Hello All,
I am seeking advice on how to scratch build an operating track scale.
As I have posted, my pike is based on the movements of Tyco HO scale 34-foot operating hoppers with a 3% curved grade to an unloading platform.
My live loads are comprised of black silica ashtray filling.
I have been filling these cars by volume with the aid of a tablespoon measuring spoon.
On prototypical railroads, there are track scales that measure the weight of the unloaded/loaded rolling stock.
Boulder Creek Engineering offers a track scale. However, according to their website...
Notice: This product simulates weighing for model railroad operations, and does not provide the true weight of rail cars.
Yes, I can set up a separate scale track by attaching a section of track to a digital scale.
I've even considered embedding a kitchen scale in the foam roadbed under a floating piece of sectional track.
Realizing that an electronic scale is comprised of a load cell with a readout, does anyone have a source for these components in a smaller scale?
Thank you for your respectful thoughts.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
That sounds good in theory but as you have figured out the practicality will be extremely difficult if not impossible to implement. it would be much easier to create a loading tower that would meter out loads.
ndbprr(I)t would be much easier to create a loading tower that would meter out loads.
Yes, I have considered that option, if all other avenues are exhausted- -see my signature.
I apologize if I didn't make my intentions clearer...
Not only do I want the value of the load being received but also the total weight of the individual cars, hence the ability to test the weight of each car unloaded and loaded to standardize the weight of each train up the 3% grade.
You would probably need a single car, stopped scale (as opposed to a coupled weigh in motion).
If I were going to do it I would make a balance beam that had an analog readout (dial indicator) and then using known weights, calibrate the dial.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusmanI would make a balance beam that had an analog readout (dial indicator) and then using known weights, calibrate the dial.
Thank you for a great mechanical solution.
Yes, calibration is key, no matter mechanical or electronic.
I am seeking more of an electronic solution.
dehusmanYou would probably need a single car, stopped scale (as opposed to a coupled weigh in motion).
Yes, I'm thinking of a shove-on, shove-off operation with a pause between cars.
Some solutions are the result of a combination of mechanical and electronic.
When I built my scale house module I considered doing the same thing. I model the steam era and weigh in motion was not an option. I made a gauntlet track and was looking into actually using the live scale rails. Until I looked at scientific scales in grams.
I planned on making a bridge just like the real thing and hinging on one end. The other end of the bridge would be on the scientific scale load cell. The scale would have to be gutted of components and made up brackets and control panel. I have super magnets under the track to keep the cars from rolling and you would need the same. Super magnets under the approach rails work the KD couplers and skews them in the open position. It would take some engineering to accomplish this but can be done. Google scientific digital scale.
Pete
wrench567Google scientific digital scale.
Thank you for opening a path.
I have a solution for the floating track section necessary to activate a load cell one car at a time.
My solution involves a single piece of re-railing sectional track.
This would be linked to a load cell and transmitted, digitally, to a readout on the facia of the pike.
Hi jjdamnit,
Here is a working track scale:
https://bouldercreekengineering.com/weighstation.php
The $129.99 price seems reasonable, although I'm sure you could build one for less.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
jjdamnitI have been filling these cars by volume with the aid of a tablespoon measuring spoon.
is it to
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
hon30critter Hi jjdamnit, Here is a working track scale: https://bouldercreekengineering.com/weighstation.php The $129.99 price seems reasonable, although I'm sure you could build one for less. Dave
Dave.
This does not weigh the cars. It similates cars being weighed using IR detectors and digital readout.
Pete.
One of the clubs that frequents our local train shows has a fully operational coal loading/unloading scene that is very interesting to watch. It is practically hands off except for the occassional derailment. The one thing that they don't have (IIRC) is a working weigh scale. That would definitely add to the already excellent scene.
gregcI'm confused about the purpose or need for the scale is it to more accurately or conveniently add the silica to each car just once actually load the car automatically during operation, or weigh each car during operation as a RR would and recorded on a manifest
Fair question...
I want to standardize the gross weight of each car being pulled up the grade for consistent operation.
Eight (8) loaded Tyco 34-foot operating hopper cars negotiate the 3% curved grade up to the unloading platform on my pike.
On a siding, directly below the unloading platform, there is a string of eight (8) empties waiting to receive the loads.
The empties from above are shuttled down to the mainline, where the process begins again.
After finalizing the track I've begun testing the live loads up the grade.
Loading the cars by volume can be inaccurate.
