Interesting... so you use counterweights...hmmm nice idea. Amazing, never even pondered doing that! Any pictures of the aparatus??? Never know who may find it useful in certain situations... Thanks for the good ideas, Chuck!
Brian
ShadowNix wrote: Ahhhh, that sounds like a good idea, Chuck. I was amazed what a simple but brilliant concept bellcranks are. Saved me 2 tortoises. I really have begun to like working with brass... stiff yet soft enought to drill in with a #75 or so. How did you connect the wire to the paper clip -- simple loop at each end?Brian
Ahhhh, that sounds like a good idea, Chuck. I was amazed what a simple but brilliant concept bellcranks are. Saved me 2 tortoises. I really have begun to like working with brass... stiff yet soft enought to drill in with a #75 or so. How did you connect the wire to the paper clip -- simple loop at each end?
More or less. There are loops on the ends of the bent paper clip.
Actually, I use an 'everything in tension' system, so the connections to the ends of the paper clip are monofilament fishing line. The points are held in 'normal' position by a weight. The KTM rocksmasher pulls them to the reverse position. Since I'm not pushing anything, I don't need any kind of sheath around the fishing line. As long as there's a little slack in the machine connection when the points are in normal position, everything is fine.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Nice work!
I've made 'turn the corner' bellcranks using paper clips wrapped around screws. The spring action helps to ease the shock of the huge old twin coil machines I use to throw points.
Yeah, someday I hope to use them for that, but right now I have enough work trying to get all my turnouts wired and signalled with LED's, much less semaphores (which i LOVE the look of...)
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
So, instead of posting this in the WPF column, I thought creating a post about this would be helpful to those using Circuitron Tortises and trying to use 1 tortise to operated 2 turnouts needing motion in opposite directions. Here is my little fix... a homemade bellcrank from a piece of brass on a styrene base. It took some work on the first one, but after experimenting, the second one was a SNAP and installed REALLY fast and worked on the first try. Here is a picture of it (big image --> I wanted clarity so people could see the detail if they wanted):
I needed to make two, since I was wiring a double crossover and had four connections to make... I hope this was helpful! Post images of your own bellcranks... I would love to hear/see how others made so I can improve on the process.