Thanks Terry, I appreciate you comments, I think maybe your right a little of all of that, what has as much to do with it as anything, is these locos are all re-geared so they start and stop very smoothly. Also we try to stick to more scale speeds, need to get some of those digital speed recorders that just sit on the track, and tell you how fast the train is going, that would be interesting for me to see. I have marveled at that CP tunnel myself, having ran thru many long tunnels for me the exhaust of these engines is the biggest thing to deal with I would be interested to see how they vent that thing and keep the units from overheating and shutting down. That is some kind of operation for sure.
Tom, can you provide info on re-gearing locos. This would be very useful info for all of us who strive to make our locos perform as smooth as possible. John
Well now that we know how you feel about scenery................ Latest rumor is that the Frisco is going to try out a Rio Grande Challenger as a helper out of Newburg.
John, with DCC and the Back EMF that most all decoders provide, smooth starts are a built-in part of the operation. Tom is running DC and it is much harder to get locomotives to run slowly and smoothly without changing gears. Most decoders give the motor a kick to get it to begin to rotate and play with the current to the motor using pulse width or duty-cycle and variable frequency while reading the motor's speed by monitoring the voltage the motor creates as it spins and adjusting power to the motor accordingly. That's about as simple as I can explain it.
Keith, I have a Proto 2K FA unit that runs erratically. Replaced cracked axle gears, change CV values, swapped decoders, can hear and feel the gears are not synchronizing, has a lunge to it when I hold it place with a finger. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks Guys on the comments. John, the re gearing of these locos has been a learning curve that has lasted 25+ years. That is why all the chassis are either Athearn or Athearn clones or have Athearn trucks. So they are all able to be re-geared with those Ernst gears. What maybe sets some of this apart is we use dynamically trued or balanced motors, and almost exclusively hex or NWSL drive lines, there are several things that need to be done on Ernst kits that will help their performance. There is a bunch to it, to try and make them perform good, more than can be explained in this post. Most people dont give a hoot about it anyway. I know nothing of the electrical DCC stuff or its features. All I know is after re-gearing the motor has to turn 3 revolutions to do what it used to in 1, so, the motors take much less amperage to start and when they do start they are turning faster and under 1/3rd of the rotational load, which helps with smooth slow speed or start/stop issues. I might be showing my ignorance with DCC, but I would think that a motor requires a given amount of amp/volts (v/a) to start turning whether it be DC or DCC, whatever tuning feature the DCC has. (I think) that when a stock geared loco, draws enough v/a to start rotation its v/a needs drop dramatically just after starting. Perhaps a program to to drop v/a just after starting would help, but you still have to start it. Just like on the prototype, it takes the most amps starting and then they start dropping as speed increases, very basically speaking. I would be happy to start a post on re-gearing stock athearns or clones. But I dont know if there is really any interest for that. I do think that the best gear ratio would be between the Ernst and stock Athearn gear ratios, Ernst are a bit slow for most people, you can tune them for about 50-60 SMPH max with the right motor and set up, most of the operation here is between 25-35 SMPH, It is just my opinion so please take it as that but most model operating speeds are way, way too fast.
I had some questions from folks about how I made my tunnels, I haven't posted here for a few days. So here we go. First one here has the concrete portals and blasted rock innards, crumbled foil method. The foil method is to use spray glue like 3M and glue 5-6 layers together crumble it up a bit and form it to the shape you want, good thing about this is if you have a clearance issue you can simply bend it a bit. innards below is the opposite end of same tunnel Below is the rock portals, foil method innards foil method Below. This is a tunnel with concrete innards. This one is an attempt to simulate the innards as concrete lined with a slip form to line the tunnel. They set the form pour, let it set, slip it down pour again and so on. Below. Other end of same tunnel. The method I used to simulate the slip form liner was to use heavy card stock, I used a hobby knife to cut about have way thru the card stock on the opposite side, then folded slightly on the cuts to get the effect I wanted.
Very clever methods for very realistic tunnel walls. The best thing about them is that they don't draw attention to themselves because they are so convincingly common in appearance.
I'm seeing them on my phone and PC. Let's report this post and get some admin guys involved. I just don't know enough about the software to help us Andre.
I'm not seeing the photos on my phone either!!! I don't have internet at home, just on my phone and most internet functions can be done on my phone. In order to get on the internet I have to go to the library and use their computers. I reported the problem, about not seeing the photos, to the Frisco website administration. Joe
Hear is the GP7 with ALPS Printed decals. Below, is the screen printed decals You can see the difference, although not as glaring as it would have been if I hadn't weathered these locos.
Working on that Andre. I got mine in a sandwich baggie a few years ago. Don't know the mfgr just yet.
Those screen printed Frisco sets came from Rail Graphics. Louis Griesemer in Springfield had them printed up.
Louis G: That proved to be a dead end for me. I didn't receive a reply when I emailed the address supplied at the time. Curses.... foiled again!
