does anyone have any knowledge/experience with the hobbytown centrifugal clutch to fit their power units?
jon
I’m not familiar with hobbytown’s clutch, but have one for a varney F3.
It’s an interesting loco to run.
could you expand a little on the word interesting with respect to the operation of your varney? where did you get it?
jon
I saw a review of these in one of the British magazines a few years ago - are these the units you fit instead of flywheels that allow the motor to spin without the loco moving? They fitted one to a small 0-6-0 switching loco and seemed impressed - they commented that it could get stuck on curves if you didn’t add more power. I’m assuming the units have become less popular with the rise of DCC as it’s surely easier to program CVs than to do major engineering work to fit them.
The hobbytown clutch is a 1940’s era product that consisted of two pieces of brass that were circular on the outside and were each roughly 180 degrees in arc. There was a hole in each perpendicular to the drive shaft and the drive shaft had pins to hold them in place that went in the hole and distributed the torque to them. As they spun in a can slightly larger they would contact the can causing friction and start the train. There was also an oil filled turbine. Sort of a model railroading version of the Buick Dynaflow trasnsmission of the same era. This was all in the era of cheap three pole open frame motors and obviously weren’t the end all as they have been replaced by skew wound five pole can motors that don’t cog and better drive trains across the board. they also severly limited pulling capacity of the engines. the big feature was the motor would roar away when the train was stopped. I guess that is of value if you think that an electric motor in a train sounds anything like a diesel. I wouldn’t recommend even considering them today as the control methods alone far exceed any benefit from one of these devices. It could be a converstaion piece however if soembody wanted on for interest.
I bought the varney F3 at a train show for $5 and the aftermarket clutch was already installed. The interesting thing about it was that with the 3 pole motor and a crude trainset powerpack you could start and run a train at prototypical speeds. With the advances in motor and motor control technology a clutch isn’t necessary.
thanks for the replies. hobbytown sent me some info that makes me want to try one. if i do i will post the results.
jon