Save electricity to power the layout. Hookup a generator to the exercise bike and power the layout. Or for a club layout. Have one right next to a fitness place and get power the same way from all the exercise bikes. Make a trade with the exercise place and give free tickets to members kids to come over and watch the trains. If you are double heading UP Big Boys you might need to get the whip out for the people on the exercise bikes.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
Boyd, your post got me thinking about a way to get free train power without using electricity at all:
Imagine a circular layout, with a track (or tracks) around the circumference and perhaps a big mountain in the middle to block the view of the other side of the layout. Put a circular sidewalk around the outside of the layout. Pivot both the layout and the sidewalk at the center and connect them under the layout so that tilting the sidewalk down at, for example, the 6 o'clock point tilts the layout also, but at 9 o'clock, that is, always 90 degrees clockwise from the low point of the sidewalk. (This can be done with a very simple mechanical linkage, whose design I leave as an exercise for the reader.) Put a train on the layout, let's say at 6 o'clock, facing clockwise, with a dummy locomotive.
Now let a kid into the room. He goes to the train and steps up onto the sidewalk to see it closely. The layout tips in response so that the train is now headed downhill to the left. The train begins to move clockwise along the track. The kid follows it. As he moves from 6 o'clock to 7 o'clock, the low point of the layout shifts from 9 o'clock to 10 o'clock, keeping the train moving downhill. The kid continues circling the layout, staying with the train, as kids will do; and the train runs as long as he stays interested, without any electrical power at all!
Bob Nelson
Lionelsoni,
That is an ingenious idea. I am always very impressed with your responses.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Joe
Personally I never understood with all we know about synthetic materials and gearboxes why we can't just build an electric motor that runs on the electricity provided by the generator it's spinning.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Don't get me started.
I second that emotion that there is no such thing as perpetual motion. Well, unless you count universal atrophy vs universal entropy. However, one can not observe, lest one influences that which one tries to observe.
Timboy, The Invisible
I designed a perpetual motion machine when I was a kid but never built it. I think I have enough Erector set pieces to do it.
i was thinking of a solor panel for my layout and get all the free electricity i want.
I would second solar power.
In a way could you deduct the solar panel from your taxes when its really for the trains?
I still ponder what it would be like if O gauge trains were like some of their larger brethren: battery-powered and radio-controlled. No power to the rails required. I remember toying around with the insides of a R/C car and plane to see what it would take to swap out the innards in a typical Lionel 2-4-2.
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Check out David Vergun's ("FJ and G") ancient posts about his experiments with battery power.
I used some jumper wires and ran power from an RC battery pack to the track where I had a 2 motor GP7. It took off with great speed before I disconnected the power. The battery pack was NI-CD 7.2V 6XAA600mAh. If you bypassed the reverse unit and ran power straight to DC can motor with an electronic speed control I think it could work. Just make sure the amperage isn't high enough to burn out the motors. The RC handheld controller might make the TVs and some other stuff in the house act up.
Well there was the water-power dynamo system for home electricity generation. If you live next to a stream I guess you could go hydro. Of curse, once the river freezes you're out of luck.
Becky
I'm personally fascinated by the concept of using chicken poo to generate electricity. Neighbors; not so much...
Timboy
David Vergun sure did some clever things - with battery power and outdoor O gauge trains. Wonder what he's up to these days.
DOUG,
I too was wondering what happened to him? Always enjoyed his inovations. Come back DAVE.
laz57
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