Anton's Live Diesel

On a completely different topic, Dave Watkins just posted this on the"Garden railway forum":

Anton,

Thanks for sharing the videos. I do like the way your loco truindles slowly round your line. You inspired me to give my live diesel loco an airing this afternoon.



Its a extremely clear video and you can clearly hear the mechanical drive and see it engage as the loco lurches forward and backward. I must say, i know what a pain it is having a pull start on these locos as it has a tenancy to flood, then lock up the pull cord and you end up flinging the loco into the air...

That's pleased me a lot seeing his machine running still as well as ever.

He has a great railway too.

There are advantages and disadvantages with a pull starter.

To avoid flooding, prime the engine well first and only pull the cord about 3/4 of way lightly.
If you pull the cord all the way out it can lock up and even break.

I love this loco, and yes, the railway looks very impressive.

It took many grazed nuckles and broken engine fins to realise about the flooding og the engine.

antonr91 wrote:

It took many grazed nuckles and broken engine fins to realise about the flooding og the engine.

What on earth were you doing with it?

Light and gentle...it's only .12 of a cubic inch.

Also you can hold it down with one of those quick release clamps while you start it (on a bench).

I finally got a chance to watch Dave's video. That's a great little engine he's got - looks good, runs good, and can pull quite a load as well. Almost makes you want to build one yourself.

KleineDicke wrote:

............. Almost makes you want to build one yourself.

Exactly. That's I why I started.

I have found a very small 4CH receiver hidden in a small rc plane that was stashed in the rafters of the shed. I have now decided to make Shunt semi remote control. What i mean by this is that i will still have to manually turn the dial to give forward/backward speed, but i can now control throttle with the servo already attached. the benofits of this is that, RPM still governs how much speed i get, as the higher it is, the more power is made. Therefore i can have the settings set, so that shunts traction motor just has enough power to move slightly on idle RPM, and then when i increase throttle, in should pick up speed. What i need to know is what is the smallest battery pack that can be fitted to a Micro receiver in order for it to work, as i really dont have much room to play with at all.

I am not overly sure but I think you should be able to fit 4 AAA cells underneath in the cavity near the motor(?) I think you would need about a 25x25x50mm space. Technobots sell r/c relay systems for reversing with DPDT relays -which latch. Possibly you could also fit one in the underside space.

Sorry I can't be of more help...

regards

ralph

Ive finally managed to get some Essel Engineering buffers, and with a trip home to see the family over the weekend, ive taken a few photos of them and my new toy, and they look pretty good to me







And i got a Faller play train Railbus

Definite improvement to the diesel. It still needs some eyes (headlamps); it's face is kinda blank.

Does the railbus have a motor in it or is it armstrong powered? Looks to have plenty of room for a live diesel.....

Putting your oily trains on the dining room table....

.....I'd be beaten with stale baguette.

Bill, thanks, it does seem to look alot better. The red on the buffer beams needs redoing and yes, a headlight would look good but i am really bad at adding things like that

Yes, i was thinking of it, but i may just leave it how it is. It is battery powered and has a smallish motor.

I would actually love to give it a railbus paint job, as ive found the same thing online painted cream and green.

So if theres anyone on this forum who enjoys detailing trains, then please let me know as i want it done

Carl, mums never that keen on it but she was out today

Are you bringing a soldering iron to the expo, and if so, would you mind doing a few soldering jobs on the diesel for me?

Yes I always have a soldering iron with me. No problem, but best do it early before the exhibition starts.

Right, now a slight problem with the exhaust on this loco, as the tube that i use in my video, which worked nicely for a while, has now decided to melt on me and ive tried using 2 different types of tubing and they both keep melting....

Any suggestions as to what i could use?

Could you show us some pictures and what space have you got arround it.
And what kind of material are you using ?

The easiest thing i could do is post this video, as you can see its the clear tube that sticks straight upright that is melting...



Im not entirely sure exactly what it is made of...all i know is that it was tubing taken from a slush puppy machine at work....

I won't comment on the exhaust problem because others will know the answer. All I want to say is : I had to watch the video twice, just could not believe the ease of starting, sheer magic. Its all actually quite brilliant so well done and don't despair you have come a long way.

Mr V. Impressed

Not all plastics are heat resistant, some sillicone are heat resistant, you could mold white metal.
It looks like silicone, but I cannot say for sure like that, certainly not heat resistant this one.

Either you could find a silicone pipe heat resistant or you need to built a metal extention of your exhaust pipe. Like Carl did in fact.


There's as well some silicone rubber coupler for RC nitro car, maybe you could find a solution with that and a metal pipe.

I have some silicon exhaust tubing. Help yourself to it at Railexpo.

Patrick/Mr V Impressed,

They don't always start like that first time. I think Anton will agree that it was primed and ready before hand.

However you can obviously see the attraction of these dieselmotors.

Loco looks great Anton, very impressed!

With your pilots course you may be able to find some technical help with regard to

the melting problem.

Patrick, Carl is right, i did prime the engine before i shot the video, and im surprised you havnt seen the video yet. But i will ad that it does actually start usually the first time anyway as all will see at the expo

Thank you very much Liam....

It seems there are people who havnt seen my videos yet, so ill add another one, this time with the body on



Carl i would very much like to use a little of that tubing

Shunt at the expo, along with Two of Carls diesel locomotives

Hows about this for a live diesel powerplant.

http://philsworkbench.blogspot.com/2011/12/miniature-v12-engine.html

Now that would be very interesting would love to see o e of those running in person..thanks David

Two new videos of shunt being used on a fairly large outdoor 45mm track, that a guy called Nigel Winesmith kindly allowed me to use.

The second video shows SHUNT hailing a load for the very first time.



And the second video



Enjoy

Good stuff Anton, Shunt seems to run very nicely, well done.

Is the starter/generator on Shunt the one that I gave you ? If so could you tell me what the description is on the label on the motor. I have n't given up on my live diesel yet and I cant remember the motor make and type though I do have a record of its performance characteristics, when I ran it.

Tx
David