DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

Lag what you do here is incredible. You are very... What's that word, I forget, but you're like the MacGyver of trains and tracks. Also your artistry is top notch. Good show all around.

The boiler and smokebox have now been glued to the frame after another repaint. This time, the gold was a primer and a new dark green mixture was applied over it. Before adding the other details again, I wanted to make sure the stability problem wouldn't come back now that the boiler is smaller. When viewed from the front, it looks a bit off to the side compared to the cylinders. Not like a Shay's boiler, but still apparent from certain angles. Either way, it's more appropriately sized than the original and gives the whole thing a better look.



Rather than gluing the cab roof or adding pins/screws and holes, fasteners or whatever, I did the same thing I did for the footplate and gave it a square underneath to keep it from slipping off while being easy to remove. In addition, a thin bar was added between the rear ends of the cab walls.



After that, the drive unit was put back in the tender and tested again to check if the motor worked after being left on the desk (which it does). However, I didn't think I might have to reglue the wheels to the driven axle before I put the top back on. That would take nothing to fix, but it has a much bigger problem: the already bad noise of the gearing turned into a high pitched, insufferable shriek that sounds even worse than I remembered. It could be because the crown half of the custom gear scrapes against the shaft of the existing third gear, since I didn't want to trim the other (cylindrical) side of the crown. I'll have to remove the DU again and replace the fourth gear, if not go back to the original low torque setup. The current shape of the tender body looks fine to me, so it could be a challenge to build a new chassis that still fits.

A (very) belated update as a result of modifications, track and floor testing, unreleased demo videos, soldering difficulties and other unexpected hardships. Nearly gave up again trying to (re)motorise this model.

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To protect the large crown gear from rubbing against the tiny shaft as mentioned, I removed it and went back to the earlier setup with the thick gear driven by the small crown on the motor; despite its problematic nature and tendency to disengage even when really close to what it powers. While it did make it sound like a steam outline diesel again, it brought back the better speed and made it significantly quieter. The wheelbase somehow became too short and derailed too easily, so it later had to be extended and weighted down at the front using two metal cubes (pictured below). Until that point, it was found to run better on TOMY due to that system's lack of outer rails.



Speaking of TOMY, I tried using a "new" type of loco-tender connection made up of Plarail style couplings (really my old 3D pen hook and the same loop I used before). Unlike on Plarail locos, the loop coupling is rigid in an attempt to keep the tender away from the cab (so the loop wouldn't turn with the hook when the loco or tender gets close). Sadly, it still isn't long enough and the tender will hit the cab and get stuck. If that's really where the problem is, I'll try redesigning the coupling/s before testing again.



Thinking it would make the motor less likely to disengage, I remounted it on top of the fourth gear like the first time I tried this setup. It will make the coal cover more difficult to design, but I don't plan to bring back the further details until after a successful track test in both directions. For a currently unknown reason, it works better going in one direction than it does in the other. While it may have a traction tyre on only one wheel, it performs pretty well when it doesn't jam or disengage. By coincidence, the motor disengaging can make a screech that nearly sounds like a whistle (but more like a European guard's). If I had recordable sound modules, I would've been able to implement such features intentionally.

Around the time of Sukkot, metal (alas, steel) zip ties become available here in addition to regular nylon/plastic ones. They have a different pawl end and no teeth on the other side, and are actually not as good for their intended purpose; they can't even be cut by "normal means" (i.e., side cutting pliers), though my pruning scissors are good for both types. I've already started looking into track power after seeing it can be replicated, though I'm too scared to plug anything homemade into a socket and don't have adequate safety measures.



After I cut one tie into short strips and found they were conductive, I wondered if they could also function like most types of model track (whether two rail or third rail). Yesterday, I took two and attached the wires of my old USB cable to feed them 5V and was surprised they didn't get hot or emit sparks when touched by another conductor. I considered building a chassis with metal wheels and pickups to power an LED from the track, but the LED alone was enough. One thing that really deters me is if the rails would touch each other directly while live, they could cause a short circuit that would make everything overheat and/or start a fire (including the power source, e.g. a laptop). Wonder how manufacturers make parts like junctions and points yet manage to prevent this. According to an unsourced claim in the Wikipedia article "Rail transport modelling", there used to be "trackside batteries" at a time before electricity became widespread in homes. I couldn't find any photos or other mentions of those that weren't copied from there, so I have no idea if I could simply place a 3x AA pack and wire it to the rails. If possible, I'd prefer using a rechargeable battery like one of those huge Li-Po bricks for certain RC vehicles.

