Live Diesel

[dukebasketballer`]

Hi Guys,

If you recall, in the October '05 issue of GR, a guy out of Australia named Tod Hetherington converted and RDC to internal combustion power using a nitro car engine and some other miscellaneous parts. I am trying to make the same conversion, except to a different loco, and have some questions. Have any of you tried the conversion? Does anybody know how to contact Tod?

As always, thanks for the help

[underworld]

It will work in any loco that you can get the stuff to fit into.

 

underworld

[dukebasketballer`]

What specifically do you use for a generator? Did you keep the original circuit boards?

Thanks

[underworld]

Haven't done it yet myself, but I think there were some details about the parts in the article.

 

underworld

[cabbage]

Try reading this

http://www.davewatkins.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/detritus.htm

regards

ralph

[dukebasketballer`]

Thanks for the article, however I am trying to do something a little different. In the article, he has the motor drive the axles. I want to have the motor turn an electric generator which will power the electric lights and motors.

[cabbage]

Well...

As members of another forum are well aware I am building a STEAM ELECTRIC locomotive -so I would imagine that "the bit after the clutch" of mine is what you are looking for? I did hand wound my dynamo -but this was after I did some tests using standard DC electric motors. I found that the problem was not generating the required AMPS but the VOLTS... The ampere side of it depends upon the thickness of your winding wire, (and remains roughly constant), but the output voltage depends on the number of lines of flux cut per second. There are two ways of looking at this:

You turn faster: either increase the radius of the windings, or increase the rotational speed.

You increase the flux density: either by using almost dangerously high fluxes, or bleed part of the power off to drive an electromagnet.

My option was to increase the radius of windings and to use 16 NIB magnets of 0.125 Tesla EACH. Thus my dynamo has a radius of rotation of 5cm and a flux density of 0.25 Tesla. operating at 1400 to 2000 RPM, (Rho for this dynamo between these speeds is roughly 4). The output voltage for these rotation speeds is between 6 and 8 Volts at 19 Amperes.

The basic formula you need is: 10e8 lines of flux per cm per second equals 1 volt

The reason I opted for a dynamo rather than an alternator was -it was more in keeping with the original and I didn't want to lose 0.7Volts through a diode!!! The dynamo carries a health warning -as at these flux densities it can affect heart pacemakers (my father) and stick to metal implants in the human body (my wife)...

The build diary can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sheila.capella/cabbage/heilmann.html

I hope you find some of it useful!

regards

ralph

[underworld]

Well...

As members of another forum are well aware I am building a STEAM ELECTRIC locomotive -so I would imagine that "the bit after the clutch" of mine is what you are looking for? I did hand wound my dynamo -but this was after I did some tests using standard DC electric motors. I found that the problem was not generating the required AMPS but the VOLTS... The ampere side of it depends upon the thickness of your winding wire, (and remains roughly constant), but the output voltage depends on the number of lines of flux cut per second. There are two ways of looking at this:

You turn faster: either increase the radius of the windings, or increase the rotational speed.

You increase the flux density: either by using almost dangerously high fluxes, or bleed part of the power off to drive an electromagnet.

My option was to increase the radius of windings and to use 16 NIB magnets of 0.125 Tesla EACH. Thus my dynamo has a radius of rotation of 5cm and a flux density of 0.25 Tesla. operating at 1400 to 2000 RPM, (Rho for this dynamo between these speeds is roughly 4). The output voltage for these rotation speeds is between 6 and 8 Volts at 19 Amperes.

The basic formula you need is: 10e8 lines of flux per cm per second equals 1 volt

The reason I opted for a dynamo rather than an alternator was -it was more in keeping with the original and I didn't want to lose 0.7Volts through a diode!!! The dynamo carries a health warning -as at these flux densities it can affect heart pacemakers (my father) and stick to metal implants in the human body (my wife)...

The build diary can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sheila.capella/cabbage/heilmann.html

I hope you find some of it useful!

regards

ralph

Great info for dynamo/generator building!!!

underworld

[sammyuel]

http://www.livedieselmodels.com/  check this if you havent already, maby you can get a email into these guys. Good luck and if in florida bring it by for a run www.hotdoodle.com/tntrr

 

 

[underworld]

http://www.livedieselmodels.com/  check this if you havent already, maby you can get a email into these guys. Good luck and if in florida bring it by for a run www.hotdoodle.com/tntrr

 

 

Great link!!! Thanks!

underworld