Iron Ore Chute

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regme

Well-Known Member
Hi

I was looking at a chute for a iron loader loader in HO scale, from the net I have come across this as a possibility.

This chute rotates about two points, one to move the chute out of the way (red) so the loco can pass and the other to open the clam chute.

I've seen a working models which just use a slide to control the flow of ore.

I have come across ways of creating a hydraulic cylinder but the scale is too small to make it practical I think.

I could use a servo to rotate the chute, however I'm not sure how to open the clam chute since that would need a servo connected to the entire chute. I thought about having a gear on the rotation point of the clam chute that would mesh against a gear with a motor to the side to open and close it.

Any ideas would be welcomed.

Cheers



iron ore chute.JPG
 

Lynnb

Well-Known Member
Wow that brings back memories from the mining days. My first job underground I was on one end of the rail tram , the rail was at 3100feet and we filled the ore cars with that same type setup and went down the rail with 10 cars between our front and rear lokies on a down grade. The first guy on the train would make an attempt to hit the red button on the wall just before the vent doors , if he missed it was my shot at it . We would line up the cars with another ore pass that we flipped open the door and hooked the car with a hand held slide plate to hold the car in place and then hook a cable to dump the car down the pass to the #1 cage /skip tender pocket where he skipped it to surface.
 

kjd

Go make something!
I think I would try the "choke cable" trick. The servo that moves the cable can be located above the chute. If one end was mounted solidly about where the yellow ram is, it could move the gate. Basically, use the flexibility of the cable to handle the chute bending in the middle.

Not model train related but I have made choke cable style down to about 1/16" diameter by winding .010 music wire around another piece of music wire. It took power tools and some figuring but if you want to go that way I'll try to get some photos.

Do you have any more photos of the chute?
 

Mountain Man

Well-Known Member
Hi

I was looking at a chute for a iron loader loader in HO scale, from the net I have come across this as a possibility.

This chute rotates about two points, one to move the chute out of the way (red) so the loco can pass and the other to open the clam chute.

I've seen a working models which just use a slide to control the flow of ore.

I have come across ways of creating a hydraulic cylinder but the scale is too small to make it practical I think.

I could use a servo to rotate the chute, however I'm not sure how to open the clam chute since that would need a servo connected to the entire chute. I thought about having a gear on the rotation point of the clam chute that would mesh against a gear with a motor to the side to open and close it.

Any ideas would be welcomed.

Cheers



View attachment 125511
Would a cam do it?
 

kjd

Go make something!
Here is a photo of what I was thinking of using. This is probably .010" wire wrapped around .020" wire but I have made some about half this size. The wire inside can move back and forth and go around reasonable bends. If the coiled wire was mounted as the yellow part of your hydraulic cylinder, the wire could be the ram and move the gate. Smaller wire for the core can take tighter bends but won't extend as far before bending. The other end of the coiled wire is mounted solidly up in your loadout and the servo is attached to the core wire to move it.
image_2021-04-06_195410.png


Another use for this coiled tube is to guide string but obviously it will only be able to pull and another tube and string (or spring) will be required to get the gate to return.

To make the coil, I mounted a small vise to my desk. The vise holds a Foredom #30 handpiece in a nylon holder like this Amazon photo.
61-xm1S4SqL._AC_SX355_.jpg

A cordless drill in a vise would probably also work. You need good speed control so a Dremel will not work. It also will not have enough torque.

Chuck the core wire into the handpiece. Depending how long of the core you need, holding the other end can be tricky. I made a holder for the other end out of some ball bearings and brass tubing. It has a hook to hold a loop in the end of the core wire and is clamped to the desk with the wire as taut as possible. A lathe with some way to attach the core wire to a live center would work.

The winding wire is held between two blocks of wood. One block has a hole drilled at an angle to let the wire pass through. I put the wire through and leave about 2 inches sticking out. I hold the blocks of wood with parallel jaw pliers or a Kant-twist style clamp. Bend a 90 about 3/4" from the end and slip it into the opening between the jaws of the chuck holding the core wire and slowly start things turning. As the winding wire tightens up, hold the blocks of wood so the winding wire can come out between them and the core wire is perpendicular to that gap. As the core wire turns it will ride against the wood blocks. It should wind the winding wire around the core wire and move along making a neat coil. It does take a little practice and occasionally the winding wire will double back on itself making a coil two layers thick. I just start over then.

Now comes the most dangerous part. Atchung, Notice, Attencion, Peligroso, Farlig, небезпечний , etc. As the end of the winding wire comes out of the wooden blocks it will have about 1.5" straight on the end. Depending on how many times it was wound around the core wire, it will also have some spring to it and unwind several turns at a very rapid pace. If your fingers are in the vicinity, they will start bleeding from multiple cuts, one from each turn. This is the voice of experience, I only let it happen once. Hold the wood blocks with pliers or a clamp and let your fingers have a happy day.

The extreme ends of the tube won't be useful, cut them off with music wire cutters or a cutoff wheel but then you should have a tube you can insert a core into. The tube will be slightly larger than the core you used. There might be some model airplane control cable or bike brake/shifter cable that might work but all I've seen is much larger than what I can make. I hope this made sense, if not ask and I'll try to explain better.
 

kjd

Go make something!
Regme, the extra photos are helpful, in the first photo the gate is open and the load profiler is missing. The gate part is very similar to what I came up with for one of the coal loadouts I built. It works very well and has never jammed. Is this Australian? Since you want to make the gate work, I assume live loads? Animation, trains, live loads, a few of my favorite things.
 

regme

Well-Known Member
Hi

I'll start with Mountain Man first - Cam? I'm not sure what you mean.

KJD - that was pretty in depth thanks, had to read a few times to get it, but then found a vid about it also here

Here are some vid's I found on line TLO-01 TLO - 02 TLO - 03 which show the operation of the chute.

From the vids you will see that the whole chute first moves out of the way for the loco to pass through, then comes back for the wagons, then the clam chute opens to let the ore out. So I have two rotations to consider, moving the whole chute is easy it's opening the chute that's the hard bit.

I think I just have to make the prototype and see how it works. I think the whole load out has to to be built to suit how I get this chute to work.

Yes, this will be Australian. Once I started on the load out, I found that my layout is too small and now that I'm working on the new layout I have found out that my house is too small for the layout I need.
 
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kjd

Go make something!
The wire wrapping video is basically what I was trying to describe, the main difference is her wire is much softer than music wire.

I agree, moving the whole chute is the easy part. I imagine the gate part as the throttle on the lawnmower we had when I was a kid. The throttle lever was on the push bar and connected to the throttle on the engine via a cable as described above. The handle could pivot forward and back relative to the body of the mower but moving the mower handle didn't change the throttle position.

I can relate about the loadout too small, then the layout to small, then the house too small. One loadout I built is probably more N scale than HO but still holds 25 or so HO car loads.
 

regme

Well-Known Member
The lawner mower idea may be the go, that way the servo to open the chute can be placed almost any where. I'll sus that one out.
 
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