Regarding the Boulder Creek Engineering WeightStation Track Scale;
wrench567Dave. This does not weigh the cars. It simulates (SIC) cars being weighed using IR detectors and digital readout. Pete.
Unfortunately so.
I got some great information from your suggestion.
One website breaks down the components of a digital scale.
Another website shows how to make a digital scale with an Arduino Uno Microcontroller Unit (MCU).
This project fits my needs but requires a PC to calibrate the unit.
I'm on a Mac desktop. I know Mac can run Windows, but purchasing an inexpensive PC for this project would probably be a better solution.
Definitely on the "to-be-built" list.
For now...
I've considered a balance beam arrangement with an off-the-shelf digital scale.
Another solution could be carving out a well in the foam base and installing a complete digital scale under the floating track of the test scale.
Luckily the proposed test scale track is close to the edge of the pike so the readout would be visible.
Small digital scales are relatively inexpensive.
I've considered dissecting one and seeing if I could adapt the components to my situation.
Please keep the questions, comments, and suggestions positive!
I also run those old Tyco clamshell door hoppers, occasionally using live coal loads. I use Woodland Scenics "cinders" black ballast as my simulated coal. It looks and works pretty well. I've removed the old Talgo trucks completely, installed body-mounted Kadees, replaced the trucks with lightweight Tichy ones and upgraded the old plastic wheelsets with metal Intermountains. This has dramatically reduced rolling friction and made it easier to pull the train with a single engine.
The cinder ballast is very light. A prototype coal load probably weighs more than the car, but in my case the car weight exceeds the load weight by a lot.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasleyI also run those old Tyco clamshell door hoppers, occasionally using live coal loads.
My entire 4'x8' HO pike is based on the loading and unloading operations of Tyco HO scale 34-foot operating hoppers with a 3% curved grade to the unloading platform and a historic trestle (helix) back down to the mainline.
MisterBeasleyI've removed the old Talgo trucks completely, installed body-mounted Kadees, replaced the trucks with lightweight Tichy ones and upgraded the old plastic wheelsets with metal Intermountains. This has dramatically reduced rolling friction and made it easier to pull the train with a single engine.
I have done the same...
The Kadee #5s are indeed a bulletproof addition, along with the accompanying gearboxes, installed with #256 Nylon insulated screws.
I converted to Accurail Roller Bearing trucks and Intermountain semi-scale wheels.
Using the Micro-Mark HO Truck Tuner helps too.
The O.E.M. Tyco bolsters were filed flush with the frames and the upgraded trucks installed with 2-56 screws from Micro Fasteners.
What an amazing difference in performance!
MisterBeasleyI use Woodland Scenics "cinders" black ballast as my simulated coal.
Searching for live coal loads that would be heavy enough to pass through the unloading doors and have a prototypical look, I considered:
I cannot recall the source, but someone suggested non-magnetized silica ashtray sand as a live load due to its density and safety over real coal.
This is available in both white and black.
I've considered using the white to fill the other cars to replicate rock dust, used in mining operations.
Again, please keep the questions, comments, and suggestions positive!
I use a sandblasting media called Black Beauty. It actually crushed slag from the steel making process. Right out of the bag it has a shine on it. But once you start working it or put some in a cloth bag. ( I actually use a leg from a pair of jeans folded and stapled on one end.) It dulls up real quick.
Makes my tender coal loads and hopper loads. Can be glued just like ballast using alcohol as a wetting agent.
wrench567I use a sandblasting media called Black Beauty. It actually crushed slag from the steel making process.
What you are referring to is a ferrous-based (magnetic) material.
From my research this magnetic material- -when spilled- -because all live loads eventually spill, can create electronic havoc between the rails due to its conductive properties.
jjdamnit...someone suggested non-magnetized silica ashtray sand as a live load due to its density and safety...
In my particular situation, I have chosen a non-ferrous (non-magnetic) based material for live loads.
wrench567 I don't dispute your success.
The density and/or material the live load is made up of is not in question.
I am seeking a way to consistently calculate the gross weight of the train being pulled up the 3% curved grade on my pike.
Hauling Gern would have alleviated this problem.
Slag is non magnet. It's carbon, and other trash material like dirt. I run a magnet through it and it usually comes out clean. There may be one or two particle stuck to it. My coal loads in the hoppers are loose and the service yard is ballasted with crushed up material that I crushed with a hammer in the denim pant leg. Representing spilled coal and ash from the pits.
Just another choice to consider.