Another use I could find for a parallel arrangement like this with current would be a sensor/detector that would react to a metal piece touching both simultaneously, like an alternative to a button or slide switch. For example, turning an engine's lights on until it exits a tunnel or triggering something in a trackside building. I've seen two different level crossings with that type of detector to lower the barriers, so that's how I know about it. While they may not be as good as aluminium or copper (yet more effective than large amounts of aluminium foil), I'm still happy to know I could use them for either of these purposes. For the time being, I'll keep building rolling stock with on board battery power instead. However, I will still try to replicate different pickup methods like wheel scraping wipers and copper coils on axles.

After removing the Plarail style couplings (which were found to be impractical for this model), I tried designing magnetic couplings inspired by TomyTrain (dark blue Plarail) and pre-2006 LEGO and fitting them to see if they would help fix the jamming/disengaging tender. I was unable to make perfectly aligned holes in the frame and had to use poorly glued paper bearings, so one coupling inevitably broke. For a similar reason, the magnets were incorrectly glued over full shafts and could not do a 360° flip to change polarity when needed.



Even though they were fitted too low and not very well, they did keep the tender away and there was only, like, one derailment with them. However, they didn't fix the difficult crown gear moving away and only made it worse (more frequent) than before. Even the motor seemed to lose power and get hot from the strain. Using a worm gear on the motor again made it annoyingly slow, which meant I had to do something I (really) didn't want to.



Rather than trying to reglue the motor at a full 90° again, I gave up on the fourth gear entirely and went back to the worm gear at the end of the default gear train. While I did lose all the additional torque that gave me so many hopes for the model, it also made it even quieter and only a tiny bit slower. Then again, most steamers aren't really known for their tractive effort compared to diesels/electrics. The motor also had to be rewired, in part because the previous wiring made it run backwards when I moved it to the third gear. I'm surprised it still manages to push the loco even after the torque loss, though it 'will' have to pull a train at the same time. The tender's traction tyre was also worn out and had to be taken off and discarded. Wonder how I could mount the fourth gear in a way that the crown would never disengage from it.

I've been trying to find some potential in strips from metal tealight casings, in part because even that metal is conductive; might be aluminium since regular scissors can cut it without breaking. After managing to repair two of my DC motors with them by cutting out new brushes, I recalled having the core and end piece from a third spare parts motor (the stator was missing). When looking up how track power pickups work prior to my metal rail experiment, I found this video that showed wheel wipers can add too much friction and impede performance. It offers a brilliant solution in the form of copper tubes on axles that don't roll with the wheelsets, and therefore can be wired to the on board component/s without getting tangled. The copper coils that power DC motors are made of (very, very) long wires, so I ripped them out and turned them into new coils to stand in for the tubes. While not very well made, they should still function the same way when fitted. If I had copper sheets or tape or wound the wires properly, they would've been smoother and (probably) more effective. As mentioned, I still plan to try the wiper method as well.



I then came up with an idea for a working LED signal, similar to the recently reintroduced Plarail/TomyTrain one that can move the lever of a stop/go track. I thought wiring the usual way would make the circuit too bulky or prone to malfunctioning and wanted to have the battery/ies at the bottom. I remembered multiple videos showing "paper circuits" that made use of foil, copper tape and other conductive objects - among them "traffic light" ones that allow triggering different LEDs individually. I noticed the cathodes of the LEDs were connected to each other, and the anodes to separate contacts touching the live switch/es. After examining those circuits, I grabbed a red LED and a green one and cut them down to size. V1 used foil strips glued to the back, with the switch being an old contact from a primitive plastic rocker switch. A screw was used to attach it for the hinge to be stiff.



No, I didn't mix up the lights. Plarail J-10 also has the green one on top. If I made a semaphore, I would only need a single white/yellow light with a hinged red-green lens in front of it.



