Has anyone tried building the GHQ Fairmont Speeder kit? I am curious how much room it has inside, if any. I am trying to cook up a scheme to motor one, which I realize may require some custom fabrication heroics.
If I could find small enough flanged wheels I think it could be done. I've heard of people using regauged Z scale wheels but I have yet to find a source. Last week I was at a Marklin dealer in Kansas City looking at Z scale, and those tiny steam pilot truck wheels would be just the ticket - if I could figure out how to get them. When I did the 'powered dog cart' it went over so well because I was 'this close' to making it work. I used known dimensions of a tiny pager motor - and old watch gears. I'm convinced that's the way to go - use watch gears, a Z-scale wheel, and some of the current pager motors are small enough. One of the members here did a really nice hirail truck using Z stuff. Right now I'm like on version 6.4 of the Perfect Critter Mechanism (4-wheel 25-ton style) using commercially available parts and I'm still not there. I've had lots of fun trying though.
More powered tiny stuff. Hey Randy, I have been thinking about doing a Powered Burro crane in the near future, any ideas off the top of your head on powering it? it would only need to pull 1 maybe 2 flat cars, I had thought about permanently coupling the flat car and using it to pick up power. EDIT: Adding a picture.
I'll distract him while you pop them off!:tb-biggrin: I was wondering if NWSL might have some appropriate wheels. I had also thought about trying to order wheels from somebody's spare parts department if I could find some that look about right. I went ahead and put in an order at my LHS for one of these kits. It's eight bucks, so if it turns out to be a stationary piece, that's fine. I was thinking a pager motor, too. I think you've (Randgust) got a few links to pager motor sources on your web page, don't you? The nice thing is that the speeder only really needs to move itself, not a long line of double-stacks.
There's big problems with the general concept, and what you can do... On the Burro crane, the motor just about has to be a vertical mount, in the center, shooting straight down. You don't need tractive effort, which is good, and it's heavy, which is better. You'll need to drill out just about everything in the casting for clearance. I can get you the dimensions on this; I have one and basically regarded it as a dead-end, but if it will fit vertically this is probably as close to 'off the shelf' as it is going to get (lower RH is stock). That's that new Japanese critter drive by Modemo and Plazajapan has a few left. See your PM Now for the bad news. The pickup isn't bad, the TE is nonexistent, and the wheels are really bad; sharp, flat flanges and narrow on the gauge; you can't fix it without spreading everything against the pickup cups and adding friction, it kinda 'crabs' down the track. But it does run. The motor is SOLDERED down to the pickups, so think twice about changing much. But that motor top could portrude through the crane cab top and be painted and detailed with a winch...why hide it? The other thing is that it's fast, really fast, so you'll need a good transistor throttle. No room in there for fixing anything for better gears. I don't have the four-wheel Burro kit, I'll be glad to collaberate though and trade dimensions though. I put it somewhere, this could take a while.... I could go for one of those myself if I knew how big the cab was. I've got that mechanism with no particular use at the moment. I'm really in love with the GM15 Solarbotics gearhead and trying to adapt that to critter concepts because it has the best chance of producing high torque and very low speed. The problem with that is the plastic gray 'pulley' on the end. I'm trying to develop a drilling fixture that will accurately shaft it. If you don't have to have a perfectly cocentric mount (like in my Climax mount in the Kato critter) it works great, but if you do (like mounting it on a truck worm) I'm not there yet. That new Japanese mechanism is just about useless for a conventional US 25-tonner class because of the inbound placement of the motor and the one-axle drive. I had to get one to try it, but rapidly dismissed it for that application. Now the Burro crane? If it fits, we might be on to something here. Hey, this is how the Trackmobile started. But that used the Kato 11-103/4 chassis with 27" wheels from the 11-105. Wheelbase is 15', but there's no hiding the 'high' chassis in a burro crane like you could under the deck of a Trackmobile.
OK, now you've got me tinkering, and that's really dangerous. Guess what I just discovered? Regular Kato 27" 11-105/6/7 wheels and axles (and the axle drive gear) fit in that Modemo power truck. That instantly solved the crappy wheels with the narrow gauge problem. Works just fine. So..... If you got that AND a regular Kato critter you could possibly swap the truck wheels out, and have enough wheels left over to make a pickup idler truck with 5' 6" wheelbase. If you had that with a burro crane as a boom outrigger, flatcar, gondola or anything like that so it could have 8-wheel pickup, that could work. Then... you could put the traction tire axle back under the burro.... Yeah, now we're talkin'. That solves all three problems; traction, pickup, and wheels. That's worth trying. So what's the wheelbase on the Burro kit, and what's the 'normal' height to the top of cab from top of rail? The Modemo truck has a 7'6" wheelbase, and you're going to need 10' from top of rail to fit it in something. EDIT: Here, this is what I mean. The truck would power the crane but the attached flatcar would have either a the Critter pickup truck on it or Kato caboose trucks - that would solve the electrical pickup problems completely. http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/burro4.jpg
That IS made in N-scale (though it's not motorized): Breuer Rangiertraktor als Modellbausatz 1 zu 160
Pardon me, I meant motorized. Thanks very much for the link. Nice looking model, wish I could read the page. Randy, can you get a motor in that?
