SteamSewnEmpire

(moc) The Century - WIP

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To give you this.   I have a L motor in my EN.  (Lego used the XL) I made a custom gear box with technic.  It pulls a 20 car rake of coal hoppers loaded with 1x1 rounds no issues.

If you gear it properly I have no doubt it will work fine.   Perhaps two m motors on the same gear drive pointing opposite directions in the boiler ... I will try to get a reference photo ... I know it's been done with two l motors.   Alternative I know several of the PENNLUG guys run two xl motors in the tender with each powering it's own truck ... Tender slides on over and captures the motor from turning

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The Hudson is looking great! One though though, why not put two motors in the tender and be done with it? I bet a pair of L motors would be a good balance of speed and power.

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11 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

The Hudson is looking great! One though though, why not put two motors in the tender and be done with it? I bet a pair of L motors would be a good balance of speed and power.

Because it bothers me on a fundamental level to have an unpowered locomotive :P. I don't like the idea of the tender being the "engine." Stupid? Unreasonable? Impractical Yes sir. But when I drop $50 on high-end 3d printed drivers, I want those puppies to spin under power.

Edited by SteamSewnEmpire

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12 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

I respect your tenacity! What about a pair of L motors on the main drivers? Even a single L might work.

Blech. Well, you prodded me into it. I spent 3 hours completely gutting the interior. It now has 2x Large PU motors, both in the engine, both powering the main drivers. The tender will have 2x battery boxes/receiver units. 

cFC2xfL.png

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If you are planning to build this one and try to run it, there's a few problematic things you may want to try to modify while it's still in the digital phase. 

- The front "shield" is a little too low. It goes lower than the actual "tire" of your lead truck wheels, which means that when it goes through switches or really any curve at all (Because of overhang), that shield is going to impact the rail and either tear off or just derail the engine altogether... or both.

- From what I can tell, also, your Engine Truck and Trailing Truck both seem to have only 1 point of articulation - a single ball joint from what I can tell. This is not likely to be enough articulation for either truck (For 2 axles, you need two points of rotation!), and in the case of your Engine Truck, is likely not going to angle it properly in curves to get around the pistons. 

- The other thing I would suggest to be aware of: If your engine is powered via the drivers, having some vertical play between the locomotive and the Engine/Trailing Trucks is going to be very important for smooth running. If your track is even slightly uneven, these trucks could lift your drivers off the rails enough to severely impact your performance.

These things would be much better to take care of earlier, rather than later in your process, especially if you're going to need to order most of/all of your parts. Redesigns of these things can require a lot of extra tinkering and potentially change both the chassis and the surrounding parts significantly. It seems like a bit of a catch-22, "I need parts to know how these mechanisms will work in the real world" but also "I don't want/cannot afford to buy parts twice, especially in the case of a significant redesign". I would very strongly suggest you get some wheels first, and build yourself a test chassis with parts you have on-hand, if you can. It doesn't have to look nice - just get that real-world knowledge of how everything moves together and how it interacts with your track.

Building a Locomotive model that looks accurately certainly is tough - it's another challenge altogether to build one that runs well, too. It can be very frustrating to build something that looks great and then learn that you really can't run it anywhere. 

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8 hours ago, Daedalus304 said:

If you are planning to build this one and try to run it, there's a few problematic things you may want to try to modify while it's still in the digital phase. 

- The front "shield" is a little too low. It goes lower than the actual "tire" of your lead truck wheels, which means that when it goes through switches or really any curve at all (Because of overhang), that shield is going to impact the rail and either tear off or just derail the engine altogether... or both.

- From what I can tell, also, your Engine Truck and Trailing Truck both seem to have only 1 point of articulation - a single ball joint from what I can tell. This is not likely to be enough articulation for either truck (For 2 axles, you need two points of rotation!), and in the case of your Engine Truck, is likely not going to angle it properly in curves to get around the pistons. 

- The other thing I would suggest to be aware of: If your engine is powered via the drivers, having some vertical play between the locomotive and the Engine/Trailing Trucks is going to be very important for smooth running. If your track is even slightly uneven, these trucks could lift your drivers off the rails enough to severely impact your performance.

