My plan for headlights was to drill holes in the shell and sink clear plastic rod into the holes to serve as headlamp lenses, and mount a bulb inside the shell to make it light up. I ordered some 1/16th inch clear plastic rod from Walthers, stock number 570 90858. The rod came in but it was opaque white, not clear.
Fortunately the 1.2 mm 1.4 volt micro bulbs Walthers stock number 474 CO310, are small enough to serve as headlamps all by themselves.
To improve the brightness of interior lighting I installed bright shiny tape on the ceiling of the shell.
And here is the constant brightness circuit board with all four headlamp bulbs powered up and lighting. Next step is to drill the shell for the headlamp bulbs. But its getting late, I’m getting tired and so I knocked off for the day.
Several Bachmann steam locos use a belt drive from the motor to a jackshaft which then has the worm to the driven wheel, to keep a worm and a drive shaft from being visible in the space between the boiler and frame. They run just fine. A flat belt and friction keep many of the accessories in a car running just fine as well. Even internally - for the camshafts.
The only real problem with the Athearn Hi-Fi drive was that the motors run at way too high a speed, and they can’t make the drum on the axles any bigger to achieve a decent reduction ratio, they are limited by the wheel diameter. If the motors ran half as fast as those original ones, the starting speed would be reasonably slow.
Hi All, Just in relation to Dave’s post, why not use a couple of LED’s in the shell? I was thinking I would do that with perhaps clear PVA as glass protecting the “twin sealed beam” lights. Anyone else tried that?
In regard to the gearing system, here is a pic uploaded to show my gearing system using the Athearn switcher truck…
it isn’t perfect but not painfully obvious and with canon motors, they run well.
I did have Athearn Budd wheels in the axle gear at one point on one car but with the older truck it rode too low so I opted upward with the wheel size. With the wheel size I had to space the mount upwards but it is not obvious from the outside.
The mount was made from a scrap bit of plastic that originally held a hose connector on a rack in a hardware shop, drilled and cut to fit the Athearn truck. My other unit has half an old switcher frame spliced onto the Budd Car frame, not elegant either but practical and none too noticeable
Really enjoying watching the progress on this thread. I’ve got a 4-unit RDC set I’m putting together (2 powered, 2 not). Needs a bit of attention and of course it starts a bit jerky, but it’s a delight to run and with two together it seems to run and start a bit smoother than one alone.
Still haven’t decided whether to leave as NH or try and modify to CNW though.
Sorry mate, I should have read your thread right through… I got distracted and did not see the other images related to the 4 LED’s. Are you planning to glaze the front and if so, how are you planning to tackle that yourself?
I plan to just drill holes in the shell where the headlamps ought to go, and then friction fit the 1.2 mm bulbs into the holes. The business end of these bulbs is clear glass, a bit rounded over, and that ought to do it. If I find the look of the plain bulbs not quite right, I might punch some 1/16 disks out of clear plastic sheet, say an old Entemann’s danish pastry box and fit them into the holes in front of the bulbs.
Here we have center punched the holes to take the headlamp bulbs.
Here we are set up to drill out the headlamp holes on my drill press. The piece of wood inside the shell is just a stiffener to let me to tighten up the vise without crushing the shell. The angle ruler lets me drill at a slight angle to have the holes come thru inside the shell and adjust both ends of the shell to the same slight angle. Trainboard, the photo site I moved to after Photobucket went crazy, rotated the photo onto it’s side, for no apparent reason.
And here we have the headlamp holes drilled. Again Trainboard rotated this photo on its side.
Here we have the constant brightness board installed in the shelll.
And here we have the lamps installed and lighting up. Things yet to do. Paint a black wash over the grills in the radiator blister on the roof. Install windows. install wire grabs. Paint the undercarriage. Paint the trucks.
It’s been a while but I finally finished up the project and got it on the layout. Had some problems. The couplers were a bit low and I put washers until the drive trucks to raise them us. Unfortunately the washers touched the hot side pickup wires and shorted the whole thing out. I tried home made plastic washers but they broke electrical contact between the chassis and the trucks. I finally got some brass #8 washers and chucked them in the drill press and filed them down til they did not touch to pickup wires. Then I found the motor was touching the home made constant brightness board in the under side of the radiator hump. Some electrical tape fixed that.
good post I have many hi fi locos just purchased if you could help don’t know what to use to couple the shafts to motor they just keep slipping any help would be appreciated thomask
I’ve heard that there is fuel line tubing that can be purchased at the hardware store that will snuggly attach the motor to the drive shaft.
Also, a standard Athearn universal joint should work, but I think the fuel line tubing would be quieter and cheaper. I think at least a couple of the Hi-F drive locos I’ve had have had a universal, but I don’t recall the details.
Also, as concerns the entire thread, the term for Athearn band/belt drive locos is “Hi-F” not “Hi-Fi”. As has been explained to me, the F stands for “Friction”, indicating the advantages of having all trucks powered rather than just one. In 1957 affordable AWD was probably quite an improvement. There’s a neat historical timeline you can scroll through at the Athearn site.
Lastly, I’m very glad to see this thread pop up again. After scooping up 3 more out of a dollar-bin at a show a week ago, I’m now up to 8 RDC’s in various states and even a few options for repowering them if necessary. It’s a good reminder that I really have to sit down and sort them out. Maybe I should try and get all 8 running…
You’re very welcome. That sounds like a good plan. If you bring the motor with you you to the shop should be able to find the right size easily. Whatever you come up with please let me know as I’ll probably be dealing with the same issue soon.
One more suggestion I had forgotten about, if you have a calipers and can measure the diameter of each shaft, there are a multitude of cheap shaft couplers on Ebay. Enter the shaft sizes as “___mm to ___mm” coupling or coupler as your search term. Try “rotatable” or “Universal” if the shafts aren’t perfectly level and you want a jointed version.
I still think that rubber tubing might give you the smoothest operation, but it’s never a bad idea to have options.