For V2, I replaced the foil strips with better "tealight" ones and glued them under the LEDs' leads, with the ends being folded over them. The new switch was a bent safety pin with the pin itself cut off, leaving only the spring and clasp. While both versions worked perfectly, I'll still have to build a third one with hot glued/superglued contacts, a regular switch and (perhaps) a better material for the casing. In theory, the same circuit could be used to electrify one of these Plarail signals, though the original "semaphore like" arm would be redundant; both lights would never be on at the same time. Looking forward to finishing one of these and mounting it to a post.

Update:



So, now I've found how to get a proper switch to do the same thing: wiring the middle prong to the power source/other switch and the other two to the anodes of the LEDs. This particular switch has rigid wires attached to the prongs, which I've bent outwards to reach the anodes. While I always knew it was possible, it's the first time I've been able to wire a switch/button for another function besides on/off. I'll just have to solder three-five connections before guiding the long wires down the back of the post, though I might replace them with flat strips to hide them more easily. Not to mention, the positive wire will no longer have to move with the switch and risk getting torn off.

The wires that were factory soldered to the left and right prongs on the previous light switch had broken off as a result of further bending (only the middle one remains), so it had to be taken off and replaced with a more common (bigger) switch. I failed to solder new wires or the LEDs' anodes to the other one due to how small it was, one reason being the prongs were too short to wrap wires around. The old negative wire was also a fragile single strand type I couldn't solder to the aluminium strip, so that too had to be replaced with a common multi strand wire.



After that, I attached the signal to a post glued to the light switch and guided the wires around it through tight fitting tube rings (which weren't glued). A maintenance platform and ladder will be added, in part to conceal the wires a bit better. The plastic bit isn't a suction cup, but rather a pull cord knob from a rubber band propeller launcher. Didn't even need to glue the post due to how tightly it fits.



The originally planned coin cell would've been too big and the 3x LR44 compartment was a bit overpowered (the LEDs have no resistors), so a new 2x LR44 one was made to provide minimum voltage. Before adding the power switch, the positive wire was initially connected directly for testing. The only drawback is the cells have to be pulled out with a magnet or tweezers. The normal wire for the switch might be replaced with a safety pin like the one from earlier to prevent it from coming off, in the event the screw would "reject" the solder. There were times when one light responded and the other didn't without adjusting the head, so six connections will be re/soldered before adding missing details. I don't have enough (factory made) slide switches and don't plan to use the design for additional signals in the near future.

The ladder, platform and battery cover have been added, which was a bit hard to figure out considering the compartment and on/off switch locations. One side of the ladder, as well as the handrail on the platform, are made of one long strip from an anti slip mat and strengthened with wooden sticks. Would've looked better if the steps had been glued on the other side, but the rails don't usually seem to protrude much in most (model and real life) photos I've found. Turned out the handrail is only a bit higher than where a maintainer's hand would be. I might shorten it if I'll ever start using/making baseless figures in the correct scale. It really does help complete the look and distract from the exposed wiring; then again, the rings were lightly adjusted to reduce the gaps between the wires. Even the battery compartment looks like it somehow belongs there, though I could've used cardboard for the cover to make it match.



After resoldering the connections, I added visors for the lights and a drop shape at the tip of the post like in the reference images I followed. Two black supports for the head were added near the light switch after making a shroud (not pictured) made it look thicker than needed. For the visors, I did the same thing I did for the American engine's headlamp: cutting small trapezoids and folding them over the cylindrical housings. The drop shape is a drop of hot melt glue painted silver to match the rest. A full view of the completed signal at "Danger" next to a line:



All in all, it's quite possibly one of the best looking props I've built in a long time and the effort certainly paid off. That said, I could've located the light switch next to/under/over the power one to make it nicer to operate without having to hold the signal. Miniature Vehicle India made his own three way switch to control a signal remotely from the ground, which (despite the long wiring) seems more effective than what I did.

Last November, the last new idea I tried happened to be a fire based smoke unit. It was a common design fuelled by a lit roll of tissue (or normal) paper inside a fireproof tube. Apart from being very unsafe, that unit was also impractical for most locomotives due to how it worked and the fan being where the smokebox would be. For a long time since then, I've been wondering how and where I could easily find nichrome wire to make safer, smaller and better shaped smoke units. Even thought about taking apart my second (non working) soldering iron or buying a smaller glue gun just for the heating element. I've watched several videos that showed different sources of nichrome, and it seemed the only good one they showed that was readily available were kitchen scourers. However, I found the wire from those too brittle, easily damaged and too elastic whenever I tried to rewind it or leave two ends for wiring/connecting.



