U.P. N Scale Snow Plow...

[Sumner]

U.P. N Scale Rotary Snow Plow....

Recently Norm on nscale.net post a build of a rotary snow plow that he had done ( HERE ) . The blade spins and he is using a sound decoder for sound. I thought this would make an interesting project so ordered the Tichy Trains N scale rotary snow plow that he had used.

He used the stock frame and mounted an electric motor on it. I designed a frame with fusion where the motor sits a bit lower to align with the shaft going to the blade and has a bearing block that holds two 2mm ID ball bearings. I got that working but then decided to see if I could design a rotary snow plow around one that U.P. had. It was build in 1922 and retired in 1969. It also had been converted from coal fired to oil fired in '49-50'.

The following is Part 1 of the build.

 

I found a drawing of the snow plow on utahrails.net. A great site if you are into Union Pacific. I used it to try and get the model somewhat accurate, maybe 80%-90%. I inserted the drawing as a 'canvas' into Fusion and re-calibrated it to N scale size.

 

I couldn't find a drawing for the left side but from pictures and a model of the snow plow came up with I thought was close (above).

 

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Above is the first print. It came out pretty good but there are some problem areas that need to be addressed. Not much and I think I know what I need to do (check back or see if the next page has the corrections).

   

The ladder was only attached to the body at the top and bottom. The print was done at 45 degrees and it sagged while printing. I believe a couple more attach points between the bottom and top on the back side of the ladder will fix that.

 

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Above the blade is sticking out a bit as it was a little oversize in diameter. The one, bottom right, should fix that.

 

The shrink wrap (above) worked well as a coupling. I might stick with it or look at designing a 3D printed coupling.

 

Above the shell is sitting on top of the frame and front wall. It is setup to work with MT trucks.

 

The new model looks smaller above but was further from the camera. They are almost exactly as long (the new one is a touch longer actually). More to follow in a couple days hopefully.

To be continued and a link to this whole build ( HERE ) .

Sumner

[C855B]

U.P. N Scale Rotary Snow Plow....

Cool. 900081 is on my bucket list. It's an hour away for me, so there can be firsthand measurements and photos.

[Sumner]

Cool. 900081 is on my bucket list. It's an hour away for me, so there can be firsthand measurements and photos.

Cool, I looked at it also but wanted one of the earlier ones.  Being built in '64 it would of still worked for my time period, up to early '70's but went with the earlier one.  I wanted to do one that had been converted to electric and ran with an F B unit behind it for power but couldn't find that combo with U.P. except for a Southern Pacific one that I think they acquired.

You going to moddle the 81?

Sumner

[C855B]

You going to model the 81?

That's my intention, the road to Hell notwithstanding.

[Sumner]

U.P. N Scale Rotary Snow Plow Pt. 2...

Made some slight mods to the two prints to thicken the grab irons up some and a couple other things and got some good prints.



Link to12V Micro Electric Gear Motor ( HERE ) , 2mm bearings ( HERE )  and 2mm shaft ( HERE ) .



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There are two locations on each side of the plow to glue bracing rods back from the front sides of the plow back to the rear of the blade housing and to the frame.



A short overview of the U.P. rotary snow plow at this point..................

Union Pacific used a tender from a 2-8-8-2 they had removed from service in 1949 ( UP #3672) for the updated 03005 rotary snow plow (later numbered 0074 then 900074 -- removed from service in 1969). The 2-8-8-2 had come from the Norfolk & Western Railway.

The plow had been converted from coal fired to oil fired around 1950 and the tender was also converted by adding a tank for the oil. I haven't been able to find any accurate drawings for the tender so have designed off of pictures of the tender used on U.P.'s 3672 2-8-8-2. This was the tender used behind the plow and there are a number of models of the 2-8-8-2 that could be bought but can't find the tender alone for sale so embarked on doing this design.



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Close to doing the first print. Most likely some things will need to be changed from what you see above at that point.

