TheRailwire
General Discussion => N and Z Scales => Topic started by: carlso on March 17, 2013, 10:30:42 PM
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I need some suggestons, please. Perhaps someone has done what I need to do.
I have a brass KEY Challenger that I would like too add pick up for power in the tender. I know the tender wheels are insulated on each side of the axle and there is not any power getting to the tender chasis or shell. That's good. So, I am wondering if I could run a phosphour bronze wire to contact the backside of the wheels on each side of the axle and at one end solder insulated decoder wire and go up through the floor and connect to the usual red and black wires.
Any thoghts and or suggestions woild be greatly appreciated.
Carl Sowell
El paso, Texas
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Does each side of the tender frame have a tab that runs up into the tender? How is power routed from the tender wheels to the motor in the original design?
You are on the right track with the phosphor bronze. That is the preferred method of creating pickup strips. The question is how to get electricity from the wheels to the phosphor strips.
Could you post a picture? That would be very helpful.
One other alternative would be to swap the trucks for some Bachmann spectrum tender trucks with all live pickup, then use the phosphor bronze strips to "collect" the power from the trucks.
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It would be an engineering marvel considering the whole tender is brass, most likely including the trucks. Thats a lot of electrical isolation to finagle. Its not impossible but some of the best loco's out there are of the simplest design.
If the tender is a USRA design, might consider using a Bachmann Spectrum tender and attaching the brass carbody to it with screws. Another alternative is using either Kato or Bachmann trucks under the chassis but it would require cutting channels for the contact posts to ride up through the frame.
Not the greatest answer, but hope it plants some seeds to get you started. The other more experienced steam-heads will chime in any minute.
The S.
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Mike & sizemore
Thanks for the replies. Mike, the original design of the tender did not include pickups. The loco is a 4-6-6-4 and the power comes from one side of the front engine and the opposite side on the rear engine. I actually had thought about the B'man trucks. Keep in mind that this is the UP centipede tender that I am talking about. There are 5 axles that are "fixed", non swivelling, plus the head end of tender has a "normal" truck under it. The side fraames for the centipede wheels are solid part of the tender chasis and make no contact with the wheels, which have no pointed bearing on their ends.
I had thought of using a KATO GS-4 tender truck plus a KATO Mikado tender truck and sanding off the side frames, and then mounting them in place of the factory installed axles with a screw and leave a little bit of swivel in them. They would roll well and have excellent pickup characteristics. In fact the lead truck on the tender could be replaced also. I have not checked axle spacing and that is most likely going to be a problem.
Just another " round-to-it ". Thanks again for suggestions.
Carl
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Mike & sizemore
Thanks for the replies. Mike, the original design of the tender did not include pickups. The loco is a 4-6-6-4 and the power comes from one side of the front engine and the opposite side on the rear engine.
Carl
I completely missed the part about it being a 4-6-6-4. I'd have to go home and look, but you might consider using a Athearn tender frame and trucks. Otherwise its sounding like you're in for a engineering project to make it work.
The S.
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I agree this may involve either tricky tinkering or major surgery. If it was me, I'd look at seeing how difficult it would be to remove the tender chassis, and maybe try to graft in the chassis from one of the Bachmann Spectrum tenders.
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EDIT:
Now that I have reread some of your further details, I need more information. You say the wheels have no
pointed "bearing on their ends". How do they spin between the sideframes? Are the sideframes at all removeable
or unscrewable or are they actually cast solid with the floor?
Some close-up photos would really help here.
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I don't have one of these, so I don't know if the centipede truck is attached under the bottom of the tender the
same way as on a Pecos River Brass Niagara centipede tender, but assuming it is.... here's how I would do this.
NO WIPERS.
The centipede truck is actually two long sideframes screwed up to the bottom of the tender.
They are brass. So...
1. Remove the whole tender bottom, and cut a new one from a piece of thick styrene (1/16", 1/8"? Whatever you
can make fit)
2. Drill and reattach the trucks to that, fit it up into the tender body and screw it back in place like the original. Make sure
that works.
3. Track down some split-axle wheelsets. You can use Kato or Spectrum. Kato still has the passenger car wheelsets
on their site, which are 36" diameter. What diameter do you need?
4. Replace the wheelsets in the centipede truck with the Kato. Now, each of those tender sideframes is "hot",
one on each rail, and they are isolated from everything because the bottom is styrene.
