Pittman Motor Mod in Pullmor Hudson -Now in Revenue Service.

Norton posted:

JohnActon posted:

Pete, looking at a Pancake motor and how the shaft position would cause the lower edge of the motor to sit too close to any trailing truck has a solution. Back to the pinion and spur gear I was talking about  you could use such an arrangement to  raise the pancake motor up to provide clearance for a trailing truck. Now to get a brushless driver to talk to a R2LC  or R4LC.      J

For a brushless motor don't you just need DC even if its PWM DC? If so a non Cruise DCDR would work or a DCDS Odyssey board with speed sensor should work. Its the motor driver than matters not the radio board. A Back EMF board would not work.

Pete

Pete, I have a RC plane brushless motor that uses an outboard driver board. So it will not run on straight DC. There may be brushless motors that have an onboard driver circuit but the pancake motor shown earlier in this discussion has that multi-conductor ribbon leading out makes me think it uses an outboard driver board and getting a TMCC or Legacy radio to communicate with it might be a stumbling block. Some of the drivers for brushless motors have inputs for pwm but whether or not they will speak the same pwm language as TMCC or legacy pwm is a big question mark in my mind.  If they will this could be a boon as some of these driver boards for coreless, brushless motors can put out 400W that would allow me to install 4 Maxons in my  PS1 Centipede.    I think whether the pwm input for these coreless/ brushless motor driver boards might play well with with TMCC or Legacy pwm frequency is a question that Gunrunner might shed some light on. I did not see any info on these boards with pwm frequency specs.  J

I haven't looked at those with an eye to using them for TMCC, so I can't offer an intelligent opinion on the suitability without more research.   All the brushless motors I used were in aerospace applications, and we used  custom driver circuits for them.

I have not verified this with a scope but believe the PWM is 60 or 120hz. The triacs are triggered by line frequency. If you have a scope or frequency counter on a VOM just put it across the motor terminals.

BTW coreless motors are what should work with TMCC/Legacy. Brushless require special drive circuitry to mimic a commutator.

I admit to confusing the two.

Pete

It runs. Still a work in progress but it now runs with most features working with legacy electronics. Owners of Pullmor Hudsons should appreciate how it now runs.

This weekend I  will see how many cars it will pull on the club layout.

To complement the train a Tomar CV drumhead was added to the observation car.

The engine is running with a Legacy R4LC. Along the way I discovered the R4LC will not communicate with Railsounds 6 boards. It will talk to RS 5.5 boards so for the moment a Railsounds 5.5 board from a NKP Berk is making the sounds. Good sound except for the crew/tower com which does not match this engine. I hope to find a way to talk to the Vision Hudson board, absolutely correct for 5344. I hope I don't have to use an RCMC to accomplish that.

Stay tuned.

Pete

Pete, I have a couple of locomotives with RS6, both of them use the RCDR, one is an S02 in the Genset, and the other is an S04 in the Lionmaster T1 Duplex.  Apparently, there is some difference in the serial data to the RS6 board.

Hi Pete 

That runs and sounds great , very nicely done! 

Alex 

Thanks guys. John, I have one RCDR from a recent Legacy 0-8-0. It looks like they made many versions of RCDR. This is what I have. I plan to make connectors for it next week and see what serial data looks like.

If anyone wonders why Lionel doesn't offer Legacy upgrade kits here is one reason. There are scores of versions of all the new boards. Gone are the days of an R2LC and DCDR. One size fits all.

Pete

Norton posted:

If anyone wonders why Lionel doesn't offer Legacy upgrade kits here is one reason. There are scores of versions of all the new boards. Gone are the days of an R2LC and DCDR. One size fits all.

My take is that they don't want to compete with their high-end locomotives.  The RCMC is universal, just program it up to have a nice assortment of features and you have a Legacy upgrade.

When I started this project my intent was to make this engine pull a prototypical length named passenger train. To me that means a 12 car minimum to maybe 18 cars. I took this engine to FCTT-Hi Railers modular layout today to test it out. I brought 13 cars with me but the setup siding on this layout only allowed 12 cars with the engine and tender.

