I've been test running that little chassis that I showed a video of several weeks ago, accumulating service data and such. This is the first test run on the new, in house gears, wheels, axle pickup design, and this style of split chassis. It's all running quite well. For the first few days I had it running on the table while I was working on things to keep an eye on it. With a few days of reliable performance I now just leave it running 24 hours a day, checking on it when I happen by, and maybe reverse the direction. It's up to about 400 hours now and running well. I've also been working on five more configurations for various applications as well as revisiting the compensation design for four wheel applications. I may have a new way to accomplish that without it being as costly as the original.
One of the things that's surfacing is a wheel, axle, and pickup cleaning cycle of about 40 hours. So far I think that will result in a suggested 30-40 hour service interval. I will also try a few different environments (outside on the porch next week)
to see what effects a dirtier environment might have on everything. And over the next few months, as this progresses, I will test a few different materials to see if any afford improvements but I'm not disappointed with the interval this far.
The gear sets are running sweet, as expected. They will run forever. I've already tried two pickup materials with no appreciable change and plan to try nickel silver on the chassis. It may improve the service interval in that pickup and axle area especially if the thing sits for a long time (that's hard to test without letting it just sit... for a long time).
There's reason to think it might but I just won't know for sure until I test it.
One thing that surfaced already is an apparent substantial improvement in wheel conductivity with nickel silver wheels instead of brass. I am getting pretty reliable wheel pickup at far less chassis weight than I was with the original test chassis with purchased brass wheels fitted. I am pleased with that because it takes some of the pressure off of the need to find weight that defies physics on some of the really small stuff I want to build.