To be continued.....

Sumner

[Sumner]

U.P. N Scale Rotary Snowplow Pt. 3....

Before we get into the tender part of the build some notes about a draw-bar for the snowplow/tender. I'm going to make the draw-bar out out of two pieces of .030" double sided PCB that I also use for PCB ties for hand-laid turnouts. There needs to be two circuits between the tender and the snowplow. One to pass the DCC track current to the plow, although it will have track pickups also, the other for the speaker in the plow.

There will be a Bluetooth receiver, an audio amp, DCC to DC rectifier circuit, 12v DC to 5v DC circuit in the tender. The rotary plow will have a speaker (connected to the Bluetooth receiver) and an ESU LokPilot decoder for lighting and motor control (motor for the rotary blade).



A draw-bar was designed with fusion. I looks double sided but actually one piece of PCB will be used for one circuit and the second for the second circuit. The two pieces as you will see next are mirror images of each other.



The holes on the ends are different sizes as a 2-56 screw will be used on one end and a #4 screw on the other end.



These are way smaller than what the image depicts. The side extensions or where the wires will be soldered to the top and bottoms of the PCB. Kapton tape will be added to the PCB's where they are sandwiched together.



The 3 axle trucks are Micro-Trains N Scale 1173 Buckeye 6 wheel trucks. Track pickups will be added to the trucks. There will be pickups in the plow and the tender and they will be tied together for hopefully better track pickup.

The following pictures .....



..... are the first print for the tender frame and the tender body. They weren't printed in the optimal position as the goal was to get an initial look and then decide what change are needed. Mainly need to resize some of the ladders and grab-bars a little larger with some additional supports. I did the same for the plow after the first print. Here I wanted to see what I could get away with.



The frame and the body warped some after cleaning and curing. I did a quick/not perfect fix with a heat gun. I'll spend more time with that on the final prints/build. Warping is one of the things you need to design for or be able to fix when it happens with some resin prints.



At the front one can see the doors that were opened to shovel coal from the tender to an engine or in this case to the boiler in the snowplow. The plow was build in the 1920's and was coal fired. U.P. converted it and the tender that was used going forward to oil firing around 1950. A tank was added to the coal tender. I can't find any top view pictures after the coal to oil conversion so used pictures of other oil tenders to add that detail so it might not be correct on the print.



Small changes, mainly for component strength, will be made and another print in a day or two. Then maybe, paint, assembly and the addition of the electrical components for plow blade motor control, lighting and hopefully sound.

To be continued.....and the whole build here....

https://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Snow Plow/Snow Plow-Index.html

Sumner

[Sumner]

Have the Bluetooth sound wired up for the rotary snow plow....

Next up is painting the rotary plow and the tender and then installing the wiring in both.  Getting closer.............more info and I'll be posting the print file links here....

https://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Snow Plow/Snow Plow-Index.html

Sumner

[robert3985]

I've had good luck fixing warping by putting my parts or the entire raft in some instance, in a shallow, flat pan, then pouring in water that I've brought to a boil, covering the parts.  They usually un-warp in just a few seconds.  After they're straight, I gently take them out and sit them on a flat surface...my countertop...until they cool and they stay un-warped.  If they're not completely straight, I can nudge them while they're still hot and soft to get them where they should be.

I'm using Anycubic ABS-Like Pro 2 resin (grey)

Hey, works for me!

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Sumner]

I've had good luck fixing warping by putting my parts or the entire raft in some instance, in a shallow, flat pan, then pouring in water that I've brought to a boil, covering the parts.  .... Bob Gilmore

I'll give that a try.  So far I heat them with a heat gun....bend them......then hold in place till cool.

Sumner

[Erock482]

I find using sleds to support the sides of car bodies helps.

Draw in your 3D software a wedge shape, that extends beyond the end of the car sides. taper it at the top so it's about the same width as a regular support. You'll be able to remove it easily before curing.

