Lionel AEC Nuclear Reactor Question

My experience is one at a time.  They do transfer a bit of magnetism but I don't remembering it being enough to lift any more than 1.  Haven't had mine out in a while though.

Marty,

Ok, that gives me some direction, anyway. If that's the case, I'd definitely have to make a tray that feeds them in a line. Do you move your whole train back and forth to capture all of them?

Roger

I have this accessory. The arm usually picks up one ball at a time. Sometimes it will pick up two or even three. Two isn't a problem but three usually results in one falling off. You will need a V shaped tray in your gondola to hold the balls. I made one from sheet styrene. The ends were the internal width/height of the gondola and the tray part was a single piece with a scored line so it could be bent into a shallow V shape. I will help if you then add two narrow triangles to funnel the balls towards the center of the tray otherwise you'll need to inch the car forward/backward to get all the balls picked up. Also if you're using FasTrack you'll need to trim away the roadbed or the arm won't reach to the center of the car. It's a neat accessory and also the only operating accessory that hasn't given me problems. 

The plastic glowing waste beads are smaller than the metal fuel beads. They're also plastic and you load them through a small tray in the back of the reactor globe.

Seattle SUP,

Yes, I had seen your photos of the tray design and kind of figured that I'd either have to move the train forward or.....raise one end of the tray and create a funnel at the other end. So, I'm going to use your designs with a couple of modifications. I don't use FT, so that won't be an issue.  Thanks

Roger

They should make a version for the town of Springfield!  And an aquarium car with 3 eyed fish!

I know it is way late now, but they should have designed an insert for a gondola that would feed the balls in a single file included with the accessory.

You got that right, Chuck. There's a guy from the Forum (don't remember his name), but he posts alot of stuff on Youtube and he has a vid there showing  an elaborate setup he built for the balls. Single file feed. VERY nice. A little hard to see exactly what he did as it's a top view. Sooner or later he'll pop up here. Mine won't arrive till later in the week, but I may start making some prototypes. That's why I wanted to know the diameter of the metal balls. I could maybe put a baffle in the funnel that would be just a bit bigger than the diameter of a ball to help them go one at a time. We'll see.

Roger

Honestly, having it pick up two at a time is sort of convenient. The little can that the balls end up in holds quite a few and it does take quite a while for the car to pick them all up if it's doing it one at a time. Ideally it's an accessory you put on a siding where you can drop off the gondola. 

Will the magnet pick them up two at a time if they are single file or does that only happen if they are clumped?

Roger

SeattleSUP,

I'm starting to make a prototype. When you made your "tray" does the bottom of the "v" touch the bottom of the gondola?  I'm going to also have to cut the v differently because I would like to have it slope downhill so I don't have to move the consist. 

Roger

The bottom of the tray rests on the floor of the gondola. Basically I drew a line from the upper corners of the end cap to the bottom center to make the V shape. 

The magnet will occasionally pick up two balls even when they're lined up in a row. It's a pretty strong magnet. Three balls is usually a problem not because of the magnet but rather due to the little scraper part on the reactor that slides them off the magnet. With three balls on the boom one usually misses the chute when they're scraped off the boom. Doesn't happen very often. 

I'm considering my options for a ramp. My hobby store (at the moment) is out of styrene, so I may use sheet metal or......use the ramp I made for my culvert loader (a copy of the Lionel one which I don't use). I may make two ramps....one for the metal balls from the center of the gondola to the end.....and a second one to accept the plastic balls (ramping from the opposite end down to the other ramp. Just brainstorming right now. But that's already made (just have to make a funnel for it/them). My new reactor is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so I'll have a much better feel for how that arm works to retrieve the balls and how the dump mechanism works for the plastic ones. I want to avoid having to move the consist.   I also have to depend on shaky quality control that this thing is actually going to work out of the box. 

Roger

Roger;

I would make 2 shorter (just under 1/2 length) versions of SeattleSUP's tray with the ends attached a bit low to elevate the outer ends of the V.

Then put them facing each other in the Gondola.

They will roll the balls in line to the middle where they meet. Cardstock will do for testing.

Good idea, Russell. The only problem with what I was going to do or with this one is it changes the angle the the V's meet the end pieces and that angle has to be at least approximated or there will be ugly spaces. Card stock for prototypes.It's also going to be true at the low ends where they meet.

Roger

This is the video I was talking about above.....VERY cool.  But a bit hard to see exactly how it works. A single file for the metal ones and a large container for the plastic ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAG4mLaw62I

Roger

And kudos to jbailey on that one

The magnet sometimes picks up 2-3 balls at a time. This is may solution,I seperated the gondola with a clear plastic piece and made a "V" out of foam to roll the balls to the middle of that section for pickup. No where as spectacular as the one in the video - but workable.

Turtle,

It's interesting how you opted to make the V in the perpendicular direction. So the balls fall from both sides to the seam at right angles to the side of the gondola. Food for thought. I was going to make some kind of "basket" for the plastic balls, but I have to see how they are dumped by the reactor to see if that's feasible. I have a feeling the "dump" is not so directional. 

