Speedometer CarI ordered a speedometer car from Train Electronics.
The first product was a scale speedometer, with trackside sensors.
For the wireless version, the speed sensor and transmitting electronics goes into a piece of rolling stock, and the trackside electronics picks up the signal and displays it.
I've added an optional sensor for track voltage, since I run DCC, I thought it might be nice to determine if I can see voltage drops, which might indicate poor power delivers, bad joiners, etc.
Here's a picture of the wireless receiver and display:
The car itselfNormally it is put in a Hartland car. I bought a USAT 70 ton hopper, and figured the coal load would be easy to pop off to get at the electronics, but they would be hidden most of the time.
Since I wanted to sense the voltage, I needed good pickups. I used the LGB BB wheels. Well, they raise the body too much. So to body mount Kadee 830's I put 2 shims down the length of the draft gear box. It worked out to a .125" and a .060" together to get the height correct. You can just see part of the draft gearbox.
I mounted the pickup wheels inboard at each end so the wires would be hidden. Dave makes the encoder disc, and mounts it and the sensor:
 The electronics are added inside, you can see the battery and the transmitter:
 All I can say is that it works even better than I thought, and Dave is great to work with. Here's a link to his site with more pictures: Click Here to see the pictures
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Last Updated on Friday, 08 January 2010 04:37 |
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