I would like to measure the drawbar pull on my HO engines and am not sure how to go about it. Measuring current draw and minimum starting voltage was easy but this seems more complicated. Has anyone come up with a setup and method for doing this?
Yes, I did it with my 0-8-0 switcher: Look at tender pick up 0-8-0 for more information. You can use a roll and weights instead this force measuring device. Wolfgang
I just bought this drawbar pull meter from Micro Mark. I am trying to correlate drawbar pull to an estimated number of cars an engine will pull. Then I transfer this into my RailOp program for operations and I can get an approximation of the number of cars (tonnage) my MU lashups will pull. I tried to correlate cars pulled to engine weight but IMHO there are too many other factors involved. Drawbar pull is a more direct measure of pulling capability. (Obviously?) This meter is made for H0 engines, I think. Most of my engines pull 0.4 - 0.7 ounces. For a more usable reading I am now measuring in grams. (One ounce is 28.35 grams.) I am concluding that the number of cars an engine will pull is 70 - 80 percent of their drawbar force in grams. That is just a ball park figure. For me that is 12 - 16 cars per engine, level track. For N scale, I am measuring pull with wheel slip. I think that should be a little low but it is a lot easier to measure like that.
If you have a test module or a programming track module, as Wolfgang has suggested, all you need is a reaonsably free-spinning pully, a smallish one, at one end of the module. Over the pully, a decent quality darning thread with a hook of some sort at one end, and a platform at the other end, but dangled from the end of the module via the thread over the pulley. You can add defined/known weigths to the platform and apply voltage and weight until the engine spins. Within a half-ounce, or maybe 30 grams, you have approximately the tractive effort of your engine.