Roger

Roger,

The metal balls are removed from the small "film canister" bucket after they go thru the reactor and roll out a chute on the left side. You pour these out of the receptacle back into the gondola by hand. I made the "v" so it would line up with the arm on the right side that is picking up these metal balls magnetically, to give it the best chance to collect all of them. The white plastic balls are dumped out of the reactor from the chute and therefore dump into the left side of gondola in a random order.

Roger,

Your reply made me think of something else. I lined the left side of the gondola where the white balls land from the chute, with the soft black art material. Unless you have something soft for the plastic balls to land on they BOUNCE off the plastic floor of the gondola! Trying to pick up these very tiny plastic pieces is a pain -( the metal balls you can use a magnet.)

Yeah, also if you have kids you might want to keep the controller out of reach. More than once my little engineer has hit the dump button when the gondola wasn't present causing a hundred or so little plastic balls to spill out onto the track. He thinks it's hysterical, me not so much. There is no easy to pick them except one by one. Now that I'm rebuilding the layout I'll be putting the reactor controller out of reach to avoid this in the future.

Well, my new reactor arrived today and I just hooked it up to a test transformer and....it works out of the box. Remarkable for Lionel accessories.  Very cool accessory. I can't start building the containers for the gondola as I have to wait for the styrene to come in to my LHS. In the meantime, I've been trying to set up the clearances for centering the gondola. The tolerances are very close for the side walls of the reactor's enclosure and passing steamers with side rods. It's a good thing I've got foam under my track or the magnet would not reach the bottom of the gondola. I'm guessing that SeattleSUP and Turtle raised the V container to meet the magnet.   I think I will also shuffle the position of other accessories I have on that section of track. Right now, where I have the reactor, the unloading of the gondola would be partially blocked from view by a switch tower. Small potato stuff. Very pleased with this thing so far.....thanks for the recommendation on this accessory, guys.

Roger

A trick I used to use when building an HO layout as a kid was to put a thin pillow case on the end of a vacuum cleaner nozzle.  As long as the vacuum can handle the mild abuse, you can pick everything up, then drop it all into an appropriate container.  If you break your family vacuum doing this, I will deny all knowledge.

This will of course pick up everything small enough to be sucked up by the vacuum.  Loose ballast, grass, scenery etc. will be mixed in as well.

While in general I agree with the sentiments expressed on the reliability of the Reactor, I did manage to damage a gear on one when switching the operation from manual to electric.  I probably was guilty of forcing it a bit, but basically I think one of the axles for one of the gears got slightly bent.  This caused the operation to bind. 

The gear by itself was not available from Lionel, at that time (I have not looked recently), you had to buy the entire gear box which was something like $70 if I recall correctly.  I later found a very functional used Reactor in really good shape that the owner was willing to let go for $90, so that was my solution.

-Dave

Here's a question for the reactor owners. I'm in the process of making prototypes for the bins holding the balls. Let's say, you've oriented the arm to the middle of the gondola and at the bottom of it's travel is just hits the bottom of the gondola. If you have a pile of balls in the bin, they will be higher than that point. Will that eventually destroy the gear that controls the arm?

Roger

Prototypes!  Things are moving along. The first photo shows the "bin" for the plastic pellets.  The second photo shows the bin for the metal balls. As I mentioned, I didn't want to have to move the train forward or back to pick up the balls. So.....I used SeattleSUPs design with some modifications. A V in the center concentrates the balls there but doesn't feed them to the magnet. I'm going to glue in a piece of styrene in the shape of the cardboard piece. It's wider at the top, so what that ends up doing is creating a ramp to the bottom. At the bottom, I used two separate end caps and have already (not shown) rounded the bottom of them so that one ball can get through at a time. On the other side of that is a channel of styrene I found in my LHS. The balls (hopefully) will come down the ramp and then single file through the end cap into the channel. I've since installed a cap on the channel. These are/were in a rough stage with a lot of edges sticking out. They are all sanded down now and after I glue in the "ramp" they will be ready for paint. When it's done in a couple of days, I'll post a video of it all in operation (if all goes well).

Roger

You're on the right path with the receiving car. I use soft shot pellets found in shops that cater to the air pistol crowd. These are a perfect replacement for the anemic white "glow" pellets supplied. Slightly larger, with more mass, they perform wonderfully out of the chute. They come in neon colors,my favorite is the neon green as it is a dead ringer for Kryptonite!

Old time forum members will recall the member "Yojimbo". He was an undisputed master at tweeking the Lionel Reactor.

He even got it to dispense Red Hots(candy) on demand!

If he's still extant perhaps he'll chime in.

