The title says it all!
Just like we finally had to do at our Club
EVERYONE was coming up with ideas - but expected the Oldheads to do all of the work!
We soon corrected that idea - If you came up with and idea - You were the Committee Chair!
Welcome Aboard!
When do we see the design concept? 
BOB H - Clarion, PA
I’m sure somebody has, probably while working on his MMR certificate, but I doubt it would be viable for mass-produced commercial production.
Actually, people HAVE had working cut levers in HO, and there’s no reason you can’t add them. For the old X2F coupler, they were wires that were inserted into the coupler shank, brought out to the end of the sill and bent to appropriate shape, operated by squeezing the ends together. For Kadees, you have to convince the fake hose to turn, which requires some kind of operating lever at the coupler.
Several dog’s ages ago I had a friend who used the old Devore ‘just about scale’ couplers. He fitted a few of his cars with ‘just like the prototype’ cut levers, linked to the top of the trip pin. Rotating the trip pin handle pulled the trip pin upward and released the knuckle. It was normally operated by raising a ramp between the rails. (The Devore couplers could be disabled by a large dust mote. Next time I encountered my friend, he had switched to Kadee K’s)
The one thing all of these systems have/had in common is a need for precise forming of tiny moving parts made from, in most cases, rather flimsy materials. They would not stand up to rough handling.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with Kadee couplers and magnetic uncoupling)
The details of such a "contraption’ would be grossly out of scale and clunky at best. I don’t see much reliability in it’s operation or unwanted uncouplimgs. DCC decoder uncoupling, maybe, but somewhat $$$
YES,YES,YES–DCC uncoupling. I have with MTH loco and have looked at adding by building myself. There is one company that will convert a car for you, but it needs space. Some ideas with music wire too. Kadee has them for the bigger scales I think. If so, would be nice if they did for HO.
Richard
Richard
Would you not have to put them on every car!
I know when having an OPs Session - the car that needs set out isn’t the one behind the engine - so that means EVERY CAR would need working couplers on each end as not having them on both ends - my luck would be two cars with the auto uncouplers on the other end!
Really sounds like a O Scale TOY project - as I could sure spend the money trying to equip my 1200 car roster some place else!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
HO is too small.
It’s hard enough to get scale accurate operating cut levers in G scale.
bogp40,
Agreed 100% In addition I can’t see operating any leavers between two cars with my short stubby fingers without knocking the cars off the track.
As for DCC operation I have two cars that have been converted. The coupler at the end of the car with the brake wheel is identified as #3 and the opposite end as #4 for DCC operation. How this would work with many cars so equiped is open to question. When you activate the coupler number unless every car had different nimbers every car with a 3 or 4 would open or close depending. My objection to this system is that you have to enter the number to open the coupler and then enter the loco number to back away from the car and finally enter the car number again to close the coupler and sometimes the car doesn’t respond.
Magnetic delayed uncoupling imo is much better but not in all cases.
Bob
Better yet would be an operating track similar to Lionel, but
I think if it were practical to do it in HO, it would have been done by now. HO is probably too small for something like this.
But since you posted the topic, lets hear why you think it should be possible and show us how/why?
Sergent Engineering is close enough [:D]
Someone out there is selling metal cut levers that ride in metal eye pins so I fiqued why could this not be possible after all, they said the stuff on Star Trek was not possible and alot still is not but a bunch of it is scince fact now, though things like tricorders are rather primitive, 3D printing has come a long way in the last 10 years alone and can now print in human cells even.
The only example I’ve seen was built on a Sergent coupler that had a hole drilled through the top and an eyelet glued to the magnetic ball that locks the knuckle in place.
Probably because no one has developed a working HO scale brakeman. [swg]
Wayne
Those objections about cost/conversion were said when DCC came out and again when sound came out. It seems that the market will absorb costs beyond what seemed reasonable. I preferred paying $35 for a BB Athearn loco and upgrading it
The modified Sergeant coupler sounds like it might have merit, and I applaud anybody who can do it successfully. I suppose the project would involve scale Carmer levers as well as those operated by steel rods from the top and/or bottom. It might be a problem finding wire that is small enough in diameter to represent a real cut lever, yet strong enough to do the job. Maybe stainless steel would work.
At my age, I have too many pending projects to spend time and effort on this one. If the initial experiments were successful, I’d feel obliged to convert the whole roster (which is sizeable), and that means those other pending projects would be pushed farther back, and would probably never be completed.
This is a project for someone with a very limited roster, and I suspect it would appeal to somebody who also wants to run scale wheels through individually-constructed scale turnouts.
Kudos to the one who can do it.
Tom
Honestly, I don’t think that it is technology, scale or ingenuity but logistics that keep this from being viable. My ham fist are way to big to actuate a lever on each car and would only lead to damage to the surrounding scene. Using some type of tool would also seem counter intuitive, we already do that from overhead with Kadee’s and Sergent couplers[;)]
I made working ones in G for one of my Porter locos and a couple small cars . In theory it was great in practice in was a pain. Lifting the levers would often derail the car. It was tricky at best. I might have gotten the hang of it eventually but I soon started used link/pin couplers couplers on everything. On my G harbor layout I will have knuckles again so I may yet return to working drawbars once again.
I can only imagine how troublesome they would be in something as small as HO.
Here you can see the ones I built.
I really don’t believe that we have reliable and affordable technology to do this at this point. I suggested possibilities of a DCC uncoupling, however after added thought conclude even DCC would be too great an expence and a total pain. Operations, especially on a fast clock would have to supply all train orders to have an address for each car in the consist (or at least the ones to be set out) The address would have to be set (figure which/ A or B end) and then uncouple. I outlaw many times even when fumbling about w/ a skewer.
Now if some sort of device (infared, laser etc could be used as a triger, then pointing at the car would allow an uncoupling, that may work—Say “Star Trek”
But for now, I will use the skewer and keep those Kadee’s in fine working order, especially on over a couple hundred cars.