Very Nice!

Goes to show that with a little "imagineering" that anything can be acomplished!  Can't wait to see it run!

I recently converted a pancake motored Tyco Plymouth MDT to DCC and it runs OK, but all was done without altering any of the drive.  I guess I need to look at it again and see if I can improve it further!

Great Project

Hi Bernd,

Wonderful project! I really enjoy creative ideas to re-work models, especially old, small models. As I recall, these were crummy runners, got dirty quickly, and the assembly/disassembly was tricky. How do you find using drive belts in loco drives? I recently started using belts in animation drives, but generally worry about stretching, dry out, and lifetime. Have you had good experiences with them in loco drives? What kind of belts do you use and are they readily available?

The vertical piece on the motor bracket-- it looks like bronze, not brass? Is it welded or soldered? Very neat job there!

Thanks for sharing this. Have fun!

Best Regards,

Geoff Bunza

Thanks

Thanks Nelson. I was lucky on the imagineering on this one. I hadn't checked for clearance until I was halfway through the project. Lucked out that there's about 1/16" of space between the motor bracket on the top of the hoods inside. This one will work with DCC. The motor is a 6volt motor. Runs pretty good too.

Bernd

A great fun project.

This is the first time I've tried a belt drive. So can't say how long they last. Yes they were crummy runners. You could switch cars at 60 scale mph.

The belts are from this guy.     http://www.nigellawton009.com/DriveComponents.html

I think they are the same belts as what Hollywood Foundry uses on his drives. They are square and run in a 90 degree groove in the pulley. I believe the square belt gives more bite in the V groove than a round one will. The pulleys were made on my Sherline lathe. I didn't purchase those, in case somebody wants to know. I've been able to push an Athearn Alco PAB dummy unit and 4 hopper cars without a problem of belt slippage.

The bracket was silver soldered and then dropped in to a sulfuric acid to clean the flux off. It gives the hole brass part a bronze patina. I discovered by accident that you can copper coat things to.

Love sharing fun stuff like this. Much more fun than buying a several hundred dollar engine. Hey if it hadn't been for you and those tiny motors on that first crane article I probably wouldn't be doing things like this.

Regards,

Bernd

Video's Up

Here's the video. The engine is run at two voltage settings, 4 volts and 6 volts.

Super!

Runs very nice! I wonder if by using a smaller primary pulley and enlarging the secondary to it's max allowable size if it would significantly slow it down more so when it is run on variable voltage, one could make it crawl along?  Seeing as you have the lathe to do that

Pulleys

Yes it would slow it down. I just found some motors the Geoff had suggested I take a look at on E-bay. I had a dozen stashed away. Completely forgot about them. 12 volt motor with reduction gearing for an output of 10rpm. A bit to slow. I had modified one motor by taking a couple of stages out of it so it runs faster. Already contemplating how I'm going to mount that. That'll be in the next up-gade.

Bernd

Amazing

Job well done. Seeing smaller critters like this being made to work smoothly inspires a lot of us. 

Thomas Gasior

DId You Consider...

....Relacing the brass wheels to get better pickup?

@ Thomas

Thanks Thomas, much appreciated. That's one of the fun aspects of the hobby, inspiring others.

Bernd 

@ Graeme

 Yes I did. That will take a bit of doing. Reason? The wheel axles are.092" in diameter. I have some nickel silver wheels I can use, but the axle size is metric. I would need to make a make a wheel holding fixture for the lathe to hold the wheel to bore out the hole to proper size. I still may do that. I was more interested to see if what I had in mind would work and it did. Last night I found a bunch of motors Geoff had put me on and I think the second version of this mod will have a gear head motor on it. Working on designing a motor mount for it presently. Will post when I have some results.

Bernd

..

I thought AHM made these in the day? I have the GE scheme and planned on giving it a repaint. I didn't think there was much room under the shell to convert to DCC.

Nope, it's a Tyco

Nope, made by Tyco. There's plenty of room. I'd use an N scale decoder. Motors don't draw much amperage.

Working on version 2 using a 12 volt motor with a reduction gear head on it. Tight fit but I think I can make it work.

Bernd 

...

If you had a really small can motor with dual output shafts that was the same size as the old open frame motor with the right diameter shaft, it'd be a drop in replacement... But that'd be too easy!!!

Dual output shafts

Yes that would be great. But I had to make my own dual output shaft. This gives you the versatility of controlling your output speed better than a gear head reduction unit.

Bernd

Gross Error

I just discovered I've been calling this locomotive a DR-4. It's not. It's a CR-4. The CR stands for Christian Root of Fate, Root-Heath and 4 representing the number of wheels.

Bernd

Version 2.0

This is Version 2.0. A different motor and mounting method.

A while ago Geoff Bunza alerted me to s seller on E-bay that had motors I might be interest in. I took a look and sure enough it was something I could use. But for what I had no idea at the time. I ordered a lot of 10.

The output shaft revolves at 10rpm at 12 volts. A bit slow. Here's what they look like.

Taking the gearbox apart you get an idea of how a reduction gear drive works. It's almost like a standard transmission without the clutch. I think there are 6 stages of reduction. I removed the first three, plus I had to shorten some of the components in the gearbox to get it back together and work properly.

Here's one with the three stages removed and reassembled. The one in the back is unmodified.

The final result of removing the first four stages. I didn't bother with shortening the gearbox cover. The motor is epoxied to a brass motor plate and bolted on with the motor assembly bolt. The rest of the components are from the first version of the mod.

The pulley on the motor is easier to make and change do to the output shaft being threaded for a 3 X 0.5 mm thread. With this setup I can get it down to a crawl from tie to tie. Top speed probably is in the range or 5 to 10 scale miles per hour. I'm going to have to have a bigger pulley on the motor and a smaller one on the driven shaft. I'll post a vidoe of it running when I get a chance.

Bernd

Reverse?

What happens when you reverse that motor with the threaded drive?

pqe

Reverse?

The first time the pulley unscrewed. It wasn't on tight. If it comes loose again I'll just Loctite it down.

Bernd

Vidoe

Here's the video of it running. Left to right at 2 volts. Right to left at 12 volts.

Project Complete

Start and Stop?

Hi Bernd,

Great job young man! How is the starting and stopping with the band drive? Smooth? With a Jerk? any wobble at start and stop? Looks very smooth in the video! Would you use the band drive again?

Did you purchase the assortment of bands or is there a particular size or sizes you use? This could prove interesting!

Have fun! 

Best regards,

Geoff

It even sounds good!

It even sounds good!  No need for a sound decoder there!  Now if I could only get my Plymouth to run that good!

Thank you very much Geoff.

Thank you very much Geoff. Young? Ah no, I bet we're almost the same age. 1951

The band drive starts and stops smooth. There is a small discernable jerkiness at low speed do to band flexing lengthwise. At least that's what I think. If I get the pulley on square it's fine. Now my concern is length of live on the belt. The one on this drive has taken quite a bit of abuse from being taken off and on and it's survived. I bought the 12mm belts. It's the biggest Nigel Lawton has.

I'd say give them a try for your application. What I like about belt drives is you can get any ratio you want very easily. Not so with gearing.

Check out some of these drives on this British website.

http://www.clag.org.uk/axle-hung.html

http://www.clag.org.uk/lpmu.html

This is the main page. Lots of interesting things to choose from.

http://www.clag.org.uk/

May give you some ides for those crane crawler projects.

Regards,

Bernd