Here is the train on the ready track.

Just getting underway. Complaints of too much smoke (really) made be turn it down later.

Pete

Now underway. The engine accelerates rapidly. Only the uneven trackwork keeps it from smooth running as it loses traction on the many dips in the layout. On smooth track typical of a home layout I am pretty confident it could handle 15-16 cars assuming couplers would hold together considering the all diecast tender (including frame) probably weighs as much as three of the cars.

Sorry for the poor video. I have no talent for photography but still trying to learn.

Pete

Looks great Pete, and that's nice smoke.

Beautifully exicuted, Pete.  Makes me wanna try the same with my Yellow Belly.  As designed,  the old Pulmor can barely handle 5 or 6 heavyweights without maxing out the throttle....and that's with new ERR electronics.  

Still running my B6 with the can motor conversion succesfully.  I recently swapped out its CC in the tender and stuffed CC Lite into the boiler.

Bruce e

Pete,

All this work is fantastic. It’s so amazing to see an already great locomotive made borderline perfect. Excellent smoke, speed control and strength.

Looks like the Pittman mods really proved its worth. I don’t normally pull more than 6 or 7 passenger cars, but I can agree a prototypical consist like that is far more impressive.

I am okay with the RailSounds choice here since the chip doesn’t sound too different from the 6 chime used on the NYC. Added to the fact finding NYC steam RS chips are especially hard...

And Bruce, are your passenger cars still fitted with incandescent bulbs or do they have LED lighting? I have my 18005 scale Hudson pull 6 Lionel heavyweight cars fine when I changed to the LED’s. That being said, changing from Pullmor to can motor also reduces the voltage draw significantly - something I need to do with my Yellowbelly, Vanderbilt, and Mercury 5344. Though with ERR stuff in uncertain future, that could be halted for awhile, but that’s another story...

Wow fantastic work Pete!

Just a thought, your the expert but what about the sounds from the first legacy 4-6-0  #6-11150?

It has the same whistle as the VL Hudson but uses the earlier electronics.

 Here's video (not mine) for reference: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1n6yVfs8Vfk

Rick, That board would have been my first choice for a RS 5.5 board if Lionel offered it but they only show a handful of steam 5.5 boards for sale and most are for articulated engines. I actually used that tender to verify my engine was putting out good serial data from the drawbar as I was only getting silence from the Vision Hudson RS6 board.

I intend to press on until I can use the Vision Hudson Railsounds. I think my best bet is in replacing the R4LC with a RCDR as John points out they will drive RS6. Many trade offs though. I am using the triac on the R4LC to drive the smoke resistor. The RCDR likely requires an AC regulator. I try to avoid those as they are always a problem area I prefer to keep it as simple as possible at least in the electronic side.

This model of 5344 is becoming very much like the prototype in that its a testbed for different ideas.  

I briefy mentioned earlier in the thread that I had acquired a damaged Williams Masterpiece Dreyfuss. One reason was for the roller bearing rods. Being metric they didn't fit the CV but I plan to first install the RCDR and BEMC in this chassis.

Who knows, it may end up under the CV shell yet. Its certainly light years ahead in detail.

Pete

You get the RS6 card from the VL hudson to work? Or not yet.

Matt, its on the back burner now that is summer time. Little time for trains but I will get it to work if I have get an RCMC. I hope I don't have to go that route.

Pete

Pete, Did you try a fit of the Vision Hudson frame under the CV shell? I was going to attempt it this winter.  Thanks!

I didn't Rob. I suspect the body would still have to modified but it would still require less machine work. I have a Gray Vision Hudson I considered doing this with but that would be a much costlier deal. The extra frame and wheels cost me 10 bucks so no worries if I messed up.

Another less expensive option I may have considered if they were available when I started this is one of Smithsonian Hudson Chassis that are showing up on eBay now. That would have the best detail by far.

Thinking back I think one reason I nixed using the Vision chassis is the cylinders would have to be shaved for the body to fit just like Lionel did to the CV chassis.

This is the CV chassis:

Pete

Pete, I over looked this entire thread. Ive always wanted to do exactly what you did. Now. I know it can be done.