RETIRED GUY PROJECTS

[kusojiji]

Just some stuff I've been working on.

 

So, I noticed that the KATO N D51s don't have a tail lamp. I took one apart and found that the dummy light is actually fitted with a clear piece that can act as a fiber optic, so...

 

3mm LED, 2K resistor, aluminum tape a voila!

 

Ah, cannot add a movie file, bummers. Uploaded snapshot from movie file. 

 

All the latest D51s can do this. I took a look at the C62 but no go on that one. I did this to my UP Big Boy and FEF, but have to figure out a better way to get the power. My original design put too much pressure on that last bogey.

[Kingmeow]

You can add movie by uploading to YouTube and posting link here.

[cteno4]

Yes sorry movie files can get very big and our media server is not set up for streaming video as youtube is! You can embed youtube videos here but just pasting in the link in the editor and it will auto embed.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[kusojiji]

Sorry, I don't do youtube. RMWEB limits the size of the videos so I have them squished to 2MB.

[kusojiji]

Might be wrong forum, but just finished my Dapol N Terrier. I just recently gained an interest in the British stuff and really love the terriers. Tiny, colors are awesome (baby do do yellow as my friend would call it). Ran great for a few days then crappy. The problem with these things is they lose electrical contact due to swimming in grease and oil. I took it apart, cleaned it completely out. And there it sat for about a month. 

 

Started reading about bidirectional capacitors helping with DC stuff. Bought some tantalum caps, soldered them - to - and connected them. Yup, ran like a bat out of hell as expected. Tried a regular ceramic cap that was about 10 times smaller and it did the same thing, so tantalums out.

 

Installed the lights through some tiny holes that I drilled and routed the wires as best I could, between the frame and motor mounting area. Stuffed it all inside the cab, broke a few tabs off as expected and got it running. These tiny things are a real pain.

 

The British market goes for weight of the loco vice traction tires like Kato does in N scale. Since this thing only has 6 wheels, need all the power pickups as possible. She's got enough traction to pull these three draggy coaches. 3D printed on Peco chassis.

 

Now that I have a 3d printer, I'm going to take on a project that I started almost a year ago. Remotor an old C57. I have a super tiny coreless motor that I bought from Tramfabriek in UK. I just ran across his website and sent him an email about shipping to Japan. He said he did and the rates are very good, better than getting stuff from the US of all things. The problem with the C57 is that the motor is fried and is unobtainium. Brushes are toast. This will take a lot of printing to get the motor adapter to fit just right. Tried it earlier but the worm gear to motor alignment has to be exact or she won't run.

Edited April 1 by kusojiji
didn't make sense

[kusojiji]

Almost forgot about this guy.

 

Introducing - Tengu the Tank Engine! 

 

Found the OO9 tank engine and mask on thingyverse and merged them. Drilled two holes in the eyes and put fiber optic lines in with a red 3mm led. Runs on a Kato motor chassis from a long time ago. 

 

I put some lead weights in the body so she can pull a few coaches.

[SwallowAngel]

9 hours ago, kusojiji said:

baby do do yellow

 

It is a better description of the color than it's actual name "Improved Engine Green" 😛

[kusojiji]

20 year old Kato D51. Motor fried, but it ran very well when healthy. Installed a 615 coreless motor from Tramfabriek along with a gear and adapter, and 3D printed a motor mount for it. This was at least a year long project that I finally got off my duff to get done. Took 3 prints to finally figure out what I needed. It runs very well now and is almost as quiet and low voltage as the newer Kato steamers are.

 

 

Next up is a C57 that has a fried motor. Same type motor as the D51 and no longer available. Brush springs are the issue and they are smaller than the newer motors from Kato.

[kusojiji]

I wonder if I should pull out all the gears and make the conrod do the work. Might be less friction. The newer Kato stuff only has one axle drive now. Also, the traction tires (almost spelled it tyres - spending too much time on the UK forums haha) have long since gone to see buddha. She runs fine without them but can probably gain some connectivity if the wheel were not grooved. Finding spare parts are next to impossible.

 

There used to be junk shops around, but no clue where nowadays.

[kusojiji]

Ok, this is retarded. I can't even find my own thread. How do I do that? I only find it by looking at who reacted or commented. I was going back and forth between here and ngauge as I thought I had started a thread. 

[cteno4]

Yes sorry we have a number of forums here and tons of topics with like a quarter million posts in 17 years! Using the reaction list is a good trick to find a topic thats been comment on like that! You can also click on your userid icon and on your profile page you can see a list of the recent posts you have done to find topics you may have been posting to.

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[kusojiji]

I found it under activity, content I started. I was going all over the place tryiing to figure this out. 

 

I did look at the list of recent posts, but I guess I hadn't posted on this one in a while.

 

Thanks!

[kusojiji]

I just found out that I did the tail lamp mod on my C57 also. Which reminds me that I need to change the color of the bulb and put a bigger resistor...

 

Gotta luv these newer Katos. Coreless motor, fly wheel, 14 wheel pick up on the Pacifics, 18 on Mikados.

[kusojiji]

Just picked up a C11. Very detailed and awesome runner. Quiet and smooth. Neat thing about it is that it is geared the same as the C57 so they can double-head.

 

How's that for power!

