New brass Milwaukee Bipolar EP-2 clinic- part 2

[dcutting]

Here, here!  I'm subscribed to this thread, and I am excited to see what else you have come up with since the last time I saw the thread. Thank you so much for the wealth of info and ideas contained herein. It is truly inspiring.

-David

[u18b]

Ron, I must say, that as a novice tinkerer, it is experts such as yourself, Victor M, Max M, Peteski et al that I begin to understand the process of how the thinking to attack a problem should go. It is from the excellent tutorials that you have all provided that help move the hobby forward for many of us. I send thanks to you all, and please keep up the good work and providing the insight that is needed. Now to start acquiring and learning to use the essential tools to begin! Please keep up the good work!

I appreciate your comment.

And actually, that is one of my purposes in this these threads.
Throughout, I have tried to show the thinking that is going on in my head as I navigate the modeling process.

thanks.

[u18b]

Thanks David.

I'm obviously moving a little faster since the last thread.
I'm feeling a bit more optimistic about finishing two before the end of the summer.

[u18b]

Time to work more on electricity.

The original NJ EP-2 had a terrible jumpering setup between Cabs.
They mounted a socket in the vestibule, and then had a jumper wire that ran between Cabs thru the boiler room.

It was great- when new.   But the wires broke eventually, and it was crap.

So it is interesting in these new EP-2s that Kumata deleted the whole thing.

Hmmm.  Too bad, because the concept was good.   The problem was the implementation.

So I cut a hole in the shell in the vestibule.




I then took a TCS micro plug and socket.  Here is the socket.  And a homemade circuit board.
The board is divided in half- one part for each pin.



Socket is mounted on the insulated side.


And then soldered to the back side.


Laid on the inside of the shell- with the socket projecting out.



And ONE trace is soldered to the shell.  The outside edges.  That still leaves that upside down L insulated.




I insert a plug and get my multimeter to check for continuity.
The two pins are isolated. 
And the bottom pin has continuity with teh whole shell.


Now to make the jumper wire plug that goes between the Cabs in the boiler room.


Since the Cabs are charged, we have extra power to ONE motor pole but not the other.
So I solder a red wire to the insulated pole of the socket.



Cut a groove for the wire in the weight.



Install the weight with the wire underneath.



Trim the other end and add a plug pin.
This now plugs into the wiring harness over the motor.
THIS is where Kumata goofed 30 years ago.  The permanently soldered the jumper between the shell and the motor.
But you HAVE to take the loco apart- so this was a real pain.
Now, it is no problem.  Like most of mire wiring and construction plan, everything is modular.



Hook it up and take it for a test run.
Now runs much better because we have doubled the electrical pickup to each motor.
Each motor now draws juice from 8 wheels on one side and 6 on the other.
Performance is much improved.

[u18b]

The shells are about finished.

This photo shows both noses.  You can see I has added the grab irons at the curve of the nose by the headlight.
Also the socket on the upper right of the nose.
(failed to mention those earlier).



I used the resistance soldering unit to raise the horn.   While MUCH more stable, it kind of looked dumb and unrealistic laying right on the hood.

Here is the way the plain model looked before I started detailing it.  Note the lifeless horn on the right.
(also highlights the details transformation-  this one almost looks Spartan without all the extras, LOL)




Raising looks better- even though it is a bit fragile.




Hey, that shot also shows the bell close up.
Last time, a few of you encouraged me to explore changing out that bell.   It looks OK on this model, but sort of plain.
On closer examination, you realize the prototype bell is off a steam loco (remember this loco was built in 1919/1920).

So I have ordered a couple of parts from Eric in Canada.   Hopefully they will come in soon.
If the new bell looks better, I'll replace it.
 

[u18b]

I was about ready to move to pantographs.....
When I noticed...something doesn't look right in this photo.



The awning had popped off.
I have no idea where it is.
But I need to replace it.



Thankfully, some K&S brass channel I had on hand was about the exact size.



First job was to get the angle where the awning meets the roof.




That's about right.  A Sharpie gave me some guide lines for cutting.




That piece is much smaller than it looks.
This is the rough cut.   Now to carefully file it the right size.



That looks close enough.  You can only see a difference under super close macro photography.




Good as new.
That was not fun, nor easy.
I hope no more come off.




Now, back to pantographs.

[u18b]

I was able to save a step.  The first EP-2 I built was the 1948/49 RailRoad Fair loco, E3.   I originally built a boiler room floor with sills to hide some of the gap.  But then a discovery was made-- the prototype had a skirt at the bottom of the boiler room whose purpose was to extend the orange line of the sills on the Cabs.  And that (orange) skirt removed some of the big gap underneath.  So no need for my old floor.



So the sill I built for the boiler room floor was discarded to the future.
Well that future is now.  So I put the old floor in this EP-2.



I then added the springs to the pantographs- which is always tedious.  I feel like I'm doing micro surgery.

Here I'm measuring the height I have chosen.  Bar is just barely touching at 46 mm.



Entering "46 mm = inches" into google, I get  1.811.

I then multiply that times 160 (N scale) and divide by 12 to get the conversion to feet.

That comes out to 24.15 N scale feet from the rail top to the pantograph.   That seems like a reasonable N scale operating height.  Higher might be better, but this height was a challenge to get to.   I'm just glad to have the pants sprung since they were not originally.

Well, overall construction and detailing is done.  I now have a detailed, good analog running unit.



Time to install decoders.

I have not gotten my package from Eric yet, so I'm still waiting to see how new bells and horns will look.

[dcutting]

Wow! That is a classy unit. I'm thiiiiiis close to switching my prototype to the electrified Milwaukee... Another one of these build threads might make me do the switch. Thanks for the great guide, no matter which prototype one models there are some great ideas here!

