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In lugnet.announce.moc, Shaun Sullivan wrote:
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As is my tendency, here’s an absurdly long treatise describing the
development of a LEGO Train Odometer Car (a.k.a. the “LEGOdometer”).
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Interesting. I thought this might be interesting to use in our displays...until
I read that it binds up in reverse. When we lose a car for whatever reason
(often some young kid’s hand straying where it ought not to), we usually
recouple by running the train in reverse to pick up the stragglers. Perhaps
your next iteration could have a slip gear system that disengages in reverse and
engages when going forward?
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As Dave Eaton likes to point out, the length of the outside rail on a
circular train track will be longer than the length of the inside rail. This
same effect holds true with nearly all train layouts that are seen in shows;
the length of one of the rails will be longer than the other. So the
question becomes – what do we truly want to measure? The distance the train
has gone around the outside rail? The distance along the inner rail? Or
some distance in between?
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I would think it would measure the outer rail at high speeds and the inner rail
at slow speeds. The reasoning is that at slow speeds, assuming the motor bogey
is pulling rather than pushing, it will pull the train against the inside rail
so there will be more friction on that side of the bogeys. At high speeds,
however, momentum comes into effect, and if you’ve ever watched a LEGO train
moving at significant speed, anything but the most lightweight of cars will heel
over a bit when it slams into the curve, so the inner wheels will actually lose
contact with the rails for a bit as they lift up, while the outer wheels will be
pressed into the rail.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: LEGOdometer
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| (...) That's something I hadn't considered. Fortunately, unless it's run backwards for a long time, it probably won't be an issue. It takes a good while to take up the lash in all of the gears in the opposite direction; the overall gear reduction is (...) (16 years ago, 6-Aug-08, to lugnet.technic, lugnet.trains, FTX)
| | | Re: LEGOdometer
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| (...) First off, "wow!" A great idea, what sounds to be a very thorough design (and documentation), and an aesthetically pleasing package. A few thoughts, suggestions, and so forth. First, while the videos are impressive, I wonder if the performance (...) (16 years ago, 9-Aug-08, to lugnet.technic, lugnet.trains, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | LEGOdometer
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| As is my tendency, here’s an absurdly long treatise describing the development of a LEGO Train Odometer Car (a.k.a. the “LEGOdometer”). (URL) A Little Background. After religiously attending them for several years, I stopped going to LEGO train (...) (16 years ago, 4-Aug-08, to lugnet.announce.moc, lugnet.technic, lugnet.trains, FTX) !!
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