If lights can be made to illuminate when trains are stationary it should be possible to make fans that rotate when engines are at idle. This will be essential when sound units are fitted as engine noise is dependent on the speed of the engine as opposed to the speed of the train. It would be ridiculous to have engine noise at idle with fans at full revs and vice-versa. Smoke generators on indoor units I can live without.
(kim)
Run the fans with a separate 1.5v motor powered from a bridge rectifier in series with the drive motor. Keep 2 volts on the track when you want the fans running.
Regards, Greg.P.
"Greg.P." \
Or just have DCC so there's always 12 volts in the track. :-)
-- Cheers Roger T.
Home of the Great Eastern Railway
Eeeeewwwww!
:-(
The fan(s) would need to be configured as a separate loco so as to be able to adjust the speed independently of movement . Alternatively some sort of artificial intelligence woudl be needed to determine fan speed relative to driving instructions as per sound. A combined sound-chip/fan-speed controller would be ideal.
(kim)
Took some neck to introduce that.
The staid fellow at our nearest shop insisted on calling it Stuporcar.
Some of the fun items were copied or based on those used by Lionel in the US. With agreement.
Intergrating between road and rail with the Minic Motorways system was a bit gimmicky too. But it was fun. Especially at level crossings.
Hornby Dublo was for well behaved children in shorts to own and fathers in cardigans to play with.
G.harman
I always have 12-15 volts on the track anyway! (short pulses equating to around
1 volt but enough to power coach lighting etc) Why go to all the hassle of DCC?
That could easily be done with a new instruction set for the IC on the DCC board, although it world probably mean a new design on board as driver and two more connection headers will be needed for the fan - the IC would just need to output motor ve minus one or two volts whilst keeping 1.5 volts or so when motor voltage is 0 ve and some form of means to keep the fan only rotating in the selected direction. Once the loco has been deselected on the controller the fan would stop IYSWIM ? Give it a few years and we'll wonder what all the fuss was about !
The message from snipped-for-privacy@interalpha.co.uk (g.harman) contains these words:
I remember the adverts in Meccano Magazine, too.
Doesn't time fly when yer 'avin' fun!
And at 125mph!!
Don't forget the pipe and the extra finger. :-)
Didn't the M7 also have "firebox glow"?
Cheers, Mick
There used to be photos of Birmingham New Street station, showing plants growing in the 4ft. Upon closer inspection, these were actually tomato plants that had grown from seeds that had got there via human bodily functions..........!
Cheers, Mick
The message from "Mick Bryan" contains these words:
Now *that* was a good gimmick. I wouldn't have wanted one, though - they never reached anywhere north of Watford (perhaps one went to a scrapyard up here).
There were quite a few steam loco's in the Tri-ang Hornby range that had "firebox glow" IIRC.
In message , ":::Jerry::::" may have written...
The 8F and the 28XX, being two, as I recall.
The message from David Jackson contains these words:
Yeah, I know - you don't have any taste!! ;-)
Have you ever tasted Cafe Lupa? It's made from coffee beens fed to wolves, allowed to ferment in the wolf's stomach, then retrieved from the wolf's droppings before being ground into coffee.
(kim)
:)
contains
And "Flying Scotsman"
Mick
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