Member postings for Werner Schleidt

Hi this charger is only able to charge a battery. Without a battery there is no power support.

it depends how much current you need there are some better alternatives like an old laptop power supply up to 3 Amps. if you need more you can use a car battery and this charger . But keep in mind if you draw current from the battery you have to start the charging manually.

Werner

Edited By Werner Schleidt on 03/05/2023 16:51:20

Martin,

i fully agree with you .

On a passenger car you need some kind of direct steering to have a feeling for the driving dynamic of the car. The car have for that special settings of toe in ,caster and camber. But all of this is in combination with pneumatic tires, if you have solid rubber as usual at traction engines that all is different and sometimes it is good that the steering gear can block ,with a bad backward efficiency heavy loads by driving through holes or anything similar. With my fire king it is good that forces of small couple stones or like that are blocked and sometimes if you fire by driving it is good that the steering is not self centering. Otherwise you have to correct permanent if you drive in very wide curve.

The direct steering in a car is only important for driving dynamics and a handfeeling that you know where you drive and for high speeds.

In a model this is not important.

Werner

Nigel,

in which scale do you build?. My steam friend build a 2 inch Clayton after the original plans , with the difference he made it new with metric conversion. With the original track levers the steering force was to heavy for him on asphalt during driving. So he asked for help but would not to change so much. So I advised him to look if he can change something on the track levers or the connection to the steering gear. He changed the attachment to the gear, because the thread in the gear was long enough and so he attached the gear to a longer lever combined to the track lever so the force is comming down.

That is very difficult to chose if you make the setup for the first time.

Werner

Hi Nigel,

to your question full size cars have lock to lock sterring wheel turns of 3 turns this give a steering ratio measured in straight ahead positon of 15 to 16 to one. This kind of gears are normally assisted by hydraulic or by new cars by electric drive. 25 years ago manual steering was usual at smaller cars there you have 4 to 5 turns lock to lock and in center a ratio of 20 to 22 to one. The steering ratio depends on the length of track lever in full size cars in the range of 125 to 170 mm and the ratio of the gear.

In my Merryweather fire king model i have a trapezoid gear and this give me 10 turns lock to lock . This give in rough calculation a ratio of 120 to one. In the middle position it is more direct. Overal it is light to turn at all driving surfaces . The track lever length is about 70 mm. The fire king is good to control in center position with less lash in the gear and the intermediate shaft i need.

If you want to make a correct ackerman setup it is good to lock in a book for that . But as a rough idea the track levers of the front axle have to point in center position to the middle of the rear axle. This give you different toe ins by steering in a curve. The inner curve wheel have to have more toe in as the outer curve wheel.

I hope this helps.

Werner

Hello Tim,

i build this one with an Arduino Nano https://sourceforge.net/projects/scopino/

The scope is more basic ,but i tested it with my model receiver with servo signals and it worked OK.

There is an other application called serialscope https://x-io.co.uk/serial-oscilloscope/

I build both and they are different and both useful. The hardware is based on an Arduino Nano input divider potentiometer al cheap parts.

Werner

I made my suction hose from a standard plastic suction hose. This had a good function but it looked terrible.

Then I had the idea to wrap a gauze bandage around it and fix it with black paint . This look is very realistic from my opinion.

In your size it is more difficult to find something, but I think a small yarn made from natural fibres can do the job.

I am interested to see which tipps came in.

good luck

Werner

Hi Bob,

in this original picture I marked the tension bar . It is connected to the rear axle and to the drive axle. This shifts the springs in the radius of the tension bar, but it have to be adjusted when the fire king is on the wheels. It is adjustable with right and left hand thread.

Werner

It looks that your die is marked on the wrong side. I have one if I use it on that side it is marked it does not work and do not cut well. After some time I noticed a hard to see mark on the back side " cut from this side" . If i use the back side it is cutting OK. If I compare to others with the cut start related to the lettering M6 and so on ,there is no chamfer only at the backside marked cut from this side. On your part it is good to make a small chamfer for better cut start with the die. This is from my experience.

regards

Werner

Hi Bob,

it look nice running. To the length of the chain you have to think when the fireking is on its wheels yo have a length change by compressing the axle springs. I do not know how much it is on your small engine , but it is not negligible. In addition normally there are bars to adjust the tension of the chains.

Werner

It is difficult to say what is wrong. Please apply power at the brushes or the wires to the brushes over a controllable power supply. If you have no controllable 12 V power take a 12 V battery and connect in serial a 12 Volt light from a car front lamp 12 V 45/50 W H3 or H4 . If you connect your motor the current flow over the lamp to the battery. A normal Ok motor needs about 2 to 3 A during running whithout load and the lamps starts to glow with low light.

With your faulty motor in case of a shortage the lamp glow bright. If there is no connection it is off.Try to turn the output shaft if possible, then you can see if the current flow over the brushes by glowing of the lamp. So you can see if there are shortages in the windings or no connection.

