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Post by jayhawk500 on Jun 17, 2024 13:13:44 GMT
harborbelt what a project, Your patience is outstanding as id the results so far. Thank you so much for taking us along. The big question is going to be "Would you do it again?" The person I have 3D printing my hump will be selling them. They will be in "Kit" form since they are too big to fit in his printer. But thats later on down the road as well. Yes, Harborbelt is doing a fantastic job. True modeling.
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Post by jayhawk500 on Jun 17, 2024 13:22:15 GMT
harborbelt what a project, Your patience is outstanding as id the results so far. Thank you so much for taking us along. The big question is going to be "Would you do it again?" You are correct! These will be monster cars. But they should only be a few scale inches taller than the dome cars. A normal prototypical tool car has a roof height of 13' 6", the 2066 comes in at 16' 1" as I have posted in my thread on the other site. So from the top of the rail to the top of the hump should be 16' 1" scale. I cant wait! These are going to be so cool!
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Post by david1 on Jun 18, 2024 3:30:52 GMT
Amazing project, I can only dream of doing a project like that. I have watched and read every post and being a UP fan its just amazing.
Dave
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Post by harborbelt70 on Aug 19, 2024 5:44:11 GMT
This update on my UP 2066 project might be a little premature as I have made slow progress since the last one, in particular on assembling the main body components still less installing anything else I mention below. As this is still pretty detailed I’ll split it up between two posts; “Wordless” this ain’t.
Part 1: At this point I am making the body frame into which the car sides will fit and working out how to fit them and the roof and ends together on top of a spare 21” chassis. The point of this effort is that the car ends and roof will be painted Harbor Mist Gray and the sides UP Armor Yellow and I can’t see myself masking them effectively in a construct of this size, so these are effectively modules to be finally assembled after painting:
A persistent problem with this, not obvious in the above photo, has been the fact that the two-piece roof 3D print I have mentioned before is bowed upwards at the ends and stubbornly wouldn’t level out. I got seriously irritated by this because to my eye the defect was obvious. I resorted to putting yet another stainless steel rod in it which partly rectified this. But the roof still drooped in the middle or was to my eye a little swayback, and in the end I had a brainwave and decided that what the roof needed was a central post, pillar or prop to push it up to near level. A thick plastic coat hanger cut to the right height (2”) provided an answer:
More importantly, however, I have reached the point of deciding on a general approach including certain operating features and sourced the parts necessary for this, and in case this helps anyone else with similar ideas I thought I’d explain what I have decided and why.
To begin with, despite all the time and care I have taken with construction this will not be a model I’d want to have looked at in detail by a highly skilled scale modeler. It’s already too rough in certain respects and if you look at the work of people who create true scale replicas (mostly in 2rail) in, for example, the O-Scale Resource magazine, you’ll see why I say that. My project is not a scale replica; like most 3rail models it’s a representation of the real thing and most importantly is meant to be seen running on the track and not sitting on a display shelf for close and critical looks, or be pored over in macro photos.
So, for the purpose of having something intended for 3rail track running, I have decided that this model needs some operating features. I think that jayhawk500 is putting a smoke unit in his but not operating roof fans and while I initially rejected both options, I decided that if this thing just rolled along the track without some animation it would be dull, even to me. The problem is how you install, power and control such features.
Fortunately, as the photos above indicate the inside of this car will be so big (as I am not putting in any interior details, which can’t be seen through the car windows anyway) that there is plenty of room for onboard power and control components. I have no shortage of these and especially track AC to adjustable DC output modules that I have used for passenger car lighting. I can repurpose one of these and one of my remaining ERR Mini-Commander EX boards to run smoke and other powered features.