Heres an example, sleds highlighted in orange. This has basically solved for me the warping at the ends of prints. even with the car bodies printed flat which I typically do.
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[Sumner]

Should have the build details and print file links up for the N scale U.P. rotary snowplow in the next few days.  Meanwhile a video of it almost done....

I'll post back with the rest is up.

Sumner

[Sumner]

U.P. N Scale Rotary Snowplow Build Pt. 4....

I use sheets of printed circuit board for cutting PCB ties  out of and also in a number of my electronic projects. They are cheap and easy to find on eBay and Amazon . Be careful as they come in a number of different thicknesses and single or double sided. I use the .8mm/.031" double sided since that is the correct thickness for N scale PCB ties, especially if using Fast Tracks fixtures.



I printed the template which is available as one of the print files with this project and used it to mark the PCB. I drilled some holes to help with cutting (right end). Also drilled the mounting holes at this point. Then cut the PCB with tin snips and used files to finish up the right side indent.

 

When making ties I use a triangle file like above to cut the electrical insulation cuts in the ties. The tapered end works well enough to make the cuts that don't go all the way across the board. Only takes a couple minutes to file in the cuts shown above (all cuts not in at this point).

 

Later I decided to add another set of pads on the right above to use with the speaker wires. There is a set from the speaker in the plow down to this board and another set from the Bluetooth sound in the tender.

 

With the cuts in place I then added the resistors for the 3 LEDs (headlight, cab & interior). Also used a 1206 SMD LED for the interior light (saved wiring to one).

 

With the board in place it only took a few minutes to solder the ESU LokPilot decoder wires to the board and .....

 

..... then the wires going to the two LEDs and the motor for the blade. It was well worth it to take an hour and make the board with the solder pads on it. Will also be easy to add or remove wires if I need to in the future.

 

I used my favorite 9X16 speaker ( HERE ) and printed a .150" high speaker enclosure ( HERE ) ( Print files ). The .150" high enclosure is a tight fit. You might choose the .130" high to give a little wiggle room.



The 3 axle trucks are Micro-Trains N Scale 1173 Buckeye 6 wheel trucks. The plow is using 003 10 020 (1001-10) trucks that don't have couplers that need to be cut off.



Track pickups were added to the tender trucks as shown above and also the plow trucks. The pickups in the plow and the tender are tied together for better track pickup.



A draw-bar was designed with fusion. Originally I was going to make two PCB throwbars and route the speaker current from the tender to the plow through one and the DCC track current through the other. Abandoned that idea and only made one like above and run the wiring just under it. Hardly visible in actual use. The tabs sticking out on the one end (tender end) help to locate the wiring from the tender to the plow.

Whole snowplow build ( HERE ).

Sumner

[Sumner]

U.P. N Scale Rotary Snowplow Build Pt. 5...Finished Kind of...

I put together a final video on the plow/tender  ( HERE ).

You can find the print files ( HERE ).

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Snowplow and tender are finished except for weathering and decals at some point hopefully.

The following is mostly how to put Bluetooth sound into the tender. I went this way as it wasn't that expensive and I could copy different snowplow sounds from the internet and use Audacity to make different sound files (Start, Start to Run, Run & Shutdown). I saved the sound files to my phone and play them to the plow with the free Samsung Music app I have on one phone and another free music app I have on another older phone I use for the shop speakers.

One has the option to print/build only the plow and/or tender and leave it there. There is also the option to add blade power, lighting and sound if one desires. Make it your snowplow.

 

Since the newer tender is 10% smaller than the first one the electronics in it had to shrink also. The capacitors in the first one were taking up too much room so decided to try a single surface mounted (SMD) 220 uF capacitor to replace the two larger capacitors that had been used. Made a pattern that can be printed to use in cutting down a plain printed circuit board to shape to fit into the tender. Cut some isolation gaps in it with a triangle file (quick and easy to do).