My gravel plant uses several different sizes of sand down to silt like talcum powder. I used to work for a sand and gravel producer. I had access to testing sieves. In actual scale size of aggregate, the Woodland Scenic N scale ballast is closer to the three inch minus ballast a railroad would use. Compare one piece of HO scale WS to a scale figures hand. Railroads don't use boulders for ballast. The only loads not loose is the talcum powder sized sand loads.
wrench567 This does not weigh the cars. It similates cars being weighed using IR detectors and digital readout. Pete.
Ooops,
Thanks for pointing that out Pete. I didn't read the whole description. My bad.
I did another search and I came up with this video which shows how to make a working weigh scale. Warning: the pace is incredibly slow at first.
The video concentrates mostly on writing up the Arduino program and doesn't show a lot of detail about how to make the actual scales. However, I think that there is a clear enough side view of the apparatus that copying it shouldn't be too difficult. The track piece shown isn't as long as it would be in a working model. The piece is only for purposes of the demonstration. It needs to be the length of the wheel base of your longest weighed car plus some room for spotting, and it doesn't have to be as wide. Some modifications would also have to be made if you want to run a gantlet (gauntlet?) track beside the scale for a switcher. I would also suggest installing some sort of parking brake so the car can't roll off the scale. That could be as simple as a clear brush bristle that sticks up far enough to catch between the axles on one truck.
The video assumes that the viewer understands Arduino programming. If that isn't the case, there may be a bit of a learning curve involved before starting to write the program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_uDtZx8xNY
here is a listing for the load cells:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/333649148212?hash=item4daf09f934:g:LVMAAOSweSthQECN&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4INarPsQdaZ3XDuF%2FQC3cXqCckosXhhDuyHKzHW4QaYTsN7B5OrB5TPgU%2Fq5YNVaRB0ganZyk%2Fr9Pbg6mjEZVDhk22mf%2B9Ve4h%2Ff%2FLPsRpEXNus4bGQ5UK%2BkTwOw5lG%2BaTlcgIUuhyDxRWv43z5%2BOJL6UXKtfaxRllrZVFD1bpV2YvK6bESneBD6nlTS3CJ91oEuAS1oVacYWNyCIFMvHhNtZPeHVCUJsdY7PAoe23xQHWpazMBI0LZS%2BZzqD8cRYvTUXDVO2lJLdgpJ8a4Ubc9MabOlFLr7kMO0QIX5JKOy%7Ctkp%3ABFBMjNed56Fg
Have fun!
It occurs to me that the load cell out of a commercial scale could be mounted below the layout, with one or two simple pushrods of insulating material, like the heavy monofilament in string trimmers or deep-sea fishing, with rounded ends (fire-rounding ought to work), sliding in a piece of tubing 'through' the subgrade, communicating weight from 'above'. Use a bridge like the one between valves in Franklin System type B-2 to "integrate" weight onto the cell.
If you now have a suspended section of rail each side, it will deflect a known amount at the center proportional to weight and this is where the pushrods contact the rail base. Calibrate the signal off the load cell accordingly.
I suspect you could use a simple bell crank arrangement to 'amplify' the rail deflection (in a mechanical system this would be a pointer, in an electrical system a mirror arrangement as on a ballistic galvanometer, with a laser pointer reflecting out onto a wall scale or strip of ground glass)
With four pushrods and a 'spider' as the bridge underneath, you could suspend (or more semantically appropriate, support) a floating piece of track over the scale. The problem here is going to be the mechanical advantage: you can only tolerate a gap of ~1mm drop in the 'scale' section, but the throw of your load cell might be greater. If that is a problem use the bell-crank approach so that the drop at the track equals load-cell displacement 'as calibrated' and then just 'remote' the scale display with a few pieces of wire out to where you can read it easily.
Reading a bit further in the thread than the post I 'replied' to, I suspect both these approaches are similar to the solutions you've already recognized.
There used to be plenty of metrology boards and software for Macs, especially on the old System 9 and earlier machines. But even then, it was simple for simple static metrology just to run a VPC emulation and control external circuitry through it. Boot Camp is also an attractive option if you can jigger a boot drive accordingly (I used dedicated external drives for that) and I can, ahem, provide media for you if you, ahem, need it for this purpose...
wrench567Slag is non magnet. It's carbon
Good to know, thank you for the correction/clarification.
hon30critterI did another search and I came up with this video which shows how to make a working weigh scale. Warning: the pace is incredibly slow at first.
Great reference.