To my surprise, I've now found a weird but excellent option I never knew about even though it was there all along: non electric, coil based epilators (facial/body hair removers) of a type known as Epiroller. I cut one open to extract the coil and found it wasn't magnetic, which was my first indication it might be nichrome. My confirmation came when I threaded a wire through each side and connected them to a battery and it began to smell, even on 1.5V. I then made a receptacle for the element with cotton wool dipped in baby oil and tried it on 3V, which gave a better effect and temperature than expected. On 5V (USB), it got hot enough that it glowed like premade heating elements in several high voltage devices. I won't have to crimp the wires to it since I managed to keep them on by wrapping tightly around the leads.



After seeing the element worked fine on different voltages, I thought how it would be installed in a loco. Forming a metal boiler using tealight casings/strips didn't go well, so I tried fitting it into a big marker cap (not pictured). For reference, I looked at the smoke unit in the loco for Quazar's Pepsi train. I was (kind of) surprised the mini bottle they used was plastic and not glass, even though it wasn't heatproof and the holes were made with a soldering iron. The cap I used had ridges around the top that helped serve as a guide for the holes, but the inside was narrower near the top and sanding/melting it would've likely damaged the outside. In the shed, I found this cyan plastic cylinder that happened to be the same size but more up to the task. Like with the marker cap, the holes were made using a self drilling screw and power screwdriver with the top (smokestack) hole being enlarged with the iron. The element is held by its wires and hopefully won't touch the casing directly, though I'm still afraid it might melt. Before testing and painting black, I'd rather wait til I could find a better smoke fluid like machine oil or glycerine. Unlike Quazar's unit, the fan might be driven by one of the unpowered wheelsets to prevent the buzz or whine of an additional motor. It would also greatly reduce the smoke when the loco is not moving. I would make the smoke optional like on some Lionel locos anyway.

Best of all, I have the rest of the coil as well as more Epirollers in the event I'll need more heating elements; esp. for all of Super's ideas for buildings with smoke units. I could also undo the coils and rewind them in different sizes, or turn them into one length for something like a homemade foam cutter. Too bad I won't be able to use them to heat (tap) water due to mineral deposits that would reduce their lifespan. Very happy I won't have to look any further and have such a good way to acquire them for free.

Attempts at a wheel driven gear drive to power the fan in the smoke unit without a dedicated motor, which (sadly) backfired due to a shortage of suitable gears and my failure to align said gears with the test chassis properly.



The idea was to attach the fan to an 8 toothed gear driven by a 36 toothed one to make it fast enough, and have it mesh with another one connected to the crown gear on the axle. It may look like the first (red) gear above had the right tooth spacing, but the teeth were too small to mesh with the 36T one. While I did manage to align one gear with the axle and power it smoothly in both directions, trying to add 'any' load made it lock up and stop working (even on carpet). Nothing to do with traction tyres. Not sure how and where I lost the O ring set I bought, so I couldn't really find a small enough rubber band for a belt drive. Even trying to restrict the fan shaft's range of motion didn't help stop it from moving left/right/up/down.



Eventually, I gave up and had to use a motor anyway despite knowing it would have to buzz. To reduce (but not mute) the sound, I chose a motor that had four presoldered capacitors. The three bladed fan was also replaced with a better four bladed one (not pictured). I then attached the heater and motor wires and filled the unit with baby oil, and it gave the exact effect I expected when running on 5V. Didn't even have to change the airflow with a smaller hole in the back. After the successful test, I applied the first coat of acrylic black; until the only traces of cyan left will be on the inside. It should (hopefully) be supplemented by spray black to help it adhere more nicely. Notably, the element didn't melt the plastic even though it was running on high voltage for a few seconds. Regarding power in the planned loco itself: the heater and smoke motor would be powered by a 3x AAA (4.5V) cylinder pack in the tender, with one AA or two AAAs in the loco for its main (drive) motor only. I'm impressed with how well it performed, and it would surely look even more awesome on a running train. If I wanted to, I could replace the fan with a reciprocating mech for a more realistic "puff" effect rather than a continuous stream.