emrath@uiucdcsb.UUCP (10/05/84)
I believe model railroading is acceptable here. My father has added lead weights to many of his HO locos. Units that are heavy into plastic generally come with some weights built in, but he just adds more. However, my favorite has no added mass, yet has the best traction of them all. It has all (8) wheels driven, *no* traction tires, a metal frame, a flywheel, low gearing, and pickup on all wheels. He really liked the idea of flywheels until I designed and built an electronic speed/acceleration control for him last winter.
chaltas@uiucdcsb.UUCP (10/09/84)
I don't have much experience with HO, but I have done some tinkering i N guage -- there are some real loosers as far as running goes in N guage. I "built" a doodlebug power chassis using the trucks and gear tower of a Model Power (acutally an old MRC unit) C-420. As it originally didn't run worth a d**n, I did the following to it: replaced the traction tire wheels with solid metal ones for better electrical pickup. replaced the motor with a Sagami can motor (little one, 12mm diameter). It still ran ragged, so I had a friend turn me a flywheel -- that helped AFTER I got the flywheel reasonably balanced. It still shakes a lot at moderately high speeds. It still doesn't run all that smoothly, and I think that this is due to slop and gear binding in the power truck. I've thought about adding another gearbox to increase the gear ratio, but haven't figured out where to put it. As it is the motor draws its rated .24 amps with almost no load, and runs quite hot, so I am suspicious of the original gearing. Question: does anyone know any way to turn Model Power locos (other than those made by Minitrix, which are just fine) into decent runners? I tried converting to all metal (no tires) wheels, but it doesn't help enough. In particular, one direction is often noticable worse than the other G. Chaltas (uiucdsc!chaltas)