Subject:
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Eureka! large drive wheels!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Sun, 3 Oct 1999 18:34:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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1355 times
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Hi all,
Now that my falcon is done (for now...) back to the wonderful world of LEGO
trains.
My first project, a rebuild of my 4449 Daylight train. The real 4449 is a 4-8-
4 steam engine with Southern Pacific 'Daylight' colors. I think they first
ran in the late 30's and up until the 50's [1].
First I essentially rebuilt the body of the train using the same wheel
arrangement on my 700.[2]
But alas, I can never leave good enough alone. That is just one of the great
things about LEGO, it's so easy to change. My model was little large and I
wanted some drive wheels that are a little larger then I used on my 700 [3].
Dug through my inventory of pieces and decided to give something a try. How
about using 4 stud diameter wheel hubs. The ones I used come from an old
space shuttle sets. They are about 2.5 studs wide. Would it work? [4]
*Yes!*
I arranged 8 of them, four on either side, on a 14 stud long technic beam
using six long axles. Connected this arrangement to my leading truck with a
rotating/translation(fwd/back and up/down) joint and pinned to the rear
truck, which is a 9v train motor, with a pinned joint that translates up and
down. The body of the train holds the front and rear trucks together. I
tested it on the track, a few minor glitches that where readily fixed and it
runs like a charm. It navigates the crossing piece no problem. It may hiccup
on a switch slightly but the translating joints will absorb it. The
translating joints assure the drive wheels maintain contact with the track as
it goes over slope changes. It's a trick I learned a while back after many
derailments.
Now comes the really fun part. Attach connecting rods between the wheels!
The motion is really fun to watch. I wanted to actually have a drive arm but
the length and dimensional constraints of the model have prevented it so far
[5]
This solution is entirely pure. No modification of any LEGO parts is
required.
Perhaps this has bee done before, if so I'd like to hear about it.
Now I'm working on the rest of the train. Adding a baggage coach, passenger
coaches and an observation car. I expect the final train to be about 5 feet
long. I'll keep building coaches as long as my limited supply of orange
bricks holds out.
The idea should work in other configurations which also may lend themselves to
using drive arms.
No plans to take any pictures until I finish the rest of the coaches which is
probably a month or so out.
It's good to be back to LEGO trains. That Falcon project was pretty draining.
Ben Fleskes
PNLTC
[1] Larry will correct me if I'm wrong.
[2] http://www.pnltc.org/Articles/Article_700.html
[3] Technic flanged wheel hubs, small diameter=3 studs, large diameter=4
studs, the 700 rolls on the 3 stud diamter portion.
[4] I do recall an idea related to this remotely using different pieces in
post on either rtl or lugnet. I do not recall which.
[5] Not to say that it couldn't be done, just not yet.
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