The first task is powering the roof fans. The problem here is that most small DC motors such as for smoke units spin at higher RPMs than is realistic for my purpose but purely on a hunch I Googled “miniature DC reduction motors” (otherwise known as “gearmotors”) and came across this (if the metric dimensions don’t mean anything to you any more than they did to me there’s also a photo of this unit with a roof fan taped to it next to a penny):
These things seem to be made for use in battery operated toys, RC cars and even drones and the tiny gearbox can reduce the driveshaft rotation to something a lot less than helicopter rotor speed. It is basically a standard 3rail smoke unit fan motor connected to a mini gearbox. I’ve learned that these are referred to as “N20” motors. There are various options and I have looked at c.120 and 300+ RPMs. The speed really depends on the exact voltage suppled and these particular motors are rated at 12VDC. As an experiment I tried one of the faster speed ones with limited (5 VDC) voltage and it is realistic enough for my purposes (ignore the fan’s wobble because as the video shows it was temporarily attached off-axis:
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Post by harborbelt70 on Aug 19, 2024 6:07:54 GMT
Part 2: A little 3rail O scale history: In the past, both K-Line and Lionel made diesels with motorized roof fans. The most elaborate are those included on the VL Baldwin Centipedes as one of those nice uncatalogued “Easter Egg” features from Mike Reagan’s days. (A better feature of this kind was on the VL GE Evo that is programmed to run only at certain engine speeds.) The Centipede version is geared but the gears are plastic and noisy, which my little device certainly isn’t at least at low voltage. I tinkered around a lot with the Centipede to find a way to reduce the noise although a neat feature is that the fans’ speed ramps up and down with RPMs. (The video doesn’t do justice to this feature as the frame rate is too slow to capture it accurately.) You’ll also see that Lionel even put LED light bars next to the fans to highlight them: I may or may not do something similar for lighting in this car but anyway in it the more noise the merrier as far as I am concerned (see below). The problem will be lining up the motor/gearbox device to engage the fan properly via a brass coupling and rod that I have already got. The fact that the motor is horizontal with the driveshaft at a 90-degree angle should make that easier.
Not easy would be installing a smoke unit mainly because all the body components of this car are plastic and could be prone to heat damage. I have a possible solution to that which I’ll show once it is made but it involves isolating the smoke unit in heat shielding and not directly under the stack outlets. Pardon me for showing this again but I have done something similar in the past in equipping a 21” Lionel dining car with a smoke unit for the four kitchen exhausts through “My Contraption” shown here:  This consists of heat and solvent-proof tubing from US Plastics and various elbow joints that have the same properties connected to a standard diesel smoke funnel.
Finally, I was thinking I’d have to use a couple of “donor” cars for the frame, trucks and sound system but it may be that I need only one. Initially I could not find any six-wheel trucks that were a near match for the prototype except on a special “Experience UP” baggage car Lionel made to go with the 21” UP Excursion fleet cars: I’ve never been enthusiastic about this car despite the nice external finish but now I have found that LionelSupport has available the silver six-wheel trucks as spare parts:
 The truck sides are not a perfect match for 2066 but I’ll live with that as they are what’s available. The sound I will scavenge from the Generator Car issued with the original Excursion car set:
 I’ll power it and the fans and smoke unit through the Mini-Commander EX to provide remote control, which Lionel’s generator car does not have and so the sound is on whenever there is power to the track.
All my projects get more elaborate as I go so this is self-inflicted complication. Watch this space for how it actually tuns out.
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Post by healey36 on Aug 19, 2024 10:43:58 GMT
You’re wrestling with a lot of tech there, way beyond my capability. Looks like a nice neat job you’ve done packing it all in there. The end result is going to be quite something.
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Post by harborbelt70 on Aug 19, 2024 11:39:03 GMT
You’re wrestling with a lot of tech there, way beyond my capability. Looks like a nice neat job you’ve done packing it all in there. The end result is going to be quite something.
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Post by jayhawk500 on Aug 22, 2024 12:43:28 GMT
I like your idea of the gear motors for the fans. You have a link for them and the fans?
Your doing a fantastic job! Keep it up. I'm still waiting on my hump.
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Post by Mopacman on Aug 22, 2024 13:51:46 GMT
It's been awhile since I checked in on this project. What you are doing is very impressive! Please keep everyone posted on your progress. I hope to see a UP power car when the Big Boy steam engine makes it's appearance in Kansas in a couple of months.
