Best Of Spokane, Portland and Seattle (SP&S) 0-6-0 Project

[Lemosteam]

If only it were a PRR B6sb... 

[svedblen]

I'm stunned. Amazing work! 

[mmagliaro]

Max, that is some awe inspiring micro engineering. Inspiring! It is good to see that the eyeballing works as well as the micrometer does!

Heh... Thanks!  (And thank you for all of the nice words of encouragement from *everyone* ! )
Truth be told, I did this with a combination of caliper and eyeball.  Those little styrene blocks I used to make sure the shaft
and carrier were level ... I checked those with a caliper and sanded them to make sure they were exactly the same within .001"

And feel tells you an awful lot.  When you rotate that gear and driver in your hand, you know in an instant if it has
a tight spot or if something isn't right.  When I held the motor in and watched the ammeter, heck...
It runs up to full speed at only 23 mA and the motor by itself out of the engine draws 15.  So if your mechanism
is only using 8 mA... or  (.008 x 12 = )  96 milliwatts of power at full speed, your friction has got to be pretty good.

NOW... I will be puzzling over just how to make some sort of bracket to hold that motor in, which allows me to
adjust motor height, allows the motor to be removed, won't be too visible under the boiler, and so on.
I haven't figured this one out yet.

[nkalanaga]

Could you mount the rear (front?) of the motor to the cylinder saddle?  It's a solid block, no axles in the way, can't see through it on the prototype, and it's rigidly mounted to the frame.  Then all you'd need is a mount for the worm end of the motor, which could be as simple as a cradle, hidden behind the driver springs.  It wouldn't have to be fastened to the motor if the first mount is solid enough.  The motor height could be adjusted with brass shims, or layers of aluminum foil if the thinnest brass is still too thick.

No screw holes in the motor where needed?  Epoxy a machined cradle to the motor, with a flat surface on  the bottom, a matching flat surface on the top of the cylinder saddle, and the shims go between.   

[wazzou]

I'd try to make a yoke attached to each frame half with the same radius as the motor and some hinged straps over the top, sort of like a hose clamp, to secure the motor in place. 
I'd never attempt something like this either, so that's why my line of thinking may be a little whack.  😳

[mmagliaro]

I'd try to make a yoke attached to each frame half with the same radius as the motor and some hinged straps over the top, sort of like a hose clamp, to secure the motor in place. 
I'd never attempt something like this either, so that's why my line of thinking may be alittle whack.  😳

This is on my sketchpad as we speak!   Yes.  Two small brass posts, soldered to the frame, sticking up.
They have slightly dished tops so the motor sits in them like a cradle.  They have a hole drilled through them so a .020"
bronze wire goes through, wraps around the top of the motor.  At each end of the wire is a soldered 00-90 nut (on one side)
and a soldered 00-90 washer (on the other).  Put a screw through, just like you said, like a hose clamp.

I like Nkalanga's thought about the cylinder saddle.  Certainly one of the supports has to be there because it is all solid
and the motor can sit on a post/hose clamp thing inside there.

The boiler, I *think* will only need a thinnish slot, may 1/8" or even less in its belly, and it could slide all the way on from the front.
The slot just has to clear these support posts.

[strummer]

The hose clamp/ wire tie method is often used by the O scale crowd. I have often used it myself.

Of course, in that instance you have TONS of room to work with. One of the nice things about that scale....

Mark in Oregon

[mmagliaro]

The hose clamp/ wire tie method is often used by the O scale crowd. I have often used it myself.

Of course, in that instance you have TONS of room to work with. One of the nice things about that scale....

Mark in Oregon

There's enough room.  I have a 12mm boiler with an 8mm motor, and the motor is sitting at the bottom of the boiler,
so I have almost 4mm (0.157") at the top to play with.  That's "scads" of room in N Scale!   

I'm not quite going with the hose clamps after all.  I think a brass tube sleeve around the motor.  The tube is
supported on 2 yokes (posts, or some such bracket from the frame).  The tube is soldered to those posts.
They posts are attached to only one side of the frame, like everything else, so there's no short.

Then the top of the tube can have a heavy strip of brass soldered to it right down the middle.  This tube will be
 11/32 ID (=.343, slightly bigger than the motor's 0.314, so I have some shimming room to play with in there if needed).
The OD will be .343 + .028 = 0.371.     The boiler ID is 12mm = .472, so I have room to solder that strip along the
top of the motor tube.

That strip will give me the meat to drill/tap some M1.0 holes.  Slip the motor in, put in two M1.0 screws.  They go through the top
of the tube and against the side of the motor to hold it fast.  (These are Faulhaber stainless cases, remember.  They can easily
withstand a little screw pressure from outside). 
Best of all, that heavy strip along the top can eventually be tapped for a hole to hold the boiler itself in place
after it is slipped around the whole thing.

This is a lot of blathering.  When I get it built... I'll post photos.

[nkalanaga]

That sleeve sounds like the most solid method yet, and it would be easy to adjust.

[mmagliaro]

This installment will cover the motor mount, basic boiler form, and some slight improvements for weight and electrical pickup.  After this, the next big hurdles will be possibly nickel-plating the drivers, quartering them on their axles, working on weight and electrical pickup, and seeing if this thing can actually run on real-world trackage on my layout.

[narrowminded]

Coming along nicely!  That's going to be one sweet piece!

[Chris333]

wow again! That boiler hides everything nicely. Before I have used brass tube that is a hair smaller than the motor and cut a slit down the top. I slide the motor in from one end and it is tight to hold it still. I have also used the set screws though, just thought the other way might give you a few more cubic nanometers on top of the motor.

[CNR5529]

Awesome work! One thing tough, it looks like the motor mount (and screw) over the center driver may be shorting out the two sides of the frame, by bridging the gap across the PC board spacer. Did I miss something?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

If only it were a PRR B6sb... 

Lol. Truth.

Losing Max to the West Coast has set PRR N scale steam back ten years (it's the secret reason you guys have had to wait a decade for the M1s)... lol.

But seriously, this thread, like Max's work, is incredible.

[davefoxx]

Max,

First, I'll admit that I know very little about model steam locomotives.  That said, why do you want to make the locomotive slightly heavier on the geared axle?  My understanding is that steamers work best when balanced over the center of the drivers.

DFF