Weekend Update 4/25/21

[GaryHinshaw]

... I'll let you be the judge:



In that pic it looks like the stock model is sagging (even tho the coupler is a truck-mount).

Ed

Sag no more: CGRX 4767 is now rehabbed:



(Still need to paint the truck/wheels and redo the weathering, but I'll save that for when I have a batch to do.)  Here are a few more shots showing how the details pop a bit more when the parts are painted:





(#11 blade included, lest anyone think I'm trying to pull a fast one).  If you zoom in on the last two shots you can see some printing artifacts on the air reservoir and the hazmat placard holder, but honestly I can barely make that out in person, even with my reading glasses on.

Best of all, the converted cars operate very smoothly and close couple nicely:



(I haven't painted LSIX 140 yet because I have other plans for that car.  )

What coupler are you using?

Any chance you would have these for sale?

These are the so called "Lee English /  Bowser Buckler Z scale (LEZ)" couplers that I have written at length about elsewhere.  The couplers are available for purchase directly from Lee at Bowser, but they do not come with boxes, hence my shenanigans.   If you're referring to the end frames, then no, I'm not in a position to sell these, but I am more than happy to share the design (.stl) and/or print (.pwmo) files with anyone who wants them.  You can probably find a local maker shop who could print these for you.

@GaryHinshaw , incredible.
Anxiously. Awaiting. Information.

It appears you have solved the conundrum, with a vengeance.

Some info sent.  More to be posted. 

That would be awesome, esp. if Atlas is adopting the LEZ body mount coupler on N scale cars 

It actually would be, but it's not going to happen.  However, it would be trivial to modify the design to accommodate an Accumate, or other brand, coupler.

BUT, you made tank car parts man!  Some guys have a weakness for blondes and red heads.  My weakness is for tank cars and covered hoppers.

I know, right?  Me too - especially as I get older!

And this is a photo of M13 I took a few years ago:

Beautiful shot of M13 @EJN !  My telescope does not look anything like yours:

[brill27mcb]

Randy Stahl gave me the challenge of figuring out a way to power some Shapeways-printed electric boxcabs.  This is the 'hybrid' battery-electric 756.  The body and the truck sideframes are resin printed off of Shapeways.   I designed the mechanism from Tomytec parts, Atlas pickups, and a GM15A gearhead.   I designed and resin printed the frame as well as the custom cast body weight.

If anybody wants one of these either as a kit or a prebuilt, contact me - I do the frame and cast weight that fits the body shell.   The other one (with even narrower hoods) is under construction.

The low end hoods on these things really present a challenge to fit any motor at all and this is really tight.

Nice job! Please tell us about the resistor. Is that your solution to the high speeds of the Tomytec chassis? How warm/hot does it get?

Rich K.

[randgust]

The truck design of the Tomytecs is really good - particularly on the ones with end axle (rather than inner plate) pickups.  The motors, well, not as much.  They are controllable, but when I was doing my Whitcomb switchers I experimented with a Kato 12V 11-105 motor mated to a Gizmoszone 5.14:1 gearhead - that was perfection.  Then Gizmoszone went out of business in China and I have yet to find an equivalent that small.

So I've been using the Solarbotics GM15 motors and gearheads on my Climax A models for true slow speed, and like the original Kato chassis, put a 100-ohm resistor in there to control the 3.5v motor.   That idea was transplanted here for this project.  That's a 25:1 gearhead and a 3.5v motor with a small 100 ohm resistor.  Most times when you put in a resistor on a 3.5v motor the performance is all over, under load it heats up a resistor to melt point.  But with a gearhead, you can sit there on full slip and grind and it doesn't heat - the gearhead torque keeps the motor draw stable.   The GM15's are so inexpensive that I just buy extras in the unlikely event one trashes, I have yet to burn one out though.   I have had three original Tomytec motors wear out due to finger brush wear.

Top speed of this thing is probably 35mph, and she's a screamin' to do that.   But the pickup and performance is really stable.  And if you didn't mind losing about half the tractive effort you could substitute a decoder for the cab weight.

[peteski]

I couldn't see Gary's telescope (he didnt' link to an image), so I visited the ling and found a JPG image.  Very cool!

[MK]

Huh?  Same picture as shown at the end of Gary's post.  It didn't show for you?

[peteski]

Huh?  Same picture as shown at the end of Gary's post.  It didn't show for you?