The next issue can be shortage in the commutator. Look to the small slots at the commutator. There can be metall dust of the brushes make a shortage. Clean it with a small knife or tool where you can go through the slot. The brushes are sinter bronce material and the grinding can short coils of the motor if the dust is in the slots. This you can see with the simple lamp setup or more sophisticated with a controllable power suplly with amp meter by turning the motor.

Good luck

Werner

Hi Jack,

one of the faults can be that the water valves are water thight ,but not air thight. If the injector try to start it can be possible that air could be sucked in via the shaft to the water . Then the injector fails immediatly. This was a finding i had after some use of my injectors.

Hi Tom,

i have a Maxitrak Ruby boiler and chassis and build up my own housing for to have a german narrow gauge design.

Many years ago as i start my first driving i use the original grate and my fire was dead after four rounds on the track. I narrowed then the blast pipe and could drive a lot longer. But I found many clinker in the smoke box and the lower tubes were blocked after short driving. I was able to drive about four to six kilometers a day. Then the fire dies and i had many clinker in the smoke box. Often the smoke box was half full and the grate had 2 cm of clinker on it. So the air can not come to the fire. I had then the idea to make a new grate with small steel bars and as separator M6 Nuts that means 4.8 mm distance from bar to bar. The orignal was 2.5 mm the bar and 2.5 mm the slot to the next one. Now the fire worked super and i had to widen the nozzle from 4.9 mm to 5.1 mm. In addition i added a petticoat inside the smoke box and lower the mounting of the blast nozzle. The idea was to have draught over all tubes , not only the upper ones. This was developed in several steps and tries. The longest run i had with this loco was 23 km a day and the clinker in the smoke box are like sand now and it was only an amount of 2-3 cm height in the smoke box. This in the range of the lower tubes. Befor I had clinker half full of the smoke box and as big as peanuts. Shure with a 3.5 inch it is more difficult , but with my 5 inch Plettenberg loco, this is a narrow gauge tramway loco, i have a 5 inch chassis with cylinder and boiler from a 3.5 inch Gezina loco i made similar experience. I drove her for about 10 km a day with a similar result.

Conclusion widen up the air slots in the grate and and open up carefully in small steps the nozzle diameter, add a petticoat and lower the nozzle that the draught is for all smoke tubes. With this you get a better fire performance. My coal i burn was Ibbenbüren german anthracide coal this coal burns good but you need ever draught otherwise the fire dies.

I hope you can sort out something for you. Good luck

Werner

Hi all,

we made a small steam rally to start in to the new season.

Over the winter we made some optimisation, the fire king get an injector and the Clayton got some fine tunning and a new donkey pump.

We use rainwater in our club for over 20 years. There is no problem with using it.

Befor we used water from the city water pipe and that was the death of a view boilers. They get many limescale in the boiler and so they overheat partially and the boiler fail.

Since we use rain water we had no problem.

Werner

Hi Bob,

I use on my small fire engine ,a little bit bigger than yours, wooden wheels. The rubber was a band 20 mm wide and 5 mm thick . The rubber Band was glued together with second glue cyan acrilate. The rubber ring was a liitle bit smaller in diameter. So i have to use two screwdriver to pull it on. As adhesive i used contact glue.

This fire engine is radio controlled and have a weight of 20 kg. After a few days of driving one tire came off in a curve during steering. I sanded the glue away and made the surface rough and glue it again. After that it was no problem.

On my Merrywheather Fire King i have a few time the problem that the glue came off the steel tire. I read in the traction talk forum that some use polyurethan glue from a british trader. With this tip i found in ebay from UHU and Pattex polyurethan glue for craftsmen workers. With this i made several test trys and this glue is much more elastic and i made measurements and found that the factory data are correct. It worked perfect for glueing metal to rubber ,for shoe repair and many other difficult things where i was not able to glue before. My problem on the fireking was that the epoxy glue is to hard and was destroyed after driving of compound cuble stones. They hit permanent against the rubber metal surface and so the connection to the metal surface was destroyed.

I hope you get some additional practice informations.

keep up the good work

Werner

Hi Bob,

congratulations for your modelwork. If you want to have an unknown adventure paint your parts. This was the same experience I had with painting. Important is the correct hummidity and temperature. I painted a roof o my loco in summer with a good result . Then in October in the sun with the same paint can, i made the roof of the second loco. The outcome was terrible not black it was more grey. I made it two times with the same result. Then I go in my workshop and do the same and it was perfect. The difference was the hummidity. Outside about 80 % and inside 50 %. This had a great influence. After i noticed this, I build up a paintbox form a big cardboard box with a small fan and a pipe to bring the paint gases out of the basement window. This was made with many improvisation with hot glue and so on. The result was very good.

With my fireking i had acrylic based colour from the hobby store . This was premium marked two in one. The greatest trash i ever had. At the start it looked good and it was a nice paint cover and after some short time the colour begins to move and it was one blot of colour in the midddle. The only solution i found then, bring it out with a foam roll and roll as it is nearly dry. Then it stays were it have to belong. And i made the experience in the hobby store, the suppliers change the base material every three years and when you have the experience it was good the next time it behave different. And premium is only the price you pay for it. It is very impportant to read the small printed discription of the incridents. My friend bought his paint at the professional paint store and this is as i know good and it is only cleanabel with thinner and not with water. The only problem there is, the can format of one liter.