5. Solder (or loop on a screw) a wire to each sideframe up into the tender, and you're done. 5 wheels on each rail,
no wipers.
6. I wouldn't bother with the swiveling front truck. 5 wheels on each side should be plenty.
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Are we talking about the original KEY Imports Challenger locomotives manufactured by Nakamura of Japan,where the tender just went along for the ride as on old Bachmann steamers? The KEY AC12 CabForward was the same way. I have four of these locomotives ,two of them were run for hours on end on old N Quack (trak) layout at shows. Pickup has never been an issue to me,but I have always wished they were lighted.Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.
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Nato,
yes this is that same unit made by Nakamura. I agree with everything Spookshow has to say about the loco and its running characteristics. Mine too was that way in analog state. the problem is I installed a Loksound Select Micro decoder in the tender along with two speakers. With sound muted, the loco ran well but with sound on it hopped, skipped, jumped, cavorted along the tracks and the sound chimed in at the same stuttering rate. ESU told me they figured there was a pickup problem and shortage of volatge on the track. I ran it on club layout with Digitrax system set on "HO" voltage and same problem. I was thinking that I might need to rig some tender pickups. However, and I feel bad about all the time guys have spent in answereing my request, I have found that by adjusting several cv's many times I have it performing well with sound muted or on.
I will test it again tomorrow on large club layout and I think I will be happy. I shall see.
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However, and I feel bad about all the time guys have spent in answereing my request, I have found that by adjusting several cv's many times I have it performing well with sound muted or on.
Don't feel bad. Remember that the more electric pickup points the locomotive has, the more reliably it will run. There is no such thing as "too much pickup". :D Maybe some day you'll decide to use all this info to add the tender pickup to this, or maybe to another locomotive you own.
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peteski - thanks, you are right. I may add pickup to this unit yet. The 5 centipede axles are held in place with a metal plate screwed to the tender floor. If I used styrene or some other non conductive material to replace that plate I could easily attach wipers for the back side of the wheels. Yes, the axles are insulated on both ends. I will see after testing it again tomorrow.
Carl
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I for one, would really like to see a close-up photo of the underside of that tender.
I really think that wipers are
the wrong way to go. They are such an unreliable pain. It should be possible to make this work with Kato or other insulated wheelsets that can conduct through the ends of the axles, to get more reliable pickup than you'll get with wipers.
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Max,
The centipede tenders need a lot of axial play in the wheel sets. You just can't get that with needle point axles in that situation. The Athearn tenders are done just the same way to be able to handle any kind of radius. The wheel base of the 5 axles on the fixed part of the loco is over an inch and a half long. The Athearn loco's use needle point on the front pivoting truck and no pickup on the remaining 5 axles. Only 2 of the axles in the centipede section actually suport the weight of the tender, the others are just floaters.
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Tony,
Since I do not have the loco in question, I will defer to your judgement on this one.
I will say, however, that the PRB brass centipede tender I do have is not like that. There is very little
side-to-side play in the 5 axles. That does mean that you need broad radii to run the tender, but it seems
to run just fine on 18" curves.
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You said BOTH wheel treads were isolated.
One thing you might try is replacing the wheels with ones that the axle and one tread are one piece and thus only ONE wheel is isolated. In doing that, you would electrify the frame.
Now, you would need to confirm if the frame on the locomotive is electrified. If not, then no problem. If it IS, then you would have to get the polarity the same or you'll have a short. If isolated, you might need to add a) a wire from the frame to a motor pole. b) possibly solder a thin guitar string on the drawbar to press against the tender pin.
Now, if you did that, then electrical pick up will only be improved on ONE side. Now you would only have to install wipers on one side instead of two.
Just some ideas.
If you REALLY want this to be a reliable runner- with no concern for the brass part- the best solution would be to replace the tender with an Athearn tender, if you can find one. They are very highly detailed for plastic.
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Thanks for all the replies. I ran the locomotive toady and it ran very well with sound muted or on with an occasional short in the pilot and front truck area where track dipped. I can see where the front wheels have rubbed on the frame. The entire front frame and pilot appear to be hanging way too low. I can fix that.
Back to the tender, the wheels on both ends of the axle are insulated, for sure. I do not want any wipers to be the main pickups but rather suplemental. If I could figure out how to post jpegs I have some but am not smart enough to figure it out. I post pics on other forums and have no problems. I have pics on Railimages, can they be used?