[kusojiji]

BANDAI B-TRAIN SHORTY

 

Decided to add lights to this little guy. Used the C12 light board since it is tiny and bi-directional. Just wired it directly to the 11-109 motor power and double-sided taped it to the body. Used fiber optics to get the light out into the cabs. Yeah, a bit wonky as I can't drill a straight hole to save my life, so I just used the curve of the fiber to get them out to the windows.

 

I need to figure out what I can use to get light out more easily as I want to get the red tail lights on my HO EF65 going. I tried leds but it interfered with the body mount.

[kusojiji]

KATO CHIBI LOCO TRAM

 

Installed a 5v led strip, 2 leds only. Added a 680 ohm resistor. Need to figure out the power pick up solution for the unpowered car. Or just get another power chassis and make this pull stumps. Might be the easiest way to go.

Edited April 20 by kusojiji

[kusojiji]

C57 MOTOR REPLACEMENT

 

Started working on this again. Coreless 615, .8 to 1.5 copper tubing to adapt the worm gear to the motor. Got all this stuff from Tramfabriek - a lot of neat stuff there.

 

Was just about to write that I didn't remember when I bought this, but I checked inside the box, under the foam and I still had the receipt! 1994 from Railroad Hobbies in Sacramento.

 

Anyway, started running poorly as compared to the two others that I have of the same vintage, so I decided the coreless route, same as my D51. 3D printed the motor mount, a little bit more details to locate the motor more precisely than the D51 as this one is a bit more finicky. Original system had a rubber tube to connect the motor and the worm gear shaft. I couldn't get that to align properly without too much drag, so I decided to go the direct route like the D51. 

 

Still won't drive properly for some reason. Since this is a split chassis, I just touch the 9v battery to the chassis and it makes the motor run. Runs fine that way, so I'm thinking electrical pick up from the wheels now. Will be giving it a blow out with the contact cleaner as soon as it stops storming outside.

 

This would suck if that's all that is wrong with this thing...

 

I also have a small cap in the tender to assist, but that's not doing much at the moment.

Edited April 23 by kusojiji
didn't make sense

[Little-Kinder]

1 hour ago, kusojiji said:

C57 MOTOR REPLACEMENT

 

Started working on this again. Coreless 615, .8 to 1.5 copper tubing to adapt the worm gear to the motor. Got all this stuff from Tramfabriek - a lot of neat stuff there.

 

Was just about to write that I didn't remember when I bought this, but I checked inside the box, under the foam and I still had the receipt! 1994 from Railroad Hobbies in Sacramento.

 

Anyway, started running poorly as compared to the two others that I have of the same vintage, so I decided the coreless route, same as my D51. 3D printed the motor mount, a little bit more details to locate the motor more precisely than the D51 as this one is a bit more finicky. Original system had a rubber tube to connect the motor and the worm gear shaft. I couldn't get that to align properly without too much drag, so I decided to go the direct route like the D51. 

 

Still won't drive properly for some reason. Since this is a split chassis, I just touch the 9v battery to the chassis and it makes the motor run. Runs fine that way, so I'm thinking electrical pick up from the wheels now. Will be giving it a blow out with the contact cleaner as soon as it stops storming outside.

 

This would suck if that's all that is wrong with this thing...

 

I also have a small cap in the tender to assist, but that's not doing much at the moment.

Damn really impressive, wish i could do the same for my D16 Diesel to replace with a coreless motor

[kusojiji]

UPDATE C57 CORELESS MOTOR

 

The assembly ran fine without the body on. Wiggled the shaft and gear to ensure that they had some float without the gear retainer on. Ended up clearancing a very little bit off of the retainer and added some grease on the gear as the contact cleaner pretty much removed everything. Now, she's running around the track, pulling 7 coaches. Not as efficient as my newer C57 and not as quiet, but am attributing that to the extra gears that this thing has, and old age... 🙂

 

She also has the old incandescent bulb in it, so the ammeter is reading a little bit higher than the new stuff.

 

Pic of running with the coaches with photo bomb by the J70.

[kusojiji]

3 hours ago, Little-Kinder said:

Damn really impressive, wish i could do the same for my D16 Diesel to replace with a coreless motor

Thanks! 3D printer really helps with projects like these. I have remotored 2 Athearn blue box, 1 Athearn Genesis, and a Hornby smokey joe for the big stuff, and the D51 and C57 for the small stuff.

 

Who makes the D16? If you send me a picture of the motor and chassis, may come up with some ideas.

Edited April 23 by kusojiji

[Little-Kinder]

kato 10-1127, will open it to see what's inside

[kusojiji]

Wow, you got one of those? I never saw that until I did a search at the Kato website. Really like those plows!

 

Found this one the tube: 

 

 

I believe it is very similar to the split chassis stuff for the US locos. I was thinking of installing a coreless motor in one of my older models. I think the problem will be finding a small enough motor that has dual shafts. I'll start looking at my notes and see if I can find anything.

[Little-Kinder]

Tomix has one a bit similar

 

[kusojiji]

I guess they all had a thing for snow plows at one time, eh?

 

I just found another video of the snow plows, lighted!

 

If you are able to take the DD16 apart, please take pics. From the video, it looks like it is a one piece worm/flywheel and am curious as to how it connects to the motor.

[Little-Kinder]

On vacation so it will have to wait 😢