04-13-2009, 06:40 PM
Troubleshooting
After finding that the capacitor mule still flickered as badly as before, it became apparent that I had a mechanical contact issue. One of the three contact points was suspect:
- wheel-rail
- axle-wiper
- wiper-kingpin screw
Tightening the kingpin screw snuggly against the wiper solved most of the problem, but created one obvious issue: the trucks couldn’t turn
and one less obvious issue: the trucks were slightly out of square, so only three of four wheels was making good contact with the rail (note the slight gap on the left most wheel).
![[Image: p694041315-3.jpg]](http://goodman312.zenfolio.com/img/v8/p694041315-3.jpg)
Research
The situation reminded me of an article I read, I think in Model Railroader, sometime in the past 10 years on improving wipers.
The gist of it was this:
- buy brass tubing with .1” inside diameter
- Cut the tube slightly shorter than the axle on your wheelset (assumes metal axles
)
- File the tubes in half so they ride on the axle
- Solder the tubes for an axle set to a phosphor bronze strip and drill and kingpin hole in it.
The idea is to increase the contact surface area. Sorry, no pictures. I started down this path, until finding the resolution in the next section.
Another interesting resource I stumbled across was the page at this link (interesting site, by the way), which gave me ideas for later…
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.1905railroadmodeling.com/tender_wipers/">http://www.1905railroadmodeling.com/tender_wipers/</a><!-- m -->
Resolution
I solved both the kingpin and the wheel contact issue by making the wiper into a spring where the kingpin screw passes through (I used my Kadee trip pin adjustment pliers). This allowed two benefits:
- It gave the truck a suspension of sorts – the trucks can now pitch and roll. Wheels stay on rail for good tracking and electrical contact.
- Constant contact between the kingpin screw and wiper, even in the above conditions. More contact improvement.
![[Image: p1069098081-3.jpg]](http://goodman312.zenfolio.com/img/v7/p1069098081-3.jpg)
98% Success!
I mounted the trucks with the modified wipers on my original caboose and found solid lights! No capacitors, no resistors, just a better engineered pickup system!
The caboose with this configuration would still flicker it’s lights across some frogs. Not bad, but then I remembered that 1905 site listed above, and my project got ready to take off on it’s third tangent.
More later,
Matt
After finding that the capacitor mule still flickered as badly as before, it became apparent that I had a mechanical contact issue. One of the three contact points was suspect:
- wheel-rail
- axle-wiper
- wiper-kingpin screw
Tightening the kingpin screw snuggly against the wiper solved most of the problem, but created one obvious issue: the trucks couldn’t turn
and one less obvious issue: the trucks were slightly out of square, so only three of four wheels was making good contact with the rail (note the slight gap on the left most wheel).
Research
The situation reminded me of an article I read, I think in Model Railroader, sometime in the past 10 years on improving wipers.
The gist of it was this:
- buy brass tubing with .1” inside diameter
- Cut the tube slightly shorter than the axle on your wheelset (assumes metal axles
)- File the tubes in half so they ride on the axle
- Solder the tubes for an axle set to a phosphor bronze strip and drill and kingpin hole in it.
The idea is to increase the contact surface area. Sorry, no pictures. I started down this path, until finding the resolution in the next section.
Another interesting resource I stumbled across was the page at this link (interesting site, by the way), which gave me ideas for later…
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.1905railroadmodeling.com/tender_wipers/">http://www.1905railroadmodeling.com/tender_wipers/</a><!-- m -->
Resolution
I solved both the kingpin and the wheel contact issue by making the wiper into a spring where the kingpin screw passes through (I used my Kadee trip pin adjustment pliers). This allowed two benefits:
- It gave the truck a suspension of sorts – the trucks can now pitch and roll. Wheels stay on rail for good tracking and electrical contact.
- Constant contact between the kingpin screw and wiper, even in the above conditions. More contact improvement.
98% Success!
I mounted the trucks with the modified wipers on my original caboose and found solid lights! No capacitors, no resistors, just a better engineered pickup system!
The caboose with this configuration would still flicker it’s lights across some frogs. Not bad, but then I remembered that 1905 site listed above, and my project got ready to take off on it’s third tangent.
More later,
Matt
Matt Goodman
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio