Mann's Creek On30 hopper bottom view

crownironman
crownironman
3,273
0
Published 2009-06-04
A small motor and right angle drive gear box operates the cam that opens the door. There are pins that control the rotation of the cam. the gear box has a "clutch" to protect the gears, motor, and decoder once the cam hits the stop pin. the decoder is a surplus Digitrax decoder that I had left over from my massive Tsunami conversion of my locomotive fleet. The arms that attach the cam to the doors are still the test arms that have been butchered in the testing process and new ones will be made for this car and future cars. To open the doors I assign the car number to the throttle and set the direction to forward. Next I hit the "+" button on the throttle one time and the doors will open. When the car is empty I change the direction to reverse and the doors close. Once the doors are closed I hit the "-" button one time to return the motor to idle and I dispatch the car number. By using a decoder to power the motor I don't have to make a special unloading structure that would have had to have some form of contacts to make connection with the hopper car, the unloading zone can just be a basic model.
All Comments (3)
  • @highlandwinterwolf8589
    Brilliant...just brilliant! How difficult was it to put all that together? Even though the Bachmann hopper looks a slight bit modern that was still a useful little car. almost want to build a mining road now lol.