Milw steeple cabs

[TinyTurner]

Thought I would have a look see for any steeple cabs kits.
Might suit a dockside scene really well.
Make the pantograph work and add spark flash simulation.
Brass would be nice with a quality motor.
Was there ever any kits?
I guess if not than its time for a plastic extruding machine or some etches.

[AlwaysSolutions]

I've done a preliminary design on one but stopped after getting stuck on what to use for the mechanism.  If anyone knows what would work I could probably be encouraged to finish it.  With the Little Joe, I was so thirsty to get that kit finished I ended up making my own chassis kit, but with this one I'd really love to have an off-the-shelf solution.  Same with the BoxCab kit - there are a couple JNR locos that sort of work, but i'm the type that would really want bang on to prototype.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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-Mike

[Jim Starbuck]

I've done a preliminary design on one but stopped after getting stuck on what to use for the mechanism.  If anyone knows what would work I could probably be encouraged to finish it.  With the Little Joe, I was so thirsty to get that kit finished I ended up making my own chassis kit, but with this one I'd really love to have an off-the-shelf solution.  Same with the BoxCab kit - there are a couple JNR locos that sort of work, but i'm the type that would really want bang on to prototype.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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-Mike

@AlwaysSolutions,
That’s some beautiful design work.
I would love to have a whack at powering it.

Jim

[TinyTurner]

I've done a preliminary design on one but stopped after getting stuck on what to use for the mechanism.  If anyone knows what would work I could probably be encouraged to finish it.  With the Little Joe, I was so thirsty to get that kit finished I ended up making my own chassis kit, but with this one I'd really love to have an off-the-shelf solution.  Same with the BoxCab kit - there are a couple JNR locos that sort of work, but i'm the type that would really want bang on to prototype.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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-Mike

I am asking without having made a chassis before, but planning to and thinking ahead as how to do it.
With all the researching to find an approximate commercial chassis, how more more trouble would it be to come up with an etched brass chassis or white metal casting?
A silicone chassis mould?
Maybe even be able to use commercial trucks, or affix some truck castings on the outside of existing trucks? 
Tiny Coreless Tramfabriek motor in each truck?
Would save having a universal drive taking up cab space.

I wonder if there is an 'electric' sound file for Loksound decoders, allowing for building in the decoder?

Got the ideas flowing now 

P.S. Did you ever release a chassis kit for that Little Joe?     

[randgust]

I managed to do a mechanism build of getting one of the 25:1 gearheads in a custom-made frame for the North Shore steeplecab for Randy Stahl, where the body was already printed.   The battery-powered one was wider than the overhead one.   The problem was that the conventional one - the hood was too narrow to fit over the truck tower and had to be redesigned.   

But it was possible to do, and with 25:1, even with powering one truck, it worked.   Not a great puller, but worked well enough.

PM me if you want more photos, I made custom resin frames for the project and still have all the tooling.  The concept worked.  It uses short-wheelbase Tomytec trucks.


link:  http://www.randgust.com/45613%20chassis%202.jpg


link:  http://www.randgust.com/45615%20chassis%204.jpg


link:  http://www.randgust.com/45608%20finished%201.jpg

[AlwaysSolutions]

To answer a couple questions - Jim, was it you that motorized my little shop goat?  I mean, if you can do that, I have zero doubts you could power this.    That was purely amazing work.

For the custom chassis design, if I were to do it I'd like to go with something similar to how I handled the Joe - a motor used by a commercially produced loco for availability, and trucks with the appropriate axle spacing and wheel size.  So with the Joe, You clip an SD90 motor into a cradle, snap SD90 trucks into a custom frame, clip into the chassis and link motor and trucks with a modified (length) flywheel to wormgear shaft, also from an SD90.  This works really well, and modellers of average skill can do it.

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Randy - I really like what you did with that North Shore unit.  I hadn't even considered the hood width as a barrier to truck swivel movement but now I see it.  Is that motor also from the Tomytec mechanism?

Cheers -Mike

[randgust]

The motor is one of my favorite hacks, they are a 3V 25:1 gearhead from Solarbotics, the GM15A, with a D-shaped shaft.   I drill out the shaft .030 and put a piece of brass wire in there, and ACC the universal on it.   100 ohm resistor on the motor and I'm running on DC.  And they are dirt cheap.  I've never burned one out.

Because of the gearhead, the current draw is minimal, you can get away with a tiny resistor.   Full slip and you won't hear RPM drop and that resistor won't heat.  That's one of the secrets.

I've used that motor on all my Kato conversions for my Climax kits, up to and including the Nn3 Climax, and anything else it will fit into, including my original scratchbuilt stuff.   You get about a 25mph top speed, incredible slow speed control, unlimited torque for such a tiny motor.   For tiny geared steam, it's about perfect.

I'm constantly experimenting with new drives, motors, whatever for tiny locomotive construction.   I'll have pretty much my entire collection with me down to Altoona.  The Holy Grail is a really well-peforming GE 25-tonner, I've probably built six of them, still never reached perfection.

Tomytec has a lot of flavors on trucks, you have to pay attention to wheelbase, and if it has end-axle or interior pickups.   For this, you want any MID tower (not end tower) short wheelbase, end-axle pickup truck.  They change models of frames constantly, but there's about four different truck designs in all of them.  The other thing about Tomytec is turning the flanges for Code 55 is as easy as it gets with split axles in a dremel with a micrometer.

I also designed and fitted in custom weights on those models, making a pattern out of styrene and making a mold, so that there were custom drop-in weights made out of 160-degree Bismuth, which won't damage a silicone mold.   Weight is everything.   If anything, you have to make a decision on whether you want to pull cars or blow the horn, you can't do both.  There's not enough space.

