Continuing the RC theme I built a 'Decauville' 0-4-0 (shapeways) using the tiny Tsugawa tu-koppel chassis.
Looking at the 3d print it was visibly out of scale with the cabin roof giving an equivalent 2.5m head hight! So a little surgery was necessary. I needed to chop a little anyway in order to incorporate the battery and receiver.
The body was then coated with mat black and electronics installed.
Head hight a little better.
Wiring installation. It's small but not too difficult.
The small deltang receiver and 50mah battery can be completely hidden in the boiler! I could, if I have the courage, detail the cabin..
Installation completed....test run
The motor being low voltage goes fast, even on 1 lipo!!
An excellent job James!
As you say, the small modern chassis run well on single LiPo supplies, they are efficient and don't need many volts to run them.
Many thanks for posting such an inspiring job.
Do you have a link for the body that you could post?
Frank
Frank, thank you for the compliment.
Yes. https://www.shapeways.com/product/Y4LV97F2N/009-28mm-decauville-enclosed-0-4-0-tsuwaga?optionId=60509352&li=marketplace
It
The little green spot is actually the light from the receiver showing through the undercoat.
And now first main coat.
It's a nice little loco. It does run fast. I may incorporate a resistor to slow down the creature before completing details....
Thanks for the link James.
It does look good painted.
It's nominal 4.5 volt I think so you might need a resistor if you want to run it slowly, but not absolutely necessary.
Frank
No, a resistor is not really necessary, and I doubt I
Incase anyone is wondering the pickups form part of the split chassis....
Hi James,
There are a few members here active in radio control but there is a much bigger group on NGRM-online
http://ngrm-online.com/forums/
Worth joining if you are not a member there already. I'm sure they would be interested in your locos. The designer of the Decauville body is on there too.
Frank
Hi Frank. Yes I am, though I have yet to put anything on there.
Amazing how photos show details one can't actually see with the naked eye!
I used one of these with the same Decauville body I have the 0-4-0 Tsuwgawa chassis, I had weight issues doing wheelies from the rear with two weights in under the boiler with the addition of two cast metal figures it still was top heavy from the back attempting to do wheelies but a nut disguised over the chimney helps keep it down and painted it does not look to out of place.
I wonder if you have experienced similar?
Mike
I did notice before construction the tendancy for the chassis to do wheelies...
Keeping the volts to a maximum of 4v (or fitting an appropriate resistor if using a higher voltage) keeps the speed to a relatively controllable value...
But the wheelie problem occured (from the few experiments I made) from a centre of gravity that is too high so all added weight was placed as low as possible. I used fishing lead cut and shaped to fit in the few spaces around the chassis area at axel hight. It works. The downside is the overall weight is low, so pulling power is limited...
Weight can also be added at buffer height (I did this on the minitrains bagnall as the battery had taken the place of the weights!) By replacing the buffer with hammered lead. Finally the loco should balance between the axles, as central and low as possible.
So, to answer your question..no, I don't have problems with wheelies!
Regards
James