These things would be much better to take care of earlier, rather than later in your process, especially if you're going to need to order most of/all of your parts. Redesigns of these things can require a lot of extra tinkering and potentially change both the chassis and the surrounding parts significantly. It seems like a bit of a catch-22, "I need parts to know how these mechanisms will work in the real world" but also "I don't want/cannot afford to buy parts twice, especially in the case of a significant redesign". I would very strongly suggest you get some wheels first, and build yourself a test chassis with parts you have on-hand, if you can. It doesn't have to look nice - just get that real-world knowledge of how everything moves together and how it interacts with your track.

Building a Locomotive model that looks accurately certainly is tough - it's another challenge altogether to build one that runs well, too. It can be very frustrating to build something that looks great and then learn that you really can't run it anywhere. 

Okay, I rectified 1 and 2 with relative ease (redesigned the pilot; added a second ball joint to each truck). With regards to the third point: if I add traction tires to the drivers (which I assume they will need, considering that they are the only point of contact for the motors) won't that have the effect of "heightening" those wheels very slightly, thus giving the lead and trailing trucks some clearance? If I run this, I would only ever be doing it on a flat modeling table - I'm not laying out a circle of track on a rug or something. So I expect any 'terrain undulation' to be very minor.

Edited by SteamSewnEmpire

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On 1/12/2020 at 11:18 PM, SteamSewnEmpire said:

Blech. Well, you prodded me into it. I spent 3 hours completely gutting the interior. It now has 2x Large PU motors, both in the engine, both powering the main drivers. The tender will have 2x battery boxes/receiver units. 

Excellent!

 

9 hours ago, Daedalus304 said:

I would very strongly suggest you get some wheels first, and build yourself a test chassis with parts you have on-hand, if you can. It doesn't have to look nice - just get that real-world knowledge of how everything moves together and how it interacts with your track.

I would echo this point and maybe even expand on it to include the tender to make sure there are no clearance problems there either. The cab and tender can both be one brick tall, you are only looking for conflicts parallel to the ground plane. Also include enough of your rods to make sure the cylinder design works and does not conflict with the pilot truck (pilot trucks and cylinders are a unique challenge on R40 curves).

 

2 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

If I run this, I would only ever be doing it on a flat modeling table - I'm not laying out a circle of track on a rug or something. So I expect any 'terrain undulation' to be very minor. 

If you don't ever run it, maybe save the hassle and cost of powering it and just build a display piece. If you do build it to run, you'll fall in love with it and then want to take it to a show. It could take a day of futzing to get everything working in harmony but it is worth it in the end (if you could get two L motors in the boiler, getting the trucks to work should be doable).

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11 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

If I run this, I would only ever be doing it on a flat modeling table - I'm not laying out a circle of track on a rug or something. So I expect any 'terrain undulation' to be very minor.

This is what I've found ... Front and rear trucks need at least 1 plate of travel up and down to allow the driver's to adhere to the rails.  I found that even the slightest angle in the track (half plate even) would allow the drive wheels to lift off enough (still technically touching) to cause violent wheel slip and essentially stranding your engine while under load without a push.

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Alright, so I was able to fix all those problems as pointed out by Daedalus304.

Now, here's another, unrelated question: I believe I have figured out a way to create the nose cone of the New Haven I-5 4-6-4. A combination of these parts...

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s0vQA3H.png

... will likely produce very close to the desired effect...

FcTAmhx.jpg

I'm very confident that, with a few hours work, I could create the I-5 in just as convincing a version as the J3a. The proportions are really so close that most of the modifications would be superficial.

So... which locomotive do you prefer? I am really on the fence here. I like the NYC hudson a lot. But I've never seen anyone with the NH engine in Lego. Opinions?

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2 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

I vote for NYC because that was an iconic locomotive. But ultimately, I would say build to your interests.

 

I think I'll build it tonight and see what I think. It's not that much work - nose, tender, skyline, trailing truck, swap Walschaerts for Baker.

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