My track cleaner works great except that the hollow axles that are CA’ed to the motor shafts can let go and slip under load.
In your experience, who makes the strongest CA that can hold a 2MM ID stainless steel tube to a 2MM OD motor shaft? The fit is fine with no excess slop when it spins.
Todd,
The robot guys have all kinds of “collars” with set screws. If you can find room, it will hold the wheels in place. You can also find brass ones that can be shaved and drilled.
I’ve also taken a brass collar and drilled it horizontally so I could bolt a small sprocket to it. Maybe you could do that with your wheels.
Or some Loctite 638
Pete Thornton said:
Todd,
The robot guys have all kinds of “collars” with set screws. If you can find room, it will hold the wheels in place. You can also find brass ones that can be shaved and drilled.
I’ve also taken a brass collar and drilled it horizontally so I could bolt a small sprocket to it. Maybe you could do that with your wheels.
Do they make these that are no longer than a 10-24 nut is thick with a 2MM ID? The thickness of a 10-24 nut is the space I am dealing with.
Shop at hobby shops that handle RC, airplanes, cars, 4-wheel drive trucks, etc., they have a lot of items that you can use on our model trains, both mechanical and structural.
trainman
What about filing a flat on the motor output shaft and then deforming the tube that fits around it so that they’re “keyed” to each other? I think you could even file the flat and then put the tube around it and them squeeze the tube with pliers to get the necessary shape in the tube.
Just a thought.
Dan Hall said:
What about filing a flat on the motor output shaft and then deforming the tube that fits around it so that they’re “keyed” to each other? I think you could even file the flat and then put the tube around it and them squeeze the tube with pliers to get the necessary shape in the tube.
Just a thought.
The tube is threaded on the outside to hold the nuts. Squeezing the stainless tube will both ruin the thread and deform it so the nuts may not tighten properly around them.
Also, the motor spins at up to 11,600 RPM. You certainly don’t want to create an inbalance at that speed.
This is also why some form of chain/belt drive is unwanted. That stuff doesn’t like to spin at those speeds, at least for long.
Think of how a dremel works…, It needs to be fast, but not a lot of torque.
Do they make these that are no longer than a 10-24 nut is thick with a 2MM ID? The thickness of a 10-24 nut is the space I am dealing with.
Probably, but now you’ve identified the parts of the puzzle, here’s what I would do.
File a small flat on the motor shaft under the 10-24 bolt. Find a brass 10-24 nut (Lowes and HD have them. Put it in the vice under the $99 drill press (if they still sell them,) and drill a small hole in it right through to the other side, using lots of oil. Thread/tap the hole (00-90?) and then screw in a set screw or a pair of bolts (for balance) to crimp the tube on to the motor shaft.
I could never attain that level of precision and keep everything in balance. The motor spins up to 11,600 RPM so any inbalance induced through the filing, drilling, tapping, pinning would be unacceptable.
I’ll look to stronger CA’s first. Loctite Black, Red, and Green are promissing. Black should be readily available and Loctite recommends it for metal to metal bonding. I have been using Loctite Gel Control.
Or try this one https://www.loctiteproducts.com/en/products/build/epoxies/loctite_epoxy_weldbondingcompound.html
I think the mixture would be too thick and would just push out (and make a mess) when the axle is slid over the motor shaft. These are already a very close fit at no more than a couple thousanths of an inch. We are talking like 1-2 drips of glue (at most) on each side and I don’t think that a “thick paste” would be appropriate.
Todd Brody said:
The tube is threaded on the outside to hold the nuts. Squeezing the stainless tube will both ruin the thread and deform it so the nuts may not tighten properly around them.
Also, the motor spins at up to 11,600 RPM. You certainly don’t want to create an inbalance at that speed.
This is also why some form of chain/belt drive is unwanted. That stuff doesn’t like to spin at those speeds, at least for long.
Think of how a dremel works…, It needs to be fast, but not a lot of torque.
Todd,
I was thinng 11,600rpm at the axle is hauling ass… More thinning lead me to your track cleaner busting a move at maybe 275mph if it could hook-up!
Michael
It would certainly make quick work of cleaning ~600 feet of track for open houses.
I have plenty of “draggers” but that takes lots of laps to produce desireable results, and they need lots of “hand coaxing” to get them started. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the track clean in just a couple laps around?
For that matter, this could be attached to a “push pole” like a drywall sander and powered from the rails or a trailing battery car, but it does the work, not the pusher.
wouldn’t drilling a hole through the tube into the axle and pinning them work? secure the pin with jb weld or ca if it’s not a press fit.
David Marconi,FOGCH said:
wouldn’t drilling a hole through the tube into the axle and pinning them work? secure the pin with jb weld or ca if it’s not a press fit.
Way too tiny for that. The motor shaft (to drill though) is only 2MM in diameter. The pins would have to be tiny.
I’ve reset it using Loctite Ultra and we’ll see how that goes. Already feels like it will work better. It is a thinner mixture (more watery) so better saturated the surfaces. I applied it both to the shaft and within the tube (as opposed to just the shaft as before), and felt like it was bonding better.
It was setting up harder. The excess that pushes forward was bonding the shaft to the motor casing stronger and I had to turn the motor by hand to break this bond before it set up. Then I had to keep turning the shaft, from the other side, for a while while the CA set so the shaft didn’t bond to the case.
We’ll see.
Todd Brody said:
David Marconi,FOGCH said:
wouldn’t drilling a hole through the tube into the axle and pinning them work? secure the pin with jb weld or ca if it’s not a press fit.
Way too tiny for that. The motor shaft (to drill though) is only 2MM in diameter. The pins would have to be tiny.
I’ve reset it using Loctite Ultra and we’ll see how that goes. Already feels like it will work better. It is a thinner mixture (more watery) so better saturated the surfaces. I applied it both to the shaft and within the tube (as opposed to just the shaft as before), and felt like it was bonding better.
It was setting up harder. The excess that pushes forward was bonding the shaft to the motor casing stronger and I had to turn the motor by hand to break this bond before it set up. Then I had to keep turning the shaft, from the other side, for a while while the CA set so the shaft didn’t bond to the case.
We’ll see.
yep 1/32 would work, but glad you came up with a solution along the line of what you wanted