 

Next the surface mounted components were soldered on with my new $63 hot air soldering station. I love this thing. Soldering only took a few minutes and the smaller caps would of been really hard to solder with an iron. If you build many projects take a look ( HERE ) for more info on buying and using the hot air soldering station.

 

This is a pretty simple inexpensive circuit for a Bluetooth receiver, amplifier and speaker. It converts the AC DCC track current into DC current. Around 10v DC in my case with a 12v DCC-EX command station. This should work fine for 14v command stations also.  One could use this circuit to receive Bluetooth sound at any area on the layout and send the sound via a phone or using the KCX-BE-EITTER as a transmitter sound from about any source. I use this combo to broadcast sound from a stationary sound decoder to a boxcar that can be behind a DC or DCC engine and give the impression the sound is coming from that engine. More info ( HERE ) and ( HERE ).

The circuit is also inexpensive to build using the following parts:  (NOTE: Links for the following ( HERE )

MB1S Bridge rectifier...... ( DigiKey MB1S ).................................................. $0.70
220 uF Tantulam Poly Capacitor..... ( DigiKey 478-12517-1-ND ) .................. $5.00
.47 uF & .1uF Capacitors...... ( 1206 SMD Ceramic Capacitor Kit ) ............... $0.12 (12.00 for 300 capacitors)
7805 5v Voltage Regulator............................................................................ $0.50 (10 for $5.00)
KCX-BE-EITTER Bluetooth Transceiver (transmitter or receiver)......................... $9.00 Amazon but a couple dollars from China
750 mW Amplifier..... ( LM386 Mini Amplifier Board ) ................................. $4.50
9 X 16 Speaker ( DigiKey 3949-OWS-091630LA-8B-ND )............................ $1.00  (Quantity 10 price)
Speaker Enclosure ...... (print file with other print files.........see link below......... $0.50
Printed Circuit Board..................................................................................... $0.50 ( 5 Pack 150 x 100 x 0.8mm $10 ) Total... $21.82

(NOTE:  It is too time consuming to put all the links in for the items above but you can find them ( HERE ).



Above the components have been added to the tender. Soldering the leads to the Bluetooth receiver can be tricky. One might want to see how I did this before ( HERE ). There are 4 wires that run between the tender and the plow, 2 for track pickup between the two and 2 speaker wires from the amp in the tender to the speaker in the plow. I used 40 and 36 gauge wires for a lot of this. I ran the wires between the two through a very short piece of the smallest shrink wrap I have. It hides the wires well.

 

Tap the hole for the coupler with a 0-80 tap. The two holes for the trucks with 2-56 tap and I used 2-57 flathead screws to center and hold the trucks on. A final front hole needs to be taped 2-56 for the screw for the throwbar. If you need track pickup there is more info further back ( HERE ). You can also see the trucks that were used there.

 

I'm happy with how this turned out and hope to find time in the future to weather it some and to add some decals. The paint is close to how these plows/tenders were paint at the end of their service. Paint yours however you like.

 

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I put together a final video on the plow/tender  ( HERE ).

You can find the print files ( HERE ).

Sumner

[Sumner]

Rotary Snowplow Sound Files....

The sound I'm using for the snow plow came from Michael Armstrong's video, Steam Train Rotary Snow Plow, which you can watch ( HERE ). He has given permission for me to post them for download ....... thanks, Michael. Check out his other videos also ( HERE ).

You can find the sound files on my GitHub account ( HERE ). Go to the green box with '< > Code' in it and use the 'download zip'.

Download them and then copy them to your phone and play them with a music app of your choice via Bluetooth from your phone to the snowplow.

I copied short segments of audio from the video and then used Audacity to edit them into the 4 segments of sound that I've posted, Start, Start to Run, Run and Shutdown. The 'Run' is fairly long but you might need to play it more than once if you need a longer 'Run' time.

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I put together a final video on the plow/tender ( HERE ).

You can find the print files ( HERE ).

Sumner.