Drive Works - (Thank God!)

railflyermodel · Apr 30, 2011

Evan posted this on our proboards site tonight. I called him earlier today and his wife said he went into work, I knew he was up to something.

Great work Evan. We're just waiting on T1 samples for the plastick, heat sinks, and axle bushing POM. Otherwise all of the production components for the traction motors will be here in the next two weeks. The Blomberg and HTC trucks will follow afterwards.

Thank you for the support, this has been a lot of work and a huge leap of faith. A $25,000 gamble in simple terms.

Christopher Howard
Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
www.railflyermodel.com

Post on railflyermodel.proboards.com by Evan:

I have to post this - I'm sooo stoked. The gears are super and . . . . . THE GEARING WORKS GREAT. I made my little (and I do mean little) test jig today, put the gears on, hooked up the motor and she started to purr.

I then put a little pressure on the wheel and it took quite a bit to slow it down. One of the press fit gears actually slipped before the motor stalled.

Gear noise was evident, however, my Ø1.00 mm drill actually cut a hole about Ø1.25 mm so there is a bit of slop in my fixture, and therefore center to center distance, that would contribute to noise. Once they are encased in the traction motor housing, and the bushings are the correct size, gear noise will be negligible. It is still pretty quiet.

Keep you eyes open for the video that I am sending Chris. WATCH FOR THE REVOLUTION!

Evan

railflyermodel · May 1, 2011

Here you go, its not all that bad for noise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXH8oaOQKj0

MGWSY · May 3, 2011

looks very interesting but how well will the gears/motors do if you had 3 - 5 locos pulling around 100 cars around a club layout for extended periods. Something that will have to get tested when the time comes. from the looks if the design I assume a unit can actually be towed dead with no power to the motor?

RW&C · May 3, 2011

Nice work.

It does look a little quick, though.

railflyermodel · May 5, 2011

MGWSY said:
looks very interesting but how well will the gears/motors do if you had 3 - 5 locos pulling around 100 cars around a club layout for extended periods. Something that will have to get tested when the time comes. from the looks if the design I assume a unit can actually be towed dead with no power to the motor?

A guy who built a powered truck out of this concept, using same motor pulled 17 coaches using one bogie with two motors.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gray.hickson/traction-motor.html

We'll have 4 motors on a GP based unit and 6 on a SD version.

We will be doing testing on a local layout when we have the plastic T1 samples in hand.

Thanks,

Christopher Howard
Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
www.railflyermodel.com

MGWSY · May 5, 2011

That will be a very interesting setup. Things that would concern me is

The thin Plastic Gears.
Speed Matching on DC to other manufacturers locos.
Motor overheating after prolong usage.
Gear noise from 4-6 of these.

I am definitely following this project as you progress as I see a lot of potential in it.

NYSW F45 · May 5, 2011

also, what about each motor operating at exactly the same speed and not having 1 faster or slower then the rest?

thaddeusthudpucker · May 5, 2011

I have a locomotive that I would like to power using a similar system, How hard do you think it might be to figure out a version that is an AAR switcher truck?

I want to get the old style Athearn motor out of the body and fill it with weight and speaker and decoder... It is based on an SW7.

Could I use the old Athearn outside bearing trucks with the new motors (with a bit of modification of course, pretty much the only thing left would be the sideframes.)

diburning · May 5, 2011

NYSW F45 said:
also, what about each motor operating at exactly the same speed and not having 1 faster or slower then the rest?

That's an interesting point. I'd imagine that no two motor degrade in performance the same way at the same time.

If the price is right, and they are durable, I'd retrofit most of my fleet with them so that I can tow engines dead

thaddeusthudpucker · May 5, 2011

Now thats an interesting proposition... Dead in consist for HO scale...

RW&C · May 6, 2011

Given the gearing, and the type of motor, speed differences shouldn't be too much of an issue. A faster motor will just strain a little more, assuming that the engine's properly weighted.

railflyermodel · May 7, 2011

This is what the traction motors are going inside of...

Guys,

First test shot, lots of issues to correct but this in progress.

The first release will be the Blomberg B/M, HTC with Hyatt, Timken, roller bearings, and Triple Clasp Brakes.

We have a POM mould that goes with these ABS side frames to give P87 operation and hole the traction motors. A PS based mould will contain the brake gear.

Additional trucks will be done in the future.

All the best,

Christopher Howard
Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
www.railflyermodelprototypes.com

railflyermodel · May 7, 2011

the test jig had a bit of slop because the through holes in the jig where slightly larger than specification. we're using a POM injection moulded bushing to hold the motor and axles so things will be very tight. regardless with the slop the gears still worked perfectly, they are designed to MOD .2 standards. when you have very strict contol over dimensional tolerances as we do in our drive, the gears do not have to be very wide to work effectively.

NYSW F45 · May 7, 2011

do you have any assembled pics of hte wheels/TM's/gears in the trucks?

and this may be a stupid question, but the brakes aren't going to be functional are they? lol

thaddeusthudpucker · May 7, 2011

I am totally looking forward to when you Have AAR trucks.

railflyermodel · May 8, 2011

NYSW F45 said:
do you have any assembled pics of hte wheels/TM's/gears in the trucks?

and this may be a stupid question, but the brakes aren't going to be functional are they? lol

We have another batch of pre-production hardware that will be done this week and then its just a matter of when the T1 samples are corrected and shipped to us. Then, we can put together two running models.

A blomberg and htc based unit.

I'll say 2 - 3 weeks from now this will be done. Brakes will not work however we might have a brake function in the motor control to prevent runaway if the drive is too free rolling.

CJH

railflyermodel · May 10, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20xvbhLseQg

This has our production motors installed and is run at slow speed to show the speed range. Its designed to be have a top end speed of 70 scale mile per hour.

CJH

railflyermodel · May 10, 2011

Guys,

Normally this stuff is kept to ourselves while we fix mould flow issues but the images are too cool not to show.

We're going to make the holes in question here not go through all the way to improve mould flow just in case you are wondering.

HTC

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa329/RFMP_2005/DSCF4377.jpg

The top of the Blomberg needs some material removed to improve mould flow. We'll do this from the bottom as two POM parts will attach beneath it. However, look at how accurately this replicates the actual side frame. This will all contain our scale working drive.

Blomberg B/M

http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa329/RFMP_2005/DSCF4373.jpg

Please continue your sales support!

Christopher Howard
Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
www.railflyermodel.com

diburning · May 10, 2011

railflyermodel said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20xvbhLseQg

This has our production motors installed and is run at slow speed to show the speed range. Its designed to be have a top end speed of 70 scale mile per hour.

CJH

How about a freight vs passenger gearing? Passenger trains travel faster (for example, these days, passenger trains can go 79mph withoutcab signals or faster with cab signals. The El Capitan went 90mph with an ABBA set of F units)

On the model railroad, I run about 65mph max for freight though, and about 80-85 for passenger.

railflyermodel · May 19, 2011

Guys,

Some more corrections are in progress before we get sent T1 samples this weekend from our side-frame and traction motor casing supplier but they look very good so far.

We really need your support over the next two weeks to get this done quickly and out into your hands. We've done a lot of work here.

All the best,

Christopher Howard, President
Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
www.railflyermodel.com

Traction Motor Casing