hi everyone,
before I start my first layout, I would like to know if some of you have any animations that are EASY to make like, people skating or a car moving. Those are the ones that have caught my eyes at different MR shows. What are your ideas…(that Imight borrow?)
Thanks,
Saville
Saville, there are some companies that make animations you are looking for. Particularly european companies like Vollmer and Busch. Often you just have to add a motor (which they sell) to operate many animations (like a fairground). Fairgrounds and amusement park rides are fairly common animated kits already available to buy. You can also have a straight track with a trolley that goes to one end and automatically reverses to the other end (autoreverser).
I’m pretty sure the skaters and cars moving are done with magnets underneath. My fiance has one in her x-mas town.
Good luck!
Saville, Model Railroader published a book called Realistic Animation, Lighting & Sound : 21 Projects for Your Model Railroad(out of print). You can look at the contents of the book on-line. However, there is nothing on skaters, but they do show how to make moving automobiles, log loader, saw mill, a working crane and a few other neet projects.
Faller has HO scale cars that follow an imbeded wire in a roadbed. The animation, such as a skater, is made by nothing more than a moving magnet under a mirror and a piece of metal or another magnet on the figures base. The larger the scale the easier it is to animate things. S, O and G scales would be easy but Ho is a challenge and N nearly impossible.
(clickon highlighted words for link)
Savillev,
You might want to check Kramer Products :
http://www.kramerproducts.com
They offer individual animated figures.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543
One way to ‘animate’ skaters would be to glue the figures to a circular mirror, then rotate the entire mirror. By overlapping the edges with an irregular shoreline, you should be able to get away with it.
A similar rotating disc indoors, with dancers on it, visible through the windows, could be used to animate a dance hall. That would work best at night.
Another circular animation feature that could be interesting would involve fitting a figure, arm extended, to the vertical shaft of a small motor. A fine wire from the arm connects to a model aircraft. The fun would come in adjusting the airfoil to get the aircraft to lift into the air when the motor starts to turn, then settle back to the ground when it stops.
I’m working on an animation scheme for a pile driver. By arranging to hit the bottom of the pile being driven from the underside, I should be able to cause the driving head to bounce (within its guide track) off the top of the pile. It should even provide its own, appropriate, sound effects.
Chuck.