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Spotted this today over at a local store similar to Harbor Freight Tools. Its a tiny 3vdc electric motor coupled to a 3 stage 100:1 gear reduction unit with an output of 65 rpm; or about 1 rev per second. The motor looks identical to those used by MTH and Lionel for smoke unit fans, though I have not put them side by side yet.

I was thinking that a small wheel attached to the output shaft, with an eccentric pin driving a suitable piano wire link to the operating arm of a swinging bell would likely work. The motor could likely be installed in front of or behind the smoke unit in a steamer, depending on the particular engine. This could also work in a diesel of course.

The motor is rated at 3vdc and I ran it down to 1.5 vdc with no problem. The rpm (and swing speed) could be adjusted in this fashion.

2 [2)356

This is a project for those of you who like to tinker!

Rod

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It would be much easier to do it the way Lionel does.

There is an electromagnet under the shell and a fixed magnet in the bell. The magnetic flux from the electromagnet passes through the diecast, or plastic, or brass shell and pulls on the magnet in the bell. The electromagnet is pulsed, making the bell move.

Ferrous metal, magnetizable metal, like steel will block the flux from the electromagnet, but diecast, plastic, aluminum and brass will not.

@RoyBoy posted:

It would be much easier to do it the way Lionel does.

There is an electromagnet under the shell and a fixed magnet in the bell. The magnetic flux from the electromagnet passes through the diecast, or plastic, or brass shell and pulls on the magnet in the bell. The electromagnet is pulsed, making the bell move.

Ferrous metal, magnetizable metal, like steel will block the flux from the electromagnet, but diecast, plastic, aluminum and brass will not.

Roy, you can't so this with the Lionel magnet. This is a K-Line TMCC engine.

Pete

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Last edited by Norton

Pete I see what you mean about that tiny 6mm motor! Yikes that is small. Way better choice than the one I found.

So you would want the motor to be activated the entire time that the bell function is actvated in tmcc or Legacy I think. How would yo go about doing that?

The motor-gearbox I showed might be a good choice for something like moving the 282 gantry crane back and forth on a track.

Rod

Rod, If you are putting this in a Legacy engine you only need a Lionel Bell board. Pretty sure you can still get these. Because I put it in a TMCC engine I had to add an RCDR Legacy receiver board. It takes the bell signal and feeds it to the bell board which only responds to Legacy commands. Just as a Legacy engine responds to a Cab1 TMCC command, the RCDR and Bell board will respond to a bell command from a TMCC controller.

A bell board puts out a square wave in synchrony with the bell sound. I was able to use that output directly to power the motor by simply adding a capacitor across the motor to smooth out the square wave plus a pot in series to adjust the speed of the motor as Laurie demonstrates in the video so the bell moves with sound.

Laurie has many other videos where he uses these motors to animate figures. Something doable with DCC as you can add decoders. The bell board is essentially a stand alone decoder that outputs a voltage in response to a bell command.

Pete

Last edited by Norton

Rod, the mechanical part is pretty easy actually. I just drilled a hole in cab front and installed an eyelet in the dome. The motor is mounted in the cab roof. In the engine I did fitting the extra boards took much longer as I had to fit them in the tender and use a different tether with more conductors.
As far as using a bell coil like Lionel did I believe they may be out of stock. Simple coil but tedious to make your own.

If you watch any more of Laurie’s videos he has animated most all of the train crew. I still want to do a fireman shoveling coal. Just have to figure out a good way to trigger it, likely the front coupler signal.

Pete

@BillYo414 posted:

This would be an awesome mod to do! I especially like the wire animation to be honest.

I wonder if you could find a way to make the bell automatically swing below a specific speed.

Using the motor rather than a magnet you control the speed with a pot. Check out the youtube link above. Using a bell magnet as Lionel does, speed is determined by the frequency of the bell sound.

Pete

@Norton posted:

Rod, the mechanical part is pretty easy actually. I just drilled a hole in cab front and installed an eyelet in the dome. The motor is mounted in the cab roof. In the engine I did fitting the extra boards took much longer as I had to fit them in the tender and use a different tether with more conductors.
As far as using a bell coil like Lionel did I believe they may be out of stock. Simple coil but tedious to make your own.

If you watch any more of Laurie’s videos he has animated most all of the train crew. I still want to do a fireman shoveling coal. Just have to figure out a good way to trigger it, likely the front coupler signal.

Pete

This thread is generating lots of cool ideas. Pete, I especially like the idea of mounting the motor in the cab roof and operating the bell with a length of piano wire. Should look pretty realistic.

Rather than all the razzle-dazzle circuitry you mentioned earlier, what would be wrong with using the little-used front coupler TMCC circuit in the R2LC for activation? The only addition needed would be a small latching relay circuit to keep the motor energized until the coupler button is pushed again. You would also need a fixed 3vdc reg and a small pot to make the speed adjustment to closely match the bell sound. Once a good value is found for the pot it could be replaced by a fixed resistor so as to save space. This could all be done on a small circuit board. (DipTrace, here we go) Or could activation be done more simply?

Rod

That would work too Rod but if you are doing this in a Legacy engine you only need the bell board and it would start and stop the motor as long as the bell was ringing. They are not that expensive. In a TMCC engine then alternative methods might be easier depending on how much room you have to work with.
Bell coil driver.

Pete

Last edited by Norton

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