Monday, July 16, 2018

Track Power

When it comes to making working models getting the pickups right is really important; no pickups means no power which means the loco doesn't move. Unfortunately I always seem to struggle with pickups be that on a kit I've bought or one I've designed. As I mentioned previously, with Canopus I only have to fit pickups to one side as the chassis is live to the other wheels (a change from the original kit design) but that still means I need to fit three pickups. There is a suggestion in the instructions but no mounting point, you are just given a bit of copper clad board and some wire. After a bit of head scratching this is what I came up with.


What you can't see is that I've filed a gap in the underside of the board so it sits down nice and secure on the stretcher between the slide bars. This made it easy to position and glue in place. Phosphor bronze wires then run from the board to rub on each wheel. Amazingly it all seems to actually work. I did have to clean the wheels well, but given the amount of handling the chassis has had since I started the build that's not entirely surprising. Anyway here she is running for the first time under track power.


Not bad if I do say so myself. As far as I can tell the loco is now complete so next step will be to start thinking about a paint scheme.

4 comments:

  1. Nice one, I like that moment when a loco moves under its own power on track for the first time.
    Looks like you've set the pick-ups to touch the flanges, that's how I try to do things as in theory the flanges are less likely to pick up dirt.

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    1. Yes I was aiming for the flanges (a trick I was told by Rod Allcock) although I think at least one is running on the tread, as it cleaned up a line around the wheel quite quickly. I was tempted to try and adjust that one, but given my luck with pickups I thought best to leave it alone.

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  2. Looks good.
    Is that a precision drill in the background?

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    1. It's the milling head from my lathe, which also works as a drill press when needed.

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