I had another gearhead/motor combination I loved, but it's gone now - the Kato 11-105 12v motor with a Gizmoszone 5.14:1 gearhead on it.   Gizmoszone out of Hong Kong just up and disapeared.  Gone.   That is the combo I've done all my tender-drive steam with.

[sd45elect2000]

The motor is one of my favorite hacks, they are a 3V 25:1 gearhead from Solarbotics, the GM15A, with a D-shaped shaft.   I drill out the shaft .030 and put a piece of brass wire in there, and ACC the universal on it.   100 ohm resistor on the motor and I'm running on DC.  And they are dirt cheap.  I've never burned one out.

Because of the gearhead, the current draw is minimal, you can get away with a tiny resistor.   Full slip and you won't hear RPM drop and that resistor won't heat.  That's one of the secrets.

I've used that motor on all my Kato conversions for my Climax kits, up to and including the Nn3 Climax, and anything else it will fit into, including my original scratchbuilt stuff.   You get about a 25mph top speed, incredible slow speed control, unlimited torque for such a tiny motor.   For tiny geared steam, it's about perfect.

I'm constantly experimenting with new drives, motors, whatever for tiny locomotive construction.   I'll have pretty much my entire collection with me down to Altoona.  The Holy Grail is a really well-peforming GE 25-tonner, I've probably built six of them, still never reached perfection.

Tomytec has a lot of flavors on trucks, you have to pay attention to wheelbase, and if it has end-axle or interior pickups.   For this, you want any MID tower (not end tower) short wheelbase, end-axle pickup truck.  They change models of frames constantly, but there's about four different truck designs in all of them.  The other thing about Tomytec is turning the flanges for Code 55 is as easy as it gets with split axles in a dremel with a micrometer.

I also designed and fitted in custom weights on those models, making a pattern out of styrene and making a mold, so that there were custom drop-in weights made out of 160-degree Bismuth, which won't damage a silicone mold.   Weight is everything.   If anything, you have to make a decision on whether you want to pull cars or blow the horn, you can't do both.  There's not enough space.

I had another gearhead/motor combination I loved, but it's gone now - the Kato 11-105 12v motor with a Gizmoszone 5.14:1 gearhead on it.   Gizmoszone out of Hong Kong just up and disapeared.  Gone.   That is the combo I've done all my tender-drive steam with.

Randy’s frames and mechanism still run well. I have two of them that run great!

Randy Stahl

[Jim Starbuck]

I didn’t know the Deer Lodge switcher was yours Mike. Small world (pun intended).
I’m not sure what the axle spacing is on the steeple cab and I don’t have any experience with the Toytec trucks but it sounds like there would be something there that would work well. I’ve used trucks from the Kato 11-10x chassis, Bachmann S4 and canabalized a Bandai powered chassis.
The go-to motor on most of my chassis builds it a 7x16 mm double end shaft coreless available from Tramfabriek.
I fit up small diameter worms from the Bachmann 44 & 70 tonners.
Tramfabriek also has worms, shaft bushings and flywheels available.
I haven’t used any gear head motors as I use ESU decoders and keep alives which play well with the coreless motors and give outstanding control.
A technique I use is to cut the truck attachment portion from the donor chassis and incorporate it into the build if possible. This insures a good fit of the trucks and keeps from having to reinvent the wheel so to speak.
My chassis are usually extremely simple with the motor cradled into a slot wide enough to allow the worms to engage the truck gears.
Here’s a photo of my scratch built Davenport 45 Tonner using the Kato trucks which I sanded the stock detail off of and overlaid with resin castings. There was some discussion about it here: 

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=49539.msg662807#msg662807

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Jim

[chessie system fan]

I have the N.J. drawings for this locomotive. The truck axle spacing is 8 feet.  Truck center to truck center is 22 feet 4 inches.

[nkalanaga]

Unless you want bell and horn sounds, no sound system is really needed for a MILW steeple cab.  Like all of the MILW electrics, they were basically big versions of our trains.  DC went in the top, through the motor, and out the bottom.  No transformers, motor-generators, big cooling fans, nothing.  Running, they were almost silent.

[peteski]

Unless you want bell and horn sounds, no sound system is really needed for a MILW steeple cab.  Like all of the MILW electrics, they were basically big versions of our trains.  DC went in the top, through the motor, and out the bottom.  No transformers, motor-generators, big cooling fans, nothing.  Running, they were almost silent.

If they were geared, then there would be some gear whine, but if the motors were driving the wheels directly then that would be pretty silent.

[AlwaysSolutions]

Okay reading through the feedback here on the motors and configurations I've been inspired to give this another look. I just remembered that I had ordered a couple Tramfabriek motors a few years ago to play around with.  I'll have to find them in one of my boxes of "stuff" to see if they're the right ones.  Assuming they're the 7x16, I drafted up my idea using concepts from the Little Joe chassis with my EMD truck frames as stand-ins.  I work slow so I wouldn't expect frequent updates as the talent powerhouses represented in this thread can do, but if things are progressing nicely I'll provide updates as they come.  If this works, there will be lots of room in there for adding weights and electronics.  We'll see!

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-Mike

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  The BiPolars were direct-drive - the axle was also the motor shaft.  The others did have gears, and the gear noises, but so do our models.  Given the limited low-frequency response of most N scale speakers, the model itself probably sounds about the same as a sound system would.

[brill27mcb]

My advice would be to design your mechanism not specifically to this model, but instead to be as small, narrow and wheelbase-adaptable as possible. That way it could be used to power many different models.

Rich K.