You see you are not alone with your experience.

I am eager to see your fire king ready ,keep the good work.

Werner

On my test ride I had another issue after assembling all again I found that my fire burns not so good as I had it in mind. A few years ago I bought the book "The Fire Burns Much Better" and in the last pages there were for models a multi jet nozzle with the words " that have a better performance".

I decided to measure the different steps in the development of a new front end configuration. At first i build a simple u shape low pressure gauge from wood and clear plastic hose. This was filled with water. One end is open the other end is running trough the fire hole and the smoke pipe into the smpke chamber. The smoke chamber had a clamped in rubber sealing for the smoke pipes. Only the measuring hose came in. The test run with air pressure in my basement. So I was able to compare the different nozzle and had readings at the scale of the U Pipe gauge. And I made electronic measurements too.

This is an exampel reading under test with 1.5 bar air pressure. I made several tests, helping blower alone, then with the running engine and both.

So it was easy to compare the different nozzle setups. Without the test both water parts in the gauge have the same height. In the shown picture there is a low pressure from about 4.5 mbar.

this was the initial setup with a nozzle of 2.5 mm bore hole

new setup with the multijet nozzle.

The initial nozzle had an area of 4.9 mm² the new one 6.64 mm² . I made several tests and I playing with the optimal height setup and so on. The first step was 7 * 1.1 mm bore straigth. this had a better low pressure reading as before. Then i made nozzle where the outside jets have inclination 2° and 5° to the outside.

The last one was in my tests the best one , so I made test rides under steam with this setup. This nozzle have 35 % more area for steam in the nozzle and therefore less back pressure for the steam engine.

The test at my garden track was very good so we decide to go to another club track.

Werner

Edited By Werner Schleidt on 03/01/2022 08:08:20

In a small mallet configuration the temperature loss is a big problem. At temperatures below 16° C there were fountaines like a gysir coming out of the chimney . So decide to built a steam re heater. At this loco the two frame setups run independent from each other. So it is necessary to have a small compound collector.

The idea came up to bring it in contact with the boiler to reduce temperature loss of the exhaust steam of the high pressure cylinders. This was a big step forward the loco was now driveable down to 12 °C in a good performance.

After several years of optimization I decide to give her paint in the hot summer of 2018. So I disassembeled all for painting.

The loco cylinders have a bore of 24 mm and 30mm stroke. Under the setup of of full pressure for all cylinders the boiler was not able to come over 4 bar during permanent driving. The coal consumption was extraordinary high, compared to a ruby . All people who saw my tests said oh very good ,but in real world it was bad. The same experts say you can never have a compound action in such a small loco.

After i saw this coal consumtion i tried the compound setup. The start procedure was more difficult to get the water out of the cylinder, but the driving and coal consumption was much better. After all steps in optimization my son and i drove my ruby and the mallet and we have both the subjectiv feeling that the mallet have less coal and water consumption as the ruby.

I had talks to the locomotive driver of the original and both say , the mallet is very difficult to drive and what they say was similar to my experience. The bigest problem is the start procedure. The start have to be in full pressure setup and then after some wheel turns switched to compound action. If the loco is cold it last much longer.

One of the importants step was to understand how the blast nozzle and the front setup was to be tunned.

Another step was to understand how it is possible to bring the high pressure steam to the low pressure cylinders.

will be continued

Edited By Werner Schleidt on 02/01/2022 17:19:25

Hello all,

i want to tell the story about my Java Mallet a small 5 inch gauge locomotive with compound action.

But first a safe and steamy year for all model engineers.

In 2006 I decided to built a small loomotive which is more complex and I had to develop new skills and experience. In the Frankfurt Narrow Gauge Museum I saw a coplete restored Orenstein and Koppel Compound Locomotive. This was taken back from Java from the Prebolungo Sugar Mill. I gave this project a go . The guys from the musseum made a super job for restoring and they had a nice .pdf with informations. In there is a good drawing for to calculate the size of the loco. My borders are the transport in the car and i have to take her over two stairs into the basement. I want to transport her as my other locos with a sack barrow and so the lenght was fixed to come trought the door. With this borders I made a sketch how the loco have his size and shape.

I ordered from Maxitrak a ruby boiler. And gave the project a go.

In a Video I collect over the years many takes about my driving tests in my garden and on several club tracks.

At the start i never believed that the optimization last so long.

Unfortunatly i have only German text in the video, because at that time i had no idea that i share this video.

I made some explanations in english coresponding to the time in the video.

0 to 1:45 building

1:45 to 4:18 first driving with all cylinders under full pressure

4:18 to 7:00 optimization of the blast Nozzle it was driveable with unbelievable coal consumption

7:01 to 7:52 change to compound action

7:52 to 12:40 now with a double petticoat

With this was permanent driving possible. The longest run was at the track of the DMC Zürich with 23 Km distance it starts at 11 am and ended at 5 pm. The limit was the driver he was not able to sit anymore.

I add later additional steps and I hope it is not boring for you.

part one

Werner