic Testard
Engineer
France
10948 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 7:32:06 PM
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| Very neat working car. |
Frederic Testard |
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Jerry M
Fireman
USA
3913 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 7:37:42 PM
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| Really Cool!!! Jerry |
Logging the Great Northwest in On30 |
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BigLars
Fireman
USA
3653 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 7:39:57 PM
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That is really amazing!
Quick you better patent that design and sell it to Bachmann!
The only working hoppers I have seen have been tippers and they have been pushed from the side.
Now you just have to design a auto loader for the other end of the line.
Looking forward to more projects.
Larry |
Latest build http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30267 |
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elwoodblues
Fireman
Canada
2809 Posts |
Posted - 06/04/2009 : 8:40:56 PM
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Now that is taking On30 to a whole new level, great job.
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Ron Newby
General Manager
Clearwater Valley Railway Co.
http://www.cvry.ca |
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Geezer
Fireman
USA
3487 Posts |
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Peterpools
Engineer
USA
12301 Posts |
Posted - 06/05/2009 : 01:24:03 AM
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Impressive to say the least. Top of the line engineering and workmanship.
Peter
BCT |
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Coaltrain
Engine Wiper
380 Posts |
Posted - 06/05/2009 : 08:41:41 AM
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I am not sure if I will make the car shaker lower onto the car like some real ones do or if I will shake the rails. Actually most of the coal does empty. I may not even have to make anything, the gear box has a clutch built into it that can shake the car. To make the clutch shake the car all I have to do is turn up the power to the door drive and the clutch will start to slip, which is a ratchet, and that will be more than enough to shake the car.
I am already working on an automated loader. I built one years ago in HO scale but lost intrest in it because it just looked to phoney in HO. What I want to do is spot empty hoppers under the loaders (I hope to have at least a couple) and push a button that starts a timer. While I am returning to the unloading track the hoppers will load without me being there. I plan on using a design that we use at my work to meter the coal.
Where I work we design a piece of equipment that is called a Rotary Metering Valve. It basically looks like a revolving door that is laid on its side. On top of the valve there is a hopper that holds the material, in my case coal. When the compartment of the "revolving door" comes under the hopper the compartment fills with material, as the "door" keeps turning the following compartments fill, each one to an exact amount. As the compartments revolve to the bottom of the valve the material discharges.
I would like to build small rotary valves that have the capacity of the compartments match the capacity of the hoppers and use a stepper motor to rotate the valve on compartment at a time. In theory I should be able to spot a car under the tipple, hit the button, and leave it alone, and in a few minutes a load of coal witll dump into the car. I could even use an idea that I saw on Bill Darnaby's layout, he used a small string to connect to a string of box cars at a grain elevator to simulate them being pulled throught he elevator and loaded, to index a string of hoppers under the tipple and load a few cars.
What I really like about O scale of HO is gives me a little more room to do stuff like this. |
http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k304/70NovaSS/RandS/ |
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Mann's Creek hopper, ITS ALIVE!!!!!
