| |
Seeing the pitiful designs I've made for motorized 9v train points, my brother
Chris came up with one. Put a housing over it, and people will swear it's a
relay. Not too many down sides with this one. There's no getting around the 6
brick height unless you mount it *under* the track (but then it's six bricks
low). And you have to be careful not to overdrive your motor. The upsides:
moderately small footprint (5 x 7 without signal flag), uses unmodified points,
doesn't tear itself apart, snap-on installation, few parts, doesn't rely on the
housing for support, and surprising speed. Oh, and it sounds cool.
If you're worried about your motors, you can drive it with a pulley, but then you
increase the dimensions and lose the amazing speed and satifyingly sharp click.
Since the mechanism is so fast though, you motor's duty cycle will be quite low
and it will only be stalled for a fraction of a second.
I even was able to drive the mechanism with a micromotor attached to the wedge
belt wheel (pulley) by a belt, but Chris wasn't. It may depend on how stiff your
point is.
I've posted instructions and a CAD file. They include signal flags of my design.
You won't believe it until you build it, but the parts shown are the only parts
needed for a working model. You can conceal virtually every part but the back of
the motor and the signal flag connection in a 5 x 7 x 6 1/3 housing. This is left
as an exercise to the reader. One hint, though: 1 x 2 x 3 panel
<http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/2362>.
Since the images don't show it connected to the track, here are a couple notes:
Small Lever snaps into clips on track
Cross axle hole of Axle Joiner Perp. Long (32068) is set over outermost flange of
track.
Post-moderation:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=57108
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=57111
some deep links:
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ALittleSlow/MiniMotorizedPoint/ChrisAlano/chrissswitch.ldr
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ALittleSlow/MiniMotorizedPoint/ChrisAlano/chrissswitch23.jpg
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ALittleSlow/MiniMotorizedPoint/ChrisAlano/chrissswitch01.jpg
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ALittleSlow/MiniMotorizedPoint/ChrisAlanoV2/chrissswitch2.ldr
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ALittleSlow/MiniMotorizedPoint/ChrisAlanoV2/chrissswitch220.jpg
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ALittleSlow/MiniMotorizedPoint/ChrisAlanoV2/chrissswitch201.jpg
-Brian Alano
|
|
Message has 1 Reply:
5 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
