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Prop driven rail car experiment

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Prop driven rail car experiment
Posted by philo426 on Wednesday, March 9, 2022 9:40 AM

Tried to see if this concept is valid...when tehered to a 18 volt power supply it did move when I added an on board 9 volt not so much.pretty cool though . 

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Posted by Art Young on Thursday, March 10, 2022 7:28 AM

There's an 0 gauge wind-up (Shuco?) of the real-life prewar German "Zeppellin" train. It was reproduced a few years ago. You can also get the LGB propeller powered toy in G - looks like a crashed airplane mounted on a flatcar, kids think it's cute.

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Posted by philo426 on Thursday, March 10, 2022 8:08 AM

Sounds interesting!

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Posted by 8ntruck on Thursday, March 10, 2022 6:41 PM

Interesting project.  My initial thoughts:

Start with a brushless motor that the RC guys are using nowadays.

At first cut, mount a motor, prop, motor controller, Lipo battery pack and a RC receiver on a flat car and run it with the RC transmitter.

If the performance is OK, then move on to figuring out how to use track power.  18vac into a magic conversion box (sorry folks, I'm a retired mechanical engineer - dangerous around electronics) to replace the lipo battery, then hack into LionChief or TMMC, or Legacy to talk to the motor controller?

Lionelsony - think this is possible?

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Friday, March 11, 2022 9:31 AM

You know, it might work better if you replace that Focke-Wulf FW-190 BMW radial and three-blade prop with a P-51's Rolls-Royce Merlin engine with a four-blade prop!

Wink

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Posted by philo426 on Friday, March 11, 2022 10:50 AM

Or perhaps a 5,blade Spitfire prop!

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Friday, March 11, 2022 3:45 PM

philo426

Or perhaps a 5,blade Spitfire prop!

 

Yes!  And with the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine!

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Friday, March 11, 2022 3:51 PM

Art Young
There's an 0 gauge wind-up (Shuco?) of the real-life prewar German "Zeppellin" train. It was reproduced a few years ago.

Yes, I've got one!  It's a Lionel reproduction made about 20 years ago. I don't use it often but it's a riot to watch!  

Someone did an article on converting it to an electric motored version suitable to run on three-rail O Gauge track but that was written years ago, I don't remember if it was in CTT or another magazine.

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Posted by pennytrains on Friday, March 11, 2022 4:45 PM

Pretty sure it was CTT.  But then, what did I do this morning....???  Wink

I like this idea.  It's very "AirPunk" to coin a phrase!  Big Smile

Big Smile  Same me, different spelling!  Big Smile

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