Thanks Again,

David

[u18b]

Thanks for your encouragement David.
I'm at a challenging point in model building.   It looks like I'm almost done, but I have a long list of stuff still to do.

For those of you who followed the previous big thread, the springs are something you know about.

For those of you who are new, here is a closer shot.
Those springs are .6 mm in diameter and I had them specially made for this project.



They look very visible in this close macro shot, but once the roof is all painted black, you won't hardly even be able to see them from 2 - 3 feet viewing distance.

[u18b]

Someone mentioned N-Cat specifications to me.

So I went searching.

I found a site that said:

NCat has developed highly recommended n-scale traction standards...
NCat Catenary Standards: [1] height above railhead must fall within the limits of 19-22 scale feet;

NCat Pantograph/Trolley Pole Standards: [1] so designed and mounted as to not snap shut above 17 scale feet and shall reach at least 23 scale feet above the railhead, and [2] upward force to be between 5-7 grams.

So it would appear that my model worked out perfectly.
Wow.  I'm thankful.

[nkalanaga]

I originally used NCat-design pans, sold buy ???, on my Kato electrics for the MILW, and they worked well on my 24-25 foot wire height.  The biggest problem is that I don't use the wire for power, and the spring force was great enough to bow the wire upwards between poles.  They worked, but looked very strange.  To keep the wires level I had to hang enough weight on the end, for tension, that one can pluck the strings like a guitar.  If not careful, they can be hazardous to fingers.

For those running live overhead, or using real catenary, they would probably be fine.  Mine is all single-wire, because I found that hand-made catenary, at least with my soldering, looked worse than no catenary.  The commercial catenary looks hideous, but at least has the advantage that it stays in one place, and is electrically and mechanically reliable.  Sort of like code 80 track - looks bad, works great.

[u18b]

As always, I'm tinkering and wondering if I can make this thing run better.

Here is one thing I'm trying.  I may not keep it, but it is an interesting experiment.
I ran a Kato SD40 contact brace from the back of the powered truck to rub under the back of the main frame in an empty spot.



This:
1.  Improves the electrical contact since no mater how many wheels touch the rails, the power ultimately has to go through the headless screws that retain the trucks and transmit juice to the gearbox and frame.  The headless screw is now not the only path for this electrical pole.
2.  Since I have shown in the past, in one direction the truck wants to lift a little- this holds it down.
3.  by lifting up on the rear a little, I can now add a little bit more weight to the boiler room.

The down side is that when I paint it, I would have to remove the paint on the back of the frame.

Tonight, I installed two decoders- one in each Cab.
These decoders are completely rewired by me for my custom wiring harness.



One thing I didn't anticipate is that those wonderful sandboxes on the nose now make it much more tight on space.   The decoder actually has to be lifted up in order to get it inside the shell under the lip on the bottom of the nose.

Having gotten the decoders installed well, I then temporarily installed a micro-LED.




And just for my reference, the positive blue wire goes to the squarish pad, while the negative function wires go to the roundish pad.




Now to figuring out how to get a 3 light fixture for the inside of the headlight.

[peteski]

The down side is that when I paint it, I would have to remove the paint on the back of the frame.

There is an easier way - mask that bare brass area with some masking tape before painting.  Manufacturers do this often (especially on European steam loco chassis') and I also use this technique.  I not only do this for electrical contact but also for leaving unpainted brass or plastic surfaces for stronger glue joints.

When I build model cars I often mask (sometimes even using liquid masking) places where additional parts will be glued on after painting.  Then after the painting is done I remove the masking and no need to scrape any paint.

[u18b]

When I started posting on the EP-2 project over a year and a half ago, it was intended to be a modelling thread.
I purposed to show exactly what I did.
Techniques.  Ideas.
Things that worked, and things that didn't.

Well, tonight is the latter.  After many hours (too many) I'm throwing in the white towel.  This one didn't work.
Had some good ideas, but I've decided it's not worth it.

But here's what I tried.

I installed decoders.
So now is a good time to explore those distinctive multi-bulb headlights.

So I used my home-made a tool- sharpening brass tubing to cut out discs for the headlight.




Drilled some holes.



Added fiber optic.



And sanded it down as thin as possible (there is VERY little free room to work.

Results were only fair.



You can see that light leaks out if the disc is not perfect.
Further, while by cranking down the exposure on this photo you can clearly see the lights- that is not what it looks like to the naked eye.   The three lights at such a small scale in close proximity all sort of blend together.

More in the next post.

[u18b]

So I had an idea.
That light leaking is a hard problem to fix.
What if I made sort of a barrel insert for the light.  That might help the leaking.

So I took some smaller brass tubing that almost fit inside the light housing.
I cut a piece, placed it in the motor tool, and filed it thinner while spinning.




I bought some really tiny LEDs off ebay from a vendor in China.
They were very reasonably priced, and much smaller that the LEDs I had been using.

One problem I forget to mention in the post above was that the light was not evenly distributed.
One fiber optic "bulb" was much dimmer.  That's because of the LED placement below it.

So I thought two LEDs might help.





I then take my thinned tube and tin it and solder it to some very thin brass sheet.




Trimmed up and smoothed off.






Marked and drilled holes.



And then trimmed it.



This looks like it might work.
But it still had problems, just like before.



I know this is not as close it could be.  But this is just a test to see if it is worth pursuing.
I concluded it wasn't worth it.

Light leaked out less, but it still leaked out- especially at the bottom.

And once again, the light blended together.  To be honest, it really would make little difference in real life.

While I know that more progress could be made, I concluded I had too many EP-2s to do.  I can't be spending 4-6 hours added a divided headlight to most of them.