I use "live" loads in pretty-well all of my open cars (hoppers, gondolas, and flatcars).Most of the two-bay open hoppers weigh-in at about 2oz. empty, but I have a dozen modified ones which are around 4oz. each, also when empty.
Here's one of the lighter ones with a load of coke breeze (crushed coke)...
...weighing-in at 3.7oz.
This one, another 2oz. car, weighs in at 6.6oz. with a load of Black Beauty blasting medium...
This is one of the heavier modified cars, tipping the scale at 8.1oz. when loaded with Black Beauty...
This one, also a lighter car, is half-loaded (as would be prototypical for a real car carrying gravel or ballast). The load is real crushed limestone...
...with a total weight of 4.7oz.
This is another of the lighter cars, again half-loaded, but this time it's Woodland Scenics ballast...
...with a loaded weight of 2.5oz.
The heaviest train I've run was 48 hoppers (mostly 2-bay) loaded with Black Beauty, some of them 3- or 4-bay. Total trailing weight was around 25lbs.
Two of these ...
...had no difficulty moving the train up the multiple curves on the 45' long 2.9% grade, but without the partial upper level yet built, that's as far as it could go.
While I'm not planning to use working weigh-scales, it puzzles me how the read-out could be made to express the weights in theoretical prototype amounts, given that many modelled "live loads" vary widely in their weight - the comparison between the Woodland Scenics ballast and that of real crushed limestone ballast is a good example, I think, and likewise for coke breeze versus Black Beauty.
Wayne
doctorwayne...it puzzles me how the read-out could be made to express the weights in theoretical prototype amounts...
To clarify, I'm not looking to get the "theoretical prototype" weight.
I am seeking to get the actual gross weight; in grams, without having to 0-5-0 the loaded cars on and off a scale.
doctorwayne...given that many modelled (SIC) "live loads" vary widely in their weight...
Agreed!
That's why I have standardized my material to non-magnetized black silica (ashtray urn sand).
wrench567 Slag is non magnet. It's carbon,
Slag is the waste product out of a furnace from smelting ore, it's not carbon (although there could be carbon), it's typically glass-like materials and waste elements. It's everything in the ore except the metals they were smelting for. The copper slag the SP used for ballast contained things like uranium and arsenic. The stuff sold as sandblasting grit is mostly glass-like material.
I tried to post this a couple weeks ago but it wouldn't let me for some reason.
If I were going to build a digital scale track. I would build it so the "live rails" were mounted on vertical slides (a rod soldered to the rail in a tube through the benchwork) and have the ties under the rail cut down so the live rails are just below the dead rails when at their lowest point.
I would then buy a regular digital postal scale. I would remove the digital display from the casing and mount it on the control panel. Normally those scales have a power on, reset/zero out button. I would put a button on the control panel and wire it in place of the button on the scale.
I would build a support shelf under the scale and then a platform that would rest on teh shelf. The platform would have a machine screw in each corner. The scale would sit on the platform and the live rods would rest on top of the scale. The screws on the corners would be adjusted to bring the live rails up level with teh dead rails on the track scale.
To use it, push the zero out/on button, the scale will wake up and zero out incuding the weight of the rails and rods. Then roll a car on the scale. The scale will register the weight of the car.
Digital scale with minimal kitbashing or electrical knowhow.
dehusmanIf I were going to build a digital scale track.
Thank you for your in-depth suggestion.
I've considered something similar.
A floating track section is a must.
I have a section of rerailer track on the edge of the pike, before the 3% grade up to the unloading platform.
This is where I propose to install the scale, a Taylor brand compact digital scale.
It is powered by AAA batteries, as opposed to the other scales that use button cells.
This way I can solder leads to the battery tabs and have a remote battery pack to make battery replacement easier.
I'm considering using the entire scale, without dissecting it.
A section of the 1-inch foam base would be cut out to the plywood sub-base.
The scale would be supported by a platform to bring the weight platform of the scale flush with the foam base.
Wooden shims would replace the roadbed on the weight platform, to keep the rail heads aligned and support the rerailer section of track.
Thank you for the suggestion on how to power the track section.
I'm considering just adding a set of feeder wires to the single track section for reliability over a slide-type connection.
I do have a solution but it requires a 3D printer but the mechanics and electronics can be done. I have already started on this project and I think I have invested about $15 in it so far. The files and documents for this can be found on THINGIVERSE at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5276357.
Thank you for the great suggestion.
Please keep the updates coming.
Hope this helps.