DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

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.