Large Scale Central

Pete's Rail Truck

Modeling
#1

Pete Thornton sold me this fine rail truck a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it- I thought some folks might want to see my various hacks. I tossed the back end goose body and made a new shell sort of thing from sheet styrene and added some 3D printed parts. (those white blocks are unpainted suitcases from thingiverse). I also shortened up the drive train and redid the truck mount and it seems to work ok so far, it’s crawling across my work bench just fine. I’ve still got a ways to go but it’s getting there. The sound card powers up and has a pretty neat rumble. Still need led lights, hinges on the doors, some other odds and ends etc. Good fun for fall and rainy cold weather.

#2

So you managed to use the Sierra card? Looks great!

P.S. I thought it was a winter project? It’s not even November yet.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

#3

Fun!

#4

Martin, nice “bash”, very creative.

#5

Here is a quick video I put up on Youtube. It still needs some tweaking but I got it to run with the Protothrottle. This is driving a Pololu 18v7 ESC. I added some code to control a port pin with Function 0 to turn the lights on and off. Also found an old HO tsunami decoder with an ooh-gahh horn so I put that in there as I had to take out the Sierra card, it started acting up. I think it’s a bit slow with 11.1v lipo, perhaps I need a 14.8. Back bolster is also not quite right, it leans on uneven track but I’ll fix that up next weekend. All-in all, a very fun project, thanks Pete.

https://youtu.be/M1t7k5VLXTQ

#6

#7

Is there a blinking light inside?

I was not aware the angle between the rear “driveshaft” and the motor was so severe.

Looking good though!

Greg

#8

Yeah, the underside rear was heavily modified, someone ground down the metal with a dremel or something. I made a new bolster and put it where I though it looked the best but it did make for a rather severe angle. I thought about a new drive, perhaps a flexible shaft, but just cutting down what was there and putting a small spring on it to keep the gears engaged seemed to work ok. The blinking light is the Pololu motor controller, when it gets valid R/C it blinks. I was thinking the 2.2 amp tsunami decoder would probably be enough but I had already wired up the leds to the relay in anticipation of using the Sierra card. I found the oogah sound by accident (a bug in my CV code actually), it’s not listed in the sounds but its kinda cool so I went with that. I do wish I had a better engine sound but that will have to do for now. It is a bit anemic on the 11.1v, I want to tow at least one car with it so I’ll probably swap out the battery at some point. I find I really enjoy buying used thingies and goofing with them, this was way fun.

#9

Keep having fun Martin. That’s what it’s all about! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)