Carl
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Yes Carl, it's quite easy, just use the image icon next to the Youtube icon and paste the url link to the image file between the>>> (http://[i][b]HERE[/b][/i])
images must be hosted elsewhere.
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Well duuuuh, I figured it out, so here are some tender pics.
The first one is the bottom all intact, note the slop in the axles .............................
(http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/801/Challenger_10_1024x768_.jpg)
The plate covering the axles removed .............................................
(http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/801/Challenger_11_1024x768_.jpg)
Shows how the axles ride in the "bearings" , you can see the insulators on the wheels, they are like that on other end of axle ..................................
(http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/801/Challenger_12_1024x768_.jpg)
(http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/801/Challenger_14_1024x768_.jpg)
And finally, one of the wheels .........................
(http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/801/Challenger_13_1024x768_.jpg)
If you lool closely at the back side of the down facing wheel you can see the black plastic ring around the axle. My last thought about adding wipers would be to replace the axle retaining plate with plastic or pc board and glue wipers onto the new plate and then run decoder wire from the wipers up into tender and connect to the engine pickup wires.
Lemosteam - thanks for the hint, I was actually posting the pics when your reply came in. I'm not as dense as I thought.
Carl
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Wow, okay, nothing like I envisioned. My centipede tender has the axles with points riding in the brass sideframes
themselves. Yours only has the sideframes on there for show. Yup. In that case, wipers as you are suggesting is probably your only bet.
Sorry for confusing the issue.
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mmagliaro - no problem, no confusion. I appreciate your time to make the response. I really think that very fine phosphour bronze wire bent with a loop on the end to very lightly rub the back side of wheel is doable if I make a non conductive plate to hold the axles in their "bearings". If I use a .10 wire it should remain flexible enough to allow the axle to float in their grooves. I can afix the bronze wire to the plate and attach decoder wire to one end and run that up through the floor. As I stated, I just want these to be supplemental electrical pickup to help loco over switches. I did notice some hesitation yesterday on some of the switches. I think this would help make the loco performance better. ? ? ?
Thanks again.
Carl
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Would it be possible to cut the bottom of the tender floor, the part with the grooves for the axles, in 2 pieces and electrically isolate them from the rest of the tender? That way you could attach a wire to each separate plate and use standard wheel sets with one insulated wheel to transfer power. This is assuming that the axles actually contact that part.
Alan
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Termire - that is not a half bad idea. The only problem that I can see is the axles, most likely, do not contact the retaining plate when tender is on the rails. You can see how the axles in the grooves appear to be well below the plate line. However, this gives me this idea; cut the part that holds the axles where there are 3 axles on front 3/5's and two axles on back 2/5's. grind away enough on the cut side of the groove block so they do not touch. On opposite ends of these two pieces drill and tap for a #90 screw to attach decoder wire and run those wires into the tender. Then use some of the new wheels now available that are insulated on one end only. With wheels in correctly, I would have 3 wheels picking up say right rail and two wheels pick up from left rail. No wipers needed. That should be very easy to do and provide reliable, non braking effect, pickups.
You can see in the pics that the groove block is screwed to the floor. I would have one screw in each piece and if I new of some type of insulating glue it could be used to insulate between floor and groove block.
May have something there.
Thanks
Carl
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What about making as PCB axle cover with the copper facing toward the track to replace the steel plate. Solder your wipers (VERY flexible wire or phosphor bronze strips) to that and bend them up behind each wheel or rearward to make contact on the back of the wheel on both sides. Take a razor saw after and saw a groove to separate the copper down the middle and remove any copper from under the plate screws. Solder a wire on each side in the front or rear and run each up into the tender.
just an idea.
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if I new of some type of insulating glue it could be used to insulate between floor and groove block.
May have something there.
Thanks
Carl
I wouldn't depend on glue, but you don't have to. A thin sheet of .005" styrene can be put in there as
an insulator. That would not be visible in the ride height, and if it messes up the coupler height by that tiny amount,
you could probably adjust the coupler mount for it. You will need nylon screws, remember, to screw the split block
up into the floor to avoid a short. But they do make 00-80 and 00-90 nylon screws. I'd drill a second hole in
each piece and use 2 screws, rather than rely on 1 screw and some glue.