not so simple to wire

Apparently, a special motor control decoder is needed to operate these motors together, which is available from Railflyer as well.  There is a 4 axle and a 6 axle version available, and I think they are made by ESU (Loksound.)

What I'd like to see

I want to see that space used up be a running miniature diesel engine and generator with a real diesel smell as it rolls by. 

Bernd

I think it opens a lot of possibilities

Power

Imagine the tractive effort with six of these on an engine and an appropriate amount of weight. Eh-haw! 

Roy

Can't hardly wait...

Dear Jeff,

Yes, can't wait for these, would make some of my current slug and B-unit projects much easier than they currently are. Just wish we had some confirmation that RF would be doing AAR and EMD Flexicoli switcher trucks (sideframes and bolsters) to suit.

Simple series/parallel wiring

(each 2-axle truck has it's motors wired in series, presenting a 12V load,

both trucks in a loco are wired in parallel,

and fed direct from the track on analog, or the motor output of a decoder...)

and you're away...

Also, for those who have yearned to emulate "gravity" and "fly switching" moves, these may be another option to "powering a freightcar", if the wheels were available at suitable diameter...

Not sure I see the need for the "custom motor controller",
(isn't that extended jargon-ish for "DCC decoder"???)

if it's 1x DC motor/axle, "the technology is known, and the methodology to work with them is well understood..."

Happy Modelling,
Aim to improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS an open/clear body in a switcher with a sound decoder and a resonant exciter (as opposed to a speaker),
now _that's_ something which caught my attention...

I've been watching The first

I've been watching The first thing that I thought about was that it will finally be possible to have a fully articulated diesel locomotive truck, without having to stuff all the gear towers and universal joints in there.

My primary questions relate to cost, torque, noise, and reliability relative to current designs.  The current price is comparable to the NWSL powered truck designs, but I wonder whether that may come down over time.  At $35/axle, a 4 axle locomotive would cost $140 just to power.  I'd like to know how much pulling power it would have, compared to the old standby Athearn GP design.  Also, how long would it last, and would it have the annoying gear whine of the old pancake motor days?

I haven't bought any yet, but the design looks very promising!

I'd like to see it work.

Is there any working models out there using these motors?  I'd like to see a practical demonstration before I pass judgment on them.  I'd also be interested in seeing schematics on how you'd wire up four or six of these to power the most common wheel arrangements.

Q

How do spur gear drives work on a downgrade with no brakes?

Check YouTube

Dear Shane, et al,

Check the RailFlyer YT channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/railflyer1977?blend=3&ob=video-mustangbase

particularly

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS Wiring? Series/parallel will be your friend...

Noise

Dear Ken,

Suspect that it will "growl" far more than it "whines", and from many years with Lima pancake motors in Aussie-outline models, will likely sound completely different...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Likely like the prototype... with Real Momentum...

Dear Joe,

Considered the other way, why do our model locos either

A- un-naturally "hold their speed" on grades, or

B- "surge" as the slack in/around the worm part of the mech takes-up/releases/takes-up/releases?

Suspect that, actual gear ratio contingent, these mechs may well allow a degree of "slowing on upgrades, and increasing speeds on downgrades", just as per proto train. The sheer loco/car/train weights involved simply do not directly scale, so the actual model loco/train dynamics are likely going to be still well within "mech resistance will pull it up before it takes a short trip to the floor" range.

Gear ratio loading/advantage, geartrain friction, and DC motor BEMF effect will likely give enough resistance to keep most sane model RR grades and train lengths/weights in check...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

PS MR has documented spur-drive systems in model locos previously, from as far back as the lates 60s/early 70s IIRC...

PPS did anyone mention NWSL's "magic carpet" spur-gear axle-hung drive system?

Wiring and DCC

Dear RailFlyer-curious,

Being 6V motors, I have to say that simple "series/parallel" wiring seems like the simplest way forward for basic analog control. (Axle motors within a given truck wired in series, multiple truck assemblies wired in parallel).

However, if one elects to go DCC, using the inbuilt capabilities of the decoder to set the Max Volt level to 6VDC (Min/Mid/Max, no inherrent need to go tweaking every entry in 28-value speed tables), would be another way forward. 

For reference, many HOnXX narrow gaugers are using 3VDC pager motors to power insanely small mechs, and the ability to limit the output voltage of a decoder is one key technique to using such motors...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Axle mounted motors/thoughts.....

Hey guys, the real ones make a lot of noise too.

Try to catch one going by with the engine not running and I assure you any noise the model makes will be prototypical!!!

Doug Hatman

Locomotive Engineer

Union Pacific Railroad

Humble, Texas

Axle-hung motors

Looks like there is nothing new under the sun. Here's an axle hung drive that I bet is it bit quieter. It doesn't use gears. 