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Post by dennym57 on Aug 22, 2024 14:20:29 GMT
Your skill is that of a true modeler. I'm pretty sure I would not be able to do this at the level you're at, but you inspire me to think about it.
I have installed ERR boards in a couple of engines, but that is the easy part. Outstanding work!
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Post by jayhawk500 on Aug 24, 2024 18:25:43 GMT
Harborbelt, Do you have links for the fans and gearmotors?
Thanks
Chris
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Post by harborbelt70 on Aug 25, 2024 5:17:42 GMT
Harborbelt, Do you have links for the fans and gearmotors? Thanks Chris
The fans themselves came via eBay and were described as "Heljan equivalent O gauge class 56 roof fan blades" - Heljan being as far as I know a major Euro supplier of scale model trains, kits and detailing parts. The "O gauge" referenced is the UK scale but I was mainly interested in the diameter which works out as slightly less than one inch or 4' in US O scale. The actual supplier I got them from is called "leeslocos" and doesn't list these as in stock any more but there's a slightly larger "Class 50" version listed here: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155235671318?_nkw=fans&itmmeta=01J63VPSSWDBYSVS9W6QQCGFRH&hash=item2424c45d16:g:ga4AAOSwmbRjYjXj.
It looks like this:
In fact I still have two of these which you are welcome to have, they were just a little too big for the (undersized) apertures I made in the humpback structure - DM to me via the OGF messaging function if you would like to have them.
Coincidentally the gear motors I found on Amazon UK although Amazon US lists similar products. Oddly however in the US you have to hunt for products that are more than 100 RPM. I was looking for a motor that would run somewhere between 100 and 300 RPM, preferably at less than 12 VDC to limit the motor noise. I've concluded that you don't need more than about 120 rpm to produce a realistic effect. Now, the problem with the pair I got was that one of them was DOA for no obvious reason (it just would not start at any DC voltage up to 18VDC) and had to be replaced, but these little N20 fan motors are notoriously unreliable in the Lionel smoke unit context. I've looked for alternative products with different motors but the same right angle configuration and one possibility is this:
www.amazon.com/Bringsmart-Turbine-Reducer-Electric-Self-locking/dp/B08M67317C/ref=pd_ci_mcx_mh_mcx_views_0?pd_rd_w=lWzpx&content-id=amzn1.sym.352fa4e9-2aa8-47c3-b5ac-8a90ddbece20%3Aamzn1.symc.40e6a10e-cbc4-4fa5-81e3-4435ff64d03b&pf_rd_p=352fa4e9-2aa8-47c3-b5ac-8a90ddbece20&pf_rd_r=3JJ9D5T4M4Y4QRMA7RCZ&pd_rd_wg=MPvEj&pd_rd_r=e0c7ceaa-7ef4-4bc2-8334-24d7e2838405&pd_rd_i=B08M67317C&th=1
I might try these and if so I'll post the results in another update.
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Post by jayhawk500 on Aug 25, 2024 13:23:42 GMT
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Post by harborbelt70 on Aug 25, 2024 13:51:10 GMT
Ah, Precision Scale - so many parts and details you never knew you needed. I also looked on Des Plaines Hobbies website but they have no illustrations.
I've messaged you about the fans I have and I think that they may be closer to the prototype than the ones on p.23.
It's very odd about the US gearmotor speeds and I don't understand why. The only issue I have noted is that at full voltage they are a little noisy but if the car has sounds that come on at the same time as the fan motors they probably won't be heard.
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Post by jayhawk500 on Aug 26, 2024 13:02:42 GMT
I think with the correct type of lubricant, the gears can be quited down. I also ordered an AC/DC to DC adjustable Buck Converter to vary the gearmotor voltage to get the correct looking fan speed.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BB8YWBHX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1
It looks as if I can run both gearmotors off the one converter given the (ma) milli-amp rating of the motors. I'm hoping to get the gearmotors mounted in the hump to save room underneath for the converter. I'll remove the bulky screw connectors of the converter and hard wire it or use a 2 pin PH type connector.
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