Regards, John

When you get it working don't forget very important addition. Don

I have two questions about the reactor itself.   One is.....are there any lubrication points or maintenance spots?  Second.....below is a photo of the left side of the reactor. The linkage rail/wire (looks like handrail stock on a steamer) coming out of the large black pulley and going vertically. Is it supposed to have a bend in it as shown in the photo. Thanks

Roger

Well, finally finished.....took me much longer than I thought. Below are some stills of the trays before they went in the gondola. I bought a PW gondola for 8 bucks on the Bay (didn't want to mod out my childhood gondola). The trays took at least 4 prototypes. The ramp I put in the steel ball tray moves the balls to the bottom so I do not have to move the train up to get all of them picked up. I did not like the white glow in the dark balls, so I took the tip from John (above) about using Soft Shot pellets. Big, bright green ones. When I got all of that to work, I threw it all out as I didn't like the way it looked. I decided to find a Toxic Waste car with the flickering canisters. Bought one from a fellow Forum mate and cannibalized it for the parts. I then added pickup rollers to both trucks for power and put in the canisters. Then I had a spacing problem....I wanted the car to sit in one place......for the dump mechanism and the pickup arm. I didn't factor in the fact that I needed space to the right of the steel ball bin for the arm swing. In any case, it's done and it works and I'm happy with it. 

A couple of things before I post the pics and video. I put cloth LAX tape in the bottom of the left bin to keep the green balls from bouncing and keep it quiet. I also had to cut out an opening on the end of the steel ball tray to allow the magnet to pick up balls right at the end. And finally, I put a "chip" LED in the front building to illuminate it.

See what you think......

-Roger

The photos and video didn't appear in the body of the post, so I'm going to try and resubmit them......         Also, if anyone who owns one of these wants some of these green balls, I had to buy a 5000 pellet container (for the 30 or so I actually use). If you want any, I send them out (just cover the shipping for me). And a tip on those....feed them slowly into the container on the rear or you can jam it. if you feed them a few at a time, you want have an issue.

Roger

I like it. I may have to build one. To be fair, I think I spent maybe 5-10 minutes putting mine together. Really like the green waste pellets. 

Seattle,

Thanks......but you gave me the idea for the tray. I just added a ramp. It was a little dicey at the right side....getting the balls to end up against the edge and being able to have the arm drop down and not hit the edge of the tray. Lots of prototypes and ultimately, for the last one, shortening it's length to have side by side operations (with the other tray) as well as arm clearance. I could give you more exact measurements if you're going to do it. As for those green balls....they look even better in real time. My point and shoot camera isn't doing them justice.   I'm not quite done with it. I realized that the writing on the sides of the canisters would be covered if they sat in the bottom of the gondola. So, I raised them up with minicell foam. Eventually, I'll cut some pieces of wood to make that more secure.  Very cool accessory!  But I haven't had anyone over yet to see it. I'll have to round up some 8 year olds.

Roger 

roger, I love your result.  You and seattlesup have motivated me.   Could I bug you for the dimensions and some green balls? I'll send an email to you. thanks.

Thanks, Paul.  As per my email I sent (and for others who would be interested), I sent all of my excess green balls to my nephew for his soft pellet BB pistol. I hadn't gotten any bites on my offer, so I sent them out. Sports Authority carries a jar for about 10 bucks. 

I will measure the trays later this afternoon when I get some time. My measurements were very dependent on the size of the waste canisters in the front and rear. If you don't use those, your trays can be bigger. But I think those flickering canisters are very cool.

Roger

Paul,

Here are the tray measurements.....rear tray.....2 1/8 inches long x 1 5/8 inches wide. The front tray is 2 9/16 inches long by 1 3/4. It's all going to depend on your gondola. I used a PW gondola. Rear tray is a little narrower because I made it removable. I glued the front one in to thin wood "rails" I put on the sides of the gondola. You don't want it to move if you want to maintain the proper clearances for the arm etc. The height is the height of your gondola walls. I used .02 and .03 styrene. The thinner stuff is a little easier to work with (it doesn't bow out as much). For the "ramp" V.....after you make the  front and back pieces, measure from the center up to the top of the side and multiply by 2. The actual ramp, you'll have to mess with. Cut a few out to experiment.....has to be high enough in the back to make the steel balls roll forward and narrow enough at the front end to hold just one or two balls. The bottom end goes right to the bottom. Plop your prototypes in and observe the way the balls roll. Now.....you have to cut an opening at the front to allow the bulging side of the arm to drop down. When you get to that part, pop back in here and I'll give you more advice.

Roger

The rear tray is slightly wider than the width of the "trap door" for the green balls. They don't bounce out because I put some cloth tape in the bottom. And it makes it quieter. There will be a space between the two trays. I filled it with a piece of wood.

Roger

The loading/receiving car looks great! When I first saw the green balls at the store I knew that they would have exactly the right look,glad they worked out for you too.

A future project for me is recreating the support buildings that were drawn as a post war catalog illustration showing the Reactor. They are "Frank Lloyd Wright-ish", wonderfully  modern and I think will be a great addition to the Reactor itself.

As you can probably tell, I'm a big fan of this accessory! I hope to photo document this project and share it with you at a later time.