Minitrix br103 with remotly operated panto's

[tripel7]

Saw this on another forum, might peak the interest of some people:

 

[tripel7]

The manual gives away some detail at page 19 and 22:

https://static.maerklin.de/damcontent/66/a3/66a3d855c64afad54df1fdb7d46bdb0d1667885526.pdf

[chadbag]

That's actually pretty cool.   Looking at them I assume the pantographs can be made "active"?  (My older minitrix have a switch I think for pantograph pickup or track pickup)

[ED75-775]

On 9/12/2023 at 4:15 PM, chadbag said:

Looking at them I assume the pantographs can be made "active"?

Yep, according to the Minitrix website the pantographs on the 16345 locomotive can be raised or lowered digitally.

 

Marklin has been doing this on certain models now for some years, typically in H0 using a small wire and servomotor to drive the pantograph. From the instruction manual online, it looks as though the Minitrix models with equivalent technology use a different system with a gear and sliding rack bar.

 

As an aside though, the pantographs on such models are mechanically functional only - they cannot be configured to draw power from catenary. The reason being, you need power for the pantograph motors and from the engineering perspective, it's easier to build the model to draw power only from the track. Maybe you could get away with doing something complex like that in 1 Gauge where you have the room for the changeover systems, but in the smaller scales I'd say it wouldn't be feasible.

[cteno4]

We had a video somewhere on the forum of someone doing a home made pantograph raising and lowering system on a Japanese n scale train.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Funny, they manage to make the pantographs go up and down remotely, yet they still can't seem to add the skirts around the front of the bogies 😄

 

[chadbag]

14 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

 

 

As an aside though, the pantographs on such models are mechanically functional only - they cannot be configured to draw power from catenary. The reason being, you need power for the pantograph motors and from the engineering perspective, it's easier to build the model to draw power only from the track. Maybe you could get away with doing something complex like that in 1 Gauge where you have the room for the changeover systems, but in the smaller scales I'd say it wouldn't be feasible.

 

I was specifically talking about whether the pantograph was active for power pickup.  A lot of the non-automated pantograph N scale German loks I have can be set to pick up power through the catenary.

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by chadbag