I am looking for some ideas on little projects to add animation to my HO layout. I have a “Yesteryear” brass windmill that I will attempt to motorize with a minute cell phone vib motor. I read an article several years ago about a gentleman who did it and it looked good fm the vid posted. I figure a painters brush would be easy to animate up and down with an eliptical motor drive. Or maybe a little longer throw for a billboard jockey using a long pole with wider brush. I’ve seen the “O” scale figure loading 4 x 8 sheets of plywood into a pickup truck that made its rounds a few years back.
I just ordered a quad servo controller fm Tam Vally. I have lots of servo’s and parts fm R/C plane flying in another life. I found the article in MRH ezine really interesting about using servo’s to operate T/O’s (or animation). So maybe I can use my servo’s in some sort of animation sequence.
Anyway looking for new ideas on animation. Maybe something you have done. Maybe something you always thought would be cool but never got around to doing. I always thought it would be cool to have an airplane with the props turning (I could use the same small motor as the windmill maybe) problem is I can’t seem to find any transition era type planes in HO.
Thanks for everyones input and I think this will be a fun post. Let’s hear your ideas.
a word of caution - a layout can easily “overanimated” and the viewer´s interest distracted from the train operation. Be sure that any motion you generate looks very realistic. I for myself have decided to go completely without any animation other than sounds.
You’re welcome to put a motor on your windmill,but I’ve seen some pretty good luck with hiding a little computer fan in a structure to blow on the mill. I’ve seen moving sawamill carriages,forklifts in the sawmill moving about,using an underfloor magnet. A chip loader shifting the chip car back and forth to load the car. A conveyor pulling logs out of the pond and into the mill. Welding flashes,emergency vehicle lights, wig wag signals,etc. BILL
I agree. It’s way to easy to overanimate a layout. I have a few things planned for my expansion, a Barber pole on a building, a welder inside a shop and flashing lights on some emergency vehicles. These are all subtle things that you won’t catch right away and they won’t take away from the detail and the trains.
When I think of animation I think of “one more thing to maintain” or “one more thing to break down”. It’s tough enough just to keep the trains running right.
Bit of a hi-jack - Lots of ideas have already been mentioned above or in the modeling ‘press’ (light effects such as welding, foundry pours, campfires), and rotational (signs especially, but also vents, the various carnival rides that faller sells, and so on), and ‘linear’ (rising doors, crossing gates and semophore, although those are more of an arc), but I wonder about operating fence gates/rail doors which open when a train approaches - do a decent number of people animate these so that they operate automatically (I remember the Revel enginehouse I had long ago had some sort of spring loaded trigger piece which was supposed to open the door as a locomotive approached - never got that to work right), or do they use some sort of manual push-rod control (like the rod-type controls for switches mounted on layout fascias), or do they use the ol’ manual man-'hand’ling (grab that fence and turn it so the train can continue on the siding). I think I’ll eventually end up with 3-5 gated sidings, and maybe a 2-3 industries w/ rail-door, and like to hear thoughts about automating them (if that even makes sense).
I think of coal. Actually, I do have an operating 2-chute coal loader, and a number of old Mantua “clamshell” hoppers that will dump the coal through into a waiting bin. However, the bin for the loader only holds about 2 carloads. I think a conveyer that would take coal from a much larger reservoir and load it into a hopper would be interesting. For a fixed scene, you could arrange for the coal to fall out of the bottom of the same hopper and cycle back to the conveyor.
A electro-magnetic crane could rotate into place, lower the magnet and pick up a load of scrap steel, then move to another spot and dump it. With a bit of planning, the same device could reverse the “on” and “off” points for the magnet coils, and move the same load back again, so you wouldn’t have to keep emptying one bin and loading another.
I agree with the points of over animation a layout… On our layout, we are planning a few animatied features more to give another “job” to the operators during operating sessions… Some small things like moving gates, gravel loading and unloading… and since a saw a working rotarty dump in CT last week at the show, and 2 in the link above, possibly one of those… At least with our animations, the operators will be controlling it, as need to complete certain jobs, not continuosly running features like windmills and such. By chance any explinations out there of working rotarty dumps? Thanks!