Nope - it did not.  Nothing - not even blank space.  But since I suspected there was a photo in there I checked his post.  Between the standard IMG tags Gary used this URL: https://chime-experiment.ca/images/chime.webp  It is not an image file, and my browser must have choked on it.  I also have "No Script" add-on running, so that might be part of the problem.  I went to the main website and found a standard JPG image which I posted.

[C855B]

Explains it... IIRC you use a different browser. ".webp" is a relatively new image format Google is shoving down everybody's throats. It works on Chrome, obviously, and recent versions of Firefox handle it. Lemme go check something...

...never mind. I was going to try it with my older version of Safari and it now doesn't work with TRW at all. I am getting so sick and tired of the big tech companies obsoleting stuff to force upgrades.    Which is what is going on with .webp.

[Ike the BN Freak]

These are the so called "Lee English /  Bowser Buckler Z scale (LEZ)" couplers that I have written at length about elsewhere.  The couplers are available for purchase directly from Lee at Bowser, but they do not come with boxes, hence my shenanigans.   If you're referring to the end frames, then no, I'm not in a position to sell these, but I am more than happy to share the design (.stl) and/or print (.pwmo) files with anyone who wants them.  You can probably find a local maker shop who could print these for you.

Some info sent.  More to be posted. 

It actually would be, but it's not going to happen.  However, it would be trivial to modify the design to accommodate an Accumate, or other brand, coupler.

This I'd be interested in, well if the coupler pocket was modified for 1015/accumate couplers.

[peteski]

Explains it... IIRC you use a different browser. ".webp" is a relatively new image format Google is shoving down everybody's throats. It works on Chrome, obviously, and recent versions of Firefox handle it. Lemme go check something...

...never mind. I was going to try it with my older version of Safari and it now doesn't work with TRW at all. I am getting so sick and tired of the big tech companies obsoleting stuff to force upgrades.    Which is what is going on with .webp.

This is getting silly!  What's wrong with all the other image formats? 
Apple has a new format, now Google, and they both want everybody to use them.  Gimme a frickin' break!

[pmpexpress]

This is getting silly!  What's wrong with all the other image formats? 
Apple has a new format, now Google, and they both want everybody to use them.  Gimme a frickin' break!

According to the article Why WebP Is The Rockstar of Image Formats for Web Designers, developed by Google and announced in 2010, WebP was designed to create images with the same quality index of JPG and PNG, with a 25% - 35% reduction in file size.

100% compatible with Chrome and Opera, neither Firefox nor Safari natively support WebP.

Google is absolutely fixated on fast web page load times for mobile devices and reducing file sizes without compromising image quality is a component of Google's recent AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) directive.

Having encountered many WebP images in various Internet searches, unable to view WebP photos that were downloaded from the web on any of my computers, I wound up installing XnConvert, Freeware that is free to download and use as long as you are not utilizing the software in a company setting, which requires the purchase of a license.

A really good tool to have in your digital toolbox, available for use on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, XnConvert can convert all of the following common picture and graphics formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, WEBP, PSD, JPEG2000, OpenEXR, camera RAW, HEIC, PDF, DNG, CR2.

[peteski]

Having encountered many WebP images in various Internet searches, unable to view WebP photos that were downloaded from the web on any of my computers, I wound up installing XnConvert, Freeware that is free to download and use as long as you are not utilizing the software in a company setting, which requires the purchase of a license.

A really good tool to have in your digital toolbox, available for use on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, XnConvert can convert all of the following common picture and graphics formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, WEBP, PSD, JPEG2000, OpenEXR, camera RAW, HEIC, PDF, DNG, CR2.

As usual, very informative and helpful post - thanks Neville.

[NtheBasement]

Advances are great with me as long as the old stuff works, but copying the .webp to my box I see no exif info such as date taken and camera settings.  What are the chances that future cameras will not store things like gps on the file?

I just got a camera and the user guide is on a DVD.  Way to go Panasonic, now I have to buy a DVD drive for my laptop so I can read it.  How long will those continue to be sold?

[Mark5]

Roco after a haircut and a shower. 

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[ednadolski]

[serious thread drift]

I have to laugh at this obsession to make image files smaller, when the real problem with page loading speed is garbage code. Ever look a the page source for a typical web page these days? 99% fat, 1% nutrient...

Get web developers to efficiently code pages, and then we'll start to see real improvement.

[/serious thread drift]

[continuing serious drift]

Also considering that +90% of Internet traffic is spam/junk/porn/other garbage, it is an endless race to the bottom.

[/continuing serious drift]

[chuck geiger]

Bryan, that shot is perfect, the ballast, car, background, bridge....