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

Bernd

Note: just found another site that is interesting: I don't know what the gauge or scale is;

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gray.hickson/traction-motor.html

This is still at the testing

This is still at the testing stage and the company intends and strongly recommends that you use their, also coming soon, electronic control board that powers each axle individually and not just power the units in series/parallel.

Wiring two 6v motors, that are not mechanically linked,  from 12v in series, risks trouble if one axle is ever stalled. Then the full 12 v appears across the good other motor, quickly burning it out. Either mechanically link the motors, for example, like this,

or use 6 v in parallel for a basic speed control by just voltage. 

BTW If you use series resistors for protection, you just cut down the power and seriously affect the low speed controllability.

Some info from Railflyer

I e-mailed Christopher at Railflyer, and apparently he read this thread before responding.  Fairly impressive, in my book.  Anyway, here's his response to me:

Here is the link,


 http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=railflyer1977&oq=railflyer1977&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=s&gs_upl=301l991l0l3549l4l4l0l0l0l0l572l1095l0.1.0.1.0.1l3l0

CJH

Hopefully in Amherst....

Christopher posted somewhere that he was assembling some of these for display at the Amherst show - I'm hoping to see them. 

Better yet, I'm taking the HD camera, so I'm hoping to get some video of them....

News of...

Dear Jeff,

Any news of a EMD 2-axle Flexicoil switcher truck version,
and/or an AAR switch truck version,

would be greatly appreciated! 
(some of us don't have room for SD's or other 6-axle gnarly snarlers...)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Traction Motors

Guys,

Jeff took some HD video of the traction motor in operation.  It ran the full two days of the show.

My camera microphone is overly sensitive, the gear case was open on the side, and the gears where not worn in when I shot the Youtube videos.

I was extremely amazed at the smooth quiet operation after the gears were broken in by the show model which is our first build with all production components.

All of the components are in hand to start shipping motors.

We would have had a full running locomotive drive at the show if the OEM supplier we lined up to provide motor control (decoders) had not forgotten that our data sheets we provided three months ago were for 6 V motors.  The decoders we got from them were wrong.

These are core-less motors that run on frequency.  What I find is when we go below the 25 mark on the Athearn power pack we used for testing, the motors start to pulse.  This is due to the output frequency being wrong during low voltages.

Yes you can set up the motors in series / parallel for 12V operation but what you have to realize is that your smoothest operation is going to come from a motor control unit (decoder).  You can run the decoder on both DC and DCC.  The other benefit of the motor control is that we are setting up to pulse the motors at the correct frequency and the output is digital.  This enables smooth operation at the lowest voltage output, gives you full torque at these voltages and also gives us synchronization for multiple motors.

Depending on the weight of the cars, this single traction motor is capable of pulling the locomotive and 8 - 12 cars but I recommend two motors just to reduce wear unless you are pulling a very light load.

Hopefully Jeff will post something soon.

All the best, 

Christopher Howard

Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.

http://www.railflyermodel.com

Video??

Jeff, have you got that video ready for upload yet? [wink]

I know!  You're probably still suffering from jet lag and I'm whining about train show video...

I'm interested in these little motors in case one would work in my Brandt Hi Railer.

Looking forward to more.

Micro Motors

Kevin,

Take a look here for such small motors.   http://www.nigellawton009.com/6V6mmx10mmMicroMotors.html

Where the traction motors fit...

Hello,

Check out my podcast interview, http://www.themodelrailwayshow.com to hear what you've been building for the past six years with us!  It also includes how we came up with the traction motor design for our locomotive kits.

Thank you for the support,

Christopher Howard, President
Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
http://www.railflyermodel.com

Video of Amherst

I passed off probably about 2 1/4 hours worth of video (including interviews of Railflyer and Athearn) to Joe yesterday.

Expect it to be a couple days at the very least before it starts going up - good editing takes TIME - I expect that a lot of the layout footage is not really usable for a variety of reasons... So I expect videos that will be 10 minutes or less. I did do a couple at the end that I think may be interesting - at the very end of the show I picked a couple layouts and followed a train around each of  them - the whole way. 

With the interviews we shot both the interviews and some "B-roll" stuff that will need to be edited in at appropriate times. 

Honestly? I'm just hoping I got the important stuff in focus. I'm much more used to being the guy in front of the camera, or at least with some supervision, so this was a 'spread my wings' time for me. Let's hope they didn't snap off.

Video

Indeed.  Even bad editing takes time, I ought to know, LOL!

I also know all about unusable footage when I am behind the camera!  I'm sure you did better than you are taking credit for.

Just know that we all appreciate you "spreading your wings" to bring Amherst to MRH subscribers around the world!

Looking forward to seeing the video.