The Heljan intermodal crane is an interesting model, but I wonder how many of these actually are part of a layout where anyone actually runs them? At first, it’s got a lot of appeal, but is someone actually going to sit there and load car after car? Well, maybe, but then again, maybe not.
If I were thinking of adding animation, I like the idea of completely off-line stuff, like a merry-go-round or ferris wheel.
The same could be done to make flags blow in the wind. I would use a smaller fan from like a small lap top though instead of a big ol PC. You wouldn’t to have to animate some people chasing after their flag being blown away. Unless you’re simulating a tornado or something.
One of the problems of using pager or toothbrush motors is that they usually run too fast. I’m working on a pulse control to try and slow them down yet still give reliable operation.
I used a microwave turntable motor to turn a ventilator on one of my Walthers freight houses. It revolves slowly. I might try one in the window rotating a fan like on the White River site. If you do this be very careful of the mains voltage that is used by these motors. I put the motor in a metal box so only the rotating shaft is sticking out and all the nasty voltages are safely inside.
I disagree that you can have too much animation. For a display layout the more animation the better, but I’m not a fan of carnival/funpark rides. More subtle animations are best.
I’ve added a couple of animation effects to my layout - mainly electronic ones. There’s a set of crossing gates that automatically detect trains and flash accordingly.
The other one is a single signal (as my layout is a yard with staging), that is connected to a train detector on the staging bus. When the signal is green, it’s safe to run trains into staging - so it looks good and performs a role. So I suppose an animation that helps with an operational goal would be a good idea. My [2c] anyway.
Hey folks, thanks for all the input and ideas. I particularly liked the fan in the window. That’s a keeper. I may try to replicate that on my HO pike. I have several motors I have collected that have slow speeds fm 2-48 rpm’s. I think they may be adaptable to this sort of thing.
As far as too many animations on a layout? Well I think they only increase the visual interest of a layout. I operate alone and few people actually see my layout (former). I think the big reason I like animation is the work involved to get a realistic looking scene. It adds yet another aspect to MRR, and its very enjoyable both building and watching once done.
Any more ideas out there. No matter how wild lets hear them!
I had seen that page a while ago, but lost the website URL in the meanwhile. Thanks for reposting it.
I see they use the manual hand throw method via connecting rod, in the same manner as throwing a manual switch from a rod on the layout fascia - upon reflection it does seem the most robust method.
A few years back I was at a train show in Green Bay and this guy had his layout set up there, it even had a customized trailer to haul it. Anyway, he had a small urban scene with moving vehicles. I can’t be certain, but I think he used something similar to a bicycle chain with magnets mounted underneath the layout. On the surface, he had vehicles with magnets mounted on the undersides. It was a pretty cool effect. The only drawback was that all the vehicles followed the same path. I suppose you could have mulitple chains going to have different routes, but that would be a lot of engineering to pull off.
When I was in High school in the 50s in Montana, I made a missle silo that had opening doors and a missle would rise to the suface in firing position. I did this with rods and bellcranks from model airplane stuff ,leading to the front of the layout. At the time the airforce was building the silos all over the state. None of them were served by rail though.Kept a lot of guys in jobs. Talk about economic stimulus!. BILL
The one item I DON’T want to see, either on a layout or in real life, is that 450-ton silo door snapping to the side to clear the missile - which will rise to the edge of space before plunging down to convert something on the surface to radioactive glass! So far in my lifetime, there have been two nuclear weapons fired in anger. If there is NEVER a third, it will be thirty minutes too soon!!!
Back to topic. I would prioretize animation ideas as:
Essential to operation:
Signals (especially semaphores.)
Turntable.
Coaling station (sound is animation, too.)
2 Nice to have for operation:
Crossing gates and flashers.
Live mineral loaders (coal or ores.)
Devices to load or unload open-top cars (logs, pipe, crated machinery, containers…)
Operating hopper car unloaders (rotary or tilt dumpers.)
Railroading related action (sound and light shows simulating shop work, passenger operations…)
Operating car ferry aprons (assuming you model a port that was served by car ferry)